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• Azure Grid Computing - Worker Roles as HPC Compute Nodes

  - by JoshReuben

  Overview ·        With HPC 2008 R2 SP1 You can add Azure worker roles as compute nodes in a local Windows HPC Server cluster. ·        The subscription for Windows Azure like any other Azure Service - charged for the time that the role instances are available, as well as for the compute and storage services that are used on the nodes. ·        Win-Win ? - Azure charges the computer hour cost (according to vm size) amortized over a month – so you save on purchasing compute node hardware. Microsoft wins because you need to purchase HPC to have a local head node for managing this compute cluster grid distributed in the cloud. ·        Blob storage is used to hold input & output files of each job. I can see how Parametric Sweep HPC jobs can be supported (where the same job is run multiple times on each node against different input units), but not MPI.NET (where different HPC Job instances function as coordinated agents and conduct master-slave inter-process communication), unless Azure is somehow tunneling MPI communication through inter-WorkerRole Azure Queues. ·        this is not the end of the story for Azure Grid Computing. If MS requires you to purchase a local HPC license (and administrate it), what's to stop a 3rd party from doing this and encapsulating exposing HPC WCF Broker Service to you for managing compute nodes? If MS doesn’t  provide head node as a service, someone else will! Process ·        requires creation of a worker node template that specifies a connection to an existing subscription for Windows Azure + an availability policy for the worker nodes. ·        After worker nodes are added to the cluster, you can start them, which provisions the Windows Azure role instances, and then bring them online to run HPC cluster jobs. ·        A Windows Azure worker role instance runs a HPC compatible Azure guest operating system which runs on the VMs that host your service. The guest operating system is updated monthly. You can choose to upgrade the guest OS for your service automatically each time an update is released - All role instances defined by your service will run on the guest operating system version that you specify. see Windows Azure Guest OS Releases and SDK Compatibility Matrix (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=190549). ·        use the hpcpack command to upload file packages and install files to run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Requirements ·        assuming you have an azure subscription account and the HPC head node installed and configured. ·        Install HPC Pack 2008 R2 SP 1 -  see Microsoft HPC Pack 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 Release Notes (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=202812). ·        Configure the head node to connect to the Internet - connectivity is provided by the connection of the head node to the enterprise network. You may need to configure a proxy client on the head node. Any cluster network topology (1-5) is supported). ·        Configure the firewall - allow outbound TCP traffic on the following ports: 80,       443, 5901, 5902, 7998, 7999 ·        Note: HPC Server  uses Admin Mode (Elevated Privileges) in Windows Azure to give the service administrator of the subscription the necessary privileges to initialize HPC cluster services on the worker nodes. ·        Obtain a Windows Azure subscription certificate - the Windows Azure subscription must be configured with a public subscription (API) certificate -a valid X.509 certificate with a key size of at least 2048 bits. Generate a self-sign certificate & upload a .cer file to the Windows Azure Portal Account page > Manage my API Certificates link. see Using the Windows Azure Service Management API (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=205526). ·        import the certificate with an associated private key on the HPC cluster head node - into the trusted root store of the local computer account. Obtain Windows Azure Connection Information for HPC Server ·        required for each worker node template ·        copy from azure portal - Get from: navigation pane > Hosted Services > Storage Accounts & CDN ·        Subscription ID - a 32-char hex string in the form xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx. In Properties pane. ·        Subscription certificate thumbprint - a 40-char hex string (you need to remove spaces). In Management Certificates > Properties pane. ·        Service name - the value of <ServiceName> configured in the public URL of the service (http://<ServiceName>.cloudapp.net). In Hosted Services > Properties pane. ·        Blob Storage account name - the value of <StorageAccountName> configured in the public URL of the account (http://<StorageAccountName>.blob.core.windows.net). In Storage Accounts > Properties pane. Import the Azure Subscription Certificate on the HPC Head Node ·        enable the services for Windows HPC Server  to authenticate properly with the Windows Azure subscription. ·        use the Certificates MMC snap-in to import the certificate to the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store of the local computer account. The certificate must be in PFX format (.pfx or .p12 file) with a private key that is protected by a password. ·        see Certificates (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=163918). ·        To open the certificates snapin: Run > mmc. File > Add/Remove Snap-in > certificates > Computer account > Local Computer ·        To import the certificate via wizard - Certificates > Trusted Root Certification Authorities > Certificates > All Tasks > Import ·        After the certificate is imported, it appears in the details pane in the Certificates snap-in. You can open the certificate to check its status. Configure a Proxy Client on the HPC Head Node ·        the following Windows HPC Server services must be able to communicate over the Internet (through the firewall) with the services for Windows Azure: HPCManagement, HPCScheduler, HPCBrokerWorker. ·        Create a Windows Azure Worker Node Template ·        Edit HPC node templates in HPC Node Template Editor. ·        Specify: 1) Windows Azure subscription connection info (unique service name) for adding a set of worker nodes to the cluster + 2)worker node availability policy – rules for deploying / removing worker role instances in Windows Azure o   HPC Cluster Manager > Configuration > Navigation Pane > Node Templates > Actions pane > New à Create Node Template Wizard or Edit à Node Template Editor o   Choose Node Template Type page - Windows Azure worker node template o   Specify Template Name page – template name & description o   Provide Connection Information page – Azure Subscription ID (text) & Subscription certificate (browse) o   Provide Service Information page - Azure service name + blob storage account name (optionally click Retrieve Connection Information to get list of available from azure – possible LRT). o   Configure Azure Availability Policy page - how Windows Azure worker nodes start / stop (online / offline the worker role instance -  add / remove) – manual / automatic o   for automatic - In the Configure Windows Azure Worker Availability Policy dialog -select days and hours for worker nodes to start / stop. ·        To validate the Windows Azure connection information, on the template's Connection Information tab > Validate connection information. ·        You can upload a file package to the storage account that is specified in the template - eg upload application or service files that will run on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). Add Azure Worker Nodes to the HPC Cluster ·        Use the Add Node Wizard – specify: 1) the worker node template, 2) The number of worker nodes   (within the quota of role instances in the azure subscription), and 3)           The VM size of the worker nodes : ExtraSmall, Small, Medium, Large, or ExtraLarge.  ·        to add worker nodes of different sizes, must run the Add Node Wizard separately for each size. ·        All worker nodes that are added to the cluster by using a specific worker node template define a set of worker nodes that will be deployed and managed together in Windows Azure when you start the nodes. This includes worker nodes that you add later by using the worker node template and, if you choose, worker nodes of different sizes. You cannot start, stop, or delete individual worker nodes. ·        To add Windows Azure worker nodes o   In HPC Cluster Manager: Node Management > Actions pane > Add Node à Add Node Wizard o   Select Deployment Method page - Add Azure Worker nodes o   Specify New Nodes page - select a worker node template, specify the number and size of the worker nodes ·        After you add worker nodes to the cluster, they are in the Not-Deployed state, and they have a health state of Unapproved. Before you can use the worker nodes to run jobs, you must start them and then bring them online. ·        Worker nodes are numbered consecutively in a naming series that begins with the root name AzureCN – this is non-configurable. Deploying Windows Azure Worker Nodes ·        To deploy the role instances in Windows Azure - start the worker nodes added to the HPC cluster and bring the nodes online so that they are available to run cluster jobs. This can be configured in the HPC Azure Worker Node Template – Azure Availability Policy -  to be automatic or manual. ·        The Start, Stop, and Delete actions take place on the set of worker nodes that are configured by a specific worker node template. You cannot perform one of these actions on a single worker node in a set. You also cannot perform a single action on two sets of worker nodes (specified by two different worker node templates). ·        ·          Starting a set of worker nodes deploys a set of worker role instances in Windows Azure, which can take some time to complete, depending on the number of worker nodes and the performance of Windows Azure. ·        To start worker nodes manually and bring them online o   In HPC Node Management > Navigation Pane > Nodes > List / Heat Map view - select one or more worker nodes. o   Actions pane > Start – in the Start Azure Worker Nodes dialog, select a node template. o   the state of the worker nodes changes from Not Deployed to track the provisioning progress – worker node Details Pane > Provisioning Log tab. o   If there were errors during the provisioning of one or more worker nodes, the state of those nodes is set to Unknown and the node health is set to Unapproved. To determine the reason for the failure, review the provisioning logs for the nodes. o   After a worker node starts successfully, the node state changes to Offline. To bring the nodes online, select the nodes that are in the Offline state > Bring Online. ·        Troubleshooting o   check node template. o   use telnet to test connectivity: telnet <ServiceName>.cloudapp.net 7999 o   check node status - Deployment status information appears in the service account information in the Windows Azure Portal - HPC queries this -  see  node status information for any failed nodes in HPC Node Management. ·        When role instances are deployed, file packages that were previously uploaded to the storage account using the hpcpack command are automatically installed. You can also upload file packages to storage after the worker nodes are started, and then manually install them on the worker nodes. see hpcpack (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205514). ·        to remove a set of role instances in Windows Azure - stop the nodes by using HPC Cluster Manager (apply the Stop action). This deletes the role instances from the service and changes the state of the worker nodes in the HPC cluster to Not Deployed. ·        Each time that you start a set of worker nodes, two proxy role instances (size Small) are configured in Windows Azure to facilitate communication between HPC Cluster Manager and the worker nodes. The proxy role instances are not listed in HPC Cluster Manager after the worker nodes are added. However, the instances appear in the Windows Azure Portal. The proxy role instances incur charges in Windows Azure along with the worker node instances, and they count toward the quota of role instances in the subscription.

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• MVP Summit 2011 summary and thoughts: The &ldquo;I hope I don&rsquo;t cross a line and lose my MVP status&rdquo; post

