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• Can't record or play with a simple recorder?

  - by user1280535

  I have 2 classes, a record and a player. In my main scene, I create an instance of them and play and record. But, as I see, it only records and somehow does not play (the file is not there!) Here is the code for both : -(void)record { NSArray *dirPaths; NSString *docsDir; NSString *sound= @"sound0.caf" ; dirPaths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES) ; docsDir = [dirPaths objectAtIndex:0]; NSString *soundFilePath = [docsDir stringByAppendingPathComponent:sound]; NSURL *soundFileURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:soundFilePath]; NSDictionary *settings = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys: [NSNumber numberWithFloat: 44100.0], AVSampleRateKey, [NSNumber numberWithInt: kAudioFormatAppleLossless], AVFormatIDKey, [NSNumber numberWithInt: 1], AVNumberOfChannelsKey, [NSNumber numberWithInt: AVAudioQualityMax], AVEncoderAudioQualityKey, nil]; NSError *error; myRecorder = [[AVAudioRecorder alloc] initWithURL:soundFileURL settings:settings error:&error]; if (myRecorder) { NSLog(@"rec"); [myRecorder prepareToRecord]; myRecorder.meteringEnabled = YES; [myRecorder record]; } else NSLog( @"error" ); } I can see the log of rec. -(void)play { NSArray *dirPaths; NSString *docsDir; dirPaths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); docsDir = [dirPaths objectAtIndex:0]; NSString *soundFilePath1 = @"sound0.caf" ; NSURL *soundFileURL = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:soundFilePath1]; BOOL isMyFileThere = [[NSFileManager defaultManager] fileExistsAtPath:soundFilePath1]; if(isMyFileThere) { NSLog(@"PLAY"); avPlayer1 = [[AVAudioPlayer alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:soundFileURL error:NULL]; avPlayer1.volume = 8.0; avPlayer1.delegate = self; [avPlayer1 play]; } } I DONT SEE THE LOG OF PLAY ! I call them both with: recInst=[recorder alloc]; //to rec [recInst record]; plyInst=[player alloc]; //play [plyInst play]; and to stop the recorder: - (void)stopRecorder { NSLog(@"stopRecordings"); [myRecorder stop]; //[myRecorder release]; } What's wrong here? Thanks.

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• Thread class closing from other Class (Activity) with protected void onStop() Android

  - by user1761337

  I have a Problem with Closing the Thread. I will Closing the Thread with onStop,onPause and onDestroy. This is my Source in the Activity Class: @Override protected void onStop(){ super.onStop(); finish(); } @Override protected void onPause() { super.onPause(); finish(); } @Override public void onDestroy() { this.mWakeLock.release(); super.onDestroy(); } And the Thread Class: public class GameThread extends Thread { private SurfaceHolder mSurfaceHolder; private Handler mHandler; private Context mContext; private Paint mLinePaint; private Paint blackPaint; //for consistent rendering private long sleepTime; //amount of time to sleep for (in milliseconds) private long delay=1000/30; //state of game (Running or Paused). int state = 1; public final static int RUNNING = 1; public final static int PAUSED = 2; public final static int STOPED = 3; GameSurface gEngine; public GameThread(SurfaceHolder surfaceHolder, Context context, Handler handler,GameSurface gEngineS){ //data about the screen mSurfaceHolder = surfaceHolder; mHandler = handler; mContext = context; gEngine=gEngineS; } //This is the most important part of the code. It is invoked when the call to start() is //made from the SurfaceView class. It loops continuously until the game is finished or //the application is suspended. private long beforeTime; @Override public void run() { //UPDATE while (state==RUNNING) { Log.d("State","Thread is runnig"); //time before update beforeTime = System.nanoTime(); //This is where we update the game engine gEngine.Update(); //DRAW Canvas c = null; try { //lock canvas so nothing else can use it c = mSurfaceHolder.lockCanvas(null); synchronized (mSurfaceHolder) { //clear the screen with the black painter. //reset the canvas c.drawColor(Color.BLACK); //This is where we draw the game engine. gEngine.doDraw(c); } } finally { // do this in a finally so that if an exception is thrown // during the above, we don't leave the Surface in an // inconsistent state if (c != null) { mSurfaceHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(c); } } this.sleepTime = delay-((System.nanoTime()-beforeTime)/1000000L); try { //actual sleep code if(sleepTime>0){ this.sleep(sleepTime); } } catch (InterruptedException ex) { Logger.getLogger(GameThread.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); } while (state==PAUSED){ Log.d("State","Thread is pausing"); try { this.sleep(1000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } } } }} How i can close the Thread from Activity Class??

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• Reason why UIImage gives me a 'distorted' image sometimes

  - by Cedric Vandendriessche

  I have a custom UIView with a UILabel and a UIImageView subview. (tried using UIImageView subclass aswell). I assign an image to it and add the view to the screen. I wrote a function which adds the amount of LetterBoxes to the screen (my custom class): - (void)drawBoxesForWord:(NSString *)word { if(boxesContainer == nil) { /* Create a container for the LetterBoxes (animation purposes) */ boxesContainer = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 205, 320, 50)]; [self.view addSubview:boxesContainer]; } /* Calculate width of letterboxes */ NSInteger numberOfCharacters = [word length]; CGFloat totalWidth = numberOfCharacters * 28 + (numberOfCharacters - 1) * 3; CGFloat leftCap = (320 - totalWidth) / 2; [letters removeAllObjects]; /* Draw the boxes to the screen */ for (int i = 0; i < numberOfCharacters; i++) { LetterBox *letter = [[LetterBox alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(leftCap + i * 31 , 0, 28, 40)]; [letters addObject:letter]; [boxesContainer addSubview:letter]; [letter release]; }} This gives me the image below: http://www.imgdumper.nl/uploads2/4ba3b2c72bb99/4ba3b2c72abfd-Goed.png But sometimes it gives me this: imgdumper.nl/uploads2/4ba3b2d888226/4ba3b2d88728a-Fout.png I add them to the same boxesContainer but they first remove themselves from the superview, so it's not like you see them double or something. What I find weird is that they are all good or all bad.. This is the init function for my LetterBox: if (self == [super initWithFrame:aRect]) { /* Create the box image with same frame */ boxImage = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.bounds.size.width, self.bounds.size.height)]; boxImage.contentMode = UIViewContentModeScaleAspectFit; boxImage.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"SpaceOpen.png"]; [self addSubview:boxImage]; /* Create the label with same frame */ letterLabel = [[UILabel alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, self.bounds.size.width, self.bounds.size.height)]; letterLabel.backgroundColor = [UIColor clearColor]; letterLabel.font = [UIFont fontWithName:@"ArialRoundedMTBold" size:26]; letterLabel.textColor = [UIColor blackColor]; letterLabel.textAlignment = UITextAlignmentCenter; [self addSubview:letterLabel]; } return self;} Does anyone have an idea why this could be? I'd rather have them display correctly every time :)

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• Calling class in Java after editing file used in as source for table

  - by user2892290

  I'm currently working on a project, I'll try to subrscibe first. I save data into text file, that I use as a source for browser of that data. The browser is based on table that contains the data. I have to rewrite the source file everytime I delete or edit data. That's where the problem comes in. After deleting or editing data I call a method to create the table again, but the table never creates. Is it possibly made by editing the file and calling the method right after that? If I restart my app the table is successfully created with right data. Take in note that I don't get any error message. This is the method I use for loading data from source file: try (BufferedReader input1 = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("./src/data.src"))) { int lines = 0; while (input1.read() != -1) { if (!(input1.readLine()).equals("")) { lines++; } } input1.close(); if (lines == 0) { JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "No data to load, create a note first!"); new Writer().build(frame); } else { try (BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("./src/data.src"))) { Game[] g = new Game[lines]; String currentLine; String[] help; int counter = 0; while (lines > 0) { currentLine = input.readLine(); help = currentLine.split("#"); g[counter] = new Game(help[0],help[1], help[2], help[3], help[4], help[5], help[6], help[7], help[8], help[9]); counter++; lines--; } input.close(); final JButton bButton = new backButton().create(frame, mPanel); build(g, frame, bButton); mPanel.add(panel); mPanel.add(panel2); mPanel.add(searchPanel); mPanel.add(bButton); bButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() { @Override public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { frame.setCursor(Cursor.getPredefinedCursor(Cursor.WAIT_CURSOR)); panel.removeAll(); frame.setCursor(Cursor.getDefaultCursor()); } }); mPanel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(1000, 750)); panel.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10)); frame.setLayout(new FlowLayout()); frame.add(mPanel); frame.pack(); JMenuBar menuBar = new Menu().create(frame, mPanel); frame.setJMenuBar(menuBar); frame.setVisible(true); Rectangle rec = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment().getMaximumWindowBounds(); int width = (int) rec.getWidth(); int height = (int) rec.getHeight(); frame.setBounds(1, 3, width, height); frame.addComponentListener(new ComponentAdapter() { @Override public void componentMoved(ComponentEvent e) { frame.setLocation(1, 3); } }); And this is the method I use for creating the table: String[][] tableData = new String[g.length][9]; for (int i = 0; i < tableData.length; i++) { tableData[i][0] = g[i].getChampion(); tableData[i][1] = g[i].getRole(); tableData[i][2] = g[i].getEnemy(); tableData[i][3] = g[i].getDifficulty(); tableData[i][4] = g[i].getResult(); tableData[i][5] = g[i].getScore(); tableData[i][6] = g[i].getGameType(); tableData[i][7] = g[i].getPoints(); tableData[i][8] = g[i].getLeague(); } final JLabel searchLabel = new JLabel("Search for champion played."); final JButton searchButton = new JButton("Search"); final JTextField searchText = new JTextField(20); frame.setTitle("LoL Notepad - reading your notes"); JTable table = new JTable(tableData, columnNames); final JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(table); scrollPane.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(980, 500)); panel2.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(1000, 550)); panel2.setVisible(false); panel2.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(10, 10, 10, 10)); panel3.setVisible(false); panel.setLayout(new FlowLayout()); panel.add(scrollPane); searchPanel.add(searchLabel); searchPanel.add(searchText); searchPanel.add(searchButton); searchButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener() { @Override public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { try { frame.setCursor(Cursor.getPredefinedCursor(Cursor.WAIT_CURSOR)); search(g, searchText.getText(), frame, bButton); frame.setCursor(Cursor.getDefaultCursor()); } catch (IOException ex) { Logger.getLogger(Reader.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); } } }); table.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() { @Override public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) { if (e.getClickCount() == 1) { JTable target = (JTable) e.getSource(); panel.setVisible(false); searchPanel.setVisible(false); bButton.setVisible(false); int row = target.getSelectedRow(); specific(row, g, frame, bButton); } } });

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• Converting OpenGL coordinates to lower UIView (and UIImagePickerController)

