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• Using ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem in ASP.NET in a high traffic scenario

  - by Michael Hart

  I've always been under the impression that using the ThreadPool for (let's say non-critical) short-lived background tasks was considered best practice, even in ASP.NET, but then I came across this article that seems to suggest otherwise - the argument being that you should leave the ThreadPool to deal with ASP.NET related requests. So here's how I've been doing small asynchronous tasks so far: ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(s => PostLog(logEvent)) And the article is suggesting instead to create a thread explicitly, similar to: new Thread(() => PostLog(logEvent)){ IsBackground = true }.Start() The first method has the advantage of being managed and bounded, but there's the potential (if the article is correct) that the background tasks are then vying for threads with ASP.NET request-handlers. The second method frees up the ThreadPool, but at the cost of being unbounded and thus potentially using up too many resources. So my question is, is the advice in the article correct? If your site was getting so much traffic that your ThreadPool was getting full, then is it better to go out-of-band, or would a full ThreadPool imply that you're getting to the limit of your resources anyway, in which case you shouldn't be trying to start your own threads? Clarification: I'm just asking in the scope of small non-critical asynchronous tasks (eg, remote logging), not expensive work items that would require a separate process (in these cases I agree you'll need a more robust solution).

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• How to suppress error message details to general DNN Users

  - by thames

  I have a DNN site (05.02.03) in test and nearing release into production and I would like to suppress the details of error messages (i.e. Null Reference Exception, and others) to general users (admins can still see the details). Debug is off in the web.config. By suppressing, I mean the only error message I want to display to the general user (all users) is something like "An Exception has occured". I don't want the details of that exception to be displayed to the general user. I still want it logged in greater detail in the Event Viewer. How would I go about doing this? Update: I have "Use Custom Error Messages" checked. Which shows a error message like: A critical error has occurred.[vbCrLf] Object reference not set to an instance of an object. I want just the "A critical error has occured." error message to be displayed to general users. I don't want the "Object referece not set to an instance of an object." to be displayed to general users

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• Is there a good way to copy a Gtk widget?

  - by Jake

  Is there a way, using the Gtk library in C, to clone a Gtk button (for instance), and pack it somewhere else in the app. I know you can't pack the same widget twice. And that this code obviously wouldn't work, but shows what happens when I attempt a shallow copy of the button: GtkButton *a = g_object_new(GTK_TYPE_BUTTON, "label", "o_0", NULL); GtkButton *b = g_memdup(b, sizeof *b); gtk_box_pack_start_defaults(GTK_BOX(vbox), GTK_WIDGET(b)); There is surrounding code which creates a vbox and packs it in a window and runs gtk_main(). This will result in these hard to understand error messages: (main:6044): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_hide: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed (main:6044): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_realize: assertion `GTK_WIDGET_ANCHORED (widget) || GTK_IS_INVISIBLE (widget)' failed ** Gtk:ERROR:/build/buildd/gtk+2.0-2.18.3/gtk/gtkwidget.c:8431:gtk_widget_real_map: assertion failed: (GTK_WIDGET_REALIZED (widget)) Along the same lines, if I were to write my own GObject (not necessarily a Gtk widget), is there a good way to write a copy constructor. Im thinking it should be an interface with optional hooks and based mostly on the properties, handling the class's hierarchy in some way. I'd want to do this: GtkButton *b = copyable_copy(COPYABLE(a)); If GtkButton could use a theoretical copyable interface.

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• x509 certificate Information

  - by sid

  Certificate: Data: Version: 3 (0x2) Serial Number: 95 (0x5f) Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption Issuer: C=, O=, CN= Validity Not Before: Apr 22 16:42:11 2008 GMT Not After : Apr 22 16:42:11 2009 GMT Subject: C=, O=, CN=, L=, ST= Subject Public Key Info: Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption RSA Public Key: (1024 bit) Modulus (1024 bit): ... ... ... Exponent: 65537 (0x10001) X509v3 extensions: X509v3 Key Usage: critical Digital Signature, Key Encipherment X509v3 Extended Key Usage: critical Code Signing X509v3 Authority Key Identifier: keyid: ... Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption a9:55:56:9b:9e:60:7a:57:fd:7:6b:1e:c0:79:1c:50:62:8f: ... ... -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- ... ... ... -----END CERTIFICATE----- In This Certificate, Which is the public key? is Modulus? what does the Signature Algorithm, a9:55:56:... represent (is it message digest)? And what is between -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- & -----END CERTIFICATE-----, is That the whole certificate? As I am novice, little bit confusing between the message digest and public key? Thanks in Advance-opensid

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• .NET 3.5 C# does not offer what I need for locking: Count async saves until 0 again.

  - by Frank Michael Kraft

  I have some records, that I want to save to database asynchronously. I organize them into batches, then send them. As time passes, the batches are processed. In the meanwhile the user can work on. There are some critical operations, that I want to lock him out from, while any save batch is still running asynchronously. The save is done using a TableServiceContext and method .BeginSave() - but I think this should be irrelevant. What I want to do is whenever an async save is started, increase a lock count, and when it completes, decrease the lock count so that it will be zero as soon as all have finished. I want to lock out the critical operation as long as the count is not zero. Furthermore I want to qualify the lock - by business object - for example. I did not find a .NET 3.5 c# locking method, that does fulfil this requirement. A semaphore does not contain a method to check, if the count is 0. Otherwise a semaphore with unlimited max count would do.

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• Classical task-scheduling assignment

  - by Bruno

  I am working on a flight scheduling app (disclaimer: it's for a college project, so no code answers, please). Please read this question w/ a quantum of attention before answering as it has a lot of peculiarities :( First, some terminology issues: You have planes and flights, and you have to pair them up. For simplicity's sake, we'll assume that a plane is free as soon as the flight using it prior lands. Flights are seen as tasks: They have a duration They have dependencies They have an expected date/time for beginning Planes can be seen as resources to be used by tasks (or flights, in our terminology). Flights have a specific type of plane needed. e.g. flight 200 needs a plane of type B. Planes obviously are of one and only one specific type, e.g., Plane Airforce One is of type C. A "project" is the set of all the flights by an airline in a given time period. The functionality required is: Finding the shortest possible duration for a said project The earliest and latest possible start for a task (flight) The critical tasks, with basis on provided data, complete with identifiers of preceding tasks. Automatically pair up flights and planes, so as to get all flights paired up with a plane. (Note: the duration of flights is fixed) Get a Gantt diagram with the projects scheduling, in which all flights begin as early as possible, showing all previously referred data graphically (dependencies, time info, etc.) So the questions is: How in the world do I achieve this? Particularly: We are required to use a graph. What do the graph's edges and nodes respectively symbolise? Are we required to discard tasks to achieve the critical tasks set? If you could also recommend some algorithms for us to look up, that'd be great.

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• Multithreaded linked list traversal

  - by Rob Bryce

  Given a (doubly) linked list of objects (C++), I have an operation that I would like multithread, to perform on each object. The cost of the operation is not uniform for each object. The linked list is the preferred storage for this set of objects for a variety of reasons. The 1st element in each object is the pointer to the next object; the 2nd element is the previous object in the list. I have solved the problem by building an array of nodes, and applying OpenMP. This gave decent performance. I then switched to my own threading routines (based off Windows primitives) and by using InterlockedIncrement() (acting on the index into the array), I can achieve higher overall CPU utilization and faster through-put. Essentially, the threads work by "leap-frog'ing" along the elements. My next approach to optimization is to try to eliminate creating/reusing the array of elements in my linked list. However, I'd like to continue with this "leap-frog" approach and somehow use some nonexistent routine that could be called "InterlockedCompareDereference" - to atomically compare against NULL (end of list) and conditionally dereference & store, returning the dereferenced value. I don't think InterlockedCompareExchangePointer() will work since I cannot atomically dereference the pointer and call this Interlocked() method. I've done some reading and others are suggesting critical sections or spin-locks. Critical sections seem heavy-weight here. I'm tempted to try spin-locks but I thought I'd first pose the question here and ask what other people are doing. I'm not convinced that the InterlockedCompareExchangePointer() method itself could be used like a spin-lock. Then one also has to consider acquire/release/fence semantics... Ideas? Thanks!

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• PHP get values from SimpleXMLElement array

  - by seanp2k

  I have this: [1]=> object(SimpleXMLElement)#6 (1) { ["@attributes"]=> array(14) { ["name"]=> string(5) "MySQL" ["acknowledged"]=> string(1) "1" ["comments"]=> string(1) "1" ["current_check_attempt"]=> string(1) "1" ["downtime"]=> string(1) "0" ["last_check"]=> string(19) "2010-05-01 17:57:00" ["markdown_filter"]=> string(1) "0" ["max_check_attempts"]=> string(1) "3" ["output"]=> string(42) "CRITICAL - Socket timeout after 10 seconds" ["perfdata_available"]=> string(1) "1" ["service_object_id"]=> string(3) "580" ["state"]=> string(8) "critical" ["state_duration"]=> string(6) "759439" ["unhandled"]=> string(1) "0" } } (I used var_dump($child) to generate that) How do I get the 'name' attribute out of there as a string? Here is my code: $xml = simplexml_load_string($results); foreach($xml->data->list as $child) { var_dump($child); echo $child->getName() . ": " . $child->name . "<br />"; }

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• Error on 64 Bit Install of IIS &ndash; LoadLibraryEx failed on aspnet_filter.dll

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’ve been having a few problems with my Windows 7 install and trying to get IIS applications to run properly in 64 bit. After installing IIS and creating virtual directories for several of my applications and firing them up I was left with the following error message from IIS: Calling LoadLibraryEx on ISAPI filter “c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll” failed This is on Windows 7 64 bit and running on an ASP.NET 4.0 Application configured for running 64 bit (32 bit disabled). It’s also on what is essentially a brand new installation of IIS and Windows 7. So it failed right out of the box. The problem here is that IIS is trying to loading this ISAPI filter from the 32 bit folder – it should be loading from Framework64 folder note the Framework folder. The aspnet_filter.dll component is a small Win32 ISAPI filter used to back up the cookieless session state for ASP.NET on IIS 7 applications. It’s not terribly important because of this focus, but it’s a default loaded component. After a lot of fiddling I ended up with two solutions (with the help and support of some Twitter folks): Switch IIS to run in 32 bit mode Fix the filter listing in ApplicationHost.config Switching IIS to allow 32 Bit Code This is a quick fix for the problem above which enables 32 bit code in the Application Pool. The problem above is that IIS is trying to load a 32 bit ISAPI filter and enabling 32 bit code gets you around this problem. To configure your Application Pool, open the Application Pool in IIS Manager bring up Advanced Options and Enable 32 Bit Applications: And voila the error message above goes away. Fix Filters Enabling 32 bit code is a quick fix solution to this problem, but not an ideal one. If you’re running a pure .NET application that doesn’t need to do COM or pInvoke Interop with 32 bit apps there’s usually no need for enabling 32 bit code in an Application Pool as you can run in native 64 bit code. So trying to get 64 bit working natively is a pretty key feature in my opinion :-) So what’s the problem – why is IIS trying to load a 32 bit DLL in a 64 bit install, especially if the application pool is configured to not allow 32 bit code at all? The problem lies in the server configuration and the fact that 32 bit and 64 bit configuration settings exist side by side in IIS. If I open my Default Web Site (or any other root Web Site) and go to the ISAPI filter list here’s what I see: Notice that there are 3 entries for ASP.NET 4.0 in this list. Only two of them however are specifically scoped to the specifically to 32 bit or 64 bit. As you can see the 64 bit filter correctly points at the Framework64 folder to load the dll, while both the 32 bit and the ‘generic’ entry point at the plain Framework 32 bit folder. Aha! Hence lies our problem. You can edit ApplicationHost.config manually, but I ran into the nasty issue of not being able to easily edit that file with the 32 bit editor (who ever thought that was a good idea???? WTF). You have to open ApplicationHost.Config in a 64 bit native text editor – which Visual Studio is not. Or my favorite editor: EditPad Pro. Since I don’t have a native 64 bit editor handy Notepad was my only choice. Or as an alternative you can use the IIS 7.5 Configuration Editor which lets you interactively browse and edit most ApplicationHost settings. You can drill into the configuration hierarchy visually to find your keys and edit attributes and sub values in property editor type interface. I had no idea this tool existed prior to today and it’s pretty cool as it gives you some visual clues to options available – especially in absence of an Intellisense scheme you’d get in Visual Studio (which doesn’t work). To use the Configuration Editor go the Web Site root and use the Configuration Editor option in the Management Group. Drill into System.webServer/isapiFilters and then click on the Collection’s … button on the right. You should now see a display like this: which shows all the same attributes you’d see in ApplicationHost.config (cool!). These entries correspond to these raw ApplicationHost.config entries: <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0" /> <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0_64bit" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness64" /> <filter name="ASP.Net_4.0_32bit" path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_filter.dll" enableCache="true" preCondition="runtimeVersionv4.0,bitness32" /> The key attribute we’re concerned with here is the preCondition and the bitness subvalue. Notice that the ‘generic’ version – which comes first in the filter list – has no bitness assigned to it, so it defaults to 32 bit and the 32 bit dll path. And this is where our problem comes from. The simple solution to fix the startup problem is to remove the generic entry from this list here or in the filters list shown earlier and leave only the bitness specific versions active. The preCondition attribute acts as a filter and as you can see here it filters the list by runtime version and bitness value. This is something to keep an eye out in general – if a bitness values are missing it’s easy to run into conflicts like this with any settings that are global and especially those that load modules and handlers and other executable code. On 64 bit systems it’s a good idea to explicitly set the bitness of all entries or remove the non-specific versions and add bit specific entries. So how did this get misconfigured? I installed IIS before everything else was installed on this machine and then went ahead and installed Visual Studio. I suspect the Visual Studio install munged this up as I never saw a similar problem on my live server where everything just worked right out of the box. In searching about this problem a lot of solutions pointed at using aspnet_regiis –r from the Framework64 directory, but that did not fix this extra entry in the filters list – it adds the required 32 bit and 64 bit entries, but it doesn’t remove the errand un-bitness set entry. Hopefully this post will help out anybody who runs into a similar situation without having to trouble shoot all the way down into the configuration settings and noticing the bitness settings. It’s a good lesson learned for me – this is my first desktop install of a 64 bit OS and things like this are what I was reluctant to find. Now that I ran into this I have a good idea what to look for with 32/64 bit misconfigurations in IIS at least.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in IIS7   ASP.NET  