  - by George Clingerman

  I've been wanting to write this post summarizing my thoughts about the MVP summit but have been dragging my feet since it's a very difficult one to write. However seeing Andy (http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx) and Catalin (http://www.catalinzima.com/2011/03/mvp-summit-2011/) and Chris (http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx) post about it has encouraged me to finally take the plunge. I'm going to have to write carefully though because I'm going to be dancing around a ton of NDA mine fields as well as having to walk the tight-rope of not sending the wrong message or having people read too much into what I'm saying. I want to note that most of what I'm about to say is just based on my observations, they're not thoughts that Microsoft has asked me to pass along and they're not things I heard Microsoft say. It's just me sharing what I think after going to the MVP summit. Let's start off with a short imaginary question and answer session.     Has the App Hub forums and XBLIG management been rather poor by Microsoft? Yes.     Do I think we're going to see changes to that overnight? No.     Will it continue to look bad from the outside? Somewhat. Confusing right? Well that's kind of how things are right now. Lots of confusion. XNA is doing AWESOME. Like, really, really awesome. As a result of that awesomeness, XNA is on three major platforms: Xbox 360, WP7 and PC. This means that internally Microsoft is really excited and invested in the technology. That's fantastic for XNA and really should show you the future the framework has. It's here to stay. So why are Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers feeling so much pain? The ironic thing is that pain is being caused by the success of XNA. When XNA was just a small thing, there was more freedom and more focus. It was just us and them. We were an only child. Now our family has grown and everyone has and wants some time with XNA. This gets XNA pulled in all directions and as it moves onto new platforms, it plays catch up trying to get those platforms up to speed to where Xbox LIVE Indie Games has grown. Forums, documentation, educational content. They all need to be there because Xbox LIVE Indie Games has all of that and more. Along with the catch up in features/documentation/awesomeness there's the catch up that the people on the team have to play. New platforms and new areas of development mean new players and those new guys don't have the history of being around from the beginning. This leads to a lack of understanding at times just how important some things are because they seem so small and insignificant (Rich Text defaulting for new forum profiles would be one things that jumps to mind). If you're not aware that the forums have become more than just a basic Q&A, if you're not aware that they're a central hub to a very active community, then you don't understand why that small change should be prioritized over something else. New people have to get caught up and figure out how to make a framework and central forum site work for everyone it's now serving. So yeah, a lot of our pain this last year has been simply that XNA is doing well and XBLIG is doing well so the focus was shifted to catch other things up. It hurts when a parent seems to not have any time for you and they're spending some much time with your new baby brother. Growing pains. All families and in our case our product family experience it to some degree. I think as WP7 matures we'll see the team figuring out how to give everyone the right amount of attention. While we're talking about some of our growing pains, it is also important to note (although not really an excuse) that the Xbox LIVE Arcade developers complain about many of the same things that we do. If you paid attention to talks and information coming out of GDC 2011, most of the the XBLA guys were saying things that sounded eerily similar to what the XBLIG developers are saying (Scott Nichols from GayGamer.net noticed http://twitter.com/#!/NaviFairyGG/status/43540379206811650). Does this mean we should just accept the status quo since we're being treated exactly the same? No way. However it DOES show that the way we're being treated is no indication of the stability and future of the platform, it's just Microsoft dropping the communication ball on two playing fields. We're not alone and we're not even being treated worse. Not great, but also in a weird way a very good sign. Now on to a few tidbits I think I CAN share from the summit (I'm really crossing my fingers I'm not stepping over some NDA line I shouldn't be). First, I discovered that the XBLIG user base is bigger than I personally had originally estimated. I won't give the exact numbers (although we did beg Microsoft to release some of these numbers so maybe someday?) but it was much larger than my original guestimates and I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe some of you guys had the right number when you were guessing, but I know that mine was much too low. And even MORE importantly the number of users/shoppers is growing at a steady pace as well. Our market is growing! That was fantastic news and really something that I had to share. On to the community manager discussion. It was mentioned. I was mentioned. I blushed. Nothing more to report there than the blush in my cheeks was a light crimson color. If I ever see a job description posted for that position I have a resume waiting in the wings. I can't deny that I think that would be my dream job... ...so after I finished blushing, the MVPs did make it very, very clear that the communication has to improve. Community manager or not the single biggest pain point with the Xbox LIVE Indie Game community has been a lack of communication. I have seen dramatic improvement in the team responding to MVPs and I'm even seeing more communication from them on the forums so I'm hoping that's a long term change. I really think they understood the issue, the problem remains how to open that communication channel in a way that was sustainable. I think they'll get it figured out and hopefully that's sooner rather than later. During the summit, you may have seen me tweeting about how I was "that guy" (http://twitter.com/#!/clingermangw/status/42740432471470081). You also may have noticed that Andy and Catalin both mentioned me in their summit write ups. I may have come on a bit strong while I was there...went a little out of character for myself. I've been agitated for a while with the way things have been and I've been listening to you guys and hearing you guys be agitated. I'm also watching some really awesome indie game developers looking elsewhere and leaving the platform. Some of them we might not have been able to keep even with changes, but others are only leaving because of perceptions and lack of communication from Microsoft. And that pisses me off. And I let Microsoft know that I was pissed off. You made your list and I took that list and verbalized it. I verbalized the hell out of it. [It was actually mentioned that I'm a lot nicer on the forums and in email than I am in person...I felt bad about that, but I couldn't stay silent]. Hopefully it did something guys, I really did try hard to get the message across. Along with my agitation, I also brought some pride. I mentioned several things in person to the team that I was particularly proud of. From people in the community that are doing an awesome job, to the re-launch of XboxIndies that was going on that week and even gamers like Steven Hurdle (http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/) who have purchased one XBLIG every day for over 100 days now. The community is freaking rocking it and I made sure to highlight that. So in conclusion, I'd just like to say hang in there (you know, like that picture of the cat). If you've been worried about investing in Xbox LIVE Indie Games because you think it's on shaky ground. It's not. Dream Build Play being about the Xbox 360 should have helped a little to point that out. The team is really scrambling around trying to figure things out and make improvements all around. There’s quite a few new gals and guys and it's going to take them time to catch up and there are a lot of constantly shifting priorities. We all have one toy, one team and we're fighting for time with it. It's also time for the community to continue spreading our wings and going out on our own more often. The Indie Game Winter Uprising was a fantastic example of that. We took things into our own hands and it got noticed and Microsoft got behind it. They do every time we stand up and do something (look at how many Microsoft employees tweeted, wrote about the re-launch of XboxIndies.com or the support I've gotten from them for my weekly XNA Notes). XNA is here to stay, it's time for us to stop being scared of that and figure out how to make our own games the successes they should be. There's definitely a list of things that need to be fixed, things that should be improved and I think we should definitely keep vocal about that with Microsoft. Keep it short, focused and prioritized. There's also a lot of things we can do ourselves while we're waiting on them to fix and change things. Lots of ways we can compensate for particular weaknesses in the channel. The kind of stuff that we can step up and do ourselves. Do it on our own, you know, the way Indies always do. And I'm really looking forward to watching us do just that.

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• Silverlight 5 Hosting :: Features in Silverlight 5 and Release Date

  - by mbridge

  Silverlight 5 is finally announced in the Silverlight FireStarter Event on the 2nd December, 2010. This new version of Silverlight which was earlier labeled as 'Future of Microsoft Silverlight' has now come much closer to go live as the first Silverlight 5 Beta version is expected to be shipped during the early months of 2011. However for the full fledged and the final release of Silverlight 5, we have to wait many more months as the same is likely to be made available within the Q3 2011. As would have been usually expected, this latest edition would feature many new capabilities thereby extending the developer productivity to a whole new dimension of premium media experience and feature-rich business applications. It comes along with many new feature updates as well as the inclusion of new technologies to improve the standard of the Silverlight applications which are now fine-tuned to produce next generation business and media solutions that is capable to meet the requirements of the advanced web-based app development. The Silverlight 5 is all set to replace the previous fourth version which now includes more than forty new features while also dropping various deprecated elements that was prevalent earlier. It has brought around some major performance enhancements and also included better support for various other tools and technologies. Following are some of the changes that are registered to be available under the Silverlight 5 Beta edition which is scheduled to be launched during the Q1 2011. Silverlight 5 : Premium Media Experiences The media features of Silverlight 5 has seen some major enhancements with a lot of optimizations being made to deliver richer solutions. It's capability has now been extended to make things easier, faster and capable of performing the desired tasks in the most efficient manner. The Silverlight media solutions has already been a part of many companies in the recent days where various on-demand Silverlight services were featured but with the arrival of the next generation premium media solution of Silverlight 5, it is expected to register new heights of success and global user acclamation for using it with many esteemed web-based projects and media solutions. - The most happening element in the new Silverlight 5 will be its support for utilizing the GPU based hardware acceleration which is intended to lower down the CPU load to a significant extent and thereby allowing faster rendering of media contents without consuming much resources. This feature is believed to be particularly helpful for low configured machines to run full HD media content without any lagging caused due to processor load. It will hence be one great feature to revolutionize the new generation high quality media contents to be available within the web in a more efficient manner with its hardware decoded video playback capabilities. - With the inclusion of hardware video decoding to minimize the processor load, the Silverlight 5 also comes with another optimization enhancement to also reduce the power consumption level by making new methods to deal with the power-saver settings. With this optimization in effect, the computer would be automatically allowed to switch to sleep mode while no video playback is in progress and also to prevent any screensavers to popup and cause annoyances during any video playback. There would also be other power saver options which will be made available to best suit the users requirements and purpose. - The Silverlight trickplay feature is another great way to tweak any silverlight powered media content as is used for many video tutorial sites or for dealing with any sort of presentations. This feature enables the user to modify the playback speed to either slowdown or speedup during the playback durations based on the requirements without compromising on the quality of output. Normally such manipulations always makes the content's audio to go off-pitch, but the same will not be the case with TrickPlay and the audio would seamlessly progress with the video without skipping any of its part. - In addition to all of the above, the new Silverlight 5 will be featuring wireless control of all the media contents by making use of remote controllers. With the use of such remote devices, it will be easier to handle the various media playback controls thereby providing more freedom while experiencing the premium media services. Silverlight 5 : Business Application Development The application development standard has been extended with more possibilities by bringing forth new and useful technologies and also reviving the existing methods to work better than what it was used to. From the UI improvements to advanced technical aspects, the Silverlight 5 scores high on all grounds to produce great next generation business delivered applications by putting in more creativity and resourceful touch to all the apps being produced with it. - The WPF feature of Silverlight is made more effective by introducing new standards of Databinding which is intended to improve the productivity standards of the Silverlight application developer. It brings in a lot of convenience in debugging the databinding components or expressions and hence making things work in a flawless manner. Some additional features related to databinding includes that of Ancestor RelativeSource, Implicit DataTemplates and Model View ViewModel (MVVM) support with DataContextChanged event and many other new features relating it. - It now comes with a refined text and printing service which facilitates better clarity of the text rendering and also many positive changes which are being applied to the layout pattern. New supports has been added to include OpenType font, multi-column text, linked-text containers and character leading support to name a few among the available features.This also includes some important printing aspects like that of Postscript Vector Printing API which allows to program our printing tasks in a user defined way and Pivot functionality for visualization concerns of informations. - The Graphics support is the key improvements being incorporated which now enables to utilize three dimensional graphics pattern using GPU acceleration. It can manage to provide some really cool visualizations being curved to provide media contents within the business apps with also the support for full HD contents at 1080p quality. - Silverlight 5 includes the support for 64-bit operating systems and relevant browsers and is also optimized to provide better performance. It can support the background thread for the networking which can reduce the latency of the network to a considerable extent. The Out-of-Browser functionality adds the support for utilizing various libraries and also the Win32 API. It also comes with testing support with VS 2010 which is mostly an automated procedure and has also enabled increased security aspects of all the Silverlight 5 developed applications by using the improved version of group policy support.

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• SharePoint 2010 Hosting :: Error – HTTP Error 401.1 when Accessing Your SharePoint 2010 Site

  - by mbridge

  When attempting to view a MOSS (SharePoint) 2007 or SharePoint 2010 site locally from a Web Front End (WFE) you get an error stating: “HTTP Error 401.1 – Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials.” I have noticed that this happens on Windows 2003/2008 Server SP1/SP2/R2 when using Host Headers and Alternate Access Mappings on a web application in MOSS 2007. If you can access the site from remote machines and cannot access the site from the server itself, then this might be your issue. For all my newer farm installs this includes SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) and SharePoint 2010. I use method number 2 on all SharePoint and SQL Servers in the farm. If you cannot access the web site locally or remotely from other machines then there is an issue with security on the site and/or possibly a Kerberos related security issue I implemented fix #2 listed in the following Microsoft KB Article. I implemented this fix on all servers in the MOSS 2007 Farm (WFE’s and Indexing/Search Server). If using method 1, you would add all Host Headers and Alternate Access Mappings for all web applications to the BackConnectionHostNames value, then you will be able to access the sites locally from the WFE’s. Microsoft KB Link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861 Method 1: Specify Host Names Please follow this steps: 1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK. 2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\MSV1_0 3. Right-click MSV1_0, point to New, and then click Multi-String Value. 4. Type BackConnectionHostNames, and then press ENTER. 5. Right-click BackConnectionHostNames, and then click Modify. 6. In the Value data box, type the host name or the host names for the sites that are on the local computer, and then click OK. 7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the IISAdmin service. Method 2: Disable the Loopback Check  Please follow this steps: 1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK 2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa 3. Right-click Lsa, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. 4. Type DisableLoopbackCheck, and then press ENTER. 5. Right-click DisableLoopbackCheck, and then click Modify. 6. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK. 7. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart your computer. Give it try and good luck.