  - by John Qualis

  I am new to OpenGL on the iPhone. I am developing an iPhone app similar to a barcode reader but with an extra OpenGL layer. The bottommost layer is UIImagePickerController, then I use UIView on top and draw a rectangle at certain coordinates on the iPhone screen. So far everything is OK. Then I am trying to draw an OpenGL 3-D model in that rectangle. I am able to load a 3-D model in the iPhone based on this code here - http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2008/12/start-of-wavefront-obj-file-loader.html I am not able to transform the coordinates of the rectangle into OpenGL coordinates. Appreciate any help. Do I need to use a matrix to translate the currentPosition of the 3-D model so it is drawn within myRect? The code is given below. -(void)setupView:(GLView*)view { const GLfloat zNear = 0.01, zFar = 1000.0, fieldOfView = 45.0; GLfloat size; glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); size = zNear * tanf(DEGREES_TO_RADIANS(fieldOfView) / 2.0); CGRect rect = view.bounds; glFrustumf(-size, size, -size / (rect.size.width / rect.size.height), size / (rect.size.width / rect.size.height), zNear, zFar); glViewport(0, 0, rect.size.width, rect.size.height); glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); glLoadIdentity(); glClearColor(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"plane" ofType:@"obj"]; OpenGLWaveFrontObject *theObject = [[OpenGLWaveFrontObject alloc] initWithPath:path]; Vertex3D position; position.z = -8.0; position.y = 3.0; position.x = 2.0; theObject.currentPosition = position; self.plane = theObject; [theObject release]; } - (void)drawView:(GLView*)view; { static GLfloat rotation = 0.0; glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glLoadIdentity(); glColor4f(0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.0); // the coordinates of the rectangle are // myRect.x, myRect.y, myRect.width, myRect.height // Do I need to use a matrix to translate the currentPosition of the // 3-D model so it is drawn within myRect? //glOrthof(-160.0f, 160.0f, -240.0f, 240.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f); [plane drawSelf]; }

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• dismissing uiwebview

  - by chimgrrl

  Ok, I really spend 2 days on this and it has gotten me stumped. From my main UIViewController I called a WebViewController which is a UIViewController with a UIWebView inside: UOLCategoriesWebViewController *ucwvcontroller = [[UOLCategoriesWebViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"UOLCategoriesWebViewController" bundle:nil]; [self presentModalViewController:ucwvcontroller animated:YES]; [ucwvcontroller release]; Inside the UOLCategoriesWebViewController I've call the delegate method shouldStartLoadWithRequest where when the user clicks on a particular type of link it parses out the params and return back to the main UIViewController (or at least that's what I want it to do): - (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView*)webView shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest*)request navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType { BOOL continueOrExit = YES; NSURL *url = request.URL; NSString *urlString = [url relativeString]; NSString *urlParams = [url query]; NSArray *urlParamArr = [urlParams componentsSeparatedByString:@"&"]; NSLog(@"the url is: %@",urlString); //NSLog(@"the params are: %@,%@",[urlParamArr objectAtIndex:0],[urlParamArr objectAtIndex:1]); //BOOL endTrain1 = [[urlParamArr objectAtIndex:1] hasPrefix:@"subCatValue"]; //BOOL endTrain2 = ([urlParamArr objectAtIndex:1 //NSLog(@"Number of elements: %@",[urlParamArr count]); if (navigationType == UIWebViewNavigationTypeLinkClicked) { //NSLog(@"Enter into His glory"); if ([urlString hasSuffix:@"categories_list.php"]) { //NSLog(@"2nd Heaven"); continueOrExit = YES; }else if ([[urlParamArr objectAtIndex:1] hasPrefix:@"subCatValue"]) { continueOrExit = NO; NSLog(@"end of the train"); NSArray *firstParamStringArr = [[urlParamArr objectAtIndex:0] componentsSeparatedByString:@"="]; NSArray *secondParamStringArr = [[urlParamArr objectAtIndex:1] componentsSeparatedByString:@"="]; NSString *catSelected = [firstParamStringArr objectAtIndex:1]; NSString *subCatSelected = [secondParamStringArr objectAtIndex:1]; //go back to native app [self goBackToMain:catSelected andSubCat:subCatSelected]; } } return continueOrExit; } Actually in the above function where I am calling the goBackToMain method I want it to call the delegate method and return to the mainviewcontroller. Unfortunately after executing that goBackToMain method it goes back to this method and continue to return continueOrExit. Is there anyway to make it truly exit without returning anything? I've tried putting in multiple returns to no avail. Or can I in the html page pass some javascript to directly call this method so that I don't have to go through this delegate method? Thanks for the help in advance!

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• What's the fastest lookup algorithm for a key, pair data structure (i.e, a map)?

  - by truncheon

  In the following example a std::map structure is filled with 26 values from A - Z (for key) and 0 – 26 for value. The time taken (on my system) to lookup the last entry (10000000 times) is roughly 250 ms for the vector, and 125 ms for the map. (I compiled using release mode, with O3 option turned on for g++ 4.4) But if for some odd reason I wanted better performance than the std::map, what data structures and functions would I need to consider using? I apologize if the answer seems obvious to you, but I haven't had much experience in the performance critical aspects of C++ programming. #include <ctime> #include <map> #include <vector> #include <iostream> struct mystruct { char key; int value; mystruct(char k = 0, int v = 0) : key(k), value(v) { } }; int find(const std::vector<mystruct>& ref, char key) { for (std::vector<mystruct>::const_iterator i = ref.begin(); i != ref.end(); ++i) if (i->key == key) return i->value; return -1; } int main() { std::map<char, int> mymap; std::vector<mystruct> myvec; for (int i = 'a'; i < 'a' + 26; ++i) { mymap[i] = i - 'a'; myvec.push_back(mystruct(i, i - 'a')); } int pre = clock(); for (int i = 0; i < 10000000; ++i) { find(myvec, 'z'); } std::cout << "linear scan: milli " << clock() - pre << "\n"; pre = clock(); for (int i = 0; i < 10000000; ++i) { mymap['z']; } std::cout << "map scan: milli " << clock() - pre << "\n"; return 0; }

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• How solve consumer/producer task using semaphores

  - by user1074896

  I have SimpleProducerConsumer class that illustrate consumer/producer problem (I am not sure that it's correct). public class SimpleProducerConsumer { private Stack<Object> stack = new Stack<Object>(); private static final int STACK_MAX_SIZE = 10; public static void main(String[] args) { SimpleProducerConsumer pc = new SimpleProducerConsumer(); new Thread(pc.new Producer(), "p1").start(); new Thread(pc.new Producer(), "p2").start(); new Thread(pc.new Consumer(), "c1").start(); new Thread(pc.new Consumer(), "c2").start(); new Thread(pc.new Consumer(), "c3").start(); } public synchronized void push(Object d) { while (stack.size() >= STACK_MAX_SIZE) try { wait(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } try { Thread.sleep(1000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } stack.push(new Object()); System.out.println("push " + Thread.currentThread().getName() + " " + stack.size()); notify(); } public synchronized Object pop() { while (stack.size() == 0) try { wait(); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } try { Thread.sleep(50); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } stack.pop(); System.out.println("pop " + Thread.currentThread().getName() + " " + stack.size()); notify(); return null; } class Consumer implements Runnable { @Override public void run() { while (true) { pop(); } } } class Producer implements Runnable { @Override public void run() { while (true) { push(new Object()); } } } } I found simple realization of semaphore(here:http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/concurrency/guardmeth.html I know that there is concurrency package) How I need to change code to exchange java objects monitors to my custom semaphore. (To illustrate C/P problem using semaphores) Semaphore: class Semaphore { private int counter; public Semaphore() { this(0); } public Semaphore(int i) { if (i < 0) throw new IllegalArgumentException(i + " < 0"); counter = i; } public synchronized void release() { if (counter == 0) { notify(); } counter++; } public synchronized void acquire() throws InterruptedException { while (counter == 0) { wait(); } counter--; } }

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• Spring noHandlerFound

  - by Justin

  I am trying to set up my Spring MVC testing environment. But I always get this noHandlerFound error: Aug 21, 2014 4:43:25 PM org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet noHandlerFound WARNING: No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/restful/firstPage] in DispatcherServlet with name 'spring' Aug 21, 2014 4:47:21 PM org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet noHandlerFound WARNING: No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/restful/firstPage2] in DispatcherServlet with name 'spring' Aug 21, 2014 5:10:27 PM org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet noHandlerFound WARNING: No mapping found for HTTP request with URI [/restful/index.html] in DispatcherServlet with name 'spring' I already searched for solution, but none can fix my problem. My spring mvc version: 3.1.3.RELEASE This is my web.xml: <servlet> <servlet-name>spring</servlet-name> <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class> <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>spring</servlet-name> <url-pattern>/</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping> <context-param> <param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name> <param-value> /WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml </param-value> </context-param> this is my spring-servlet.xml: <bean id="viewResolver" class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver" p:prefix="/WEB-INF/jsp/" p:suffix=".jsp" /> this is my applicationContext.xml: <context:annotation-config /> <context:component-scan base-package="test.spring" /> <mvc:annotation-driven /> <mvc:resources mapping="/index.html" location="/index.html" /> <mvc:view-controller path="/firstPage" /> This is my Controller: package test.spring; .... @Controller @RequestMapping("/") public class FirstController { @RequestMapping(value = "firstPage2", method = RequestMethod.GET) public String showFirstPage(Map<String,Object> model){ return "firstPage"; } } My server is tomcat 7, there is no error and warning when it is deployed. I also tried this with no luck: <mvc:default-servlet-handler/> Before I start Spring MVC, I can access index.html

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• Animating and moving a draggable shape in KineticJS's dragend event

  - by user3712941

  I would like to animate moving a draggable shape to another position after it has been dragged in KineticJS. I would like to animate the movement of the shape over a period of time (for example, over 1 second). For example, I create a draggable shape and save its initial xy coordinates. I register a "dragend" event on this shape. Then, I drag the shape to a new position. When I release the drag, the dragend event is called. In that event function, I want to animate/ease the shape back to its original position. See my JSFiddle for a complete example: DragSample. (function () { //create variables at global scope var layer; var stage; var triangle; var triangleLastX = 190; var triangleLastY = 120; var tween; function initTween() { tween = new Kinetic.Tween({ node: triangle, duration: 1, easing: Kinetic.Easings.EaseInOut, x: 400, y: 200, }); } this.init = function () { layer = new Kinetic.Layer(); stage = new Kinetic.Stage({ container: 'container', width: 800, height: 600 }); triangle = new Kinetic.RegularPolygon({ x: 190, y: 120, sides: 3, radius: 80, fill: '#00D2FF', stroke: 'black', strokeWidth: 4, draggable: true }); triangle.on('dragstart', function () { triangleLastX = triangle.attrs.x; triangleLastY = triangle.attrs.y; }); triangle.on('dragend', function () { tween.play(); stage.draw(); }); layer.add(triangle); stage.add(layer); initTween (); } window.onload = init(); })(); I have tried doing this several ways. The last way I attempted to do this was using Kinetic's Tween(), however, when I play this Tween from the dragend event handler function, it moves the shape back to its original position immediately (i.e. the position when the drag started), then applies the Tween. Is there any way to achieve animating the movement of a draggable shape to its original position (or any other position for that matter) in dragend using KineticJS?