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• How to configure hibernate-tools with maven to generate hibernate.cfg.xml, *.hbm.xml, POJOs and DAOs

  - by mmm

  Hi, can any one tell me how to force maven to precede mapping .hbm.xml files in the automatically generated hibernate.cfg.xml file with package path? My general idea is, I'd like to use hibernate-tools via maven to generate the persistence layer for my application. So, I need the hibernate.cfg.xml, then all my_table_names.hbm.xml and at the end the POJO's generated. Yet, the hbm2java goal won't work as I put *.hbm.xml files into the src/main/resources/package/path/ folder but hbm2cfgxml specifies the mapping files only by table name, i.e.: <mapping resource="MyTableName.hbm.xml" /> So the big question is: how can I configure hbm2cfgxml so that hibernate.cfg.xml looks like below: <mapping resource="package/path/MyTableName.hbm.xml" /> My pom.xml looks like this at the moment: <plugin> <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId> <artifactId>hibernate3-maven-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.2</version> <executions> <execution> <id>hbm2cfgxml</id> <phase>generate-sources</phase> <goals> <goal>hbm2cfgxml</goal> </goals> <inherited>false</inherited> <configuration> <components> <component> <name>hbm2cfgxml</name> <implemetation>jdbcconfiguration</implementation> <outputDirectory>src/main/resources/</outputDirectory> </component> </components> <componentProperties> <packagename>package.path</packageName> <configurationFile>src/main/resources/hibernate.cfg.xml</configurationFile> </componentProperties> </configuration> </execution> </executions> </plugin> And then the second question: is there a way to tell maven to copy resources to the target folder before executing hbm2java? At the moment I'm using mvn clean resources:resources generate-sources for that, but there must be a better way. Thanks for any help. Update: @Pascal: Thank you for your help. The path to mappings works fine now, I don't know what was wrong before, though. Maybe there is some issue with writing to hibernate.cfg.xml while reading database config from it (though the file gets updated). I've deleted the file hibernate.cfg.xml, replaced it with database.properties and run the goals hbm2cfgxml and hbm2hbmxml. I also don't use the outputDirectory nor configurationfile in those goals anymore. As a result the files hibernate.cfg.xml and all *.hbm.xml are being generated into my target/hibernate3/generated-mappings/ folder, which is the default value. Then I updated the hbm2java goal with the following: <componentProperties> <packagename>package.name</packagename> <configurationfile>target/hibernate3/generated-mappings/hibernate.cfg.xml</configurationfile> </componentProperties> But then I get the following: [INFO] --- hibernate3-maven-plugin:2.2:hbm2java (hbm2java) @ project.persistence --- [INFO] using configuration task. [INFO] Configuration XML file loaded: file:/C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/mmm/workspace/project.persistence/target/hibernate3/generated-mappings/hibernate.cfg.xml 12:15:17,484 INFO org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration - configuring from url: file:/C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/mmm/workspace/project.persistence/target/hibernate3/generated-mappings/hibernate.cfg.xml 12:15:19,046 INFO org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration - Reading mappings from resource : package.name/Messages.hbm.xml [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [INFO] BUILD FAILURE [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.codehaus.mojo:hibernate3-maven-plugin:2.2:hbm2java (hbm2java) on project project.persistence: Execution hbm2java of goal org.codehaus.mojo:hibernate3-maven-plugin:2.2:hbm2java failed: resource: package/name/Messages.hbm.xml not found How do I deal with that? Of course I could add: <outputDirectory>src/main/resources/package/name</outputDirectory> to the hbm2hbmxml goal, but I think this is not the best approach, or is it? Is there a way to keep all the generated code and resources away from the src/ folder? I assume, the goal of this approach is not to generate any sources into my src/main/java or /resources folder, but to keep the generated code in the target folder. As I generally agree with this point of view, I'd like to continue with that eventually executing hbm2dao and packaging the project to be used as a generated persistence layer component from the business layer. Is this also what you meant?

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• AD Password About to Expire check problem with ASP.Net

  - by Vince

  Hello everyone, I am trying to write some code to check the AD password age during a user login and notify them of the 15 remaining days. I am using the ASP.Net code that I found on the Microsoft MSDN site and I managed to add a function that checks the if the account is set to change password at next login. The login and the change password at next login works great but I am having some problems with the check for the password age. This is the VB.Net code for the DLL file: Imports System Imports System.Text Imports System.Collections Imports System.DirectoryServices Imports System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement Imports System.Reflection 'Needed by the Password Expiration Class Only -Vince Namespace FormsAuth Public Class LdapAuthentication Dim _path As String Dim _filterAttribute As String 'Code added for the password expiration added by Vince Private _domain As DirectoryEntry Private _passwordAge As TimeSpan = TimeSpan.MinValue Const UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD As Integer = &H10000 'Function added by Vince Public Sub New() Dim root As New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://rootDSE") root.AuthenticationType = AuthenticationTypes.Secure _domain = New DirectoryEntry("LDAP://" & root.Properties("defaultNamingContext")(0).ToString()) _domain.AuthenticationType = AuthenticationTypes.Secure End Sub 'Function added by Vince Public ReadOnly Property PasswordAge() As TimeSpan Get If _passwordAge = TimeSpan.MinValue Then Dim ldate As Long = LongFromLargeInteger(_domain.Properties("maxPwdAge")(0)) _passwordAge = TimeSpan.FromTicks(ldate) End If Return _passwordAge End Get End Property Public Sub New(ByVal path As String) _path = path End Sub 'Function added by Vince Public Function DoesUserHaveToChangePassword(ByVal userName As String) As Boolean Dim ctx As PrincipalContext = New PrincipalContext(System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement.ContextType.Domain) Dim up = UserPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, userName) Return (Not up.LastPasswordSet.HasValue) 'returns true if last password set has no value. End Function Public Function IsAuthenticated(ByVal domain As String, ByVal username As String, ByVal pwd As String) As Boolean Dim domainAndUsername As String = domain & "\" & username Dim entry As DirectoryEntry = New DirectoryEntry(_path, domainAndUsername, pwd) Try 'Bind to the native AdsObject to force authentication. Dim obj As Object = entry.NativeObject Dim search As DirectorySearcher = New DirectorySearcher(entry) search.Filter = "(SAMAccountName=" & username & ")" search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("cn") Dim result As SearchResult = search.FindOne() If (result Is Nothing) Then Return False End If 'Update the new path to the user in the directory. _path = result.Path _filterAttribute = CType(result.Properties("cn")(0), String) Catch ex As Exception Throw New Exception("Error authenticating user. " & ex.Message) End Try Return True End Function Public Function GetGroups() As String Dim search As DirectorySearcher = New DirectorySearcher(_path) search.Filter = "(cn=" & _filterAttribute & ")" search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("memberOf") Dim groupNames As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder() Try Dim result As SearchResult = search.FindOne() Dim propertyCount As Integer = result.Properties("memberOf").Count Dim dn As String Dim equalsIndex, commaIndex Dim propertyCounter As Integer For propertyCounter = 0 To propertyCount - 1 dn = CType(result.Properties("memberOf")(propertyCounter), String) equalsIndex = dn.IndexOf("=", 1) commaIndex = dn.IndexOf(",", 1) If (equalsIndex = -1) Then Return Nothing End If groupNames.Append(dn.Substring((equalsIndex + 1), (commaIndex - equalsIndex) - 1)) groupNames.Append("|") Next Catch ex As Exception Throw New Exception("Error obtaining group names. " & ex.Message) End Try Return groupNames.ToString() End Function 'Function added by Vince Public Function WhenExpires(ByVal username As String) As TimeSpan Dim ds As New DirectorySearcher(_domain) ds.Filter = [String].Format("(&(objectClass=user)(objectCategory=person)(sAMAccountName={0}))", username) Dim sr As SearchResult = FindOne(ds) Dim user As DirectoryEntry = sr.GetDirectoryEntry() Dim flags As Integer = CInt(user.Properties("userAccountControl").Value) If Convert.ToBoolean(flags And UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD) Then 'password never expires Return TimeSpan.MaxValue End If 'get when they last set their password Dim pwdLastSet As DateTime = DateTime.FromFileTime(LongFromLargeInteger(user.Properties("pwdLastSet").Value)) ' return pwdLastSet.Add(PasswordAge).Subtract(DateTime.Now); If pwdLastSet.Subtract(PasswordAge).CompareTo(DateTime.Now) > 0 Then Return pwdLastSet.Subtract(PasswordAge).Subtract(DateTime.Now) Else Return TimeSpan.MinValue 'already expired End If End Function 'Function added by Vince Private Function LongFromLargeInteger(ByVal largeInteger As Object) As Long Dim type As System.Type = largeInteger.[GetType]() Dim highPart As Integer = CInt(type.InvokeMember("HighPart", BindingFlags.GetProperty, Nothing, largeInteger, Nothing)) Dim lowPart As Integer = CInt(type.InvokeMember("LowPart", BindingFlags.GetProperty, Nothing, largeInteger, Nothing)) Return CLng(highPart) << 32 Or CUInt(lowPart) End Function 'Function added by Vince Private Function FindOne(ByVal searcher As DirectorySearcher) As SearchResult Dim sr As SearchResult = Nothing Dim src As SearchResultCollection = searcher.FindAll() If src.Count > 0 Then sr = src(0) End If src.Dispose() Return sr End Function End Class End Namespace And this is the Login.aspx page: sub Login_Click(sender as object,e as EventArgs) Dim adPath As String = "LDAP://DC=xxx,DC=com" 'Path to your LDAP directory server Dim adAuth As LdapAuthentication = New LdapAuthentication(adPath) Try If (True = adAuth.DoesUserHaveToChangePassword(txtUsername.Text)) Then Response.Redirect("passchange.htm") ElseIf (True = adAuth.IsAuthenticated(txtDomain.Text, txtUsername.Text, txtPassword.Text)) Then Dim groups As String = adAuth.GetGroups() 'Create the ticket, and add the groups. Dim isCookiePersistent As Boolean = chkPersist.Checked Dim authTicket As FormsAuthenticationTicket = New FormsAuthenticationTicket(1, _ txtUsername.Text, DateTime.Now, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(60), isCookiePersistent, groups) 'Encrypt the ticket. Dim encryptedTicket As String = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(authTicket) 'Create a cookie, and then add the encrypted ticket to the cookie as data. Dim authCookie As HttpCookie = New HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encryptedTicket) If (isCookiePersistent = True) Then authCookie.Expires = authTicket.Expiration End If 'Add the cookie to the outgoing cookies collection. Response.Cookies.Add(authCookie) 'Retrieve the password life Dim t As TimeSpan = adAuth.WhenExpires(txtUsername.Text) 'You can redirect now. If (passAge.Days = 90) Then errorLabel.Text = "Your password will expire in " & DateTime.Now.Subtract(t) 'errorLabel.Text = "This is" 'System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000) Response.Redirect("http://somepage.aspx") Else Response.Redirect(FormsAuthentication.GetRedirectUrl(txtUsername.Text, False)) End If Else errorLabel.Text = "Authentication did not succeed. Check user name and password." End If Catch ex As Exception errorLabel.Text = "Error authenticating. " & ex.Message End Try End Sub ` Every time I have this Dim t As TimeSpan = adAuth.WhenExpires(txtUsername.Text) enabled, I receive "Arithmetic operation resulted in an overflow." during the login and won't continue. What am I doing wrong? How can I correct this? Please help!! Thank you very much for any help in advance. Vince

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• T4 Template error - Assembly Directive cannot locate referenced assembly in Visual Studio 2010 proje