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• Logging WebSocket Frames using Chrome Developer Tools, Net-internals and Wireshark (TOTD #184)

  - by arungupta

  TOTD #183 explained how to build a WebSocket-driven application using GlassFish 4. This Tip Of The Day (TOTD) will explain how do view/debug on-the-wire messages, or frames as they are called in WebSocket parlance, over this upgraded connection. This blog will use the application built in TOTD #183. First of all, make sure you are using a browser that supports WebSocket. If you recall from TOTD #183 then WebSocket is combination of Protocol and JavaScript API. A browser supporting WebSocket, or not, means they understand your web pages with the WebSocket JavaScript. caniuse.com/websockets provide a current status of WebSocket support in different browsers. Most of the major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari already support WebSocket for the past few versions. As of this writing, IE still does not support WebSocket however its planned for a future release. Viewing WebSocket farmes require special settings because all the communication happens over an upgraded HTTP connection over a single TCP connection. If you are building your application using Java, then there are two common ways to debug WebSocket messages today. Other language libraries provide different mechanisms to log the messages. Lets get started! Chrome Developer Tools provide information about the initial handshake only. This can be viewed in the Network tab and selecting the endpoint hosting the WebSocket endpoint. You can also click on "WebSockets" on the bottom-right to show only the WebSocket endpoints. Click on "Frames" in the right panel to view the actual frames being exchanged between the client and server. The frames are not refreshed when new messages are sent or received. You need to refresh the panel by clicking on the endpoint again. To see more detailed information about the WebSocket frames, you need to type "chrome://net-internals" in a new tab. Click on "Sockets" in the left navigation bar and then on "View live sockets" to see the page. Select the box with the address to your WebSocket endpoint and see some basic information about connection and bytes exchanged between the client and the endpoint. Clicking on the blue text "source dependency ..." shows more details about the handshake. If you are interested in viewing the exact payload of WebSocket messages then you need a network sniffer. These tools are used to snoop network traffic and provide a lot more details about the raw messages exchanged over the network. However because they provide lot more information so they need to be configured in order to view the relevant information. Wireshark (nee Ethereal) is a pretty standard tool for sniffing network traffic and will be used here. For this blog purpose, we'll assume that the WebSocket endpoint is hosted on the local machine. These tools do allow to sniff traffic across the network though. Wireshark is quite a comprehensive tool and we'll capture traffic on the loopback address. Start wireshark, select "loopback" and click on "Start". By default, all traffic information on the loopback address is displayed. That includes tons of TCP protocol messages, applications running on your local machines (like GlassFish or Dropbox on mine), and many others. Specify "http" as the filter in the top-left. Invoke the application built in TOTD #183 and click on "Say Hello" button once. The output in wireshark looks like Here is a description of the messages exchanged: Message #4: Initial HTTP request of the JSP page Message #6: Response returning the JSP page Message #16: HTTP Upgrade request Message #18: Upgrade request accepted Message #20: Request favicon Message #22: Responding with favicon not found Message #24: Browser making a WebSocket request to the endpoint Message #26: WebSocket endpoint responding back You can also use Fiddler to debug your WebSocket messages. How are you viewing your WebSocket messages ? Here are some references for you: JSR 356: Java API for WebSocket - Specification (Early Draft) and Implementation (already integrated in GlassFish 4 promoted builds) TOTD #183 - Getting Started with WebSocket in GlassFish Subsequent blogs will discuss the following topics (not necessary in that order) ... Binary data as payload Custom payloads using encoder/decoder Error handling Interface-driven WebSocket endpoint Java client API Client and Server configuration Security Subprotocols Extensions Other topics from the API

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• Chester Devs Presentation and source code &ndash; &lsquo;Event Store - an introduction to a DSD for event sourcing and notifications&rsquo;

  - by Liam Westley

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/11/11/chester-devs-presentation-and-source-code-ndash-lsquoevent-store.aspxThank you everyone at Chester Devs Thanks to Fran Hoey and all the people from Chester Devs. It was a hard drive up and back but the enthusiasm of the audience, with some great questions does make it worthwhile. Presentation and source code My presentation, source code, Event Store runners and text files containing the various command line parameters used for curl is now available on GitHub; https://github.com/westleyl/ChesterDevs-EventStore. Don’t worry if you don’t have a GitHub account, you don’t need one, you can just click on the Download Zip button on the right hand menu to download all the files as a single ZIP file.  If all you want is the PowerPoint presentation, go to https://github.com/westleyl/ChesterDevs-EventStore/blob/master/Powerpoint/Huddle-EventStore.pptx, and click on the View Raw button. Downloading and installing Event Store and Tools Download Event Store http://download.geteventstore.com – I unzipped these files into C:\EventStore\v2.0.1 Download Curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html – I downloaded Win64 Generic (with SSL) and unzipped these files into C:\curl version 7.31.0 Running the tools I used in my presentation Demonstration 1 (running Event Store) You can use one of my Event Store runner command files to run the single node version of Event Store, using default ports of 2213 for HTTP and 1113  for TCP, and with a wildcard HTTP pattern.  Both take a single command line parameter to specify the location of the data and log files.  The runners assume the single node executable is located in C:\EventStore\v2.0.1, and will placed data files and logs beneath C:\EventStore\Data, i.e. RunEventStore.cmd TestData1 This will create data files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\Data and log files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\logs. If, when running Event Store you may see the following message, [03288,15,06:23:00.622] Failed to start http server Access is denied You will either need to run Event Store in an administrator console window, or you can use the netsh command to create a firewall permission to allow HTTP listening (this will need to be run, once, in an administrator console window), netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:2213/ user=liam You can always delete this later by running the delete; netsh http delete urlacl url=http://*:2213/ If you want to confirm that everything is running OK, open the management console in a browser by navigating to http://127.0.0.1:2213. If at any point you are asked for a user name and password use the default of ‘admin’/‘changeit’. Demonstration 2 (reading and adding data, curl) In my second demonstration I used curl directly from the console to read streams, write events and then read back those events. On GitHub I have included is a set of curl commands, CurlCommandLine.txt, and a sample data file, SampleData.json, to load an event into a DDDNorth3 stream. As there is not much data in the Event Store at this point I used the $stats-127.0.0.1:2113 which is a stream containing performance statistics for Event Store and is updated every 30 seconds (default). Demonstration 3 (projections) On GitHub I have included a sample projection, Projection-ByRoom.txt, which will create streams based on the room on which a session was held on the DDDNorth3 agenda. Browse to the management console, http://127.0.0.1:2213.  Click on Projections, New Projection, give it a name, Sessions-ByRoom, and copy in the JavaScript in the Projection-ByRoom.txt file.  Select Continuous, tick Emit Enabled and then click on Post. It should run immediately. You may by challenged for the administration login for the management console, if so use the default user name and password; 'admin'/'changeit'. Demonstration 4 (C# client) The final demonstration was the Visual Studio 2012 project using the Event Store client – referenced directly as C:\EventStore\v2.0.1\EventStore.ClientAPI.dll, although you can switch this to the latest Event Store client NuGet package. The source code provides a console app for viewing projections with the projection manager (HTTP connection), as well as containing a full set of data for the entire DDDNorth3 agenda.  It also deals with the strategy for reading newest events backwards to older events and ignoring older events that have been superseded. Resources Event Store home page: http://www.geteventstore.com/ Event Store source code on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore Event Store documentation on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki (includes index to @RobAshton’s blog series on Event Store at https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki#rob-ashton---projections-series) Event Store forum in Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/event-store TopShelf Windows service wrapper is available on github: https://gist.github.com/trbngr/5083266

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• Write, Read and Update Oracle CLOBs with PL/SQL

  - by robertphyatt

  Fun with CLOBS! If you are using Oracle, if you have to deal with text that is over 4000 bytes, you will probably find yourself dealing with CLOBs, which can go up to 4GB. They are pretty tricky, and it took me a long time to figure out these lessons learned. I hope they will help some down-trodden developer out there somehow. Here is my original code, which worked great on my Oracle Express Edition: (for all examples, the first one writes a new CLOB, the next one Updates an existing CLOB and the final one reads a CLOB back) CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_WR_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            OUT NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN    INSERT INTO TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC (CLOBHOLDERDDOC)        VALUES (empty_CLOB())        RETURNING CLOBHOLDERDDOC, CLOBHOLDERDDOCID INTO lob_loc, p_id;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)), 1, UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_UD_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            IN NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN        SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO lob_loc FROM TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC        WHERE CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id FOR UPDATE;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)), 1, UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_RD_CLOB (    p_id IN NUMBER,    p_clob OUT VARCHAR2) IS    lob_loc  CLOB; BEGIN    SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO lob_loc    FROM   TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC    WHERE  CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id;    p_clob := UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(lob_loc, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(lob_loc), 1)); END; / As you can see, I had originally been casting everything back and forth between RAW formats using the UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2() and UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW() functions all over the place, but it had the nasty side effect of working great on my Oracle express edition on my developer box, but having all the CLOBs above a certain size display garbage when read back on the Oracle test database server . So...I kept working at it and came up with the following, which ALSO worked on my Oracle Express Edition on my developer box:   CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_WR_CLOB (     p_document      IN VARCHAR2,     p_id        OUT NUMBER) IS       lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN     INSERT INTO TBL_CLOBHOLDERDOC (CLOBHOLDERDOC)         VALUES (empty_CLOB())         RETURNING CLOBHOLDERDOC, CLOBHOLDERDOCID INTO lob_loc, p_id;     DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document);   END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_UD_CLOB (     p_document      IN VARCHAR2,     p_id        IN NUMBER) IS       lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN     SELECT CLOBHOLDERDOC INTO lob_loc FROM TBL_CLOBHOLDERDOC     WHERE CLOBHOLDERDOCID = p_id FOR UPDATE;     DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_RD_CLOB (     p_id IN NUMBER,     p_clob OUT VARCHAR2) IS     lob_loc  CLOB; BEGIN     SELECT CLOBHOLDERDOC INTO lob_loc     FROM   TBL_CLOBHOLDERDOC     WHERE  CLOBHOLDERDOCID = p_id;     p_clob := DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(lob_loc, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(lob_loc), 1); END; / Unfortunately, by changing my code to what you see above, even though it kept working on my Oracle express edition, everything over a certain size just started truncating after about 7950 characters on the test server! Here is what I came up with in the end, which is actually the simplest solution and this time worked on both my express edition and on the database server (note that only the read function was changed to fix the truncation issue, and that I had Oracle worry about converting the CLOB into a VARCHAR2 internally): CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_WR_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            OUT NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN    INSERT INTO TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC (CLOBHOLDERDDOC)        VALUES (empty_CLOB())        RETURNING CLOBHOLDERDDOC, CLOBHOLDERDDOCID INTO lob_loc, p_id;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_UD_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            IN NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN        SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO lob_loc FROM TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC        WHERE CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id FOR UPDATE;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_RD_CLOB (    p_id IN NUMBER,    p_clob OUT VARCHAR2) IS BEGIN    SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO p_clob    FROM   TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC    WHERE  CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id; END; /   I hope that is useful to someone!

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• Entity Framework version 1- Brief Synopsis and Tips &ndash; Part 1