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• How to store byte[] from Android Camera onPictureTaken method within application for later use

  - by Kiel Wood

  I am writing a larger Android application and I use the camera within the app. All I want to do with the camera is have the user take a picture, then start a new activity to show that image and allow the user to decide if they want to keep the image or not. I am having the hardest time figuring out how to simply store the byte[] data from the onPictureTaken method so that I can display it to the user in the next activity. I have tried many different routes and none of them have worked. The last thing I tried was creating a globalsettings class that extends the Application class and creating a byte[] field within it to store the byte[] from the camera so that I could use it within another activity, but my global variable is still not getting set. My CameraActivity code is shown below: public class CameraActivity extends Activity { CameraPreview Preview; Intent intent; byte[] image; @Override public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.cameralayout); Preview = new CameraPreview(this); ((FrameLayout)findViewById(R.id.uxfmlayPreview)).addView(Preview); intent = new Intent(this, PostCaptureActivity.class); } public void uxbtnCaptureSnap_Click(View v) { Preview.DeviceCamera.setPreviewCallback(null); Preview.DeviceCamera.takePicture(shutterCallback, rawCallback, jpegCallback); startActivity(intent); finish(); } public void uxbtnCaptureExit_Click(View v) { Intent i = new Intent(this, ExploreMenuActivity.class); setResult(RESULT_OK); startActivity(i); finish(); } ShutterCallback shutterCallback = new ShutterCallback() { public void onShutter() {} }; PictureCallback rawCallback = new PictureCallback() { public void onPictureTaken(byte[] data, Camera camera) {} }; PictureCallback jpegCallback = new PictureCallback() { public void onPictureTaken(byte[] data, Camera camera) { ((GlobalSettings)getApplication()).setGlobalImage(data); camera.release(); camera = null; } }; } Here is my code from my PostCaptureActivity onCreate() method where I attempt to convert and set the image as the source for an imageview: public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.postcapturelayout); SnapShot = ((ImageView)findViewById(R.id.uximgSnapshot)); if(((GlobalSettings)this.getApplication()).getGlobalImage() != null) { Bitmap b = BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(((GlobalSettings)this.getApplication()).getGlobalImage(), 0, ((GlobalSettings)this.getApplication()).getGlobalImage().length); SnapShot.setImageBitmap(b); } else { Toast.makeText(this, "Oops! Picture cannot be saved", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show(); } }

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• bandwidth throttling C linux

  - by bob moch

  hi im currently creating a function to create a sleep time i can pause between packets for my port scanner im creating for personal/educational use for my home network. what im currently doing is opening /proc/net/dev and reading the 9th set of digits for the eth0 interface to find out the current packets being set and then reading it again and doing some math to figure out a delay to sleep between sending a packet to a port to identify it and fingerprint it. my problem is that no matter what throttle % i use it always seems to send the same rate of packets. i think its mainly my way of mathematically creating my sleep delay. edit:: dont mind the function declaration and the struct stuff all im doing is spawning this function in a thread and passing a pointer to a struct to the function, recreating the struct locally and then freeing the passed structs memory. void *bandwidthmonitor_cmd(void *param) { char cmdline[1024], *bytedata[19]; int i = 0, ii = 0; long long prevbytes = 0, currentbytes = 0, elapsedbytes = 0, byteusage = 0, maxthrottle = 0; command_struct bandwidth = *((command_struct *)param); free(param); //printf("speed: %d\n throttle: %d\n\n", UPLOAD_SPEED, bandwidth.throttle); maxthrottle = UPLOAD_SPEED * bandwidth.throttle / 100; //printf("max throttle:%lld\n", maxthrottle); FILE *f = fopen("/proc/net/dev", "r"); if(f != NULL) { while(1) { while(fgets(cmdline, sizeof(cmdline), f) != NULL) { cmdline[strlen(cmdline)] = '\0'; if(strncmp(cmdline, " eth0", 6) == 0) { bytedata[0] = strtok(cmdline, " "); while(bytedata[i] != NULL) { i++; bytedata[i] = strtok(NULL, " "); } bytedata[i + 1] = '\0'; currentbytes = atoi(bytedata[9]); } } i = 0; rewind(f); elapsedbytes = currentbytes - prevbytes; prevbytes = currentbytes; byteusage = 8 * (elapsedbytes / 1024); //printf("usage:%lld\n",byteusage); if(ii & 0x40) { SLEEP += (maxthrottle - byteusage) * -1.1;//-2.5; if(SLEEP < 0){ SLEEP = 0; } //printf("sleep:%d\n", SLEEP); } usleep(25000); ii++; } } return NULL; } SLEEP and UPLOAD_SPEED are global variables and UPLOAD_SPEED is in kb/s and generated via a speedtest function that gets the upload speed of my computer. this function is running inside a POSIX thread updating SLEEP which my threads doing the socket work grab to sleep by after every packet. as testing instead of only doing the ports i want to check i make it do all the ports over and over again so i can run dstat on a machine to check bandwidth and no matter what bandwidth.throttle is set to it always seems to generate the same amount of bandwidth to the dstat machine. the way i calculate how much i "should" throttle by is by finding the maximum throttle speed which is defined as maxthrottle = upload_speed * throttle / 100; for example if my upload speed was 1000kb/s and my throttle was 90 (90%) my max throttle would be 900kb/s from there it would find the current bytes sent from /proc/net/dev and then find my sleep time via incrementing or decrementing it via sleep += (maxthrottle - bytesysed) * -1.1; this should in theory increase or decrease the sleep time based on how many bytes used there are. the if(ii & 0x40) statement is just for some moderation control. it makes it so it only sets sleep to a new time every 30-40 iterations. final notes: the main problem is that the sleep timer does not seem to modify the speed of packets being set. or maybe its just my implementation because on a freshly restarted machine where /proc/net/dev has low numbers of bytes sent it seems to raise the sleep timer accordingly on my 60kb/s upload machine (ex if i set the throttle to 2 it will incline the sleep timer until network bandwidth out reaches the max bandwidth threshold, but when i try running it on a server which as been online forever it doesnt seem to work as nicely if at all. if anyone can suggest a new method of monitoring the network to adjust a sleep delay then let me know or if anyone sees a flaw in my code. thank you.

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• why my test performance class gives me inconsistent results even after proper warm-up?

  - by colinfang

  i made a class which helps me measure time for any methods in Ticks. Basically, it runs testing method 100x, and force GC, then it records time taken for another 100x method runs. x64 release ctrl+f5 VS2012/VS2010 the results are following: 2,914 2,909 2,913 2,909 2,908 2,907 2,909 2,998 2,976 2,855 2,446 2,415 2,435 2,401 2,402 2,402 2,399 2,401 2,401 2,400 2,399 2,400 2,404 2,402 2,401 2,399 2,400 2,402 2,404 2,403 2,401 2,403 2,401 2,400 2,399 2,414 2,405 2,401 2,407 2,399 2,401 2,402 2,401 2,404 2,401 2,404 2,405 2,368 1,577 1,579 1,626 1,578 1,576 1,578 1,577 1,577 1,576 1,578 1,576 1,578 1,577 1,578 1,576 1,578 1,577 1,579 1,585 1,576 1,579 1,577 1,579 1,578 1,579 1,577 1,578 1,577 1,578 1,576 1,578 1,577 1,578 1,599 1,579 1,578 1,582 1,576 1,578 1,576 1,579 1,577 1,578 1,577 1,591 1,577 1,578 1,578 1,576 1,578 1,576 1,578 As you can see there are 3 phases, first is ~2,900, second is ~2,400, then ~1,550 What might be the reason to cause it? the test performance class code follows: public static void RunTests(Func<long> myTest) { const int numTrials = 100; Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch(); double[] sample = new double[numTrials]; Console.WriteLine("Checksum is {0:N0}", myTest()); sw.Start(); myTest(); sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine("Estimated time per test is {0:N0} ticks\n", sw.ElapsedTicks); for (int i = 0; i < numTrials; i++) { myTest(); } GC.Collect(); string testName = myTest.Method.Name; Console.WriteLine("----> Starting benchmark {0}\n", myTest.Method.Name); for (int i = 0; i < numTrials; i++) { sw.Restart(); myTest(); sw.Stop(); sample[i] = sw.ElapsedTicks; } double testResult = DataSetAnalysis.Report(sample); for (int j = 0; j < numTrials; j = j + 5) Console.WriteLine("{0,8:N0} {1,8:N0} {2,8:N0} {3,8:N0} {4,8:N0}", sample[j], sample[j + 1], sample[j + 2], sample[j + 3], sample[j + 4]); Console.WriteLine("\n----> End of benchmark"); }

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• Is it possible to start (and stop) a thread inside a DLL?

  - by Jerry Dodge

  I'm pondering some ideas for building a DLL for some common stuff I do. One thing I'd like to check if it's possible is running a thread inside of a DLL. I'm sure I would be able to at least start it, and have it automatically free on terminate (and make it forcefully terminate its self) - that I can see wouldn't be much of a problem. But once I start it, I don't see how I can continue communicating with it (especially to stop it) mainly because each call to the DLL is unique (as far as my knowledge tells me) but I also know very little of the subject. I've seen how in some occasions, a DLL can be loaded at the beginning and released at the end when it's not needed anymore. I have 0 knowledge or experience with this method, other than just seeing something related to it, couldn't even tell you what or how, I don't remember. But is this even possible? I know about ActiveX/COM but that is not what I want - I'd like just a basic DLL that can be used across languages (specifically C#). Also, if it is possible, then how would I go about doing callbacks from the DLL to the app? For example, when I start the thread, I most probably will assign a function (which is inside the EXE) to be the handler for the events (which are triggered from the DLL). So I guess what I'm asking is - how to load a DLL for continuous work and release it when I'm done - as opposed to the simple method of calling individual functions in the DLL as needed. In the same case - I might assign variables or create objects inside the DLL. How can I assure that once I assign that variable (or create the object), how can I make sure that variable or object will still be available the next time I call the DLL? Obviously it would require a mechanism to Initialize/Finalize the DLL (I.E. create the objects inside the DLL when the DLL is loaded, and free the objects when the DLL is unloaded). EDIT: In the end, I will wrap the DLL inside of a component, so when an instance of the component is created, DLL will be loaded and a corresponding thread will be created inside the DLL, then when the component is free'd, the DLL is unloaded. Also need to make sure that if there are for example 2 of these components, that there will be 2 instances of the DLL loaded for each component. Is this in any way related to the use of an IInterface? Because I also have 0 experience with this. No need to answer it directly with sample source code - a link to a good tutorial would be great.

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• Second query to SQLite (on iPhone) errors.