  - by CodeSniper

  I ran into the following error recently in Visual Studio 2010 while trying to port Phil Haack’s excellent T4CSS template which was originally built for Visual Studio 2008.   The Problem Error Compiling transformation: Metadata file 'dotless.Core' could not be found In “T4 speak”, this simply means that you have an Assembly directive in your T4 template but the T4 engine was not able to locate or load the referenced assembly. In the case of the T4CSS Template, this was a showstopper for making it work in Visual Studio 2010. On a side note: The T4CSS template is a sweet little wrapper to allow you to use DotLessCss to generate static .css files from .less files rather than using their default HttpHandler or command-line tool.    If you haven't tried DotLessCSS yet, go check it out now!  In short, it is a tool that allows you to templatize and program your CSS files so that you can use variables, expressions, and mixins within your CSS which enables rapid changes and a lot of developer-flexibility as you evolve your CSS and UI. Back to our regularly scheduled program… Anyhow, this post isn't about DotLessCss, its about the T4 Templates and the errors I ran into when converting them from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010. In VS2010, there were quite a few changes to the T4 Template Engine; most were excellent changes, but this one bit me with T4CSS: “Project assemblies are no longer used to resolve template assembly directives.” In VS2008, if you wanted to reference a custom assembly in your T4 Template (.tt file) you would simply right click on your project, choose Add Reference and select that assembly.  Afterwards you were allowed to use the following syntax in your T4 template to tell it to look at the local references: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core.dll" #> This told the engine to look in the “usual place” for the assembly, which is your project references. However, this is exactly what they changed in VS2010.  They now basically sandbox the T4 Engine to keep your T4 assemblies separate from your project assemblies.  This can come in handy if you want to support different versions of an assembly referenced both by your T4 templates and your project. Who broke the build?  Oh, Microsoft Did! In our case, this change causes a problem since the templates are no longer compatible when upgrading to VS 2010 – thus its a breaking change.  So, how do we make this work in VS 2010? Luckily, Microsoft now offers several options for referencing assemblies from T4 Templates: GAC your assemblies and use Namespace Reference or Fully Qualified Type Name Use a hard-coded Fully Qualified UNC path Copy assembly to Visual Studio "Public Assemblies Folder" and use Namespace Reference or Fully Qualified Type Name.  Use or Define a Windows Environment Variable to build a Fully Qualified UNC path. Use a Visual Studio Macro to build a Fully Qualified UNC path. Option #1 & 2 were already supported in Visual Studio 2008, so if you want to keep your templates compatible with both Visual Studio versions, then you would have to adopt one of these approaches. Yakkety Yak, use the GAC! Option #1 requires an additional pre-build step to GAC the referenced assembly, which could be a pain.  But, if you go that route, then after you GAC, all you need is a simple type name or namespace reference such as: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core" #> Hard Coding aint that hard! The other option of using hard-coded paths in Option #2 is pretty impractical in most situations since each developer would have to use the same local project folder paths, or modify this setting each time for their local machines as well as for production deployment.  However, if you want to go that route, simply use the following assembly directive style: <#@ assembly name="C:\Code\Lib\dotless.Core.dll" #> Lets go Public! Option #3, the Visual Studio Public Assemblies Folder, is the recommended place to put commonly used tools and libraries that are only needed for Visual Studio.  Think of it like a VS-only GAC.  This is likely the best place for something like dotLessCSS and is my preferred solution.  However, you will need to either use an installer or a pre-build action to copy the assembly to the right folder location.   Normally this is located at:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies Once you have copied your assembly there, you use the type name or namespace syntax again: <#@ assembly name="dotless.Core" #> Save the Environment! Option #4, using a Windows Environment Variable, is interesting for enterprise use where you may have standard locations for files, but less useful for demo-code, frameworks, and products where you don't have control over the local system.  The syntax for including a environment variable in your assembly directive looks like the following, just as you would expect: <#@ assembly name="%mypath%\dotless.Core.dll" #> “mypath” is a Windows environment variable you setup that points to some fully qualified UNC path on your system.  In the right situation this can be a great solution such as one where you use a msi installer for deployment, or where you have a pre-existing environment variable you can re-use. OMG Macros! Finally, Option #5 is a very nice option if you want to keep your T4 template’s assembly reference local and relative to the project or solution without muddying-up your dev environment or GAC with extra deployments.  An example looks like this: <#@ assembly name="$(SolutionDir)lib\dotless.Core.dll" #> In this example, I’m using the “SolutionDir” VS macro so I can reference an assembly in a “/lib” folder at the root of the solution.   This is just one of the many macros you can use.  If you are familiar with creating Pre/Post-build Event scripts, you can use its dialog to look at all of the different VS macros available. This option gives the best solution for local assemblies without the hassle of extra installers or other setup before the build.   However, its still not compatible with Visual Studio 2008, so if you have a T4 Template you want to use with both, then you may have to create multiple .tt files, one for each IDE version, or require the developer to set a value in the .tt file manually.   I’m not sure if T4 Templates support any form of compiler switches like “#if (VS2010)”  statements, but it would definitely be nice in this case to switch between this option and one of the ones more compatible with VS 2008. Conclusion As you can see, we went from 3 options with Visual Studio 2008, to 5 options (plus one problem) with Visual Studio 2010.  As a whole, I think the changes are great, but the short-term growing pains during the migration may be annoying until we get used to our new found power. Hopefully this all made sense and was helpful to you.  If nothing else, I’ll just use it as a reference the next time I need to port a T4 template to Visual Studio 2010.  Happy T4 templating, and “May the fourth be with you!”

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• Multi-tenant ASP.NET MVC - Views

  - by zowens

  Part I – Introduction Part II – Foundation Part III – Controllers   So far we have covered the basic premise of tenants and how they will be delegated. Now comes a big issue with multi-tenancy, the views. In some applications, you will not have to override views for each tenant. However, one of my requirements is to add extra views (and controller actions) along with overriding views from the core structure. This presents a bit of a problem in locating views for each tenant request. I have chosen quite an opinionated approach at the present but will coming back to the “views” issue in a later post. What’s the deal? The path I’ve chosen is to use precompiled Spark views. I really love Spark View Engine and was planning on using it in my project anyways. However, I ran across a really neat aspect of the source when I was having a look under the hood. There’s an easy way to hook in embedded views from your project. There are solutions that provide this, but they implement a special Virtual Path Provider. While I think this is a great solution, I would rather just have Spark take care of the view resolution. The magic actually happens during the compilation of the views into a bin-deployable DLL. After the views are compiled, the are simply pulled out of the views DLL. Each tenant has its own views DLL that just has “.Views” appended after the assembly name as a convention. The list of reasons for this approach are quite long. The primary motivation is performance. I’ve had quite a few performance issues in the past and I would like to increase my application’s performance in any way that I can. My customized build of Spark removes insignificant whitespace from the HTML output so I can some some bandwidth and load time without having to deal with whitespace removal at runtime.   How to setup Tenants for the Host In the source, I’ve provided a single tenant as a sample (Sample1). This will serve as a template for subsequent tenants in your application. The first step is to add a “PostBuildStep” installer into the project. I’ve defined one in the source that will eventually change as we focus more on the construction of dependency containers. The next step is to tell the project to run the installer and copy the DLL output to a folder in the host that will pick up as a tenant. Here’s the code that will achieve it (this belongs in Post-build event command line field in the Build Events tab of settings) %systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\installutil "$(TargetPath)" copy /Y "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName)*.dll" "$(SolutionDir)Web\Tenants\" copy /Y "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName)*.pdb" "$(SolutionDir)Web\Tenants\" The DLLs with a name starting with the target assembly name will be copied to the “Tenants” folder in the web project. This means something like MultiTenancy.Tenants.Sample1.dll and MultiTenancy.Tenants.Sample1.Views.dll will both be copied along with the debug symbols. This is probably the simplest way to go about this, but it is a tad inflexible. For example, what if you have dependencies? The preferred method would probably be to use IL Merge to merge your dependencies with your target DLL. This would have to be added in the build events. Another way to achieve that would be to simply bypass Visual Studio events and use MSBuild.   I also got a question about how I was setting up the controller factory. Here’s the basics on how I’m setting up tenants inside the host (Global.asax) protected void Application_Start() { RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); // create a container just to pull in tenants var topContainer = new Container(); topContainer.Configure(config => { config.Scan(scanner => { scanner.AssembliesFromPath(Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/"), "Tenants")); scanner.AddAllTypesOf<IApplicationTenant>(); }); }); // create selectors var tenantSelector = new DefaultTenantSelector(topContainer.GetAllInstances<IApplicationTenant>()); var containerSelector = new TenantContainerResolver(tenantSelector); // clear view engines, we don't want anything other than spark ViewEngines.Engines.Clear(); // set view engine ViewEngines.Engines.Add(new TenantViewEngine(tenantSelector)); // set controller factory ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(new ContainerControllerFactory(containerSelector)); } The code to setup the tenants isn’t actually that hard. I’m utilizing assembly scanners in StructureMap as a simple way to pull in DLLs that are not in the AppDomain. Remember that there is a dependency on the host in the tenants and a tenant cannot simply be referenced by a host because of circular dependencies.   Tenant View Engine TenantViewEngine is a simple delegator to the tenant’s specified view engine. You might have noticed that a tenant has to define a view engine. public interface IApplicationTenant { .... IViewEngine ViewEngine { get; } } The trick comes in specifying the view engine on the tenant side. Here’s some of the code that will pull views from the DLL. protected virtual IViewEngine DetermineViewEngine() { var factory = new SparkViewFactory(); var file = GetType().Assembly.CodeBase.Without("file:///").Replace(".dll", ".Views.dll").Replace('/', '\\'); var assembly = Assembly.LoadFile(file); factory.Engine.LoadBatchCompilation(assembly); return factory; } This code resides in an abstract Tenant where the fields are setup in the constructor. This method (inside the abstract class) will load the Views assembly and load the compilation into Spark’s “Descriptors” that will be used to determine views. There is some trickery on determining the file location… but it works just fine.   Up Next There’s just a few big things left such as StructureMap configuring controllers with a convention instead of specifying types directly with container construction and content resolution. I will also try to find a way to use the Web Forms View Engine in a multi-tenant way we achieved with the Spark View Engine without using a virtual path provider. I will probably not use the Web Forms View Engine personally, but I’m sure some people would prefer using WebForms because of the maturity of the engine. As always, I love to take questions by email or on twitter. Suggestions are always welcome as well! (Oh, and here’s another link to the source code).

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• MSCC: Scripting - Administrator's­ toolbox of magic...