  - by Rohit Gupta

  To Do Eager loading use Projections (for e.g. from c in context.Contacts select c, c.Addresses)  or use Include Query Builder Methods (Include(“Addresses”)) If there is multi-level hierarchical Data then to eager load all the relationships use Include Query Builder methods like customers.Include("Order.OrderDetail") to include Order and OrderDetail collections or use customers.Include("Order.OrderDetail.Location") to include all Order, OrderDetail and location collections with a single include statement =========================================================================== If the query uses Joins then Include() Query Builder method will be ignored, use Nested Queries instead If the query does projections then Include() Query Builder method will be ignored Use Address.ContactReference.Load() OR Contact.Addresses.Load() if you need to Deferred Load Specific Entity – This will result in extra round trips to the database ObjectQuery<> cannot return anonymous types... it will return a ObjectQuery<DBDataRecord> Only Include method can be added to Linq Query Methods Any Linq Query method can be added to Query Builder methods. If you need to append a Query Builder Method (other than Include) after a LINQ method  then cast the IQueryable<Contact> to ObjectQuery<Contact> and then append the Query Builder method to it =========================================================================== Query Builder methods are Select, Where, Include Methods which use Entity SQL as parameters e.g. "it.StartDate, it.EndDate" When Query Builder methods do projection then they return ObjectQuery<DBDataRecord>, thus to iterate over this collection use contact.Item[“Name”].ToString() When Linq To Entities methods do projection, they return collection of anonymous types --- thus the collection is strongly typed and supports Intellisense EF Object Context can track changes only on Entities, not on Anonymous types. If you use a Defining Query for a EntitySet then the EntitySet becomes readonly since a Defining Query is the same as a View (which is treated as a ReadOnly by default). However if you want to use this EntitySet for insert/update/deletes then we need to map stored procs (as created in the DB) to the insert/update/delete functions of the Entity in the Designer You can use either Execute method or ToList() method to bind data to datasources/bindingsources If you use the Execute Method then remember that you can traverse through the ObjectResult<> collection (returned by Execute) only ONCE. In WPF use ObservableCollection to bind to data sources , for keeping track of changes and letting EF send updates to the DB automatically. Use Extension Methods to add logic to Entities. For e.g. create extension methods for the EntityObject class. Create a method in ObjectContext Partial class and pass the entity as a parameter, then call this method as desired from within each entity. ================================================================ DefiningQueries and Stored Procedures: For Custom Entities, one can use DefiningQuery or Stored Procedures. Thus the Custom Entity Collection will be populated using the DefiningQuery (of the EntitySet) or the Sproc. If you use Sproc to populate the EntityCollection then the query execution is immediate and this execution happens on the Server side and any filters applied will be applied in the Client App. If we use a DefiningQuery then these queries are composable, meaning the filters (if applied to the entityset) will all be sent together as a single query to the DB, returning only filtered results. If the sproc returns results that cannot be mapped to existing entity, then we first create the Entity/EntitySet in the CSDL using Designer, then create a dummy Entity/EntitySet using XML in the SSDL. When creating a EntitySet in the SSDL for this dummy entity, use a TSQL that does not return any results, but does return the relevant columns e.g. select ContactID, FirstName, LastName from dbo.Contact where 1=2 Also insure that the Entity created in the SSDL uses the SQL DataTypes and not .NET DataTypes. If you are unable to open the EDMX file in the designer then note the Errors ... they will give precise info on what is wrong. The Thrid option is to simply create a Native Query in the SSDL using <Function Name="PaymentsforContact" IsComposable="false">   <CommandText>SELECT ActivityId, Activity AS ActivityName, ImagePath, Category FROM dbo.Activities </CommandText></FuncTion> Then map this Function to a existing Entity. This is a quick way to get a custom Entity which is regular Entity with renamed columns or additional columns (which are computed columns). The disadvantage to using this is that It will return all the rows from the Defining query and any filter (if defined) will be applied only at the Client side (after getting all the rows from DB). If you you DefiningQuery instead then we can use that as a Composable Query. The Fourth option (for mapping a READ stored proc results to a non-existent Entity) is to create a View in the Database which returns all the fields that the sproc also returns, then update the Model so that the model contains this View as a Entity. Then map the Read Sproc to this View Entity. The other option would be to simply create the View and remove the sproc altogether. ================================================================ To Execute a SProc that does not return a entity, use a EntityCommand to execute that proc. You cannot call a sproc FunctionImport that does not return Entities From Code, the only way is to use SSDL function calls using EntityCommand.  This changes with EntityFramework Version 4 where you can return Scalar Types, Complex Types, Entities or NonQuery ================================================================ UDF when created as a Function in SSDL, we need to set the Name & IsComposable properties for the Function element. IsComposable is always false for Sprocs, for UDF's set this to true. You cannot call UDF "Function" from within code since you cannot import a UDF Function into the CSDL Model (with Version 1 of EF). only stored procedures can be imported and then mapped to a entity ================================================================ Entity Framework requires properties that are involved in association mappings to be mapped in all of the function mappings for the entity (Insert, Update and Delete). Because Payment has an association to Reservation... hence we need to pass both the paymentId and reservationId to the Delete sproc even though just the paymentId is the PK on the Payment Table. ================================================================ When mapping insert, update and delete procs to a Entity, insure that all the three or none are mapped. Further if you have a base class and derived class in the CSDL, then you must map (ins, upd, del) sprocs to all parent and child entities in the inheritance relationship. Note that this limitation that base and derived entity methods must all must be mapped does not apply when you are mapping Read Stored Procedures.... ================================================================ You can write stored procedures SQL directly into the SSDL by creating a Function element in the SSDL and then once created, you can map this Function to a CSDL Entity directly in the designer during Function Import ================================================================ You can do Entity Splitting such that One Entity maps to multiple tables in the DB. For e.g. the Customer Entity currently derives from Contact Entity...in addition it also references the ContactPersonalInfo Entity. One can copy all properties from the ContactPersonalInfo Entity into the Customer Entity and then Delete the CustomerPersonalInfo entity, finall one needs to map the copied properties to the ContactPersonalInfo Table in Table Mapping (by adding another table (ContactPersonalInfo) to the Table Mapping... this is called Entity Splitting. Thus now when you insert a Customer record, it will automatically create SQL to insert records into the Contact, Customers and ContactPersonalInfo tables even though you have a Single Entity called Customer in the CSDL =================================================================== There is Table by Type Inheritance where another EDM Entity can derive from another EDM entity and absorb the inherted entities properties, for example in the Break Away Geek Adventures EDM, the Customer entity derives (inherits) from the Contact Entity and absorbs all the properties of Contact entity. Thus when you create a Customer Entity in Code and then call context.SaveChanges the Object Context will first create the TSQL to insert into the Contact Table followed by a TSQL to insert into the Customer table =================================================================== Then there is the Table per Hierarchy Inheritance..... where different types are created based on a condition (similar applying a condition to filter a Entity to contain filtered records)... the diference being that the filter condition populates a new Entity Type (derived from the base Entity). In the BreakAway sample the example is Lodging Entity which is a Abstract Entity and Then Resort and NonResort Entities which derive from Lodging Entity and records are filtered based on the value of the Resort Boolean field =================================================================== Then there is Table per Concrete Type Hierarchy where we create a concrete Entity for each table in the database. In the BreakAway sample there is a entity for the Reservation table and another Entity for the OldReservation table even though both the table contain the same number of fields. The OldReservation Entity can then inherit from the Reservation Entity and configure the OldReservation Entity to remove all Scalar Properties from the Entity (since it inherits the properties from Reservation and filters based on ReservationDate field) =================================================================== Complex Types (Complex Properties) Entities in EF can also contain Complex Properties (in addition to Scalar Properties) and these Complex Properties reference a ComplexType (not a EntityType) DropdownList, ListBox, RadioButtonList, CheckboxList, Bulletedlist are examples of List server controls (not data bound controls) these controls cannot use Complex properties during databinding, they need Scalar Properties. So if a Entity contains Complex properties and you need to bind those to list server controls then use projections to return Scalar properties and bind them to the control (the disadvantage is that projected collections are not tracked by the Object Context and hence cannot persist changes to the projected collections bound to controls) ObjectDataSource and EntityDataSource do account for Complex properties and one can bind entities with Complex Properties to Data Source controls and they will be tracked for changes... with no additional plumbing needed to persist changes to these collections bound to controls So DataBound controls like GridView, FormView need to use EntityDataSource or ObjectDataSource as a datasource for entities that contain Complex properties so that changes to the datasource done using the GridView can be persisted to the DB (enabling the controls for updates)....if you cannot use the EntityDataSource you need to flatten the ComplexType Properties using projections With EF Version 4 ComplexTypes are supported by the Designer and can add/remove/compose Complex Types directly using the Designer =================================================================== Conditional Mapping ... is like Table per Hierarchy Inheritance where Entities inherit from a base class and then used conditions to populate the EntitySet (called conditional Mapping). Conditional Mapping has limitations since you can only use =, is null and IS NOT NULL Conditions to do conditional mapping. If you need more operators for filtering/mapping conditionally then use QueryView(or possibly Defining Query) to create a readonly entity. QueryView are readonly by default... the EntitySet created by the QueryView is enabled for change tracking by the ObjectContext, however the ObjectContext cannot create insert/update/delete TSQL statements for these Entities when SaveChanges is called since it is QueryView. One way to get around this limitation is to map stored procedures for the insert/update/delete operations in the Designer. =================================================================== Difference between QueryView and Defining Query : QueryView is defined in the (MSL) Mapping File/section of the EDM XML, whereas the DefiningQuery is defined in the store schema (SSDL). QueryView is written using Entity SQL and is this database agnostic and can be used against any database/Data Layer. DefiningQuery is written using Database Lanaguage i.e. TSQL or PSQL thus you have more control =================================================================== Performance: Lazy loading is deferred loading done automatically. lazy loading is supported with EF version4 and is on by default. If you need to turn it off then use context.ContextOptions.lazyLoadingEnabled = false To improve Performance consider PreCompiling the ObjectQuery using the CompiledQuery.Compile method

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• West Palm Beach .Net User Group with Chris Eargle - February 22nd, 2011

  - by Sam Abraham

  Chris Eargle, Telerik Evangelist, Microsoft MVP and INETA Speaker, was our guest speaker at the West Palm Beach .Net User Group February 2011 meeting.   Chris shared many advanced C#  tricks that he learned throughout his many years of programming in a talk earning raving reviews from all attendees.   At the end of our event, we had a free raffle of 2 Telerik Ultimate Collection licenses and various .Net Ninja shirts.   We would like to thank Chris for sharing with us and we look forward to having him again at our group at his earliest convenience.   Below are some pictures of the event:

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• Using Oracle Data in the Business Rules Engine

  - by Christopher House

  Yesterday I started working on some new functionality that I had planned to implement using the Business Rules Engine.  As I got further into it, I realized that some of my rules were going to need to reference some data that resides in an Oracle database.  I knew the Business Rules Composer supports using DataConnections and TypedDataTables, but I’d never used this functionality myself, so I wasn’t so sure how it would work with Oracle.  As it turns out, it’s very do-able, there’s just little hoop you need to jump through. I fired up BRC and my suspicions were quickly confirmed.  BRC only recognizes SQL Server databases when it comes to editing rules.  Not letting that deter me, I decided to see if I could “trick” BRE into using Oracle data. On my local SQL server, I created a new database and in that database, created a table that matched the schema of the table I wanted to use in the Oracle database.  I then set about creating my rules, referencing the new SQL Server database everywhere I wanted to use Oracle data.  Finally, I created a new class library and added a class that implements Microsoft.RuleEngine.IFactRetriever.  In that class, I added the necessary code to get a DataSet from the Oracle server, wrap it in a TypedDataTable and assert it into the rule engine.  It’s worth pointing out that in my IFactRetriever class, I made sure to set my DataSet name to the name of the database I’d referenced in the BRC and the DataTable’s name to the name of the table that I’d referenced in the BRC. After gac’ing the new class library and deploying my policy, I tested and everything worked as expected.

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• Microsoft® MVP (Most Valuable Professional) in XNA / DirectX.

  - by uditha

  I got an email form Microsoft saying that i have been selected for MVP in XNA/DirectX category. It was really memorable moment for me.And proud to be a Microsoft MVP. There are now total 44 MVPs for XNA/DirectX. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=XNA%2fDirectX About MVP Program. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/gp/aboutmvp My MVP Profile. https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Uditha Official SEA MVP blog. http://seamvpblogaholic.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

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• SSO Configuration MMC Snap-in

  - by Christopher House

  This may be old news to most people but I've been away from BizTalk for about a year, so this was a welcome development for me.  The other day, I was discussing with my client the various options for storing configuration data required by our project.  I brought up SSO as it's something I've used with success on previous projects.  The client hadn't previously used SSO and was concerned about the maintainability of configuration stored in SSO.  I offered to do a quick POC to demonstrate storing/retrieving/maintaining configuration via SSO.  As I set about creating the POC, I needed to download Richard Seroter's SSO configuration tool, since that's what I've used previously for managing SSO data.  I went to google to track it down and was pleasantly surprised to discover that Microsoft has finally released an MMC snap-in for maintaining SSO applications. The download contains three components.  The first is the MMC snap-in which allows you to create/delete applications as well as name/value pairs within an application.  Next is a C# class file, SSOConfigHelper.cs, which can be used to retrieve values from an SSO application.  Finally, there's an MSBuild task that allows you to deploy SSO application data with your builds. I didn't see any information as to which versions are supported, I'm using it in a BizTalk 2009 environment and it seems to work quite nicely.  The download package is available here.

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• Game Design Dilemma

  - by Chris Williams

  I'm working on a 2d tilemapped RPG. I've actually made quite a fair amount of progress, but I'm at a point where I need to make a UI decision. I have the overland world completely mapped out, and I have several towns and special areas. I'm on the fence about how to integrate the two. Scenario 1: I have one ginormous map, where everything is the same scale. This means you can walk in and out of towns without having to load or wait and transition in any way. With everything the same scale, movement costs the same no matter where you are (in terms of time/turns/energy/hunger/whatever/etc...)  The potential downside to this is that it could take quite a long time to get anywhere on foot. Scenario 2: I have an overland map, a set of town maps, overland tactical maps, dungeon maps & special area maps. The overland map is at a different scale than the other maps. This means that time/turns/energy/hunger/whatever/etc is calculated at a different rate than on the other maps, which have a 1:1 scale. When entering a town, dungeon, special area or having a random encounter, you would effectively zoom in from the overland scale to the tactical scale. When you are done with combat, or exit a dungeon or town, it would zoom back out to the overland map. The downside to this is that at the zoomed out scale, the overland map isn't all that big (comparitively) and you can traverse it fairly quickly (in real time, not game world time.) Options: 1) Go with scenario 1, as is. 2) Go with scenario 1 and introduce a slightly speedier version of overland travel, such as a horse. 3) Go with scenario 1 and introduce "instant" travel, via portals or some kind of "click the big map" mechanism. This would only work with places you've already been, or somehow unlocked (perhaps via a quest.) 4) Go with Scenario 2, as is.   Thoughts, opinions, suggestions?  Feedback appreciated.