  - by Luke

  Hi all, On the iPhone, I am developing a class for a cart that connects directly to a database. To view the cart, all items can be pulled from the database, however, it seems that removing them doesn't work. It is surprising to me because the error occurs during connection to the database, except not the second time I connect even after the DB has been closed. #import "CartDB.h" #import "CartItem.h" @implementation CartDB @synthesize database, databasePath; - (NSMutableArray *) getAllItems { NSMutableArray *items = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init]; if([self openDatabase]) { const char *sqlStatement = "SELECT * FROM items;"; sqlite3_stmt *compiledStatement; if(sqlite3_prepare_v2(cartDatabase, sqlStatement, -1, &compiledStatement, NULL) == SQLITE_OK) { while(sqlite3_step(compiledStatement) == SQLITE_ROW) { int rowId = sqlite3_column_int(compiledStatement, 0); int productId = sqlite3_column_int(compiledStatement, 1); NSString *features = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:(char *)sqlite3_column_text(compiledStatement, 2)]; int quantity = sqlite3_column_int(compiledStatement, 3); CartItem *cartItem = [[CartItem alloc] initWithRowId:rowId productId:productId features:features quantity:quantity]; [items addObject:cartItem]; [cartItem release]; } } sqlite3_finalize(compiledStatement); } [self closeDatabase]; return items; } - (BOOL) removeCartItem:(CartItem *)item { sqlite3_stmt *deleteStatement; [self openDatabase]; const char *sql = "DELETE FROM items WHERE id = ?"; if(sqlite3_prepare_v2(cartDatabase, sql, -1, &deleteStatement, NULL) != SQLITE_OK) { return NO; } sqlite3_bind_int(deleteStatement, 1, item.rowId); if(SQLITE_DONE != sqlite3_step(deleteStatement)) { sqlite3_reset(deleteStatement); [self closeDatabase]; return NO; } else { sqlite3_reset(deleteStatement); [self closeDatabase]; return YES; } } - (BOOL) openDatabase { if(sqlite3_open([databasePath UTF8String], &cartDatabase) == SQLITE_OK) { return YES; } else { return NO; } } - (void) closeDatabase { sqlite3_close(cartDatabase); } The error occurs on the line where the connection is opened in openDatabase. Any ideas? Need to flush something? Something gets autoreleased? I really can't figure it out. --Edit-- The error that I receive is GDB: Program received signal "EXC_BAD_ACCESS". --Edit-- I ended up just connecting in the init and closing in the free methods, which might not be the proper way, but that's another question altogether so it's effectively persistent instead of connecting multiple times. Still would be nice to know what was up with this for future reference.

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• When the user first visits the page I want all the checkboxes to be checked in my index page. Below is the code from my controller and index.html.haml

  - by user1760920

  I want the checkbox to be checked when the user visits the page for the first time. -# This file is app/views/movies/index.html.haml %h1 All Movies = form_tag movies_path, :method => :get, :id => 'ratings_form' do Include: - @all_ratings.each do |rating| = rating = check_box_tag "ratings[#{rating}]", "1", @checked_ratings.include?(rating), :id => "ratings_#{rating}", = submit_tag 'Refresh', :id => 'ratings_submit' %table#movies %thead %tr %th{:class => ("hilite" if @sort == "title")}= link_to "Movie Title", movies_path( :sort => "title", :ratings => @checked_ratings), :id => "title_header" %th Rating %th{:class => ("hilite" if @sort == "release_date")}= link_to "Release Date", movies_path( :sort => "release_date", :ratings => @checked_ratings), :id => "release_date_header" %th More Info %tbody - @movies.each do |movie| %tr %td= movie.title %td= movie.rating %td= movie.release_date %td= link_to "More about #{movie.title}", movie_path(movie) = link_to 'Add new movie', new_movie_path #This is my Controller class MoviesController < ApplicationController def show id = params[:id] # retrieve movie ID from URI route @movie = Movie.find(id) # look up movie by unique ID # will render app/views/movies/show.<extension> by default end def index #get all the ratings available @all_ratings = Movie.all_ratings @checked_ratings = (params[:ratings].present? ? params[:ratings] : []) @sort = params[:sort] @movies = Movie.scoped if @sort && Movie.attribute_names.include?(@sort) @movies = @movies.order @sort end id @checked_ratings.empty? @checked_ratings = @all_ratings end unless @checked_ratings.empty? @movies = @movies.where :rating => @checked_ratings.keys end end def new # default: render 'new' template end def create @movie = Movie.create!(params[:movie]) flash[:notice] = "#{@movie.title} was successfully created." redirect_to movies_path end def edit @movie = Movie.find params[:id] end def update @movie = Movie.find params[:id] @movie.update_attributes!(params[:movie]) flash[:notice] = "#{@movie.title} was successfully updated." redirect_to movie_path(@movie) end def destroy @movie = Movie.find(params[:id]) @movie.destroy flash[:notice] = "Movie '#{@movie.title}' deleted." redirect_to movies_path end end In the controller, I set the @checked_rating to be @all_rating if the @checked.rating is empty but it does not do anything. I tried putting :checked = true in the index.html.haml on the check_box_tag but that makes the checkboxes checked everytime the page is refreshed. Everytime I check a particular checkbox and hit refresh button the page loads with all the checkboxes checked. Please help me with this. Thank you in Advance.

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• Using jQuery to Insert a New Database Record

  - by Stephen Walther

  The goal of this blog entry is to explore the easiest way of inserting a new record into a database using jQuery and .NET. I’m going to explore two approaches: using Generic Handlers and using a WCF service (In a future blog entry I’ll take a look at OData and WCF Data Services). Create the ASP.NET Project I’ll start by creating a new empty ASP.NET application with Visual Studio 2010. Select the menu option File, New Project and select the ASP.NET Empty Web Application project template. Setup the Database and Data Model I’ll use my standard MoviesDB.mdf movies database. This database contains one table named Movies that looks like this: I’ll use the ADO.NET Entity Framework to represent my database data: Select the menu option Project, Add New Item and select the ADO.NET Entity Data Model project item. Name the data model MoviesDB.edmx and click the Add button. In the Choose Model Contents step, select Generate from database and click the Next button. In the Choose Your Data Connection step, leave all of the defaults and click the Next button. In the Choose Your Data Objects step, select the Movies table and click the Finish button. Unfortunately, Visual Studio 2010 cannot spell movie correctly :) You need to click on Movy and change the name of the class to Movie. In the Properties window, change the Entity Set Name to Movies. Using a Generic Handler In this section, we’ll use jQuery with an ASP.NET generic handler to insert a new record into the database. A generic handler is similar to an ASP.NET page, but it does not have any of the overhead. It consists of one method named ProcessRequest(). Select the menu option Project, Add New Item and select the Generic Handler project item. Name your new generic handler InsertMovie.ashx and click the Add button. Modify your handler so it looks like Listing 1: Listing 1 – InsertMovie.ashx using System.Web; namespace WebApplication1 { /// <summary> /// Inserts a new movie into the database /// </summary> public class InsertMovie : IHttpHandler { private MoviesDBEntities _dataContext = new MoviesDBEntities(); public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain"; // Extract form fields var title = context.Request["title"]; var director = context.Request["director"]; // Create movie to insert var movieToInsert = new Movie { Title = title, Director = director }; // Save new movie to DB _dataContext.AddToMovies(movieToInsert); _dataContext.SaveChanges(); // Return success context.Response.Write("success"); } public bool IsReusable { get { return true; } } } } In Listing 1, the ProcessRequest() method is used to retrieve a title and director from form parameters. Next, a new Movie is created with the form values. Finally, the new movie is saved to the database and the string “success” is returned. Using jQuery with the Generic Handler We can call the InsertMovie.ashx generic handler from jQuery by using the standard jQuery post() method. The following HTML page illustrates how you can retrieve form field values and post the values to the generic handler: Listing 2 – Default.htm <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Add Movie</title> <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> <form> <label>Title:</label> <input name="title" /> <br /> <label>Director:</label> <input name="director" /> </form> <button id="btnAdd">Add Movie</button> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#btnAdd").click(function () { $.post("InsertMovie.ashx", $("form").serialize(), insertCallback); }); function insertCallback(result) { if (result == "success") { alert("Movie added!"); } else { alert("Could not add movie!"); } } </script> </body> </html>     When you open the page in Listing 2 in a web browser, you get a simple HTML form: Notice that the page in Listing 2 includes the jQuery library. The jQuery library is included with the following SCRIPT tag: <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> The jQuery library is included on the Microsoft Ajax CDN so you can always easily include the jQuery library in your applications. You can learn more about the CDN at this website: http://www.asp.net/ajaxLibrary/cdn.ashx When you click the Add Movie button, the jQuery post() method is called to post the form data to the InsertMovie.ashx generic handler. Notice that the form values are serialized into a URL encoded string by calling the jQuery serialize() method. The serialize() method uses the name attribute of form fields and not the id attribute. Notes on this Approach This is a very low-level approach to interacting with .NET through jQuery – but it is simple and it works! And, you don’t need to use any JavaScript libraries in addition to the jQuery library to use this approach. The signature for the jQuery post() callback method looks like this: callback(data, textStatus, XmlHttpRequest) The second parameter, textStatus, returns the HTTP status code from the server. I tried returning different status codes from the generic handler with an eye towards implementing server validation by returning a status code such as 400 Bad Request when validation fails (see http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html ). I finally figured out that the callback is not invoked when the textStatus has any value other than “success”. Using a WCF Service As an alternative to posting to a generic handler, you can create a WCF service. You create a new WCF service by selecting the menu option Project, Add New Item and selecting the Ajax-enabled WCF Service project item. Name your WCF service InsertMovie.svc and click the Add button. Modify the WCF service so that it looks like Listing 3: Listing 3 – InsertMovie.svc using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Activation; namespace WebApplication1 { [ServiceBehavior(IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults=true)] [ServiceContract(Namespace = "")] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] public class MovieService { private MoviesDBEntities _dataContext = new MoviesDBEntities(); [OperationContract] public bool Insert(string title, string director) { // Create movie to insert var movieToInsert = new Movie { Title = title, Director = director }; // Save new movie to DB _dataContext.AddToMovies(movieToInsert); _dataContext.SaveChanges(); // Return movie (with primary key) return true; } } }   The WCF service in Listing 3 uses the Entity Framework to insert a record into the Movies database table. The service always returns the value true. Notice that the service in Listing 3 includes the following attribute: [ServiceBehavior(IncludeExceptionDetailInFaults=true)] You need to include this attribute if you want to get detailed error information back to the client. When you are building an application, you should always include this attribute. When you are ready to release your application, you should remove this attribute for security reasons. Using jQuery with the WCF Service Calling a WCF service from jQuery requires a little more work than calling a generic handler from jQuery. Here are some good blog posts on some of the issues with using jQuery with WCF: http://encosia.com/2008/06/05/3-mistakes-to-avoid-when-using-jquery-with-aspnet-ajax/ http://encosia.com/2008/03/27/using-jquery-to-consume-aspnet-json-web-services/ http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/04/04/json-hijacking-and-how-asp-net-ajax-1-0-mitigates-these-attacks.aspx http://www.west-wind.com/Weblog/posts/896411.aspx http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/324917.aspx http://professionalaspnet.com/archive/tags/WCF/default.aspx The primary requirement when calling WCF from jQuery is that the request use JSON: The request must include a content-type:application/json header. Any parameters included with the request must be JSON encoded. Unfortunately, jQuery does not include a method for serializing JSON (Although, oddly, jQuery does include a parseJSON() method for deserializing JSON). Therefore, we need to use an additional library to handle the JSON serialization. The page in Listing 4 illustrates how you can call a WCF service from jQuery. Listing 4 – Default2.aspx <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>Add Movie</title> <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/json2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> <form> <label>Title:</label> <input id="title" /> <br /> <label>Director:</label> <input id="director" /> </form> <button id="btnAdd">Add Movie</button> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#btnAdd").click(function () { // Convert the form into an object var data = { title: $("#title").val(), director: $("#director").val() }; // JSONify the data data = JSON.stringify(data); // Post it $.ajax({ type: "POST", contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8", url: "MovieService.svc/Insert", data: data, dataType: "json", success: insertCallback }); }); function insertCallback(result) { // unwrap result result = result["d"]; if (result === true) { alert("Movie added!"); } else { alert("Could not add movie!"); } } </script> </body> </html> There are several things to notice about Listing 4. First, notice that the page includes both the jQuery library and Douglas Crockford’s JSON2 library: <script src="Scripts/json2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> You need to include the JSON2 library to serialize the form values into JSON. You can download the JSON2 library from the following location: http://www.json.org/js.html When you click the button to submit the form, the form data is converted into a JavaScript object: // Convert the form into an object var data = { title: $("#title").val(), director: $("#director").val() }; Next, the data is serialized into JSON using the JSON2 library: // JSONify the data var data = JSON.stringify(data); Finally, the form data is posted to the WCF service by calling the jQuery ajax() method: // Post it $.ajax({   type: "POST",   contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",   url: "MovieService.svc/Insert",   data: data,   dataType: "json",   success: insertCallback }); You can’t use the standard jQuery post() method because you must set the content-type of the request to be application/json. Otherwise, the WCF service will reject the request for security reasons. For details, see the Scott Guthrie blog post: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/04/04/json-hijacking-and-how-asp-net-ajax-1-0-mitigates-these-attacks.aspx The insertCallback() method is called when the WCF service returns a response. This method looks like this: function insertCallback(result) {   // unwrap result   result = result["d"];   if (result === true) {       alert("Movie added!");   } else {     alert("Could not add movie!");   } } When we called the jQuery ajax() method, we set the dataType to JSON. That causes the jQuery ajax() method to deserialize the response from the WCF service from JSON into a JavaScript object automatically. The following value is passed to the insertCallback method: {"d":true} For security reasons, a WCF service always returns a response with a “d” wrapper. The following line of code removes the “d” wrapper: // unwrap result result = result["d"]; To learn more about the “d” wrapper, I recommend that you read the following blog posts: http://encosia.com/2009/02/10/a-breaking-change-between-versions-of-aspnet-ajax/ http://encosia.com/2009/06/29/never-worry-about-asp-net-ajaxs-d-again/ Summary In this blog entry, I explored two methods of inserting a database record using jQuery and .NET. First, we created a generic handler and called the handler from jQuery. This is a very low-level approach. However, it is a simple approach that works. Next, we looked at how you can call a WCF service using jQuery. This approach required a little more work because you need to serialize objects into JSON. We used the JSON2 library to perform the serialization. In the next blog post, I want to explore how you can use jQuery with OData and WCF Data Services.