  Finally, we made it to have our April meetup - in May. The most obvious explanation is the increased amount of open source and IT activities that either the MSCC, the Linux User Group of Mauritius (LUGM), or the University of Mauritius Student's Computer Club is organising. It's absolutely incredible to see the recent hype of events here on the island. And I'm loving it! Unfortunately, we also had to deal with arranging for a location this time. It was kind of an odyssey as my requests (and phone calls) haven't been answered, even though I tried it several times - well, kind of disappointing and I have to look into that for future gatherings. In my opinion, it is essential that two parameters of a community meeting are fixed as early as possible: Location, and Date and time You can't just change one or both on the very last minute. Well, this time we had to do it due to unforeseen reasons, and I apologise to any MSCC member which couldn't make it to our April meetup. Okay, lesson learned but now back to the actual meetup report ... Shortly after the meeting I placed the following statement as my first impression: "Spontaneous and improvised :) No, seriously, Ish and Dan had well prepared presentations on shell scripting, mainly focused towards Bourne Again Shell (bash), and the pros and cons of scripting versus actually writing something in a decent programming language. I thought that I could cut myself out of the equation but the demand for information about PowerShell was higher than expected..." Well, it turned out that the interest in Windows PowerShell was high, as I even got a couple of questions on it via social media networks during the evening. I also like to mention that the number of attendees went back to what I would call a "standard" number of participation. This time there were 12 craftsmen, but again a good number of First Timers. Reactions of other attendees Here are some impressions and feedback from our participants: "Enjoyed the bash and powershell (linux / windows) presentations ..." -- Nadim on event comments "He [Daniel] also showed us some syntax loopholes in Bash that could leave someone with bad code." -- Ish on MSCC – Let's talk about Scripting   Glad to see a couple of first time attendees, especially students from the university itself. Some details on the presentations MSCC: First time visit at the University of Mauritius - Phase II Engineering Tower, room 2.9 Gimme some love ... bash and other shells Ish gave a great introduction into shell scripting as he spoke about existing shell environments and a little bit about their history. Furthermore, he talked about various built-in commands, the use of coreutils, the ability to daisy-chain multiple commands using pipes, the importance of the standard I/O streams and their file descriptors in advanced scripting techniques. Combined with a couple of sample statements in the Linux terminal on Ubuntu 14.04 machine it was a solid presentation. Have a closer look at his slides - published on his blog on MSCC – Let's talk about Scripting. Oddities of scripting After the brief introduction into bash it was Daniel's turn to highlight a good number of oddities when working with shell scripts. First of all, it should be clear that scripting is not supposed for any kind of implementations in terms of software but simply to automate administrative procedures and to simplify routine jobs on a system. One of the cool oddities that he mentioned is that everything (!) in a shell is represented by strings; there are no other types like integer, float, date-time, etc. that you'd like to use in a full-fledged programming language. Let's have a look at his sample:  more to come... What's the output? As a conclusion, Daniel suggests that shell scripting should be limited but not restricted to automatic repetitive command stacks and batch jobs, startup wrapper for applications in order to set up the execution environment, and other not too sophisticated jobs. But as soon as it might involve a little bit more logic or you might rely on performance it's better to write an application in Ruby, Python, or Perl (among others of course). This is also enables the possibility to test your code properly. MSCC: Ish talking about Bourne Again Shell (bash) and shell scripting to automate regular tasks MSCC: Daniel gives an overview about the pros and cons of shell scripting versus programming MSCC: PowerShell as your scripting solution on Windows operating systems The path of the Enlightened is long ... and tough. Honestly, even though PowerShell was mentioned without any further details on the meetup's agenda, I didn't expect that there would be demand to give a presentation on Microsoft PowerShell after all. I already took this topic out of the announcement but the audience wanted to have some information. Okay, then let's see what I could do - improvised style. While my machine booted and got hooked up to the projector, I started to talk about the beginnings of PowerShell from back in 2006, and its predecessors MS DOS and Command Prompt. A throwback in history... always good for young people. As usual, Microsoft didn't get it at that time. Instead of listening to their client's needs and demands they ignored the feasibility to administrate Windows server farms without any UI tools. PowerShell is actually a result of this, and seeing that shell scripting is a common, reliable and fast way in an administrator's toolbox for decades, Microsoft had to adapt from their Microsoft Management Console (MMC) to a broader approach. It's not like shell scripting was something new; it is in daily use by alternative operating systems like AIX, HP UX, Solaris, and last but not least Linux. Most interestingly, Microsoft is very good at renovating existing architectures, and over the years PowerShell not only replaced their own combination of Command Prompt and Scripting Hosts (VBScript and CScript) but really turned into a challenging competitor on the market. The shell is easy to extend with cmdlets, and open to other Microsoft products like SQL Server, SharePoint, as well as Third-party software applications. Similar to MMC PowerShell also offers the ability to administer other machine remotely - only without a graphical user interface and therefore it's easier to automate and schedule regular tasks. Following is a sample of a PowerShell script file (extension .ps1): $strComputer = "." $colItems = get-wmiobject -class Win32_BIOS -namespace root\CIMV2 -comp $strComputer foreach ($objItem in $colItems) {write-host "BIOS Characteristics: " $objItem.BiosCharacteristicswrite-host "BIOS Version: " $objItem.BIOSVersionwrite-host "Build Number: " $objItem.BuildNumberwrite-host "Caption: " $objItem.Captionwrite-host "Code Set: " $objItem.CodeSetwrite-host "Current Language: " $objItem.CurrentLanguagewrite-host "Description: " $objItem.Descriptionwrite-host "Identification Code: " $objItem.IdentificationCodewrite-host "Installable Languages: " $objItem.InstallableLanguageswrite-host "Installation Date: " $objItem.InstallDatewrite-host "Language Edition: " $objItem.LanguageEditionwrite-host "List Of Languages: " $objItem.ListOfLanguageswrite-host "Manufacturer: " $objItem.Manufacturerwrite-host "Name: " $objItem.Namewrite-host "Other Target Operating System: " $objItem.OtherTargetOSwrite-host "Primary BIOS: " $objItem.PrimaryBIOSwrite-host "Release Date: " $objItem.ReleaseDatewrite-host "Serial Number: " $objItem.SerialNumberwrite-host "SMBIOS BIOS Version: " $objItem.SMBIOSBIOSVersionwrite-host "SMBIOS Major Version: " $objItem.SMBIOSMajorVersionwrite-host "SMBIOS Minor Version: " $objItem.SMBIOSMinorVersionwrite-host "SMBIOS Present: " $objItem.SMBIOSPresentwrite-host "Software Element ID: " $objItem.SoftwareElementIDwrite-host "Software Element State: " $objItem.SoftwareElementStatewrite-host "Status: " $objItem.Statuswrite-host "Target Operating System: " $objItem.TargetOperatingSystemwrite-host "Version: " $objItem.Versionwrite-host} Which gives you information about your BIOS and Windows OS. Then change the computer name to another one on your network (NetBIOS based) and run the script again. There lots of samples and tutorials at the Microsoft Script Center, and I would advise you to pay a visit over there if you are more interested in PowerShell. The Script Center provides the download links, too. Upcoming Events What are the upcoming events here in Mauritius? So far, we have the following ones (incomplete list as usual) in chronological order: Hacking Defence (14. May 2014) WebCup Maurice (7. & 8. June 2014) Developers Conference (TBA ~ July 2014) Linuxfest 2014 (TBA ~ November 2014) Hopefully, there will be more announcements during the next couple of weeks and months. If you know about any other event, like a bootcamp, a code challenge or hackathon here in Mauritius, please drop me a note in the comment section below this article. Thanks! My resume of the day Spontaneous and improvised :) The new location at the University of Mauritius turned out very well, there is plenty of space, and it could be a good choice for future meetings. Especially, having the ability to get more and more students into our IT community sounds like a great opportunity. Later during the day, I got some promising mails from Nadim regarding future sessions at the local branch of the Middlesex University. Well, we will see in the future... But for now this will be on hold until approximately October when students resume their regular studies. Anyway, it was a good experience at the university, and thanks again to the UoM Student's Computer Club that made the necessary arrangements for the MSCC!

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• SQL – Migrate Database from SQL Server to NuoDB – A Quick Tutorial

  - by Pinal Dave

  Data is growing exponentially and every organization with growing data is thinking of next big innovation in the world of Big Data. Big data is a indeed a future for every organization at one point of the time. Just like every other next big thing, big data has its own challenges and issues. The biggest challenge associated with the big data is to find the ideal platform which supports the scalability and growth of the data. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you must be familiar with NuoDB. I have been working with NuoDB for a while and their recent release is the best thus far. NuoDB is an elastically scalable SQL database that can run on local host, datacenter and cloud-based resources. A key feature of the product is that it does not require sharding (read more here). Last week, I was able to install NuoDB in less than 90 seconds and have explored their Explorer and Admin sections. You can read about my experiences in these posts: SQL – Step by Step Guide to Download and Install NuoDB – Getting Started with NuoDB SQL – Quick Start with Admin Sections of NuoDB – Manage NuoDB Database SQL – Quick Start with Explorer Sections of NuoDB – Query NuoDB Database Many SQL Authority readers have been following me in my journey to evaluate NuoDB. One of the frequently asked questions I’ve received from you is if there is any way to migrate data from SQL Server to NuoDB. The fact is that there is indeed a way to do so and NuoDB provides a fantastic tool which can help users to do it. NuoDB Migrator is a command line utility that supports the migration of Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, and PostgreSQL schemas and data to NuoDB. The migration to NuoDB is a three-step process: NuoDB Migrator generates a schema for a target NuoDB database It loads data into the target NuoDB database It dumps data from the source database Let’s see how we can migrate our data from SQL Server to NuoDB using a simple three-step approach. But before we do that we will create a sample database in MSSQL and later we will migrate the same database to NuoDB: Setup Step 1: Build a sample data CREATE DATABASE [Test]; CREATE TABLE [Department]( [DepartmentID] [smallint] NOT NULL, [Name] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, [GroupName] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, [ModifiedDate] [datetime] NOT NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_Department_DepartmentID] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [DepartmentID] ASC ) ) ON [PRIMARY]; INSERT INTO Department SELECT * FROM AdventureWorks2012.HumanResources.Department; Note that I am using the SQL Server AdventureWorks database to build this sample table but you can build this sample table any way you prefer. Setup Step 2: Install Java 64 bit Before you can begin the migration process to NuoDB, make sure you have 64-bit Java installed on your computer. This is due to the fact that the NuoDB Migrator tool is built in Java. You can download 64-bit Java for Windows, Mac OSX, or Linux from the following link: http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp. One more thing to remember is that you make sure that the path in your environment settings is set to your JAVA_HOME directory or else the tool will not work. Here is how you can do it: Go to My Computer >> Right Click >> Select Properties >> Click on Advanced System Settings >> Click on Environment Variables >> Click on New and enter the following values. Variable Name: JAVA_HOME Variable Value: C:\Program Files\Java\jre7 Make sure you enter your Java installation directory in the Variable Value field. Setup Step 3: Install JDBC driver for SQL Server. There are two JDBC drivers available for SQL Server.  Select the one you prefer to use by following one of the two links below: Microsoft JDBC Driver jTDS JDBC Driver In this example we will be using jTDS JDBC driver. Once you download the driver, move the driver to your NuoDB installation folder. In my case, I have moved the JAR file of the driver into the C:\Program Files\NuoDB\tools\migrator\jar folder as this is my NuoDB installation directory. Now we are all set to start the three-step migration process from SQL Server to NuoDB: Migration Step 1: NuoDB Schema Generation Here is the command I use to generate a schema of my SQL Server Database in NuoDB. First I go to the folder C:\Program Files\NuoDB\tools\migrator\bin and execute the nuodb-migrator.bat file. Note that my database name is ‘test’. Additionally my username and password is also ‘test’. You can see that my SQL Server database is running on my localhost on port 1433. Additionally, the schema of the table is ‘dbo’. nuodb-migrator schema –source.driver=net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver –source.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/ –source.username=test –source.password=test –source.catalog=test –source.schema=dbo –output.path=/tmp/schema.sql The above script will generate a schema of all my SQL Server tables and will put it in the folder C:\tmp\schema.sql . You can open the schema.sql file and execute this file directly in your NuoDB instance. You can follow the link here to see how you can execute the SQL script in NuoDB. Please note that if you have not yet created the schema in the NuoDB database, you should create it before executing this step. Step 2: Generate the Dump File of the Data Once you have recreated your schema in NuoDB from SQL Server, the next step is very easy. Here we create a CSV format dump file, which will contain all the data from all the tables from the SQL Server database. The command to do so is very similar to the above command. Be aware that this step may take a bit of time based on your database size. nuodb-migrator dump –source.driver=net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver –source.url=jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost:1433/ –source.username=test –source.password=test –source.catalog=test –source.schema=dbo –output.type=csv –output.path=/tmp/dump.cat Once the above command is successfully executed you can find your CSV file in the C:\tmp\ folder. However, you do not have to do anything manually. The third and final step will take care of completing the migration process. Migration Step 3: Load the Data into NuoDB After building schema and taking a dump of the data, the very next step is essential and crucial. It will take the CSV file and load it into the NuoDB database. nuodb-migrator load –target.url=jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost:48004/mytest –target.schema=dbo –target.username=test –target.password=test –input.path=/tmp/dump.cat Please note that in the above script we are now targeting the NuoDB database, which we have already created with the name of “MyTest”. If the database does not exist, create it manually before executing the above script. I have kept the username and password as “test”, but please make sure that you create a more secure password for your database for security reasons. Voila!  You’re Done That’s it. You are done. It took 3 setup and 3 migration steps to migrate your SQL Server database to NuoDB.  You can now start exploring the database and build excellent, scale-out applications. In this blog post, I have done my best to come up with simple and easy process, which you can follow to migrate your app from SQL Server to NuoDB. Download NuoDB I strongly encourage you to download NuoDB and go through my 3-step migration tutorial from SQL Server to NuoDB. Additionally here are two very important blog post from NuoDB CTO Seth Proctor. He has written excellent blog posts on the concept of the Administrative Domains. NuoDB has this concept of an Administrative Domain, which is a collection of hosts that can run one or multiple databases.  Each database has its own TEs and SMs, but all are managed within the Admin Console for that particular domain. http://www.nuodb.com/techblog/2013/03/11/getting-started-provisioning-a-domain/ http://www.nuodb.com/techblog/2013/03/14/getting-started-running-a-database/ Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: NuoDB

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• Speaker at the German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2004