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• Node.js Adventure - Host Node.js on Windows Azure Worker Role

  - by Shaun

  In my previous post I demonstrated about how to develop and deploy a Node.js application on Windows Azure Web Site (a.k.a. WAWS). WAWS is a new feature in Windows Azure platform. Since it’s low-cost, and it provides IIS and IISNode components so that we can host our Node.js application though Git, FTP and WebMatrix without any configuration and component installation. But sometimes we need to use the Windows Azure Cloud Service (a.k.a. WACS) and host our Node.js on worker role. Below are some benefits of using worker role. - WAWS leverages IIS and IISNode to host Node.js application, which runs in x86 WOW mode. It reduces the performance comparing with x64 in some cases. - WACS worker role does not need IIS, hence there’s no restriction of IIS, such as 8000 concurrent requests limitation. - WACS provides more flexibility and controls to the developers. For example, we can RDP to the virtual machines of our worker role instances. - WACS provides the service configuration features which can be changed when the role is running. - WACS provides more scaling capability than WAWS. In WAWS we can have at most 3 reserved instances per web site while in WACS we can have up to 20 instances in a subscription. - Since when using WACS worker role we starts the node by ourselves in a process, we can control the input, output and error stream. We can also control the version of Node.js.   Run Node.js in Worker Role Node.js can be started by just having its execution file. This means in Windows Azure, we can have a worker role with the “node.exe” and the Node.js source files, then start it in Run method of the worker role entry class. Let’s create a new windows azure project in Visual Studio and add a new worker role. Since we need our worker role execute the “node.exe” with our application code we need to add the “node.exe” into our project. Right click on the worker role project and add an existing item. By default the Node.js will be installed in the “Program Files\nodejs” folder so we can navigate there and add the “node.exe”. Then we need to create the entry code of Node.js. In WAWS the entry file must be named “server.js”, which is because it’s hosted by IIS and IISNode and IISNode only accept “server.js”. But here as we control everything we can choose any files as the entry code. For example, I created a new JavaScript file named “index.js” in project root. Since we created a C# Windows Azure project we cannot create a JavaScript file from the context menu “Add new item”. We have to create a text file, and then rename it to JavaScript extension. After we added these two files we should set their “Copy to Output Directory” property to “Copy Always”, or “Copy if Newer”. Otherwise they will not be involved in the package when deployed. Let’s paste a very simple Node.js code in the “index.js” as below. As you can see I created a web server listening at port 12345. 1: var http = require("http"); 2: var port = 12345; 3:  4: http.createServer(function (req, res) { 5: res.writeHead(200, { "Content-Type": "text/plain" }); 6: res.end("Hello World\n"); 7: }).listen(port); 8:  9: console.log("Server running at port %d", port); Then we need to start “node.exe” with this file when our worker role was started. This can be done in its Run method. I found the Node.js and entry JavaScript file name, and then create a new process to run it. Our worker role will wait for the process to be exited. If everything is OK once our web server was opened the process will be there listening for incoming requests, and should not be terminated. The code in worker role would be like this. 1: public override void Run() 2: { 3: // This is a sample worker implementation. Replace with your logic. 4: Trace.WriteLine("NodejsHost entry point called", "Information"); 5:  6: // retrieve the node.exe and entry node.js source code file name. 7: var node = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(@"%RoleRoot%\approot\node.exe"); 8: var js = "index.js"; 9:  10: // prepare the process starting of node.exe 11: var info = new ProcessStartInfo(node, js) 12: { 13: CreateNoWindow = false, 14: ErrorDialog = true, 15: WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal, 16: UseShellExecute = false, 17: WorkingDirectory = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(@"%RoleRoot%\approot") 18: }; 19: Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} {1}", node, js), "Information"); 20:  21: // start the node.exe with entry code and wait for exit 22: var process = Process.Start(info); 23: process.WaitForExit(); 24: } Then we can run it locally. In the computer emulator UI the worker role started and it executed the Node.js, then Node.js windows appeared. Open the browser to verify the website hosted by our worker role. Next let’s deploy it to azure. But we need some additional steps. First, we need to create an input endpoint. By default there’s no endpoint defined in a worker role. So we will open the role property window in Visual Studio, create a new input TCP endpoint to the port we want our website to use. In this case I will use 80. Even though we created a web server we should add a TCP endpoint of the worker role, since Node.js always listen on TCP instead of HTTP. And then changed the “index.js”, let our web server listen on 80. 1: var http = require("http"); 2: var port = 80; 3:  4: http.createServer(function (req, res) { 5: res.writeHead(200, { "Content-Type": "text/plain" }); 6: res.end("Hello World\n"); 7: }).listen(port); 8:  9: console.log("Server running at port %d", port); Then publish it to Windows Azure. And then in browser we can see our Node.js website was running on WACS worker role. We may encounter an error if we tried to run our Node.js website on 80 port at local emulator. This is because the compute emulator registered 80 and map the 80 endpoint to 81. But our Node.js cannot detect this operation. So when it tried to listen on 80 it will failed since 80 have been used.   Use NPM Modules When we are using WAWS to host Node.js, we can simply install modules we need, and then just publish or upload all files to WAWS. But if we are using WACS worker role, we have to do some extra steps to make the modules work. Assuming that we plan to use “express” in our application. Firstly of all we should download and install this module through NPM command. But after the install finished, they are just in the disk but not included in the worker role project. If we deploy the worker role right now the module will not be packaged and uploaded to azure. Hence we need to add them to the project. On solution explorer window click the “Show all files” button, select the “node_modules” folder and in the context menu select “Include In Project”. But that not enough. We also need to make all files in this module to “Copy always” or “Copy if newer”, so that they can be uploaded to azure with the “node.exe” and “index.js”. This is painful step since there might be many files in a module. So I created a small tool which can update a C# project file, make its all items as “Copy always”. The code is very simple. 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: if (args.Length < 1) 4: { 5: Console.WriteLine("Usage: copyallalways [project file]"); 6: return; 7: } 8:  9: var proj = args[0]; 10: File.Copy(proj, string.Format("{0}.bak", proj)); 11:  12: var xml = new XmlDocument(); 13: xml.Load(proj); 14: var nsManager = new XmlNamespaceManager(xml.NameTable); 15: nsManager.AddNamespace("pf", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"); 16:  17: // add the output setting to copy always 18: var contentNodes = xml.SelectNodes("//pf:Project/pf:ItemGroup/pf:Content", nsManager); 19: UpdateNodes(contentNodes, xml, nsManager); 20: var noneNodes = xml.SelectNodes("//pf:Project/pf:ItemGroup/pf:None", nsManager); 21: UpdateNodes(noneNodes, xml, nsManager); 22: xml.Save(proj); 23:  24: // remove the namespace attributes 25: var content = xml.InnerXml.Replace("<CopyToOutputDirectory xmlns=\"\">", "<CopyToOutputDirectory>"); 26: xml.LoadXml(content); 27: xml.Save(proj); 28: } 29:  30: static void UpdateNodes(XmlNodeList nodes, XmlDocument xml, XmlNamespaceManager nsManager) 31: { 32: foreach (XmlNode node in nodes) 33: { 34: var copyToOutputDirectoryNode = node.SelectSingleNode("pf:CopyToOutputDirectory", nsManager); 35: if (copyToOutputDirectoryNode == null) 36: { 37: var n = xml.CreateNode(XmlNodeType.Element, "CopyToOutputDirectory", null); 38: n.InnerText = "Always"; 39: node.AppendChild(n); 40: } 41: else 42: { 43: if (string.Compare(copyToOutputDirectoryNode.InnerText, "Always", true) != 0) 44: { 45: copyToOutputDirectoryNode.InnerText = "Always"; 46: } 47: } 48: } 49: } Please be careful when use this tool. I created only for demo so do not use it directly in a production environment. Unload the worker role project, execute this tool with the worker role project file name as the command line argument, it will set all items as “Copy always”. Then reload this worker role project. Now let’s change the “index.js” to use express. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var app = express(); 3:  4: var port = 80; 5:  6: app.configure(function () { 7: }); 8:  9: app.get("/", function (req, res) { 10: res.send("Hello Node.js!"); 11: }); 12:  13: app.get("/User/:id", function (req, res) { 14: var id = req.params.id; 15: res.json({ 16: "id": id, 17: "name": "user " + id, 18: "company": "IGT" 19: }); 20: }); 21:  22: app.listen(port); Finally let’s publish it and have a look in browser.   Use Windows Azure SQL Database We can use Windows Azure SQL Database (a.k.a. WACD) from Node.js as well on worker role hosting. Since we can control the version of Node.js, here we can use x64 version of “node-sqlserver” now. This is better than if we host Node.js on WAWS since it only support x86. Just install the “node-sqlserver” module from NPM, copy the “sqlserver.node” from “Build\Release” folder to “Lib” folder. Include them in worker role project and run my tool to make them to “Copy always”. Finally update the “index.js” to use WASD. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var sql = require("node-sqlserver"); 3:  4: var connectionString = "Driver={SQL Server Native Client 10.0};Server=tcp:{SERVER NAME}.database.windows.net,1433;Database={DATABASE NAME};Uid={LOGIN}@{SERVER NAME};Pwd={PASSWORD};Encrypt=yes;Connection Timeout=30;"; 5: var port = 80; 6:  7: var app = express(); 8:  9: app.configure(function () { 10: app.use(express.bodyParser()); 11: }); 12:  13: app.get("/", function (req, res) { 14: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 15: if (err) { 16: console.log(err); 17: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 18: } 19: else { 20: conn.queryRaw("SELECT * FROM [Resource]", function (err, results) { 21: if (err) { 22: console.log(err); 23: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 24: } 25: else { 26: res.json(results); 27: } 28: }); 29: } 30: }); 31: }); 32:  33: app.get("/text/:key/:culture", function (req, res) { 34: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 35: if (err) { 36: console.log(err); 37: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 38: } 39: else { 40: var key = req.params.key; 41: var culture = req.params.culture; 42: var command = "SELECT * FROM [Resource] WHERE [Key] = '" + key + "' AND [Culture] = '" + culture + "'"; 43: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 44: if (err) { 45: console.log(err); 46: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 47: } 48: else { 49: res.json(results); 50: } 51: }); 52: } 53: }); 54: }); 55:  56: app.get("/sproc/:key/:culture", function (req, res) { 57: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 58: if (err) { 59: console.log(err); 60: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 61: } 62: else { 63: var key = req.params.key; 64: var culture = req.params.culture; 65: var command = "EXEC GetItem '" + key + "', '" + culture + "'"; 66: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 67: if (err) { 68: console.log(err); 69: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 70: } 71: else { 72: res.json(results); 73: } 74: }); 75: } 76: }); 77: }); 78:  79: app.post("/new", function (req, res) { 80: var key = req.body.key; 81: var culture = req.body.culture; 82: var val = req.body.val; 83:  84: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 85: if (err) { 86: console.log(err); 87: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 88: } 89: else { 90: var command = "INSERT INTO [Resource] VALUES ('" + key + "', '" + culture + "', N'" + val + "')"; 91: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 92: if (err) { 93: console.log(err); 94: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 95: } 96: else { 97: res.send(200, "Inserted Successful"); 98: } 99: }); 100: } 101: }); 102: }); 103:  104: app.listen(port); Publish to azure and now we can see our Node.js is working with WASD through x64 version “node-sqlserver”.   Summary In this post I demonstrated how to host our Node.js in Windows Azure Cloud Service worker role. By using worker role we can control the version of Node.js, as well as the entry code. And it’s possible to do some pre jobs before the Node.js application started. It also removed the IIS and IISNode limitation. I personally recommended to use worker role as our Node.js hosting. But there are some problem if you use the approach I mentioned here. The first one is, we need to set all JavaScript files and module files as “Copy always” or “Copy if newer” manually. The second one is, in this way we cannot retrieve the cloud service configuration information. For example, we defined the endpoint in worker role property but we also specified the listening port in Node.js hardcoded. It should be changed that our Node.js can retrieve the endpoint. But I can tell you it won’t be working here. In the next post I will describe another way to execute the “node.exe” and Node.js application, so that we can get the cloud service configuration in Node.js. I will also demonstrate how to use Windows Azure Storage from Node.js by using the Windows Azure Node.js SDK.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• Convert Excel File 'xls' to CSV, CAUTION: Bumps Ahead