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• The Art of Productivity

  - by dwahlin

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

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

  - by andrewbrust

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

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• On checking kernel parms HP-UX & Oracle 10.2

  - by [email protected]

  Hi,Just did this little script for a customer wanting to investigate if the kernel parameters of their HP-UX machines fits or not the Oracle 10.2 specifications ( looks like someone checked the "User Verified" at database installation time on some prerequisites)Just want to share ( its in Spanish)Hope it helps!--L Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} ### ### check_kernel_parms.sh ### ### ### ###    NAME ###      check_kernel_parms.sh ### ###    DESCRIPTION ###      Comprueba los parametros de kernel ### ###    NOTES ###     Valido para versiones de SO HP-UX y Oracle 10.2 ###     ### ###    MODIFIED   (MM/DD/YY) ###    lvelasco    05/20/10 - Creacion     V_DATE=`/usr/bin/date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S` if [ "${1}" != 'sin_traza' ]; then   V_FICHERO_LOG=`dirname $0`/`basename $0`.${V_DATE}.log   exec 4>&1   tee ${V_FICHERO_LOG} >&4 |&   exec 1>&p 2>&1 fi   echo "${V_DATE}- check_params.sh *******************************************" echo "Comenzado ejecucion de chequeo de parametros de kernel en maquina `hostname`" echo "****************************************************************************"   UX_VERS=`uname -a | awk '{print $3}'` KCTUNE=/usr/sbin/kctune MEM_TOTAL_MB=`./check_mem` <-- This should return the physical mem of the machine on bytes MEM_TOTAL=$((MEM_TOTAL_MB*1024))     NPROC=$(${KCTUNE} | grep nproc | grep -v '(nproc' | grep -v *nproc | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${NPROC} -lt 4096 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro nproc con valor actual ${NPROC} debe tener una valor superior a 4096" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro nproc con valor actual ${NPROC} debe tener una valor superior a 4096" fi     KSI_ALLOC_MAX_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep ksi_alloc | awk '{print $2}') KSI_ALLOC_MAX=$((NPROC*8)) if [ ${KSI_ALLOC_MAX_T} -lt ${KSI_ALLOC_MAX} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro ksi_alloc_max con valor actual ${KSI_ALLOC_MAX_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${KSI_ALLOC_MAX}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro ksi_alloc_max con valor actual ${KSI_ALLOC_MAX_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${KSI_ALLOC_MAX}" fi       EXECUTABLE_STACK=$(${KCTUNE} | grep executable_stack | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${EXECUTABLE_STACK} -ne 0 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro executable_stack con valor actual ${EXECUTABLE_STACK} debe tener una valor igual a 0" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro executable_stack con valor actual ${EXECUTABLE_STACK} debe tener una valor igual a 0" fi       MAX_THREAD_PROC=$(${KCTUNE} | grep max_thread_proc | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${MAX_THREAD_PROC} -lt 1024 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro max_thread_proc con valor actual ${MAX_THREAD_PROC} debe tener una valor superior a 1024" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro max_thread_proc con valor actual ${MAX_THREAD_PROC} debe tener una valor superior a 1024" fi     MAXDSIZ=$(${KCTUNE} | grep 'maxdsiz ' | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${MAXDSIZ} -lt 1073741824 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro maxdsiz con valor actual ${MAXDSIZ} debe tener una valor superior a 1073741824" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro maxdsiz con valor actual ${MAXDSIZ} debe tener una valor superior a 1073741824" fi     MAXDSIZ_64BIT=$(${KCTUNE} | grep maxdsiz_64bit | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${MAXDSIZ} -lt 2147483648 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro maxdsiz_64bit con valor actual ${MAXDSIZ_64BIT} debe tener una valor superior a 2147483648" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro maxdsiz_64bit con valor actual ${MAXDSIZ_64BIT} debe tener una valor superior a 2147483648" fi   MAXSSIZ=$(${KCTUNE} | grep 'maxssiz ' | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${MAXSSIZ} -lt 134217728 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro maxssiz con valor actual ${MAXSSIZ} debe tener una valor superior a 134217728" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro maxssiz con valor actual ${MAXSSIZ} debe tener una valor superior a 134217728" fi     MAXSSIZ_64BIT=$(${KCTUNE} | grep maxssiz_64bit | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${MAXSSIZ} -lt 1073741824 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro maxssiz_64bit con valor actual ${MAXSSIZ} debe tener una valor superior a 1073741824" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro maxssiz_64bit con valor actual ${MAXSSIZ} debe tener una valor superior a 1073741824" fi     MAXUPRC_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep maxuprc | awk '{print $2}') MAXUPRC=$(((NPROC*9)/10)) if [ ${MAXUPRC_T} -lt ${MAXUPRC} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro maxuprc con valor actual ${MAXUPRC_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${MAXUPRC}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro maxuprc con valor actual ${MAXUPRC_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${MAXUPRC}" fi   MSGMNI=$(${KCTUNE} | grep msgmni | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${MSGMNI} -lt ${NPROC} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro msgni con valor actual ${MSGMNI} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro msgni con valor actual ${MSGMNI} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" fi     if [ ${UX_VERS} = "B.11.23" ] then        MSGSEG=$(${KCTUNE} | grep msgseg | awk '{print $2}')        if [ ${MSGSEG} -lt 32767 ]        then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro msgseg con valor actual ${MSGSEG} debe tener una valor superior a 32767"        else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro msgseg con valor actual ${MSGSEG} debe tener una valor superior a 32767"        fi fi   MSGTQL=$(${KCTUNE} | grep msgtql | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${MSGTQL} -lt ${NPROC} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro msgtql con valor actual ${MSGTQL} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro msgtql con valor actual ${MSGTQL} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" fi       if [ ${UX_VERS} = "B.11.23" ] then        NFILE_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep nfile | awk '{print $2}')        NFILE=$((15*NPROC+2048))        if [ ${NFILE_T} -lt ${NFILE} ]        then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro nfile con valor actual ${NFILE_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NFILE}"        else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro nfile con valor actual ${NFILE_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NFILE}"        fi fi     NFLOCKS=$(${KCTUNE} | grep nflocks | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${NFLOCKS} -lt ${NPROC} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro nflocks con valor actual ${NFLOCKS} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro nflocks con valor actual ${NFLOCKS} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" fi   NINODE_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep ninode | grep -v vx | awk '{print $2}') NINODE=$((8*NPROC+2048)) if [ ${NINODE_T} -lt ${NINODE} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro ninode con valor actual ${NINODE_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NINODE}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro ninode con valor actual ${NINODE_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NINODE}" fi     NCSIZE_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep ncsize | awk '{print $2}') NCSIZE=$((NINODE+1024)) if [ ${NCSIZE_T} -lt ${NCSIZE} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro ncsize con valor actual ${NCSIZE_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NCSIZE}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro ncsize con valor actual ${NCSIZE_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NCSIZE}" fi     if [ ${UX_VERS} = "B.11.23" ] then        MSGMAP_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep msgmap | awk '{print $2}')        MSGMAP=$((MSGTQL+2))        if [ ${MSGMAP_T} -lt ${MSGMAP} ]        then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro msgmap con valor actual ${MSGMAP_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${MSGMAP}"        else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro msgmap con valor actual ${MSGMAP_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${MSGMAP}"        fi fi   NKTHREAD_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep nkthread | awk '{print $2}') NKTHREAD=$((((NPROC*7)/4)+16)) if [ ${NKTHREAD_T} -lt ${NKTHREAD} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro nkthread con valor actual ${NKTHREAD_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NKTHREAD}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro nkthread con valor actual ${NKTHREAD_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${NKTHREAD}" fi     SEMMNI=$(${KCTUNE} | grep semmni | grep -v '(semm' | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${SEMMNI} -lt ${NPROC} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro semmni con valor actual ${SEMMNI} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro semmni con valor actual ${SEMMNI} debe tener una valor superior a ${NPROC}" fi     SEMMNS_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep semmns | awk '{print $2}') SEMMNS=$((SEMMNI+2)) if [ ${SEMMNS_T} -lt ${SEMMNI} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro semmns con valor actual ${SEMMNS_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${SEMMNS}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro semmns con valor actual ${SEMMNS_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${SEMMNS}" fi   SEMMNU_T=$(${KCTUNE} | grep semmnu | awk '{print $2}') SEMMNU=$((NPROC-4)) if [ ${SEMMNU_T} -lt ${SEMMNU} ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro semmnu con valor actual ${SEMMNU_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${SEMMNU}" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro semmnu con valor actual ${SEMMNU_T} debe tener una valor superior a ${SEMMNU}" fi     if [ ${UX_VERS} = "B.11.23" ] then        SEMVMX=$(${KCTUNE} | grep msgseg | awk '{print $2}')        if [ ${SEMVMX} -lt 32767 ]        then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro semvmx con valor actual ${SEMVMX} debe tener una valor superior a 32767"        else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro semvmx con valor actual ${SEMVMX} debe tener una valor superior a 32767"        fi fi     SHMMNI=$(${KCTUNE} | grep shmmni | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${SHMMNI} -lt 512 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro shmmni con valor actual ${SHMMNI} debe tener una valor superior a 512" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro shmmni con valor actual ${SHMMNI} debe tener una valor superior a 512" fi     SHMSEG=$(${KCTUNE} | grep shmseg | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${SHMSEG} -lt 120 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro shmseg con valor actual ${SHMSEG} debe tener una valor superior a 120" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro shmseg con valor actual ${SHMSEG} debe tener una valor superior a 120" fi   VPS_CEILING=$(${KCTUNE} | grep vps_ceiling | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${VPS_CEILING} -lt 64 ] then        echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro vps_ceiling con valor actual ${VPS_CEILING} debe tener una valor superior a 64" else        echo "[OK] Information: El parametro vps_ceiling con valor actual ${VPS_CEILING} debe tener una valor superior a 64" fi   SHMMAX=$(${KCTUNE} | grep shmmax | awk '{print $2}') if [ ${SHMMAX} -lt ${MEM_TOTAL} ] then         echo "[FAILED] Information: El parametro shmmax con valor actual ${SHMMAX} debe tener una valor superior a ${MEM_TOTAL}" else         echo "[OK] Information: El parametro shmmax con valor actual ${SHMMAX} debe tener una valor superior a ${MEM_TOTAL}" fi exit 0  