  The following is an excerpt from the UniversalThread conference coverage of the German Visual FoxPro Developer Conference 2004 written by Hans-Otto Lochmann, Armin Neudert and myself. TRACK Active FoxPro Pages Back in 1996 Peter Herzog invented a FoxPro based solution to provide intranet capabilities for one of his customers. Nearly at the same time Rick Strahl had the same task and created WestWind Web Connection (WWWC). The aspect that developers have to have a full Visual FoxPro development environment to create WWWC solutions was the starting point of a "personal sportive competition" of Peter to write his own solution. But the main aspect has to be that it doesn't rely on a full VFP version in order to run. The VFP runtime should enough and the source code has to be compiled and interpreted on the fly. So, as Microsoft released Active Server Pages a name for Peter's solution was found: Active FoxPro Pages (AFP). During the years many drawbacks, design aspects as well as technological hassles forced ProLib Software to refactor the product. This way many limits like DCOM configuration, file-based information transfer between Web server and AFP, missing features (like upload forms or other Web servers than IIS) and extensibility were eliminated. As a consequence ProLib Software decided to rewrite Active FoxPro Pages in mid of 2002 completely. Christof Wollenhaupt, before his marriage known as Christof Lange, and Jochen Kirstätter had to solve this task. AFP 3.0 was officially released at German Devcon in November 2002. Today AFP has six distributors world-wide and there is a lot more information available online than before version 3.0. Directly after a short welcome speech by Rainer Becker, Jochen Kirstätter - aka JoKi - opened today's AFP track and introduced the basic concepts how Active FoxPro Pages works in general, explained the AFP terminilogy and every single component, and presented a small Walk-Through about how to write an AFP-based Web solution. Actually his presentation slides themselves were an AFP Web application. This way it was easy to integrate accompanying AFP samples on the fly. Additionally it was shown that no Visual FoxPro development environment is needed to create a Web application. A simple text editor like NotePad or any WYSIWYG editor on the market is usable to fullfil customer's requirements.Welcome at least two new speakers - Nina Schwanzer and Bernhard Reiter. Both are working at ProLib Software and this year's conference is their first time as speakers. And they did their job very well. The whole session was kind of a "ping pong" game and those two complemented each other to keep the audience in tension. First, they described typical requirements a modern desktop application should fullfil - online registration and activation, auto-update capabilities, or even frontend to administer a Web application on a remote system via internet, and explained how possible solutions like Web Services (using the SOAP interface), DCOM, and even .NET might solve those requirements. But any of those ways has different drawbacks like complicated installation or configuration, or extraordinary download sizes. Next, they introduced a technology they developed and used in a customer's project: Active FoxPro Pages Remote Procedure Call (AFP RPC). [...]   In the next session JoKi described how to extend Active FoxPro Pages. On the one hand AFP provides a plugin interface, and on the other hand any addon for Visual FoxPro might be usable as well. During the first half he spoke about the plugin interface and wrote live a new AFP extension - the Devcon plugin. Later he questioned any former step and showed that a single AFP document may solve the problem as well. So, developing extensions is only interesting if they are re-usable and generic. At the end he talked about multiple interfaces for the same business logic. For instance plain VFP class, COM server and .NET integration. Currently there are several specialized AFP extensions for sending mail, for using cryptographic routines (ie. based on .NET classes), or enhanced methods to handle HTML/XML strings.Rainer Becker and Peter Herzog introduced a new development for Visual Extend (VFX) - an AFP form builder. With this builder creating an AFP Web form designed with Visual FoxPro's form designer was a matter of seconds. The builder itself is currently in pre-release status and will be part of the VFX framework in the future. It was very impressive to see that the whole design of a form as well as most parts of its functionality were exported to a combination of HTML, JavaScript and Active FoxPro Pages. At half-time Jürgen "wOOdy" Wondzinski and JoKi changed places with Rainer and Peter, and presented some Web solutions in AFP. [...] Visual FoxPro 9.0 und Linux Is Linux still a topic for Visual FoxPro developers based on the activities during this year? In his session Jochen Kirstätter - aka JoKi - went not through the technical steps and requirements on how to setup and run FoxPro on a Linux client. Instead, he explained what Linux actually is, and talked about the high variety of distributions. In fact there are a lot of distributions around but since some several years there are some specialized ones available: Live Distributions (aka LiveCDs).The intension of LiveCDs is to run a full-featured Linux operating system on any personal computer directly from a bootable medium, like CD, DVD, or even USB memory stick, without installation on a hard disk. One of the first Linux LiveCDs was made by Klaus Knopper and is well-known as Knoppix. Today, many other LiveCDs are based on the concepts of Knoppix. During the session Jochen booted Morphix, a very light-weighted LiveCD, on his notebook, and actually showed the attendees that testing and playing around with Linux is absolutely easy. Running a text processing application swept away most of the contrary aspects the audience had. Okay, where is the part about FoxPro? Well, there are several scenarios a customer might require usage of Linux, and actually with all of them FoxPro could deal with. I guess that one of the more common ones is the situation that a customer has a heterogeneous intranet with Windows clients and Linux servers, i.e. Windows XP Professional and any Linux distribution on their servers. Even in this scenario there are two variants hidden! Why? Well, on the one hand there is a software package called Samba, that provides Windows server capabilities to a Linux system, and on the other hand there are several SQL servers for Linux, like PostgreSQL, DB2 and MySQL. Either way, FoxPro is able to deal with these scenarios, but you as developer have to know what you are talking about with your customers. And even if there's no Windows operating system, you are able to provide a FoxPro-based solution. Using the wine library - wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator - you are able to run your VFP applications on Linux clients, too; but not without reading VFP's EULA. Licenses were also part the session, and Jochen discussed the meaning of Open Source and its misunderstanding throughout most developers. Open Source does not mean that it's without a fee. Instead, it stands for access to the source code of an application or tool. And, VFP itself is one of the best samples to explain Open Source due to fact that since years, VFP is shipped with the xSource.zip archive. [...]

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• Brighton Rocks: UA Europe 2011

  - by ultan o'broin

  User Assistance Europe 2011 was held in Brighton, UK. Having seen Quadrophenia a dozen times, I just had to go along (OK, I wanted to talk about messages in enterprise applications). Sadly, it rained a lot, though that was still eminently more tolerable than being stuck home in Dublin during Bloomsday. So, here are my somewhat selective highlights and observations from the conference, massively skewed towards my own interests, as usual. Enjoyed Leah Guren's (Cow TC) great start ‘keynote’ on the Cultural Dimensions of Software Help Usage. Starting out by revisiting Hofstede's and Hall's work on culture (how many times I have done this for Multilingual magazine?) and then Neilsen’s findings on age as an indicator of performance, Leah showed how it is the expertise of the user that user assistance (UA) needs to be designed for (especially for high-end users), with some considerations made for age, while the gender and culture of users are not major factors. Help also needs to be contextual and concise, embedded close to the action. That users are saying things like “If I want help on Office, I go to Google ” isn't all that profound at this stage, but it is always worth reiterating how search can be optimized to return better results for users. Interestingly, regardless of user education level, the issue of information quality--hinging on the lynchpin of terminology reflecting that of the user--is critical. Major takeaway for me there. Matthew Ellison’s sessions on embedded help and demos were also impressive. Embedded help that is concise and contextual is definitely a powerful UX enabler, and I’m pleased to say that in Oracle Fusion Applications we have embraced the concept fully. Matthew also mentioned in his session about successful software demos that the principle of modality with demos is a must. Look no further than Oracle User Productivity Kit demos See It!, Try It!, Know It, and Do It! modes, for example. I also found some key takeaways in the presentation by Marie-Louise Flacke on notes and warnings. Here, legal considerations seemed to take precedence over providing any real information to users. I was delighted when Marie-Louise called out the Oracle JDeveloper documentation as an exemplar of how to use notes and instructions instead of trying to scare the bejaysus out of people and not providing them with any real information they’d find useful instead. My own session on designing messages for enterprise applications was well attended. Knowing your user profiles (remember user expertise is the king maker for UA so write for each audience involved), how users really work, the required application business and UI rules, what your application technology supports, and how messages integrate with the enterprise help desk and support policies and you will go much further than relying solely on the guideline of "writing messages in plain language". And, remember the value in warnings and confirmation messages too, and how you can use them smartly. I hope y’all got something from my presentation and from my answers to questions afterwards. Ellis Pratt stole the show with his presentation on applying game theory to software UA, using plenty of colorful, relevant examples (check out the Atlassian and DropBox approaches, for example), and striking just the right balance between theory and practice. Completely agree that the approach to take here is not to make UA itself a game, but to invoke UA as part of a bigger game dynamic (time-to-task completion, personal and communal goals, personal achievement and status, and so on). Sure there are gotchas and limitations to gamification, and we need to do more research. However, we'll hear a lot more about this subject in coming years, particularly in the enterprise space. I hope. I also heard good things about the different sessions about DITA usage (including one by Sonja Fuga that clearly opens the door for major innovation in the community content space using WordPress), the progressive disclosure of information (Cerys Willoughby), an overview of controlled language (or "information quality", as I like to position it) solutions and rationale by Dave Gash, and others. I also spent time chatting with Mike Hamilton of MadCap Software, who showed me a cool demo of their Flare product, and the Lingo translation solution. I liked the idea of their licensing model for workers-on-the-go; that’s smart UX-awareness in itself. Also chatted with Julian Murfitt of Mekon about uptake of DITA in the enterprise space. In all, it's worth attending UA Europe. I was surprised, however, not to see conference topics about mobile UA, community conversation and content, and search in its own right. These are unstoppable forces now, and the latter is pretty central to providing assistance now to all but the most irredentist of hard-copy fetishists or advanced technical or functional users working away on the back end of applications and systems. Only saw one iPad too (says the guy who carries three laptops). Tweeting during the conference was pretty much nonexistent during the event, so no community energy there. Perhaps all this can be addressed next year. I would love to see the next UA Europe event come to Dublin (despite Bloomsday, it's not a bad place place, really) now that hotels are so cheap and all. So, what is my overall impression of the state of user assistance in Europe? Clearly, there are still many people in the industry who feel there is something broken with the traditional forms of user assistance (particularly printed doc) and something needs to be done about it. I would suggest they move on and try and embrace change, instead. Many others see new possibilities, offered by UX and technology, as well as the reality of online user behavior in an increasingly connected world and that is encouraging. Such thought leaders need to be listened to. As Ellis Pratt says in his great book, Trends in Technical Communication - Rethinking Help: “To stay relevant means taking a new perspective on the role (of technical writer), and delivering “products” over and above the traditional manual and online Help file... there are a number of new trends in this field - some complementary, some conflicting. Whatever trends emerge as the norm, it’s likely the status quo will change.” It already has, IMO. I hear similar debates in the professional translation world about the onset of translation crowd sourcing (the Facebook model) and machine translation (trust me, that battle is over). Neither of these initiatives has put anyone out of a job and probably won't, though the nature of the work might change. If anything, such innovations have increased the overall need for professional translators as user expectations rise, new audiences emerge, and organizations need to collate and curate user-generated content, combining it with their own. Perhaps user assistance professionals can learn from other professions and grow accordingly.

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• Time Tracking on an Agile Team

  - by Stephen.Walther

  What’s the best way to handle time-tracking on an Agile team? Your gut reaction to this question might be to resist any type of time-tracking at all. After all, one of the principles of the Agile Manifesto is “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”.  Forcing the developers on your team to track the amount of time that they devote to completing stories or tasks might seem like useless bureaucratic red tape: an impediment to getting real work done. I completely understand this reaction. I’ve been required to use time-tracking software in the past to account for each hour of my workday. It made me feel like Fred Flintstone punching in at the quarry mine and not like a professional. Why You Really Do Need Time-Tracking There are, however, legitimate reasons to track time spent on stories even when you are a member of an Agile team.  First, if you are working with an outside client, you might need to track the number of hours spent on different stories for the purposes of billing. There might be no way to avoid time-tracking if you want to get paid. Second, the Product Owner needs to know when the work on a story has gone over the original time estimated for the story. The Product Owner is concerned with Return On Investment. If the team has gone massively overtime on a story, then the Product Owner has a legitimate reason to halt work on the story and reconsider the story’s business value. Finally, you might want to track how much time your team spends on different types of stories or tasks. For example, if your team is spending 75% of their time doing testing then you might need to bring in more testers. Or, if 10% of your team’s time is expended performing a software build at the end of each iteration then it is time to consider better ways of automating the build process. Time-Tracking in SonicAgile For these reasons, we added time-tracking as a feature to SonicAgile which is our free Agile Project Management tool. We were heavily influenced by Jeff Sutherland (one of the founders of Scrum) in the way that we implemented time-tracking (see his article http://scrum.jeffsutherland.com/2007/03/time-tracking-is-anti-scrum-what-do-you.html). In SonicAgile, time-tracking is disabled by default. If you want to use this feature then the project owner must enable time-tracking in Project Settings. You can choose to estimate using either days or hours. If you are estimating at the level of stories then it makes more sense to choose days. Otherwise, if you are estimating at the level of tasks then it makes more sense to use hours. After you enable time-tracking then you can assign three estimates to a story: Original Estimate – This is the estimate that you enter when you first create a story. You don’t change this estimate. Time Spent – This is the amount of time that you have already devoted to the story. You update the time spent on each story during your daily standup meeting. Time Left – This is the amount of time remaining to complete the story. Again, you update the time left during your daily standup meeting. So when you first create a story, you enter an original estimate that becomes the time left. During each daily standup meeting, you update the time spent and time left for each story on the Kanban. If you had perfect predicative power, then the original estimate would always be the same as the sum of the time spent and the time left. For example, if you predict that a story will take 5 days to complete then on day 3, the story should have 3 days spent and 2 days left. Unfortunately, never in the history of mankind has anyone accurately predicted the exact amount of time that it takes to complete a story. For this reason, SonicAgile does not update the time spent and time left automatically. Each day, during the daily standup, your team should update the time spent and time left for each story. For example, the following table shows the history of the time estimates for a story that was originally estimated to take 3 days but, eventually, takes 5 days to complete: Day Original Estimate Time Spent Time Left Day 1 3 days 0 days 3 days Day 2 3 days 1 day 2 days Day 3 3 days 2 days 2 days Day 4 3 days 3 days 2 days Day 5 3 days 4 days 0 days In the table above, everything goes as predicted until you reach day 3. On day 3, the team realizes that the work will require an additional two days. The situation does not improve on day 4. All of the sudden, on day 5, all of the remaining work gets done. Real work often follows this pattern. There are long periods when nothing gets done punctuated by occasional and unpredictable bursts of progress. We designed SonicAgile to make it as easy as possible to track the time spent and time left on a story. Detecting when a Story Goes Over the Original Estimate Sometimes, stories take much longer than originally estimated. There’s a surprise. For example, you discover that a new software component is incompatible with existing software components. Or, you discover that you have to go through a month-long certification process to finish a story. In those cases, the Product Owner has a legitimate reason to halt work on a story and re-evaluate the business value of the story. For example, the Product Owner discovers that a story will require weeks to implement instead of days, then the story might not be worth the expense. SonicAgile displays a warning on both the Backlog and the Kanban when the time spent on a story goes over the original estimate. An icon of a clock is displayed. Time-Tracking and Tasks Another optional feature of SonicAgile is tasks. If you enable Tasks in Project Settings then you can break stories into one or more tasks. You can perform time-tracking at the level of a story or at the level of a task. If you don’t break a story into tasks then you can enter the time left and time spent for the story. As soon as you break a story into tasks, then you can no longer enter the time left and time spent at the level of the story. Instead, the time left and time spent for a story is rolled up from its tasks. On the Kanban, you can see how the time left and time spent for each task gets rolled up into each story. The progress bar for the story is rolled up from the progress bars for each task. The original estimate is never rolled up – even when you break a story into tasks. A story’s original estimate is entered separately from the original estimates of each of the story’s tasks. Summary Not every Agile team can avoid time-tracking. You might be forced to track time to get paid, to detect when you are spending too much time on a particular story, or to track the amount of time that you are devoting to different types of tasks. We designed time-tracking in SonicAgile to require the least amount of work to track the information that you need. Time-tracking is an optional feature. If you enable time-tracking then you can track the original estimate, time left, and time spent for each story and task. You can use time-tracking with SonicAgile for free. Register at http://SonicAgile.com.