  - by faizanahmad

  The task was to provide users with an interface where they can upload the 'csv' files, these files were to be processed and loaded to Database by a Console application. The code in Console application could not handle the 'xls' files so we thought, OK, lets convert 'xls' to 'csv' in the code, Seemed like fun. The idea was to convert it right after uploading within 'csv' file. As Microsoft does not recommend using the  Excel objects in ASP.NET, we decided to use the Jet engine to open xls. (Ace driver is used for xlsx) The code was pretty straight, can be found on following links: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/yuanwang200409/102242008174401pm/1.aspx http://www.devasp.net/net/articles/display/141.html FIRST BUMP 'OleDbException (0x80004005): Unspecified error' ( Impersonation ): The ablove code ran fine in my test web site and test console application, but it gave an 'OleDbException (0x80004005): Unspecified error' in main web site, turns out imperonation was set to True and as soon as I changed it to False, it did work. on My XP box, web site was running under user                   'ASPNET'  with imperosnation set to FALSE                   'IUSR_*' i.e IIS guest user with impersonation set to TRUE The weired part was that both users had same rights on the folders I was saving files to and on Excel app in DCOM Config.  We decided to give it a try on Windows Server 2003 with web site set to windows authentication ( impersonation = true ) and yes it did work. SECOND BUMP 'External table not in correct format': I got this error with some files and it appeared that the file from client has some metadata issues  ( when I opened the file in Excel and try to save it ,excel  would give me this error saying File can not be saved in current format ) and the error was caused by that. Some people were able to reslove the error by using "Extended Properties=HTML Import;" in connection string. But it did not work for me. We decided to detour from here and use Excel object :( as we had no control on client setting the meta deta of Excel files. Before third bump there were a ouple of small thingies like 'Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {00024500-0000-0000-C000-000000000046} failed due to the following error: 80070005' Fix can be found at http://blog.crowe.co.nz/archive/2006/03/02/589.aspx THIRD BUMP ( Could not get rid of the EXCEL process  ):  I has all the code in place to 'Quiet' the excel, but, it just did not work. work around was done to Kill the process as we knew no other application on server was using EXCEL.  The normal steps to quite the excel application worked just fine in console application though.   FOURTH BUMP: Code worked with one file 1 on my machine and with the other file 2 code will break. and the same code will work perfectly fine with file 2 on some other machine . We moved it to QA  ( Windows Server 2003 )and worked with every file just perfect. But , then there was another problem: one user can upload it and second cant, permissions on folder and DCOM Conifg checked. Another Detour: Uplooad the xls as it is and convert in Console application.   Lesson Learnt:  If its 'xlsx' use 'ACE Driver' or read xml within excel as recommneded by MS. If xls and you know its always going to be properly formatted  'jet Engine'  Code: Imports Microsoft.Office.Interop Private Function ConvertFile(ByVal SourceFolder As String, ByVal FileName As String, ByVal FileExtension As String)As Boolean     Dim appExcel As New Excel.Application     Dim workBooks As Excel.Workbooks = appExcel.Workbooks     Dim objWorkbook As Excel.Workbook      Try                   objWorkbook = workBooks.Open(CompleteFilePath )                            objWorkbook.SaveAs(Filename:=CObj(SourceFolder & FileName & ".csv"), FileFormat:=Excel.XlFileFormat.xlCSV)       Catch ex As Exception         GenerateAlert(ex.Message().Replace("'", "") & " Error Converting File to CSV.")         LogError(ex )         Return False      Finally                      If Not(objWorkbook is Nothing) then               objWorkbook.Close(SaveChanges:=CObj(False))           End If           ReleaseObj(objWorkbook)                                      ReleaseObj(workBooks)           appExcel.Quit()           ReleaseObj(appExcel)                                 Dim proc As System.Diagnostics.Process           For Each proc In System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName("EXCEL")               proc.Kill()           Next         DeleteSourceFile(SourceFolder & FileName & FileExtension)     End Try  Return True  End Function   Private Sub ReleaseObj(ByVal o As Object)     Try      System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.ReleaseComObject(o)   Catch ex As Exception           LogError(ex )   Finally      o = Nothing    End Try End Sub     Protected Sub DeleteSourceFile(Byval CompleteFilePath As string)         Try             Dim MyFile As FileInfo = New FileInfo(CompleteFilePath)             If  MyFile.Exists Then                 File.Delete(CompleteFilePath)             Else              Throw New FileNotFoundException()             End If         Catch ex As Exception             GenerateAlert( " Source File could not be deleted.")              LogError(ex)         End Try     End Sub  The code to kill the process ( Avoid it if you can ): Dim proc As System.Diagnostics.Process For Each proc In System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName("EXCEL")     proc.Kill() Next

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• Surface Review from Canadian Guy Who Didn&rsquo;t Go To Build

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I didn’t go to Build last week, opted to stay home and go trick-or-treating with my daughters instead. I had many friends that did go however, and I was able to catch up with James Chambers last night to hear about the conference and play with his Surface RT and Nokia 920 WP8 devices. I’ve been using Windows 8 for a while now, so I’m not going to comment on OS features – lots of posts out there on that already. Let me instead comment on the hardware itself. Size and Weight The size of the tablet was awesome. The Windows 8 tablet I’m using to reference this against is the one from Build 2011 (Samsung model) we received as well as my iPad. The Surface RT was taller and slightly heavier than the iPad, but smaller and lighter than the Samsung Win 8 tablet. I still don’t prefer the default wide-screen format, but the Surface RT is much more usable even when holding it by the long edge than the Samsung. Build Quality No issues with the build quality, it seemed very solid. But…y’know, people have been going on about how the Surface RT materials are so much better than the plastic feeling models Samsung and others put out. I didn’t really notice *that* much difference in that regard with the Surface RT. Interesting feature I didn’t expect – the Windows button on the device is touch-sensitive, not a mechanical one. I didn’t try video or anything, so I can’t comment on the media experience. The kickstand is a great feature, and the way the Surface RT connects to the combo case/keyboard touchcover is very slick while being incredibly simple. What About That Touch Cover Keyboard? So first, kudos to Microsoft on the touch cover! This thing was insanely responsive (including the trackpad) and really delivered on the thinness I was expecting. With that said, and remember this is with very limited use, I would probably go with the Type Cover instead of the Touch Cover. The difference is buttons. The Touch Cover doesn’t actually have “buttons” on the keyboard – hence why its a “touch” cover. You tap on a key to type it. James tells me after a while you get used to it and you can type very fast. For me, I just prefer the tactile feeling of a button being pressed/depressed. But still – typing on the touch case worked very well. Would I Buy One? So after playing with it, did I cry out in envy and rage that I wasn’t able to get one of these machines? Did I curse my decision to collect Halloween candy with my kids instead of being at Build getting hardware? Well – no. Even with the keyboard, the Surface RT is not a business laptop replacement device. While Office does come included, you can’t install any other applications outside of Windows Store Apps. This might be limiting depending on what other applications you need to have available on your computer. Surface RT is a great personal computing device, as long as you’re not already invested in a competing ecosystem. I’ve heard people make statements that they’re going to replace all the iPads in their homes with Surface tablets. In my home, that’s not feasible – my wife and daughters have amassed quite a collection of games via iTunes. We also buy all our music via iTunes as well, so even with the XBox streaming music service now available we’re still tied quite tightly to iTunes. So who is the Surface RT for? In my mind, if you’re looking for a solid, compact device that provides basic business functionality (read: email) or if you have someone that needs a very simple to use computer for email, web browsing, etc., then Surface RT is a great option. For me, I’m waiting on the Samsung Ativ Smart PC Pro and am curious to see what changes the Surface Pro will come with.

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• Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

  - by andrewbrust

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

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• Kaiden and the Arachnoid Cyst

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Some of you may remember when my son Kaiden was born I posted pictures of him and his sister. Kaiden is now 15 months old and is progressing perfectly in every area except that and we had been worried that he was not walking yet. We were only really concerned as his sister was walking at 8 months. Figure: Kai as his usual self   Jadie and I were concerned over that and that he had a rather large head (noggin) so we talked to various GP’s and our health visitor who immediately dismissed our concerns every time. That was until about two months ago when we happened to get a GP whose daughter had Hyper Mobility and she recognised the symptoms immediately. We were referred to the Southbank clinic who were lovely and the paediatrician confirmed that he had Hyper Mobility after testing all of his faculties. This just means that his joints are overly mobile and would need a little physiotherapy to help him out. At the end the paediatrician remarked offhand that he has a rather large head and wanted to measure it. Sure enough he was a good margin above the highest percentile mark for his height and weight. The paediatrician showed the measurements to a paediatric consultant who, as a precautionary measure, referred us for an MRI at Yorkhill Children's hospital. Now, Yorkhill has always been fantastic to us, and this was no exception. You know we have NEVER had a correct diagnosis for the kids (with the exception of the above) from a GP and indeed twice have been proscribed incorrect medication that made the kids sicker! We now always go strait to Yorkhill to save them having to fix GP mistakes as well. Monday 24th May, 7pm The scan went fantastically, with Kaiden sleeping in the MRI machine for all but 5 minutes at the end where he waited patiently for it to finish. We were not expecting anything to be wrong as this was just a precautionary scan to make sure that nothing in his head was affecting his gross motor skills. After the scan we were told to expect a call towards the end of the week… Tuesday 25th May, 12pm The very next day we got a call from Southbank who said that they has found an Arachnoid Cyst and could we come in the next day to see a Consultant and that Kai would need an operation. Wednesday 26th May, 12:30pm We went into the Southbank clinic and spoke to the paediatric consultant who assured us that it was operable but that it was taking up considerable space in Kai’s head. Cerebrospinal fluid is building up as a cyst is blocking the channels it uses to drain. Thankfully they told us that prospects were good and that Kai would expect to make a full recovery before showing us the MRI pictures. Figure: Normal brain MRI cross section. This normal scan shows the spaces in the middle of the brain that contain and produce the Cerebrospinal fluid. Figure: Normal Cerebrospinal Flow This fluid is needed by the brain but is drained in the middle down the spinal column. Figure: Kai’s cyst blocking the four channels. I do not think that I need to explain the difference between the healthy picture and Kai’s picture. However you can see in this first picture the faint outline of the cyst in the middle that is blocking the four channels from draining. After seeing the scans a Neurosurgeon has decided that he is not acute, but needs an operation to unblock the flow. Figure: OMFG! You can see in the second picture the effect of the build up of fluid. If I was not horrified by the first picture I was seriously horrified by this one. What next? Kai is not presenting the symptoms of vomiting or listlessness that would show an immediate problem and as such we will get an appointment to see the Paediatric Neurosurgeon at the Southern General hospital in about 4 weeks. This timescale is based on the Neurosurgeon seeing the scans. After that Kai will need an operation to release the pressure and either remove the cyst completely or put in a permanent shunt (tube from brain to stomach) to bypass the blockage. We have updated his notes for the referral with additional recent information on top of the scan that the consultant things will help improve the timescales, but that is just a guess.   All we can do now is wait and see, and be watchful for tell tail signs of listlessness, eye problems and vomiting that would signify a worsening of his condition.   Technorati Tags: Personal

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• Dependency Replication with TFS 2010 Build