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• Sorting Algorithms

  - by MarkPearl

  General Every time I go back to university I find myself wading through sorting algorithms and their implementation in C++. Up to now I haven’t really appreciated their true value. However as I discovered this last week with Dictionaries in C# – having a knowledge of some basic programming principles can greatly improve the performance of a system and make one think twice about how to tackle a problem. I’m going to cover briefly in this post the following: Selection Sort Insertion Sort Shellsort Quicksort Mergesort Heapsort (not complete) Selection Sort Array based selection sort is a simple approach to sorting an unsorted array. Simply put, it repeats two basic steps to achieve a sorted collection. It starts with a collection of data and repeatedly parses it, each time sorting out one element and reducing the size of the next iteration of parsed data by one. So the first iteration would go something like this… Go through the entire array of data and find the lowest value Place the value at the front of the array The second iteration would go something like this… Go through the array from position two (position one has already been sorted with the smallest value) and find the next lowest value in the array. Place the value at the second position in the array This process would be completed until the entire array had been sorted. A positive about selection sort is that it does not make many item movements. In fact, in a worst case scenario every items is only moved once. Selection sort is however a comparison intensive sort. If you had 10 items in a collection, just to parse the collection you would have 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2=54 comparisons to sort regardless of how sorted the collection was to start with. If you think about it, if you applied selection sort to a collection already sorted, you would still perform relatively the same number of iterations as if it was not sorted at all. Many of the following algorithms try and reduce the number of comparisons if the list is already sorted – leaving one with a best case and worst case scenario for comparisons. Likewise different approaches have different levels of item movement. Depending on what is more expensive, one may give priority to one approach compared to another based on what is more expensive, a comparison or a item move. Insertion Sort Insertion sort tries to reduce the number of key comparisons it performs compared to selection sort by not “doing anything” if things are sorted. Assume you had an collection of numbers in the following order… 10 18 25 30 23 17 45 35 There are 8 elements in the list. If we were to start at the front of the list – 10 18 25 & 30 are already sorted. Element 5 (23) however is smaller than element 4 (30) and so needs to be repositioned. We do this by copying the value at element 5 to a temporary holder, and then begin shifting the elements before it up one. So… Element 5 would be copied to a temporary holder 10 18 25 30 23 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 4 would shift to Element 5 10 18 25 30 30 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 3 would shift to Element 4 10 18 25 25 30 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 2 (18) is smaller than the temporary holder so we put the temporary holder value into Element 3. 10 18 23 25 30 17 45 35 – T 23   We now have a sorted list up to element 6. And so we would repeat the same process by moving element 6 to a temporary value and then shifting everything up by one from element 2 to element 5. As you can see, one major setback for this technique is the shifting values up one – this is because up to now we have been considering the collection to be an array. If however the collection was a linked list, we would not need to shift values up, but merely remove the link from the unsorted value and “reinsert” it in a sorted position. Which would reduce the number of transactions performed on the collection. So.. Insertion sort seems to perform better than selection sort – however an implementation is slightly more complicated. This is typical with most sorting algorithms – generally, greater performance leads to greater complexity. Also, insertion sort performs better if a collection of data is already sorted. If for instance you were handed a sorted collection of size n, then only n number of comparisons would need to be performed to verify that it is sorted. It’s important to note that insertion sort (array based) performs a number item moves – every time an item is “out of place” several items before it get shifted up. Shellsort – Diminishing Increment Sort So up to now we have covered Selection Sort & Insertion Sort. Selection Sort makes many comparisons and insertion sort (with an array) has the potential of making many item movements. Shellsort is an approach that takes the normal insertion sort and tries to reduce the number of item movements. In Shellsort, elements in a collection are viewed as sub-collections of a particular size. Each sub-collection is sorted so that the elements that are far apart move closer to their final position. Suppose we had a collection of 15 elements… 10 20 15 45 36 48 7 60 18 50 2 19 43 30 55 First we may view the collection as 7 sub-collections and sort each sublist, lets say at intervals of 7 10 60 55 – 20 18 – 15 50 – 45 2 – 36 19 – 48 43 – 7 30 10 55 60 – 18 20 – 15 50 – 2 45 – 19 36 – 43 48 – 7 30 (Sorted) We then sort each sublist at a smaller inter – lets say 4 10 55 60 18 – 20 15 50 2 – 45 19 36 43 – 48 7 30 10 18 55 60 – 2 15 20 50 – 19 36 43 45 – 7 30 48 (Sorted) We then sort elements at a distance of 1 (i.e. we apply a normal insertion sort) 10 18 55 60 2 15 20 50 19 36 43 45 7 30 48 2 7 10 15 18 19 20 30 36 43 45 48 50 55 (Sorted) The important thing with shellsort is deciding on the increment sequence of each sub-collection. From what I can tell, there isn’t any definitive method and depending on the order of your elements, different increment sequences may perform better than others. There are however certain increment sequences that you may want to avoid. An even based increment sequence (e.g. 2 4 8 16 32 …) should typically be avoided because it does not allow for even elements to be compared with odd elements until the final sort phase – which in a way would negate many of the benefits of using sub-collections. The performance on the number of comparisons and item movements of Shellsort is hard to determine, however it is considered to be considerably better than the normal insertion sort. Quicksort Quicksort uses a divide and conquer approach to sort a collection of items. The collection is divided into two sub-collections – and the two sub-collections are sorted and combined into one list in such a way that the combined list is sorted. The algorithm is in general pseudo code below… Divide the collection into two sub-collections Quicksort the lower sub-collection Quicksort the upper sub-collection Combine the lower & upper sub-collection together As hinted at above, quicksort uses recursion in its implementation. The real trick with quicksort is to get the lower and upper sub-collections to be of equal size. The size of a sub-collection is determined by what value the pivot is. Once a pivot is determined, one would partition to sub-collections and then repeat the process on each sub collection until you reach the base case. With quicksort, the work is done when dividing the sub-collections into lower & upper collections. The actual combining of the lower & upper sub-collections at the end is relatively simple since every element in the lower sub-collection is smaller than the smallest element in the upper sub-collection. Mergesort With quicksort, the average-case complexity was O(nlog2n) however the worst case complexity was still O(N*N). Mergesort improves on quicksort by always having a complexity of O(nlog2n) regardless of the best or worst case. So how does it do this? Mergesort makes use of the divide and conquer approach to partition a collection into two sub-collections. It then sorts each sub-collection and combines the sorted sub-collections into one sorted collection. The general algorithm for mergesort is as follows… Divide the collection into two sub-collections Mergesort the first sub-collection Mergesort the second sub-collection Merge the first sub-collection and the second sub-collection As you can see.. it still pretty much looks like quicksort – so lets see where it differs… Firstly, mergesort differs from quicksort in how it partitions the sub-collections. Instead of having a pivot – merge sort partitions each sub-collection based on size so that the first and second sub-collection of relatively the same size. This dividing keeps getting repeated until the sub-collections are the size of a single element. If a sub-collection is one element in size – it is now sorted! So the trick is how do we put all these sub-collections together so that they maintain their sorted order. Sorted sub-collections are merged into a sorted collection by comparing the elements of the sub-collection and then adjusting the sorted collection. Lets have a look at a few examples… Assume 2 sub-collections with 1 element each 10 & 20 Compare the first element of the first sub-collection with the first element of the second sub-collection. Take the smallest of the two and place it as the first element in the sorted collection. In this scenario 10 is smaller than 20 so 10 is taken from sub-collection 1 leaving that sub-collection empty, which means by default the next smallest element is in sub-collection 2 (20). So the sorted collection would be 10 20 Lets assume 2 sub-collections with 2 elements each 10 20 & 15 19 So… again we would Compare 10 with 15 – 10 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10) leaving us with 20 & 15 19 Compare 20 with 15 – 15 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10 15) leaving us with 20 & 19 Compare 20 with 19 – 19 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10 15 19) leaving us with 20 & _ 20 is by default the winner so our sorted collection is 10 15 19 20. Make sense? Heapsort (still needs to be completed) So by now I am tired of sorting algorithms and trying to remember why they were so important. I think every year I go through this stuff I wonder to myself why are we made to learn about selection sort and insertion sort if they are so bad – why didn’t we just skip to Mergesort & Quicksort. I guess the only explanation I have for this is that sometimes you learn things so that you can implement them in future – and other times you learn things so that you know it isn’t the best way of implementing things and that you don’t need to implement it in future. Anyhow… luckily this is going to be the last one of my sorts for today. The first step in heapsort is to convert a collection of data into a heap. After the data is converted into a heap, sorting begins… So what is the definition of a heap? If we have to convert a collection of data into a heap, how do we know when it is a heap and when it is not? The definition of a heap is as follows: A heap is a list in which each element contains a key, such that the key in the element at position k in the list is at least as large as the key in the element at position 2k +1 (if it exists) and 2k + 2 (if it exists). Does that make sense? At first glance I’m thinking what the heck??? But then after re-reading my notes I see that we are doing something different – up to now we have really looked at data as an array or sequential collection of data that we need to sort – a heap represents data in a slightly different way – although the data is stored in a sequential collection, for a sequential collection of data to be in a valid heap – it is “semi sorted”. Let me try and explain a bit further with an example… Example 1 of Potential Heap Data Assume we had a collection of numbers as follows 1[1] 2[2] 3[3] 4[4] 5[5] 6[6] For this to be a valid heap element with value of 1 at position [1] needs to be greater or equal to the element at position [3] (2k +1) and position [4] (2k +2). So in the above example, the collection of numbers is not in a valid heap. Example 2 of Potential Heap Data Lets look at another collection of numbers as follows 6[1] 5[2] 4[3] 3[4] 2[5] 1[6] Is this a valid heap? Well… element with the value 6 at position 1 must be greater or equal to the element at position [3] and position [4]. Is 6 > 4 and 6 > 3? Yes it is. Lets look at element 5 as position 2. It must be greater than the values at [4] & [5]. Is 5 > 3 and 5 > 2? Yes it is. If you continued to examine this second collection of data you would find that it is in a valid heap based on the definition of a heap.