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• Week in Geek: IPv6 Capable Smartphones Compromise User Privacy Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to “clone a disk, resize static windows, and create system function shortcuts”, use 45 different services, sites, and apps to help read favorite sites, add MP3 support to Audacity (for saving in MP3 format), install a Wii game loader for easy backups and fast load times, create a Blue Screen of Death in any color, and more. Photo by legofenris. Weekly News Links Photo by The H Security. IPv6: Smartphones compromise users’ privacy Since version 4 of the iOS operating system, Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods have been capable of handling IPv6, and most Android devices have been capable since version 2.1. However, the operating systems transfer an ID that discloses information about their users. Dumb phones can be attacked too Much of the discussion of security threats to mobile phones revolves around smartphones, but researchers have found that less advanced “feature phones,” still used by the majority of people around the world, also are vulnerable to attack. SCADA exploit – the dragon awakes The recent publication of an exploit for KingView, a software package for visualising industrial process control systems, appears to be having an effect. Threatpost reports that both the Chinese vendor Wellintech and Chinese CERT (CN-CERT) have now reacted. Sophos: Spam to get more malicious Spam is becoming more malicious in nature as trickery tactics change in line with current user interests, according to a new report released Tuesday by Sophos. Global spam traffic rebounds as Rustock wakes Spam is on the rise after the Rustock botnet awoke from its Christmas slumber, according to Symantec. Cracking WPA keys in the cloud At the forthcoming Black Hat conference, blogger Thomas Roth plans to demonstrate how weak WPA PSKs can be cracked quickly and easily using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service. Microsoft Security Advisory: Vulnerability in Internet Explorer could allow remote code execution Provides a link to more details about the vulnerability and shows a work-around/fix for the problem. Adobe plans to make it easier to delete Flash cookies in web browsers The new API, NPAPI:ClearSiteData, will allow Flash cookies – also known as Local Shared Objects (LSO) – to be deleted directly in the browser’s settings. Firefox beta getting new database standard The ninth beta version of Firefox is set to get support for a standard called IndexedDB that provides a database interface useful for offline data storage and other tasks needing information on a browser’s computer. MetroPCS accused of blocking certain Net content MetroPCS is violating the FCC’s recently approved Net neutrality rules by blocking certain Internet content, say several public interest groups. Server and Tools chief Muglia to leave Microsoft in summer 2011 Microsoft veteran and Server & Tools Business (STB) President Bob Muglia is leaving Microsoft, according to an email that CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees on January 10. Report: DOJ nearing decision on Google-ITA The U.S. Department of Justice is gearing up for a possible formal antitrust investigation into whether or not Google should be allowed to purchase travel software company ITA Software, according to a report. South Korea says Google Street View broke law Police in South Korea reportedly say Google broke the country’s law when its Street View service captured personal data from unsecure Wi-Fi networks. The backlash over Google’s HTML5 video bet Choosing strategies based on what you believe to be long-term benefits is generally a good idea when running a business, but if you manage to alienate the world in the process, the long term may become irrelevant. Google answers critics on HTML5 Web video move Google responded to critics of its decision to drop support for a popular HTML5 video codec by declaring that a royalty-supported standard for Web video will hold the Web hostage. Random TinyHacker Links A Special GiveAway: a Great Book & Great Security Software The team from 7 Tutorials has a special giveaway running during the month of January. Signed copies of their latest book, full 1-year licenses of BitDefender Internet Security 2011 and free 3-month trials for everyone willing to participate. One Click Rooting For Android Phones Here’s a nice tool that helps you root your Android phone effortlessly. New Angry Birds Free version 1.0 Available in the App Store. Google Code University Learn programming at Google Code University. Capture and Share Your Favorite Part Of a YouTube Video SnipSnip.it lets you share only the part of the video that you like. Super User Questions More great questions and answers from this past week’s popular topics at Super User. What are the Windows A: and B: drives used for? Does OS X support linux-like features? What is the easiest way to make a backup of an entire hard disk? Will shifting from Wireless to Wired network result in better performance? Is it legal to install Windows 7 Home Premium Retail inside VMware virtual machine? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Enjoy reading through our hottest articles from this past week. The 50 Best Ways to Disable Built-in Windows Features You Don’t Want The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal One Year Ago on How-To Geek More great articles from one year ago filled with helpful geeky goodness for you to enjoy. Share Text & Images the Easy Way with JustPaste.it Start Portable Firefox in Safe Mode Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate Available, Here’s How to Fix Your Incompatible Extensions Protect Your Computer from “Little Hands” with KidSafe Lock Prying Eyes Out of Your Minimized Windows Custom Crocheted Cylon-Cthulhu Hybrid What happens when you let your Cylon Centurion figure and your crocheted Cthulhu spend too many lonely nights together? A Cylon-Cthulhu hybrid, of course! You can get your own from the Cthulhu Chick store over on Etsy. Note: This is not an ad…Ruth is a friend of ours, and this Cylon-Cthulhu hybrid makes the perfect guard for the new MVP trophy in our office. The Geek Note Whether it is a geeky indoor project or just getting outside, we hope that you and your families have a terrific fun-filled weekend! Remember to keep sending those great tips in to us at [email protected]. Photo by qwrrty. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Upgrade Windows 7 Easily (And Understand Whether You Should) The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal Install a Wii Game Loader for Easy Backups and Fast Load Times The Best of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 The Worst of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in 2011 HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy Firefox 4.0 Beta 9 Available for Download – Get Your Copy Now The Frustrations of a Computer Literate Watching a Newbie Use a Computer [Humorous Video] Season0nPass Jailbreaks Current Gen Apple TVs IBM’s Jeopardy Playing Computer Watson Shows The Pros How It’s Done [Video] Tranquil Juice Drop Abstract Wallpaper Pulse Is a Sleek Newsreader for iOS and Android Devices

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• apache mod_rewrite rule in httpd.conf for modifying some paths, but not others

  - by wallyk

  I'm having quite a challenge creating an appropriate rewrite rule for Apache/2.2.14 on Fedora 10. I'm working through the CodeIgniter-Doctrine tutorial which uses an .htaccess file. (Search for Removing “index.php” from CodeIgniter urls about 10% down.) But since that's not recommended for a production server, I'm trying to tweak it to work in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName ci_doctrine DocumentRoot /var/www/html/ci_doctrine ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/cid-error_log CustomLog /var/log/httpd/cid-access_log common <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine on RewriteLog /var/log/httpd/cid_rewrite RewriteLogLevel 9 # RewriteCond ^/css/style.css$ (these have bad syntax, but that's beside the point) # RewriteRule ^/css/style.css$ /css/style.css [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L] </IfModule> <IfModule !mod_rewrite.c> ErrorDocument 404 /ci_doctrine/index.php </IfModule> </VirtualHost> It seems like the tutorial .htaccess rules properly test for existing files and then not alter the URL in such cases, but the rewrite log says that the conditions are true (that is, the file does not exist) even though it's there. 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /login 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (3) applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '/login' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (4) RewriteCond: input='/login' pattern='!-f' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (4) RewriteCond: input='/login' pattern='!-d' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) rewrite '/login' -> '/index.php//login' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) local path result: /index.php//login 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) prefixed with document_root to /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/login 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (1) go-ahead with /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/login [OK] 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /login 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (3) applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '/login' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (4) RewriteCond: input='/login' pattern='!-f' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (4) RewriteCond: input='/login' pattern='!-d' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) rewrite '/login' -> '/index.php//login' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) local path result: /index.php//login 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) prefixed with document_root to /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/login 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:56 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (1) go-ahead with /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/login [OK] 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /css/style.css 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (3) applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '/css/style.css' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (4) RewriteCond: input='/css/style.css' pattern='!-f' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (4) RewriteCond: input='/css/style.css' pattern='!-d' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) rewrite '/css/style.css' -> '/index.php//css/style.css' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) local path result: /index.php//css/style.css 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (2) prefixed with document_root to /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/css/style.css 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#167e8e0/initial] (1) go-ahead with /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/css/style.css [OK] 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /css/style.css 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (3) applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '/css/style.css' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (4) RewriteCond: input='/css/style.css' pattern='!-f' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (4) RewriteCond: input='/css/style.css' pattern='!-d' => matched 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) rewrite '/css/style.css' -> '/index.php//css/style.css' 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) local path result: /index.php//css/style.css 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (2) prefixed with document_root to /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/css/style.css 127.0.0.1 - - [03/May/2010:23:26:58 --0700] [ci_doctrine/sid#13c1868][rid#16848f8/subreq] (1) go-ahead with /var/www/html/ci_doctrine/index.php/css/style.css [OK] The file .../css/style.css was working properly before I started messing around with the rewrite rules, so it should be in the right place. But now the path is always munged up by the rewriting, though the virtual components below index.php are properly translated. What am I doing wrong?

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• Need some help on how to replay the last game of a java maze game