  - by Jakob Ehn

  Some time ago, I wrote a post about how to implement dependency replication using TFS 2008 Build. We use this for Library builds, where we set up a build definition for a common library, and have the build check the resulting assemblies back into source control. The folder is then branched to the applications that need to reference the common library. See the above post for more details. Of course, we have reimplemented this feature in TFS 2010 Build, which results in a much nicer experience for the developer who wants to setup a new library build. Here is how it looks: There is a separate build process template for library builds registered in all team projects The following properties are used to configure the library build: Deploy Folder in Source Control is the server path where the assemblies should be checked in DeploymentFiles is a list of files and/or extensions to what files to check in. Default here is *.dll;*.pdb which means that all assemblies and debug symbols will be checked in. We can also type for example CommonLibrary.*;SomeOtherAssembly.dll in order to exclude other assemblies You can also see that we are versioning the assemblies as part of the build. This is important, since the resulting assemblies will be deployed together with the referencing application.   When the build executes, it will see of the matching assemblies exist in source control, if not, it will add the files automatically:   After the build has finished, we can see in the history of the TestDeploy folder that the build service account has in fact checked in a new version: Nice!   The implementation of the library build process template is not very complicated, it is a combination of customization of the build process template and some custom activities. We use the generic TFActivity (http://geekswithblogs.net/jakob/archive/2010/11/03/performing-checkins-in-tfs-2010-build.aspx) to check in and out files, but for the part that checks if a file exists and adds it to source control, it was easier to do this in a custom activity:   public sealed class AddFilesToSourceControl : BaseCodeActivity { // Files to add to source control [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<IEnumerable<string>> Files { get; set; } [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<Workspace> Workspace { get; set; } // If your activity returns a value, derive from CodeActivity<TResult> // and return the value from the Execute method. protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context) { foreach (var file in Files.Get(context)) { if (!File.Exists(file)) { throw new ApplicationException("Could not locate " + file); } var ws = this.Workspace.Get(context); string serverPath = ws.TryGetServerItemForLocalItem(file); if( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(serverPath)) { if (!ws.VersionControlServer.ServerItemExists(serverPath, ItemType.File)) { TrackMessage(context, "Adding file " + file); ws.PendAdd(file); } else { TrackMessage(context, "File " + file + " already exists in source control"); } } else { TrackMessage(context, "No server path for " + file); } } } } This build template is a very nice tool that makes it easy to do dependency replication with TFS 2010. Next, I will add funtionality for automatically merging the assemblies (using ILMerge) as part of the build, we do this to keep the number of references to a minimum.

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• Imperative Programming v/s Declarative Programming v/s Functional Programming

  - by kaleidoscope

  Imperative Programming :: Imperative programming is a programming paradigm that describes computation in terms of statements that change a program state. In much the same way as the imperative mood in natural languages expresses commands to take action, imperative programs define sequences of commands for the computer to perform. The focus is on what steps the computer should take rather than what the computer will do (ex. C, C++, Java). Declarative Programming :: Declarative programming is a programming paradigm that expresses the logic of a computation without describing its control flow. It attempts to minimize or eliminate side effects by describing what the program should accomplish, rather than describing how to go about accomplishing it. The focus is on what the computer should do rather than how it should do it (ex. SQL). A  C# example of declarative v/s. imperative programming is LINQ. With imperative programming, you tell the compiler what you want to happen, step by step. For example, let's start with this collection, and choose the odd numbers: List<int> collection = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 }; With imperative programming, we'd step through this, and decide what we want: List<int> results = new List<int>(); foreach(var num in collection) {     if (num % 2 != 0)           results.Add(num); } Here’s what we are doing: *Create a result collection *Step through each number in the collection *Check the number, if it's odd, add it to the results With declarative programming, on the other hand, we write the code that describes what you want, but not necessarily how to get it var results = collection.Where( num => num % 2 != 0); Here, we're saying "Give us everything where it's odd", not "Step through the collection. Check this item, if it's odd, add it to a result collection." Functional Programming :: Functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It emphasizes the application of functions.Functional programming has its roots in the lambda calculus. It is a subset of declarative languages that has heavy focus on recursion. Functional programming can be a mind-bender, which is one reason why Lisp, Scheme, and Haskell have never really surpassed C, C++, Java and COBOL in commercial popularity. But there are benefits to the functional way. For one, if you can get the logic correct, functional programming requires orders of magnitude less code than imperative programming. That means fewer points of failure, less code to test, and a more productive (and, many would say, happier) programming life. As systems get bigger, this has become more and more important. To know more : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/602444/what-is-functional-declarative-and-imperative-programming http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb669144.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming   Technorati Tags: Ranjit,Imperative Programming,Declarative programming,Functional Programming

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• Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

  - by dapostolov

  So yesterday I didn't cut any code for my game but I was able to do a tiny bit of research on the XNA Game Development Technology and the communities out there and do you know what? I feel I'm a bit closer to my goal. The bad news is today I didn't cut code either. However, not all is lost because I wanted to get my ideas on paper and today I just did that.  Today, I began to jot down notes about the game and how I felt the visual elements would interact with each other. Unlike my workplace, my personal level of documentation is nothing more than a task list or a mind map of my ideas; it helps me streamline my solutions quiet effectively and circumvent the long process of articulating each thought to the n-th degree. I truly dislike documentation (because I have an extremely hard time articulating my thought and solutions); however, because I tend to do a really good job with documentation I tend to get stuck writing the buggers. But as a generalist remark: 'No Developer likes documentation.' For now let's stick with my basic notes and call this post a living document. Here are my notes, fresh, from after watching the new first episode of Merlin second season! Actually, a quick recommendation to anyone who is reading this (if anyone is): I truly recommend you envelope yourself in the medium or task you're trying to tackle. Be one with moment and feel it! For instance: Are you writing a fantasy script / game? What would the music of the genre sound like? For me the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is frackin awesome. There are many other good CD's out there, which I listen to (some who even use medival instruments, but Conan I keep returning to. It's a creative trigger for me. Ask yourself what would the imagery look like? Time to surf google for artist renditions of fantasy! What would the game feel like? Start playing some of your favorite games that inspire you, be wary though, have some self control and don't let it absorb your time. Anyhow, onto the documentation... Screens, Scenes, and Sprites. Oh My! (groan...) The first thing that came to mind were the screens, I thought the following would suffice: Menu Screen Character Customisation Screen Loading Screen? Battle Ground The Menu Screen Ok. So, the thought here is when the game loads a huge title is displayed: Wizard Wars. The player is prompted with 3 menu items: 1 Player Game, 2 Player Game, and Exit. Since I'm targetting the PC platform, as a non-networked game to start, I picture myself running my mouse over each menu option and the visual element of the menu item changes, along with a sound to indicate that I am over a curent menu item. And as I move my mouse away, it changes back, and possibly an exit mouse sound. Maybe on the screen somewhere is a brazier alit with a magical tome open right beside it, OR, maybe the tome is the menu! I hear the menu music as mellow, not obtrusive or piercing. On a menu item select, a confirmation sound bellows to indicate the players selection. The Esc key will always return me to the previous screens or desktop. The menu screen must feel...dark, like a really important ritual is about to happen and thus the music should build up. 1 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) 2 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) Exit - > Back to Windows Notes: So the first thing I pick up here are a couple things: First and foremost, my artistic abilities suck crap, so I may have to hire an artist (now that i've said that, lets get techy) graphical objects will be positioned within a scene on each screen / window. Menu items will be represented grapically, possibly animated, and have sound / animation effects triggered by user input or a time line. I have an animated scene involving a brazier or fire on a stick IF I was to move this game to the xbox, I'd have to track which menu item is currently selected (unless I do a mouse pointer type thing.) WindowObject has a scene A Scene has many GameObjects GameObject has a position graphic or animation MenuObject is a GameObject which has a mouse in, mouse out, and click event which either does something graphically (animation), does something with sound, or moves to another screen.  Character Customisation Screen With either the 1 or 2 player option selected, both selections will come to this screen; a wizard requires a name, powers, and vestements of course! Player one will configure his character first and then player two. I considered a split screen for PC but to have two people fighting over a keyboard would probably suck. For XBox, a split screen could work; maybe when I get into the networking portion (phase 2 blog?) of this game I will remove the 2 player option for PC and provide only multiplayer and I will leave 2 player for xbox...hmm... Anyhow...I picture the creation process as follows: Name: (textbox / keyboard entry) - for xbox, this would have to be different. Robe Color: (color box, or something) Stats: Speed, Oomph, and Health. (as sliders) 1 as minimum and 10 as maximum. Ok, Back, and Cancel buttons / options. Each stat has a benefit which are listed below. The idea is the player decides if he wants his wizard to run fast, be a tank and ... hit with a purse.Regardless, the player will have a pool of 12 points to use. Ideally, A balanced wizard will have 5 in each attribute. Spells? The only spell of choice is a ball of fire which comes without question. The music and screen should still feel like a ritual. The Character Speed Basically, how fast your character moves and casts. Oomph (Best Monster Truck Voice): PURE POWAH!!! The damage output of your fireball. Health How much damage you can take. Notes: I realise the game dynamics may sound uninteresting at the moment; but I think after a couple releases, we could have some other grand ideas such as: saved profiles, gold to upgrade arsenal of spells, talents, etc...but for now...a vanilla fireball thrower mage will suffice for this experiment. OK. So... a MenuObject  may need to be loosely coupled to allow future items such as networking? may be a button? a CharacterObject has a name speed oomph health and a funky robe color. cap on the three stats (1-10) an arsenal of 1 spell (possibly could expand this) The Loading Screen As is. The Battleground Screen For now, I'm keeping the screen as max resolution for the PC. The screen isn't going to move or even be a split screen. I'm not aiming high here because I want to see what level of change is involved when new features / concepts are added to game content. I'm interested to find out if we could apply techniques such as MVC or MVVM to this type of development or is it too tightly coupled? This reminds me when when my best friend and I were brainstorming our game idea (this is going back a while...1994, 6?) and he cringed at the thought of bringing business technology into games, especially when I suggested a database to store character information and COM / DCOM as the medium, but it seems I wasn't far off (reflecting); just like his implementation of a xml "config file" for dynamic direct-x menus back before .net in 1999...anyhow...i digress... The Battle One screen, two characters lobing balls of fire at each other...It doesn't get better than that. Every so often a scroll appears...and the fireballs bounce off walls, or the wizard has rapid fire, or even scrolls of healing! The scroll options are endless. Two bars at the top, each the color of the wizard (with their name beside the bar) indicate how much health they have. Possibly the appearance of the scrolls means the battle is taking too long? I'm thinking 1 player controls: up, down, left, right and space to fire the button. Or even possibly, mouse click and shift - mouse button to fire a spell in the direction they are facing. Two player controls: a, s, d, f and space AND arrows (up, down, left, right) and Del key or Crtl. The game ends when a player has 0 health and a dialog box appears asking for a rematch / reconfigure / exit. Health goes down when a fireball (friendly or not), connects with a wizard. When a wizard connects with a scroll, a countdown clock / icon appears near the health bar and the wizard begins to glow. For the most part, a wizard can have only scroll 1 effect on him at a time. Notes: Ok, there's alot to cover here. a CharacterObject is a GameObject it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has sounds (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, whistling, other?) it has animations (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, idle, other?) it has a lifespan (determined by health) it is alive or dead it has a position a ScrollObject is a GameObject it carries a transferance of points "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it carries a transferance of "other" it is stationary it has a sound on impact it has a stationary animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by game) it is alive or dead it has a position a WallObject is a GameObject it has a sound on fireball impact? it is a still image / stationary it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it is dead it has a position A FireBall is a GameObject it carries a transferance of poinst "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has a sound it has a travel animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by caster) it is alive or dead it has a position As I look at this, I can see some common attributes in each object that I can carry up to the GameObject. I think I'm going to end the documentation here, it's taken me a bit of time to type this all out, tomorrow. I'll load up my IDE and my paint studio to get some good old fashioned cowboy hacking going!   D.