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• C#/.NET Fundamentals: Choosing the Right Collection Class

  - by James Michael Hare

  The .NET Base Class Library (BCL) has a wide array of collection classes at your disposal which make it easy to manage collections of objects. While it's great to have so many classes available, it can be daunting to choose the right collection to use for any given situation. As hard as it may be, choosing the right collection can be absolutely key to the performance and maintainability of your application! This post will look at breaking down any confusion between each collection and the situations in which they excel. We will be spending most of our time looking at the System.Collections.Generic namespace, which is the recommended set of collections. The Generic Collections: System.Collections.Generic namespace The generic collections were introduced in .NET 2.0 in the System.Collections.Generic namespace. This is the main body of collections you should tend to focus on first, as they will tend to suit 99% of your needs right up front. It is important to note that the generic collections are unsynchronized. This decision was made for performance reasons because depending on how you are using the collections its completely possible that synchronization may not be required or may be needed on a higher level than simple method-level synchronization. Furthermore, concurrent read access (all writes done at beginning and never again) is always safe, but for concurrent mixed access you should either synchronize the collection or use one of the concurrent collections. So let's look at each of the collections in turn and its various pros and cons, at the end we'll summarize with a table to help make it easier to compare and contrast the different collections. The Associative Collection Classes Associative collections store a value in the collection by providing a key that is used to add/remove/lookup the item. Hence, the container associates the value with the key. These collections are most useful when you need to lookup/manipulate a collection using a key value. For example, if you wanted to look up an order in a collection of orders by an order id, you might have an associative collection where they key is the order id and the value is the order. The Dictionary<TKey,TVale> is probably the most used associative container class. The Dictionary<TKey,TValue> is the fastest class for associative lookups/inserts/deletes because it uses a hash table under the covers. Because the keys are hashed, the key type should correctly implement GetHashCode() and Equals() appropriately or you should provide an external IEqualityComparer to the dictionary on construction. The insert/delete/lookup time of items in the dictionary is amortized constant time - O(1) - which means no matter how big the dictionary gets, the time it takes to find something remains relatively constant. This is highly desirable for high-speed lookups. The only downside is that the dictionary, by nature of using a hash table, is unordered, so you cannot easily traverse the items in a Dictionary in order. The SortedDictionary<TKey,TValue> is similar to the Dictionary<TKey,TValue> in usage but very different in implementation. The SortedDictionary<TKey,TValye> uses a binary tree under the covers to maintain the items in order by the key. As a consequence of sorting, the type used for the key must correctly implement IComparable<TKey> so that the keys can be correctly sorted. The sorted dictionary trades a little bit of lookup time for the ability to maintain the items in order, thus insert/delete/lookup times in a sorted dictionary are logarithmic - O(log n). Generally speaking, with logarithmic time, you can double the size of the collection and it only has to perform one extra comparison to find the item. Use the SortedDictionary<TKey,TValue> when you want fast lookups but also want to be able to maintain the collection in order by the key. The SortedList<TKey,TValue> is the other ordered associative container class in the generic containers. Once again SortedList<TKey,TValue>, like SortedDictionary<TKey,TValue>, uses a key to sort key-value pairs. Unlike SortedDictionary, however, items in a SortedList are stored as an ordered array of items. This means that insertions and deletions are linear - O(n) - because deleting or adding an item may involve shifting all items up or down in the list. Lookup time, however is O(log n) because the SortedList can use a binary search to find any item in the list by its key. So why would you ever want to do this? Well, the answer is that if you are going to load the SortedList up-front, the insertions will be slower, but because array indexing is faster than following object links, lookups are marginally faster than a SortedDictionary. Once again I'd use this in situations where you want fast lookups and want to maintain the collection in order by the key, and where insertions and deletions are rare. The Non-Associative Containers The other container classes are non-associative. They don't use keys to manipulate the collection but rely on the object itself being stored or some other means (such as index) to manipulate the collection. The List<T> is a basic contiguous storage container. Some people may call this a vector or dynamic array. Essentially it is an array of items that grow once its current capacity is exceeded. Because the items are stored contiguously as an array, you can access items in the List<T> by index very quickly. However inserting and removing in the beginning or middle of the List<T> are very costly because you must shift all the items up or down as you delete or insert respectively. However, adding and removing at the end of a List<T> is an amortized constant operation - O(1). Typically List<T> is the standard go-to collection when you don't have any other constraints, and typically we favor a List<T> even over arrays unless we are sure the size will remain absolutely fixed. The LinkedList<T> is a basic implementation of a doubly-linked list. This means that you can add or remove items in the middle of a linked list very quickly (because there's no items to move up or down in contiguous memory), but you also lose the ability to index items by position quickly. Most of the time we tend to favor List<T> over LinkedList<T> unless you are doing a lot of adding and removing from the collection, in which case a LinkedList<T> may make more sense. The HashSet<T> is an unordered collection of unique items. This means that the collection cannot have duplicates and no order is maintained. Logically, this is very similar to having a Dictionary<TKey,TValue> where the TKey and TValue both refer to the same object. This collection is very useful for maintaining a collection of items you wish to check membership against. For example, if you receive an order for a given vendor code, you may want to check to make sure the vendor code belongs to the set of vendor codes you handle. In these cases a HashSet<T> is useful for super-quick lookups where order is not important. Once again, like in Dictionary, the type T should have a valid implementation of GetHashCode() and Equals(), or you should provide an appropriate IEqualityComparer<T> to the HashSet<T> on construction. The SortedSet<T> is to HashSet<T> what the SortedDictionary<TKey,TValue> is to Dictionary<TKey,TValue>. That is, the SortedSet<T> is a binary tree where the key and value are the same object. This once again means that adding/removing/lookups are logarithmic - O(log n) - but you gain the ability to iterate over the items in order. For this collection to be effective, type T must implement IComparable<T> or you need to supply an external IComparer<T>. Finally, the Stack<T> and Queue<T> are two very specific collections that allow you to handle a sequential collection of objects in very specific ways. The Stack<T> is a last-in-first-out (LIFO) container where items are added and removed from the top of the stack. Typically this is useful in situations where you want to stack actions and then be able to undo those actions in reverse order as needed. The Queue<T> on the other hand is a first-in-first-out container which adds items at the end of the queue and removes items from the front. This is useful for situations where you need to process items in the order in which they came, such as a print spooler or waiting lines. So that's the basic collections. Let's summarize what we've learned in a quick reference table.  Collection Ordered? Contiguous Storage? Direct Access? Lookup Efficiency Manipulate Efficiency Notes Dictionary No Yes Via Key Key: O(1) O(1) Best for high performance lookups. SortedDictionary Yes No Via Key Key: O(log n) O(log n) Compromise of Dictionary speed and ordering, uses binary search tree. SortedList Yes Yes Via Key Key: O(log n) O(n) Very similar to SortedDictionary, except tree is implemented in an array, so has faster lookup on preloaded data, but slower loads. List No Yes Via Index Index: O(1) Value: O(n) O(n) Best for smaller lists where direct access required and no ordering. LinkedList No No No Value: O(n) O(1) Best for lists where inserting/deleting in middle is common and no direct access required. HashSet No Yes Via Key Key: O(1) O(1) Unique unordered collection, like a Dictionary except key and value are same object. SortedSet Yes No Via Key Key: O(log n) O(log n) Unique ordered collection, like SortedDictionary except key and value are same object. Stack No Yes Only Top Top: O(1) O(1)* Essentially same as List<T> except only process as LIFO Queue No Yes Only Front Front: O(1) O(1) Essentially same as List<T> except only process as FIFO   The Original Collections: System.Collections namespace The original collection classes are largely considered deprecated by developers and by Microsoft itself. In fact they indicate that for the most part you should always favor the generic or concurrent collections, and only use the original collections when you are dealing with legacy .NET code. Because these collections are out of vogue, let's just briefly mention the original collection and their generic equivalents: ArrayList A dynamic, contiguous collection of objects. Favor the generic collection List<T> instead. Hashtable Associative, unordered collection of key-value pairs of objects. Favor the generic collection Dictionary<TKey,TValue> instead. Queue First-in-first-out (FIFO) collection of objects. Favor the generic collection Queue<T> instead. SortedList Associative, ordered collection of key-value pairs of objects. Favor the generic collection SortedList<T> instead. Stack Last-in-first-out (LIFO) collection of objects. Favor the generic collection Stack<T> instead. In general, the older collections are non-type-safe and in some cases less performant than their generic counterparts. Once again, the only reason you should fall back on these older collections is for backward compatibility with legacy code and libraries only. The Concurrent Collections: System.Collections.Concurrent namespace The concurrent collections are new as of .NET 4.0 and are included in the System.Collections.Concurrent namespace. These collections are optimized for use in situations where multi-threaded read and write access of a collection is desired. The concurrent queue, stack, and dictionary work much as you'd expect. The bag and blocking collection are more unique. Below is the summary of each with a link to a blog post I did on each of them. ConcurrentQueue Thread-safe version of a queue (FIFO). For more information see: C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentStack and ConcurrentQueue ConcurrentStack Thread-safe version of a stack (LIFO). For more information see: C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentStack and ConcurrentQueue ConcurrentBag Thread-safe unordered collection of objects. Optimized for situations where a thread may be bother reader and writer. For more information see: C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentBag and BlockingCollection ConcurrentDictionary Thread-safe version of a dictionary. Optimized for multiple readers (allows multiple readers under same lock). For more information see C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentDictionary BlockingCollection Wrapper collection that implement producers & consumers paradigm. Readers can block until items are available to read. Writers can block until space is available to write (if bounded). For more information see C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentBag and BlockingCollection Summary The .NET BCL has lots of collections built in to help you store and manipulate collections of data. Understanding how these collections work and knowing in which situations each container is best is one of the key skills necessary to build more performant code. Choosing the wrong collection for the job can make your code much slower or even harder to maintain if you choose one that doesn’t perform as well or otherwise doesn’t exactly fit the situation. Remember to avoid the original collections and stick with the generic collections.  If you need concurrent access, you can use the generic collections if the data is read-only, or consider the concurrent collections for mixed-access if you are running on .NET 4.0 or higher.   Tweet Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Collecitons,Generic,Concurrent,Dictionary,List,Stack,Queue,SortedList,SortedDictionary,HashSet,SortedSet