  - by Marty

  Hello, I am working on creating a Java maze game for a project. The maze is displayed on the console as standard output not in an applet. I have created most of hte code I need, however I am stuck at one problem and that is I need a user to be able to replay the last game i.e redraw the maze with the users moves but without any input from the user. I am not sure on what course of action to take, i was thinking about copying each users move or the position of each move into another array, as you can see i have 2 variables which hold the position of the player, plyrX and plyrY do you think copying these values into a new array after each move would solve my problem and how would i go about this? I have updated my code, apologies about the textIO.java class not being present, not sure how to resolve that exept post a link to TextIO.java [TextIO.java][1] My code below is updated with a new array of type char to hold values from the original maze (read in from text file and displayed using unicode characters) and also to new variables c_plyrX and c_plyrY which I am thinking should hold the values of plyrX and plyrY and copy them into the new array. When I try to call the replayGame(); method from the menu the maze loads for a second then the console exits so im not sure what I am doing wrong Thanks public class MazeGame { //unicode characters that will define the maze walls, //pathways, and in game characters. final static char WALL = '\u2588'; //wall final static char PATH = '\u2591'; //pathway final static char PLAYER = '\u25EF'; //player final static char ENTRANCE = 'E'; //entrance final static char EXIT = '\u2716'; //exit //declaring member variables which will hold the maze co-ordinates //X = rows, Y = columns static int entX = 0; //entrance X co-ordinate static int entY = 1; //entrance y co-ordinate static int plyrX = 0; static int plyrY = 1; static int exitX = 24; //exit X co-ordinate static int exitY = 37; //exit Y co-ordinate //static member variables which hold maze values //used so values can be accessed from different methods static int rows; //rows variable static int cols; //columns variable static char[][] maze; //defines 2 dimensional array to hold the maze //variables that hold player movement values static char dir; //direction static int spaces; //amount of spaces user can travel //variable to hold amount of moves the user has taken; static int movesTaken = 0; //new array to hold player moves for replaying game static char[][] mazeCopy; static int c_plyrX; static int c_plyrY; /** userMenu method for displaying the user menu which will provide various options for * the user to choose such as play a maze game, get instructions, etc. */ public static void userMenu(){ TextIO.putln("Maze Game"); TextIO.putln("*********"); TextIO.putln("Choose an option."); TextIO.putln(""); TextIO.putln("1. Play the Maze Game."); TextIO.putln("2. View Instructions."); TextIO.putln("3. Replay the last game."); TextIO.putln("4. Exit the Maze Game."); TextIO.putln(""); int option; //variable for holding users option TextIO.put("Type your choice: "); option = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets users option //switch statement for processing menu options switch(option){ case 1: playMazeGame(); case 2: instructions(); case 3: if (c_plyrX == plyrX && c_plyrY == plyrY)replayGame(); else { TextIO.putln("Option not available yet, you need to play a game first."); TextIO.putln(); userMenu(); } case 4: System.exit(0); //exits the user out of the console default: TextIO.put("Option must be 1, 2, 3 or 4"); } } //end of userMenu /**main method, will call the userMenu and get the users choice and call * the relevant method to execute the users choice. */ public static void main(String[]args){ userMenu(); //calls the userMenu method } //end of main method /**instructions method, displays instructions on how to play * the game to the user/ */ public static void instructions(){ TextIO.putln("To beat the Maze Game you have to move your character"); TextIO.putln("through the maze and reach the exit in as few moves as possible."); TextIO.putln(""); TextIO.putln("Your characer is displayed as a " + PLAYER); TextIO.putln("The maze exit is displayed as a " + EXIT); TextIO.putln("Reach the exit and you have won escaped the maze."); TextIO.putln("To control your character type the direction you want to go"); TextIO.putln("and how many spaces you want to move"); TextIO.putln("for example 'D3' will move your character"); TextIO.putln("down 3 spaces."); TextIO.putln("Remember you can't walk through walls!"); boolean insOption; //boolean variable TextIO.putln(""); TextIO.put("Do you want to play the Maze Game now? (Y or N) "); insOption = TextIO.getlnBoolean(); if (insOption == true)playMazeGame(); else userMenu(); } //end of instructions method /**playMazeGame method, calls the loadMaze method and the charMove method * to start playing the Maze Game. */ public static void playMazeGame(){ loadMaze(); plyrMoves(); } //end of playMazeGame method /**loadMaze method, loads the 39x25 maze from the MazeGame.txt text file * and inserts values from the text file into the maze array and * displays the maze on screen using the unicode block characters. * plyrX and plyrY variables are set at their staring co ordinates so that when * a game is completed and the user selects to play a new game * the player character will always be at position 01. */ public static void loadMaze(){ plyrX = 0; plyrY = 1; TextIO.readFile("MazeGame.txt"); //now reads from the external MazeGame.txt file rows = TextIO.getInt(); //gets the number of rows from text file to create X dimensions cols = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets number of columns from text file to create Y dimensions maze = new char[rows][cols]; //creates maze array of base type char with specified dimnensions //loop to process the array and read in values from the text file. for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ maze[i][j] = TextIO.getChar(); } TextIO.getln(); } //end for loop TextIO.readStandardInput(); //closes MazeGame.txt file and reads from //standard input. //loop to process the array values and display as unicode characters for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ if (i == plyrX && j == plyrY){ plyrX = i; plyrY = j; TextIO.put(PLAYER); //puts the player character at player co-ords } else{ if (maze[i][j] == '0') TextIO.putf("%c",WALL); //puts wall block if (maze[i][j] == '1') TextIO.putf("%c",PATH); //puts path block if (maze[i][j] == '2') { entX = i; entY = j; TextIO.putf("%c",ENTRANCE); //puts entrance character } if (maze[i][j] == '3') { exitX = i; //holds value of exit exitY = j; //co-ordinates TextIO.putf("%c",EXIT); //puts exit character } } } TextIO.putln(); } //end for loop } //end of loadMaze method /**redrawMaze method, method for redrawing the maze after each move. * */ public static void redrawMaze(){ TextIO.readFile("MazeGame.txt"); //now reads from the external MazeGame.txt file rows = TextIO.getInt(); //gets the number of rows from text file to create X dimensions cols = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets number of columns from text file to create Y dimensions maze = new char[rows][cols]; //creates maze array of base type char with specified dimnensions //loop to process the array and read in values from the text file. for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ maze[i][j] = TextIO.getChar(); } TextIO.getln(); } //end for loop TextIO.readStandardInput(); //closes MazeGame.txt file and reads from //standard input. //loop to process the array values and display as unicode characters for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ if (i == plyrX && j == plyrY){ plyrX = i; plyrY = j; TextIO.put(PLAYER); //puts the player character at player co-ords } else{ if (maze[i][j] == '0') TextIO.putf("%c",WALL); //puts wall block if (maze[i][j] == '1') TextIO.putf("%c",PATH); //puts path block if (maze[i][j] == '2') { entX = i; entY = j; TextIO.putf("%c",ENTRANCE); //puts entrance character } if (maze[i][j] == '3') { exitX = i; //holds value of exit exitY = j; //co-ordinates TextIO.putf("%c",EXIT); //puts exit character } } } TextIO.putln(); } //end for loop } //end redrawMaze method /**replay game method * */ public static void replayGame(){ c_plyrX = plyrX; c_plyrY = plyrY; TextIO.readFile("MazeGame.txt"); //now reads from the external MazeGame.txt file rows = TextIO.getInt(); //gets the number of rows from text file to create X dimensions cols = TextIO.getlnInt(); //gets number of columns from text file to create Y dimensions mazeCopy = new char[rows][cols]; //creates maze array of base type char with specified dimnensions //loop to process the array and read in values from the text file. for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ mazeCopy[i][j] = TextIO.getChar(); } TextIO.getln(); } //end for loop TextIO.readStandardInput(); //closes MazeGame.txt file and reads from //standard input. //loop to process the array values and display as unicode characters for (int i = 0; i<rows; i++){ for (int j = 0; j<cols; j++){ if (i == c_plyrX && j == c_plyrY){ c_plyrX = i; c_plyrY = j; TextIO.put(PLAYER); //puts the player character at player co-ords } else{ if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '0') TextIO.putf("%c",WALL); //puts wall block if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '1') TextIO.putf("%c",PATH); //puts path block if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '2') { entX = i; entY = j; TextIO.putf("%c",ENTRANCE); //puts entrance character } if (mazeCopy[i][j] == '3') { exitX = i; //holds value of exit exitY = j; //co-ordinates TextIO.putf("%c",EXIT); //puts exit character } } } TextIO.putln(); } //end for loop } //end replayGame method /**plyrMoves method, method for moving the players character * around the maze. */ public static void plyrMoves(){ int nplyrX = plyrX; int nplyrY = plyrY; int pMoves; direction(); //UP if (dir == 'U' || dir == 'u'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for(pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again."); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrX =plyrX + 1; } else { plyrX = plyrX-spaces; c_plyrX = plyrX; movesTaken++; } } }//end UP if //DOWN if (dir == 'D' || dir == 'd'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for (pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves ++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again"); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrX = plyrX+1; } else{ plyrX = plyrX+spaces; c_plyrX = plyrX; movesTaken++; } } } //end DOWN if //LEFT if (dir == 'L' || dir =='l'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for (pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again"); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrY = plyrY + 1; } else{ plyrY = plyrY-spaces; c_plyrY = plyrY; movesTaken++; } } } //end LEFT if //RIGHT if (dir == 'R' || dir == 'r'){ nplyrX = plyrX; nplyrY = plyrY; for (pMoves = 0; pMoves <= spaces; pMoves++){ if (maze[nplyrX][nplyrY] == '0'){ TextIO.putln("Invalid move, try again."); } else if (pMoves != spaces){ nplyrY += 1; } else{ plyrY = plyrY+spaces; c_plyrY = plyrY; movesTaken++; } } } //end RIGHT if //prints message if player escapes from the maze. if (maze[plyrX][plyrY] == '3'){ TextIO.putln("****Congratulations****"); TextIO.putln(); TextIO.putln("You have escaped from the maze."); TextIO.putln(); userMenu(); } else{ movesTaken++; redrawMaze(); plyrMoves(); } } //end of plyrMoves method /**direction, method * */ public static char direction(){ TextIO.putln("Enter the direction you wish to move in and the distance"); TextIO.putln("i.e D3 = move down 3 spaces"); TextIO.putln("U - Up, D - Down, L - Left, R - Right: "); dir = TextIO.getChar(); if (dir =='U' || dir == 'D' || dir == 'L' || dir == 'R' || dir == 'u' || dir == 'd' || dir == 'l' || dir == 'r'){ spacesMoved(); } else{ loadMaze(); TextIO.putln("Invalid direction!"); TextIO.put("Direction must be one of U, D, L or R"); direction(); } return dir; //returns the value of dir (direction) } //end direction method /**spaces method, gets the amount of spaces the user wants to move * */ public static int spacesMoved(){ TextIO.putln(" "); spaces = TextIO.getlnInt(); if (spaces <= 0){ loadMaze(); TextIO.put("Invalid amount of spaces, try again"); spacesMoved(); } return spaces; } //end spacesMoved method } //end of MazeGame class

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• jQuery Toggle with Cookie

  - by Cameron

  I have the following toggle system, but I want it to remember what was open/closed using the jQuery cookie plugin. So for example if I open a toggle and then navigate away from the page, when I come back it should be still open. This is code I have so far, but it's becoming rather confusing, some help would be much appreciated thanks. jQuery.cookie = function (name, value, options) { if (typeof value != 'undefined') { options = options || {}; if (value === null) { value = ''; options = $.extend({}, options); options.expires = -1; } var expires = ''; if (options.expires && (typeof options.expires == 'number' || options.expires.toUTCString)) { var date; if (typeof options.expires == 'number') { date = new Date(); date.setTime(date.getTime() + (options.expires * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000)); } else { date = options.expires; } expires = '; expires=' + date.toUTCString(); } var path = options.path ? '; path=' + (options.path) : ''; var domain = options.domain ? '; domain=' + (options.domain) : ''; var secure = options.secure ? '; secure' : ''; document.cookie = [name, '=', encodeURIComponent(value), expires, path, domain, secure].join(''); } else { var cookieValue = null; if (document.cookie && document.cookie != '') { var cookies = document.cookie.split(';'); for (var i = 0; i < cookies.length; i++) { var cookie = jQuery.trim(cookies[i]); if (cookie.substring(0, name.length + 1) == (name + '=')) { cookieValue = decodeURIComponent(cookie.substring(name.length + 1)); break; } } } return cookieValue; } }; // var showTop = $.cookie('showTop'); if ($.cookie('showTop') == 'collapsed') { $(".toggle_container").hide(); $(".trigger").toggle(function () { $(this).addClass("active"); }, function () { $(this).removeClass("active"); }); $(".trigger").click(function () { $(this).next(".toggle_container").slideToggle("slow,"); }); } else { $(".toggle_container").show(); $(".trigger").toggle(function () { $(this).addClass("active"); }, function () { $(this).removeClass("active"); }); $(".trigger").click(function () { $(this).next(".toggle_container").slideToggle("slow,"); }); }; $(".trigger").click(function () { if ($(".toggle_container").is(":hidden")) { $(this).next(".toggle_container").slideToggle("slow,"); $.cookie('showTop', 'expanded'); } else { $(this).next(".toggle_container").slideToggle("slow,"); $.cookie('showTop', 'collapsed'); } return false; }); and this is a snippet of the HTML it works with: <li> <label for="small"><input type="checkbox" id="small" /> Small</label> <a class="trigger" href="#">Toggle</a> <div class="toggle_container"> <p class="funding"><strong>Funding</strong></p> <ul class="childs"> <li class="child"> <label for="fully-funded1"><input type="checkbox" id="fully-funded1" /> Fully Funded</label> <a class="trigger" href="#">Toggle</a> <div class="toggle_container"> <p class="days"><strong>Days</strong></p> <ul class="days clearfix"> <li><label for="1pre16">Pre 16</label> <input type="text" id="1pre16" /></li> <li><label for="2post16">Post 16</label> <input type="text" id="2post16" /></li> <li><label for="3teacher">Teacher</label> <input type="text" id="3teacher" /></li> </ul> </div> </li>

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• The Application Architecture Domain