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• Initial review of Developer's Guide to Collections in Microsoft® .NET

  - by TATWORTH

  The code is well illustrated by diagrams. The approach is practical. The code is well commented, however the C# code samples would be better had they been fully Style Cop compliant. I am looking forward to reviewing the rest of this excellent book. I recommend this book to all C# and VB.NET Development teams. I concur with the author who states that the book is not for learning C# or VB.NET. It is an excellent book for C# or VB.NET developers to extend their knowledge of the Dot Net framework. To buy a copy, please go to http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0790145317193.do

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• Transactional Messaging in the Windows Azure Service Bus

  - by Alan Smith

  Introduction I’m currently working on broadening the content in the Windows Azure Service Bus Developer Guide. One of the features I have been looking at over the past week is the support for transactional messaging. When using the direct programming model and the WCF interface some, but not all, messaging operations can participate in transactions. This allows developers to improve the reliability of messaging systems. There are some limitations in the transactional model, transactions can only include one top level messaging entity (such as a queue or topic, subscriptions are no top level entities), and transactions cannot include other systems, such as databases. As the transaction model is currently not well documented I have had to figure out how things work through experimentation, with some help from the development team to confirm any questions I had. Hopefully I’ve got the content mostly correct, I will update the content in the e-book if I find any errors or improvements that can be made (any feedback would be very welcome). I’ve not had a chance to look into the code for transactions and asynchronous operations, maybe that would make a nice challenge lab for my Windows Azure Service Bus course. Transactional Messaging Messaging entities in the Windows Azure Service Bus provide support for participation in transactions. This allows developers to perform several messaging operations within a transactional scope, and ensure that all the actions are committed or, if there is a failure, none of the actions are committed. There are a number of scenarios where the use of transactions can increase the reliability of messaging systems. Using TransactionScope In .NET the TransactionScope class can be used to perform a series of actions in a transaction. The using declaration is typically used de define the scope of the transaction. Any transactional operations that are contained within the scope can be committed by calling the Complete method. If the Complete method is not called, any transactional methods in the scope will not commit.   // Create a transactional scope. using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope()) {     // Do something.       // Do something else.       // Commit the transaction.     scope.Complete(); }     In order for methods to participate in the transaction, they must provide support for transactional operations. Database and message queue operations typically provide support for transactions. Transactions in Brokered Messaging Transaction support in Service Bus Brokered Messaging allows message operations to be performed within a transactional scope; however there are some limitations around what operations can be performed within the transaction. In the current release, only one top level messaging entity, such as a queue or topic can participate in a transaction, and the transaction cannot include any other transaction resource managers, making transactions spanning a messaging entity and a database not possible. When sending messages, the send operations can participate in a transaction allowing multiple messages to be sent within a transactional scope. This allows for “all or nothing” delivery of a series of messages to a single queue or topic. When receiving messages, messages that are received in the peek-lock receive mode can be completed, deadlettered or deferred within a transactional scope. In the current release the Abandon method will not participate in a transaction. The same restrictions of only one top level messaging entity applies here, so the Complete method can be called transitionally on messages received from the same queue, or messages received from one or more subscriptions in the same topic. Sending Multiple Messages in a Transaction A transactional scope can be used to send multiple messages to a queue or topic. This will ensure that all the messages will be enqueued or, if the transaction fails to commit, no messages will be enqueued.     An example of the code used to send 10 messages to a queue as a single transaction from a console application is shown below.   QueueClient queueClient = messagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(Queue1);   Console.Write("Sending");   // Create a transaction scope. using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope()) {     for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)     {         // Send a message         BrokeredMessage msg = new BrokeredMessage("Message: " + i);         queueClient.Send(msg);         Console.Write(".");     }     Console.WriteLine("Done!");     Console.WriteLine();       // Should we commit the transaction?     Console.WriteLine("Commit send 10 messages? (yes or no)");     string reply = Console.ReadLine();     if (reply.ToLower().Equals("yes"))     {         // Commit the transaction.         scope.Complete();     } } Console.WriteLine(); messagingFactory.Close();     The transaction scope is used to wrap the sending of 10 messages. Once the messages have been sent the user has the option to either commit the transaction or abandon the transaction. If the user enters “yes”, the Complete method is called on the scope, which will commit the transaction and result in the messages being enqueued. If the user enters anything other than “yes”, the transaction will not commit, and the messages will not be enqueued. Receiving Multiple Messages in a Transaction The receiving of multiple messages is another scenario where the use of transactions can improve reliability. When receiving a group of messages that are related together, maybe in the same message session, it is possible to receive the messages in the peek-lock receive mode, and then complete, defer, or deadletter the messages in one transaction. (In the current version of Service Bus, abandon is not transactional.)   The following code shows how this can be achieved. using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope()) {       while (true)     {         // Receive a message.         BrokeredMessage msg = q1Client.Receive(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));         if (msg != null)         {             // Wrote message body and complete message.             string text = msg.GetBody<string>();             Console.WriteLine("Received: " + text);             msg.Complete();         }         else         {             break;         }     }     Console.WriteLine();       // Should we commit?     Console.WriteLine("Commit receive? (yes or no)");     string reply = Console.ReadLine();     if (reply.ToLower().Equals("yes"))     {         // Commit the transaction.         scope.Complete();     }     Console.WriteLine(); }     Note that if there are a large number of messages to be received, there will be a chance that the transaction may time out before it can be committed. It is possible to specify a longer timeout when the transaction is created, but It may be better to receive and commit smaller amounts of messages within the transaction. It is also possible to complete, defer, or deadletter messages received from more than one subscription, as long as all the subscriptions are contained in the same topic. As subscriptions are not top level messaging entities this scenarios will work. The following code shows how this can be achieved. try {     using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope())     {         // Receive one message from each subscription.         BrokeredMessage msg1 = subscriptionClient1.Receive();         BrokeredMessage msg2 = subscriptionClient2.Receive();           // Complete the message receives.         msg1.Complete();         msg2.Complete();           Console.WriteLine("Msg1: " + msg1.GetBody<string>());         Console.WriteLine("Msg2: " + msg2.GetBody<string>());           // Commit the transaction.         scope.Complete();     } } catch (Exception ex) {     Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }     Unsupported Scenarios The restriction of only one top level messaging entity being able to participate in a transaction makes some useful scenarios unsupported. As the Windows Azure Service Bus is under continuous development and new releases are expected to be frequent it is possible that this restriction may not be present in future releases. The first is the scenario where messages are to be routed to two different systems. The following code attempts to do this.   try {     // Create a transaction scope.     using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope())     {         BrokeredMessage msg1 = new BrokeredMessage("Message1");         BrokeredMessage msg2 = new BrokeredMessage("Message2");           // Send a message to Queue1         Console.WriteLine("Sending Message1");         queue1Client.Send(msg1);           // Send a message to Queue2         Console.WriteLine("Sending Message2");         queue2Client.Send(msg2);           // Commit the transaction.         Console.WriteLine("Committing transaction...");         scope.Complete();     } } catch (Exception ex) {     Console.WriteLine(ex.Message); }     The results of running the code are shown below. When attempting to send a message to the second queue the following exception is thrown: No active Transaction was found for ID '35ad2495-ee8a-4956-bbad-eb4fedf4a96e:1'. The Transaction may have timed out or attempted to span multiple top-level entities such as Queue or Topic. The server Transaction timeout is: 00:01:00..TrackingId:947b8c4b-7754-4044-b91b-4a959c3f9192_3_3,TimeStamp:3/29/2012 7:47:32 AM.   Another scenario where transactional support could be useful is when forwarding messages from one queue to another queue. This would also involve more than one top level messaging entity, and is therefore not supported.   Another scenario that developers may wish to implement is performing transactions across messaging entities and other transactional systems, such as an on-premise database. In the current release this is not supported.   Workarounds for Unsupported Scenarios There are some techniques that developers can use to work around the one top level entity limitation of transactions. When sending two messages to two systems, topics and subscriptions can be used. If the same message is to be sent to two destinations then the subscriptions would have the default subscriptions, and the client would only send one message. If two different messages are to be sent, then filters on the subscriptions can route the messages to the appropriate destination. The client can then send the two messages to the topic in the same transaction.   In scenarios where a message needs to be received and then forwarded to another system within the same transaction topics and subscriptions can also be used. A message can be received from a subscription, and then sent to a topic within the same transaction. As a topic is a top level messaging entity, and a subscription is not, this scenario will work.

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• Distinctly LINQ &ndash; Getting a Distinct List of Objects

  - by David Totzke

  Let’s say that you have a list of objects that contains duplicate items and you want to extract a subset of distinct items.  This is pretty straight forward in the trivial case where the duplicate objects are considered the same such as in the following example: List<int> ages = new List<int> { 21, 46, 46, 55, 17, 21, 55, 55 }; IEnumerable<int> distinctAges = ages.Distinct(); Console.WriteLine("Distinct ages:"); foreach (int age in distinctAges) { Console.WriteLine(age); } /* This code produces the following output: Distinct ages: 21 46 55 17 */ What if you are working with reference types instead?  Imagine a list of search results where items in the results, while unique in and of themselves, also point to a parent.  We’d like to be able to select a bunch of items in the list but then see only a distinct list of parents.  Distinct isn’t going to help us much on its own as all of the items are distinct already.  Perhaps we can create a class with just the information we are interested in like the Id and Name of the parents.  public class SelectedItem { public int ItemID { get; set; } public string DisplayName { get; set; } } We can then use LINQ to populate a list containing objects with just the information we are interested in and then get rid of the duplicates. IEnumerable<SelectedItem> list = (from item in ResultView.SelectedRows.OfType<Contract.ReceiptSelectResults>() select new SelectedItem { ItemID = item.ParentId, DisplayName = item.ParentName }) .Distinct(); Most of you will have guessed that this didn’t work.  Even though some of our objects are now duplicates, because we are working with reference types, it doesn’t matter that their properties are the same, they’re still considered unique.  What we need is a way to define equality for the Distinct() extension method. IEqualityComparer<T> Looking at the Distinct method we see that there is an overload that accepts an IEqualityComparer<T>.  We can simply create a class that implements this interface and that allows us to define equality for our SelectedItem class. public class SelectedItemComparer : IEqualityComparer<SelectedItem> { public new bool Equals(SelectedItem abc, SelectedItem def) { return abc.ItemID == def.ItemID && abc.DisplayName == def.DisplayName; } public int GetHashCode(SelectedItem obj) { string code = obj.DisplayName + obj.ItemID.ToString(); return code.GetHashCode(); } } In the Equals method we simply do whatever comparisons are necessary to determine equality and then return true or false.  Take note of the implementation of the GetHashCode method.  GetHashCode must return the same value for two different objects if our Equals method says they are equal.  Get this wrong and your comparer won’t work .  Even though the Equals method returns true, mismatched hash codes will cause the comparison to fail.  For our example, we simply build a string from the properties of the object and then call GetHashCode() on that. Now all we have to do is pass an instance of our IEqualitlyComarer<T> to Distinct and all will be well: IEnumerable<SelectedItem> list =     (from item in ResultView.SelectedRows.OfType<Contract.ReceiptSelectResults>()         select new SelectedItem { ItemID = item.dahfkp, DisplayName = item.document_code })                         .Distinct(new SelectedItemComparer());   Enjoy. Dave Just because I can… Technorati Tags: LINQ,C#

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• Using the Reactive Extensions with the Silverlight Toolkit and MEF

  - by Bobby Diaz

  I have come across several instances of people having trouble using the new Reactive Extensions (v1.0.2317) in projects that reference the Silverlight Toolkit (Nov09) due to the fact that the original release of the Rx Framework (v1.0.0.0) was bundled with the Toolkit.  The trouble really becomes evident if you are using the Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) to discover and compose portions of your application.   If you are using the CompositionInitializer, or any other mechanism that probes all of the loaded assemblies for valid exports, you will likely receive the following error: Inspecting the LoaderExceptions property yields the following: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Reactive, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=1b331ac6720247d9' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.  File name: 'System.Reactive, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=1b331ac6720247d9' This is due to some of the Toolkit assemblies referencing the older System.Reactive.dll.  I was able to work around the issue by bypassing the automatic probing of loaded assemblies and instead specified which assemblies my exports could be found.     public MainPage()     {         InitializeComponent();           // the following line causes a ReflectionTypeLoadException         //CompositionInitializer.SatisfyImports(this);           // skip the toolkit assemblies by specifying assemblies         var catalog = new AssemblyCatalog(GetType().Assembly);         var container = new CompositionContainer(catalog);         container.ComposeParts(this);           ShowReferences();     } With some simple xaml, I was able to print out exactly which libraries are currently loaded in the application. You can download the sample project to run it for yourself! Hope that helps!

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