  - by Michael Glas

  I have been spending a lot of time thinking about Application Architecture in the context of EA. More specifically, as an Enterprise Architect, what do I need to consider when looking at/defining/designing the Application Architecture Domain?There are several definitions of Application Architecture. TOGAF says “The objective here [in Application Architecture] is to define the major kinds of application system necessary to process the data and support the business”. FEA says the Application Architecture “Defines the applications needed to manage the data and support the business functions”.I agree with these definitions. They reflect what the Application Architecture domain does. However, they need to be decomposed to be practical.I find it useful to define a set of views into the Application Architecture domain. These views reflect what an EA needs to consider when working with/in the Applications Architecture domain. These viewpoints are, at a high level:Capability View: This view reflects how applications alignment with business capabilities. It is a super set of the following views when viewed in aggregate. By looking at the Application Architecture domain in terms of the business capabilities it supports, you get a good perspective on how those applications are directly supporting the business.Technology View: The technology view reflects the underlying technology that makes up the applications. Based on the number of rationalization activities I have seen (more specifically application rationalization), the phrase “complexity equals cost” drives the importance of the technology view, especially when attempting to reduce that complexity through standardization type activities. Some of the technology components to be considered are: Software: The application itself as well as the software the application relies on to function (web servers, application servers). Infrastructure: The underlying hardware and network components required by the application and supporting application software. Development: How the application is created and maintained. This encompasses development components that are part of the application itself (i.e. customizable functions), as well as bolt on development through web services, API’s, etc. The maintenance process itself also falls under this view. Integration: The interfaces that the application provides for integration as well as the integrations to other applications and data sources the application requires to function. Type: Reflects the kind of application (mash-up, 3 tiered, etc). (Note: functional type [CRM, HCM, etc.] are reflected under the capability view). Organization View: Organizations are comprised of people and those people use applications to do their jobs. Trying to define the application architecture domain without taking the organization that will use/fund/change it into consideration is like trying to design a car without thinking about who will drive it (i.e. you may end up building a formula 1 car for a family of 5 that is really looking for a minivan). This view reflects the people aspect of the application. It includes: Ownership: Who ‘owns’ the application? This will usually reflect primary funding and utilization but not always. Funding: Who funds both the acquisition/creation as well as the on-going maintenance (funding to create/change/operate)? Change: Who can/does request changes to the application and what process to the follow? Utilization: Who uses the application, how often do they use it, and how do they use it? Support: Which organization is responsible for the on-going support of the application? Information View: Whether or not you subscribe to the view that “information drives the enterprise”, it is a fact that information is critical. The management, creation, and organization of that information are primary functions of enterprise applications. This view reflects how the applications are tied to information (or at a higher level – how the Application Architecture domain relates to the Information Architecture domain). It includes: Access: The application is the mechanism by which end users access information. This could be through a primary application (i.e. CRM application), or through an information access type application (a BI application as an example). Creation: Applications create data in order to provide information to end-users. (I.e. an application creates an order to be used by an end-user as part of the fulfillment process). Consumption: Describes the data required by applications to function (i.e. a product id is required by a purchasing application to create an order. Application Service View: Organizations today are striving to be more agile. As an EA, I need to provide an architecture that supports this agility. One of the primary ways to achieve the required agility in the application architecture domain is through the use of ‘services’ (think SOA, web services, etc.). Whether it is through building applications from the ground up utilizing services, service enabling an existing application, or buying applications that are already ‘service enabled’, compartmentalizing application functions for re-use helps enable flexibility in the use of those applications in support of the required business agility. The applications service view consists of: Services: Here, I refer to the generic definition of a service “a set of related software functionalities that can be reused for different purposes, together with the policies that should control its usage”. Functions: The activities within an application that are not available / applicable for re-use. This view is helpful when identifying duplication functions between applications that are not service enabled. Delivery Model View: It is hard to talk about EA today without hearing the terms ‘cloud’ or shared services.  Organizations are looking at the ways their applications are delivered for several reasons, to reduce cost (both CAPEX and OPEX), to improve agility (time to market as an example), etc.  From an EA perspective, where/how an application is deployed has impacts on the overall enterprise architecture. From integration concerns to SLA requirements to security and compliance issues, the Enterprise Architect needs to factor in how applications are delivered when designing the Enterprise Architecture. This view reflects how applications are delivered to end-users. The delivery model view consists of different types of delivery mechanisms/deployment options for applications: Traditional: Reflects non-cloud type delivery options. The most prevalent consists of an application running on dedicated hardware (usually specific to an environment) for a single consumer. Private Cloud: The application runs on infrastructure provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers. Public Cloud: The application runs on infrastructure provisioned for open use by the general public. Hybrid: The application is deployed on two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability. While by no means comprehensive, I find that applying these views to the application domain gives a good understanding of what an EA needs to consider when effecting changes to the Application Architecture domain.Finally, the application architecture domain is one of several architecture domains that an EA must consider when developing an overall Enterprise Architecture. The Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework defines four Primary domains: Business Architecture, Application Architecture, Information Architecture, and Technology Architecture. Each domain links to the others either directly or indirectly at some point. Oracle links them at a high level as follows:Business Capabilities and/or Business Processes (Business Architecture), links to the Applications that enable the capability/process (Applications Architecture – COTS, Custom), links to the Information Assets managed/maintained by the Applications (Information Architecture), links to the technology infrastructure upon which all this runs (Technology Architecture - integration, security, BI/DW, DB infrastructure, deployment model). There are however, times when the EA needs to narrow focus to a particular domain for some period of time. These views help me to do just that.

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• PyML 0.7.2 - How to prevent accuracy from dropping after storing/loading a classifier?

  - by Michael Aaron Safyan

  This is a followup from "Save PyML.classifiers.multi.OneAgainstRest(SVM()) object?". The solution to that question was close, but not quite right, (the SparseDataSet is broken, so attempting to save/load with that dataset container type will fail, no matter what. Also, PyML is inconsistent in terms of whether labels should be numbers or strings... it turns out that the oneAgainstRest function is actually not good enough, because the labels need to be strings and simultaneously convertible to floats, because there are places where it is assumed to be a string and elsewhere converted to float) and so after a great deal of hacking and such I was finally able to figure out a way to save and load my multi-class classifier without it blowing up with an error.... however, although it is no longer giving me an error message, it is still not quite right as the accuracy of the classifier drops significantly when it is saved and then reloaded (so I'm still missing a piece of the puzzle). I am currently using the following custom mutli-class classifier for training, saving, and loading: class SVM(object): def __init__(self,features_or_filename,labels=None,kernel=None): if isinstance(features_or_filename,str): filename=features_or_filename; if labels!=None: raise ValueError,"Labels must be None if loading from a file."; with open(os.path.join(filename,"uniquelabels.list"),"rb") as uniquelabelsfile: self.uniquelabels=sorted(list(set(pickle.load(uniquelabelsfile)))); self.labeltoindex={}; for idx,label in enumerate(self.uniquelabels): self.labeltoindex[label]=idx; self.classifiers=[]; for classidx, classname in enumerate(self.uniquelabels): self.classifiers.append(PyML.classifiers.svm.loadSVM(os.path.join(filename,str(classname)+".pyml.svm"),datasetClass = PyML.VectorDataSet)); else: features=features_or_filename; if labels==None: raise ValueError,"Labels must not be None when training."; self.uniquelabels=sorted(list(set(labels))); self.labeltoindex={}; for idx,label in enumerate(self.uniquelabels): self.labeltoindex[label]=idx; points = [[float(xij) for xij in xi] for xi in features]; self.classifiers=[PyML.SVM(kernel) for label in self.uniquelabels]; for i in xrange(len(self.uniquelabels)): currentlabel=self.uniquelabels[i]; currentlabels=['+1' if k==currentlabel else '-1' for k in labels]; currentdataset=PyML.VectorDataSet(points,L=currentlabels,positiveClass='+1'); self.classifiers[i].train(currentdataset,saveSpace=False); def accuracy(self,pts,labels): logger=logging.getLogger("ml"); correct=0; total=0; classindexes=[self.labeltoindex[label] for label in labels]; h=self.hypotheses(pts); for idx in xrange(len(pts)): if h[idx]==classindexes[idx]: logger.info("RIGHT: Actual \"%s\" == Predicted \"%s\"" %(self.uniquelabels[ classindexes[idx] ], self.uniquelabels[ h[idx] ])); correct+=1; else: logger.info("WRONG: Actual \"%s\" != Predicted \"%s\"" %(self.uniquelabels[ classindexes[idx] ], self.uniquelabels[ h[idx] ])) total+=1; return float(correct)/float(total); def prediction(self,pt): h=self.hypothesis(pt); if h!=None: return self.uniquelabels[h]; return h; def predictions(self,pts): h=self.hypotheses(self,pts); return [self.uniquelabels[x] if x!=None else None for x in h]; def hypothesis(self,pt): bestvalue=None; bestclass=None; dataset=PyML.VectorDataSet([pt]); for classidx, classifier in enumerate(self.classifiers): val=classifier.decisionFunc(dataset,0); if (bestvalue==None) or (val>bestvalue): bestvalue=val; bestclass=classidx; return bestclass; def hypotheses(self,pts): bestvalues=[None for pt in pts]; bestclasses=[None for pt in pts]; dataset=PyML.VectorDataSet(pts); for classidx, classifier in enumerate(self.classifiers): for ptidx in xrange(len(pts)): val=classifier.decisionFunc(dataset,ptidx); if (bestvalues[ptidx]==None) or (val>bestvalues[ptidx]): bestvalues[ptidx]=val; bestclasses[ptidx]=classidx; return bestclasses; def save(self,filename): if not os.path.exists(filename): os.makedirs(filename); with open(os.path.join(filename,"uniquelabels.list"),"wb") as uniquelabelsfile: pickle.dump(self.uniquelabels,uniquelabelsfile,pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL); for classidx, classname in enumerate(self.uniquelabels): self.classifiers[classidx].save(os.path.join(filename,str(classname)+".pyml.svm")); I am using the latest version of PyML (0.7.2, although PyML.__version__ is 0.7.0). When I construct the classifier with a training dataset, the reported accuracy is ~0.87. When I then save it and reload it, the accuracy is less than 0.001. So, there is something here that I am clearly not persisting correctly, although what that may be is completely non-obvious to me. Would you happen to know what that is?

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• Are Chromebooks the New Netbooks, and What Does That Mean?

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Netbooks — small, cheap, slow laptops — were once very popular. They fell out of favor — people bought them because they seemed cheap and portable, but the actual experience was lackluster. Most netbooks now sit unused. Windows netbooks have vanished from stores today, but there’s a new super-cheap laptop — the Chromebook. Chromebook sales numbers are impressive, but their usage statistics tell a different story. Are Chromebooks just the new netbook? The Problem With Netbooks Netbooks seemed appealing, especially in an age before tablets and lightweight ultrabooks. You could buy a netbook for $200 or so and have a portable device that let you get on the Internet. The name “netbook” spelled that out — it was a portable device for getting on the ‘net. They weren’t really that great. The original netbook was a lightweight Asus Eee PC that ran Linux alone and had a small amount of fast flash storage. Netbooks eventually ran heavier Windows XP operating systems — Windows Vista was out, but it was just too bloated to run on netbooks. Manufacturers added slow magnetic hard drives, bloatware, and even DVD drives! They couldn’t run most Windows software very well. The build quality was poor and their keyboards were tiny and cramped. People liked the idea of a lightweight device that let them get on the Internet and loved the cheap price, but the actual experience wasn’t great. Chromebook Sales Chromebook sales numbers seem surprisingly high. NPD reported that Chromebooks were 21% of all notebooks sold in the US in 2013. If you combine laptop and tablet sales into a single statistic, Chromebooks were 9.6% of all those devices sold. That’s 2/3 as many Chromebooks sold as iPads in the US! Of Amazon’s best-selling laptop computers, two of the top three are Chromebooks. These definitely look like successful products. Unlike netbooks, Chromebooks are taking off in a big way in the education market. Many schools are buying Chromebooks for their students instead of more expensive Windows laptops. They’re easier to manage and lock down than Windows laptops, but — more importantly for cash-strapped schools — they’re very cheap. Netbooks never had this sort of momentum in schools. Chromebook Usage Statistics Here’s where the rosy picture of Chromebooks starts to become more realistic. StatCounter’s browser usage statistics show how widely used different operating systems are. For example, Windows 7 has the highest share with 35.71% of web activity in April, 2014. The chart doesn’t even show Chrome OS at all, although there is an “Other” number near the bottom. Click the Download Data link to download a CSV file and we can view more detailed information. Chrome OS only accounted for 0.38% of web usage in April, 2014. Desktop Linux, which people often shrug at, accounted for 1.52% in the same month. To its credit, Chrome OS usage has increased. Chromebooks were widely mocked back in November, 2013 when the sales numbers came out. After all, they only accounted for 0.11% of web usage globally in November, 2013! But Chrome OS numbers have been improving: Nov, 2013: 0.11% Dec, 2013: 0.22% Jan, 2014: 0.31% Feb, 2014: 0.35% Mar, 2014: 0.36% Apr, 2014: 0.38% Chrome OS is climbing, but it’s definitely still in the “Other” category. It isn’t as high as we’d expect to see it with those types of sales numbers. Chromebooks vs. Netbooks Chromebooks are more limited devices than traditional PCs. You can do quite a few things, but you have to do it all using Chrome or Chrome apps. Most people won’t be enabling developer mode and installing a Linux desktop. You don’t have access to the powerful desktop software available for Windows and even Mac OS X. On the other hand, these Chromebooks are less compromised than netbooks in many ways. They come with a lightweight operating system designed for portable, mobile devices. They don’t come packed with any bloatware, like the bloatware you’ll find on competing Windows PCs and the original netbooks. They’re cheaper because the manufacturer doesn’t have to pay for a Windows license. There’s no need for antivirus software weighing the operating system down. They’re larger than the original netbooks, with many of them being 11.6-inches instead of the original 8-inch bodies many older netbooks came with. They have larger, more comfortable keyboards and fast solid-state storage. Really, Chromebooks are what netbooks wanted to be. People didn’t buy netbooks to use typical Windows software — they just wanted a lightweight PC. Of course, for many people, the real successor to netbooks is tablets. If all you want is a portable device to throw in a bag so you can get online, maybe a tablet is better. Where Does This Leave Chromebooks? So, are Chromebooks the new netbooks? It’s a bit early to answer that question. Chromebooks are definitely not out of the competition — their sales look good and their usage share is increasing. On the other hand, Chrome OS is still pretty far behind. They’re not catching fire like tablets did. Maybe netbooks were just before their time and Chromebooks were what they were always meant to be. Just as Microsoft’s Windows XP tablets failed, Windows XP netbooks also failed. Tablets took off with a more refined operating system on better hardware years later. “Netbooks” — or Chromebooks — are now taking off with a more purpose-built operating system on better hardware, too. It’s hard to count Chromebooks out because they provide a much better experience than netbooks ever did. If you’re one of the people who wants to use old Windows desktop apps on your portable laptop, you may think netbooks were better — but most people don’t want that. But maybe people either want a full desktop PC experience or a full mobile tablet experience. Is there a place for a laptop with a keyboard that can only view websites? We’ll have to wait and see. Image Credit: Kevin Jarret on Flickr, Clive Darra on Flickr, Sean Freese on Flickr

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