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• Building a &ldquo;real&rdquo; extension for Expression Blend

  - by Timmy Kokke

  .Last time I showed you how to get started building extensions for Expression Blend. Lets build a useful extension this time and go a bit deeper into Blend. Source of project  => here Compiled dll => here (extract into /extensions folder of Expression Blend)   The Extension When working on large Xaml files in Blend it’s often hard to find a specific control in the "Objects and Timeline Pane”. An extension that searches the active document and presents all elements that satisfy the query would be helpful. When the user starts typing a search query a search will be performed and the results are shown in the list. After the user selects an item in the results list, the control in the "Objects and Timeline Pane” will be selected. Below is a sketch of what it is going to look like. The Solution Create a new WPF User Control project as shown in the earlier tutorial in the Configuring the extension project section, but name it AdvancedSearch this time. Delete the default UserControl1.Xaml to clear the solution (a new user control will be added later thought, but adding a user control is easier then renaming one). Create the main entry point of the addin by adding a new class to the solution and naming this  AdvancedSearchPackage. Add a reference to Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility and to System.ComponentModel.Composition . Implement the IPackage interface and add the Export attribute from the MEF to the definition. While you’re at it. Add references to Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface, Microsoft.Expression.FrameWork and Microsoft.Expression.Markup. These will be used later. The Load method from the IPackage interface is going to create a ViewModel to bind to from the UI. Add another class to the solution and name this AdvancedSearchViewModel. This class needs to implement the INotifyPropertyChanged interface to enable notifications to the view.  Add a constructor to the class that takes an IServices interface as a parameter. Create a new instance of the AdvancedSearchViewModel in the load method in the AdvanceSearchPackage class. The AdvancedSearchPackage class should looks like this now:   using System.ComponentModel.Composition; using Microsoft.Expression.Extensibility;   namespace AdvancedSearch { [Export(typeof(IPackage))] public class AdvancedSearchPackage:IPackage {   public void Load(IServices services) { new AdvancedSearchViewModel(services); }   public void Unload() { } } }   Add a new UserControl to the project and name this AdvancedSearchView. The View will be created by the ViewModel, which will pass itself to the constructor of the view. Change the constructor of the View to take a AdvancedSearchViewModel object as a parameter. Add a private field to store the ViewModel and set this field in the constructor. Point the DataContext of the view to the ViewModel. The View will look something like this now:   namespace AdvancedSearch { public partial class AdvancedSearchView:UserControl { private readonly AdvancedSearchViewModel _advancedSearchViewModel;   public AdvancedSearchView(AdvancedSearchViewModel advancedSearchViewModel) { _advancedSearchViewModel = advancedSearchViewModel; InitializeComponent(); this.DataContext = _advancedSearchViewModel; } } }   The View is going to be created in the constructor of the ViewModel and stored in a read only property.   public FrameworkElement View { get; private set; }   public AdvancedSearchViewModel(IServices services) { _services = services; View = new AdvancedSearchView(this); } The last thing the solution needs before we’ll wire things up is a new class, PossibleNode. This class will be used later to store the search results. The solution should look like this now:   Adding UI to the UI The extension should build and run now, although nothing is showing up in Blend yet. To enable the user to perform a search query add a TextBox and a ListBox to the AdvancedSearchView.xaml file. I’ve set the rows of the grid too to make them look a little better. Add the TextChanged event to the TextBox and the SelectionChanged event to the ListBox, we’ll need those later on. <Grid> <Grid.RowDefinitions> <RowDefinition Height="32" /> <RowDefinition Height="*" /> </Grid.RowDefinitions> <TextBox TextChanged="SearchQueryTextChanged" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="4" Name="SearchQuery" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" /> <ListBox SelectionChanged="SearchResultSelectionChanged" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="4" Name="SearchResult" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Grid.Row="1" /> </Grid>   This will create a user interface like: To make the View show up in Blend it has to be registered with the WindowService. The GetService<T> method is used to get services from Blend, which are your entry points into Blend.When writing extensions you will encounter this method very often. In this case we’re asking for an IWindowService interface. The IWindowService interface serves events for changing windows and themes, is used for adding or removing resources and is used for registering and unregistering Palettes. All panes in Blend are palettes and are registered thru the RegisterPalette method. The first parameter passed to this method is a string containing a unique ID for the palette. This ID can be used to get access to the palette later. The second parameter is the View. The third parameter is a title for the pane. This title is shown when the pane is visible. It is also shown in the window menu of Blend. The last parameter is a KeyBinding. I have chosen Ctrl+Shift+F to call the Advanced Search pane. This value is also shown in the window menu of Blend.   services.GetService<IWindowService>().RegisterPalette( "AdvancedSearch", viewModel.View, "Advanced Search", new KeyBinding { Key = Key.F, Modifiers = ModifierKeys.Control | ModifierKeys.Shift } );   You can compiler and run now. After Blend starts you can hit Ctrl+Shift+F or go the windows menu to call the advanced search extension. Searching for controls The search has to be cleared on every change of the active document. The DocumentServices fires an event every time a new document is opened, a document is closed or another document view is selected. Add the following line to the constructor of the ViewModel to handle the ActiveDocumentChanged event:   _services.GetService<IDocumentService>().ActiveDocumentChanged += ActiveDocumentChanged;   And implement the ActiveDocumentChanged method:   private void ActiveDocumentChanged(object sender, DocumentChangedEventArgs e) { }   To get to the contents of the document we first need to get access to the “Objects and Timeline” pane. This pane is registered in the PaletteRegistry in the same way as this extension has registered itself. The palettes are accessible thru an associative array. All you need to provide is the Identifier of the palette you want. The Id of the “Objects and Timeline” pane is “Designer_TimelinePane”. I’ve included a list of the other default panes at the bottom of this article. Each palette has a Content property which can be cast to the type of the pane.   var timelinePane = (TimelinePane)_services.GetService<IWindowService>() .PaletteRegistry["Designer_TimelinePane"] .Content;   Add a private field to the top of the AdvancedSearchViewModel class to store the active SceneViewModel. The SceneViewModel is needed to set the current selection and to get the little icons for the type of control.   private SceneViewModel _activeSceneViewModel;   When the active SceneViewModel changes, the ActiveSceneViewModel is stored in this field. The list of possible nodes is cleared and an PropertyChanged event is fired for this list to notify the UI to clear the list. This will make the eventhandler look like this: private void ActiveDocumentChanged(object sender, DocumentChangedEventArgs e) { var timelinePane = (TimelinePane)_services.GetService<IWindowService>() .PaletteRegistry["Designer_TimelinePane"].Content;   _activeSceneViewModel = timelinePane.ActiveSceneViewModel; PossibleNodes = new List<PossibleNode>(); InvokePropertyChanged("PossibleNodes"); } The PossibleNode class used to store information about the controls found by the search. It’s a dumb data class with only 3 properties, the name of the control, the SceneNode and a brush used for the little icon. The SceneNode is the base class for every possible object you can create in Blend, like Brushes, Controls, Annotations, ResourceDictionaries and VisualStates. The entire PossibleNode class looks like this:   using System.Windows.Media; using Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface.ViewModel;   namespace AdvancedSearch { public class PossibleNode { public string Name { get; set; } public SceneNode SceneNode { get; set; } public DrawingBrush IconBrush { get; set; } } }   Add these two methods to the AdvancedSearchViewModel class:   public void Search(string searchText) { } public void SelectElement(PossibleNode node){ }   Both these methods are going to be called from the view. The Search method performs the search and updates the PossibleNodes list.  The controls in the active document can be accessed thru TimeLineItemsManager class. This class contains a read only collection of TimeLineItems. By using a Linq query the possible nodes are selected and placed in the PossibleNodes list.   var timelineItemManager = new TimelineItemManager(_activeSceneViewModel); PossibleNodes = new List<PossibleNode>( (from d in timelineItemManager.ItemList where d.DisplayName.ToLowerInvariant().StartsWith( searchText.ToLowerInvariant()) select new PossibleNode() { IconBrush = d.IconBrush, SceneNode = d.SceneNode, Name = d.DisplayName }).ToList() ); InvokePropertyChanged(InternalConst.PossibleNodes);   The Select method is pretty straight forward. It contains two lines.The first to clear the selection. Otherwise the selected element would be added to the current selection. The second line selects the nodes. It is given a new array with the node to be selected.   _activeSceneViewModel.ClearSelections(); _activeSceneViewModel.SelectNodes(new[] { node.SceneNode });   The last thing that needs to be done is to wire the whole thing to the View. The two event handlers just call the Search and SelectElement methods on the ViewModel.   private void SearchQueryTextChanged(object sender, TextChangedEventArgs e) { _advancedSearchViewModel.Search(SearchQuery.Text); }   private void SearchResultSelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e) { if(e.AddedItems.Count>0) { _advancedSearchViewModel.SelectElement(e.AddedItems[0] as PossibleNode); } }   The Listbox has to be bound to the PossibleNodes list and a simple DataTemplate is added to show the selection. The IconWithOverlay control can be found in the Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface.UserInterface.Timeline.UI namespace in the Microsoft.Expression.DesignSurface assembly. The ListBox should look something like:   <ListBox SelectionChanged="SearchResultSelectionChanged" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" Margin="4" Name="SearchResult" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" Grid.Row="1" ItemsSource="{Binding PossibleNodes}"> <ListBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> <tlui:IconWithOverlay Margin="2,0,10,0" Width="12" Height="12" SourceBrush="{Binding Path=IconBrush, Mode=OneWay}" /> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}"/> </StackPanel> </DataTemplate> </ListBox.ItemTemplate> </ListBox>   Compile and run. Inside Blend the extension could look something like below. What’s Next When you’ve got the extension running. Try placing breakpoints in the code and see what else is in there. There’s a lot to explore and build extension on. I personally would love an extension to search for resources. Last but not least, you can download the source of project here.  If you have any questions let me know. If you just want to use this extension, you can download the compiled dll here. Just extract the . zip into the /extensions folder of Expression Blend. Notes Target framework I ran into some issues when using the .NET Framework 4 Client Profile as a target framework. I got some strange error saying certain obvious namespaces could not be found, Microsoft.Expression in my case. If you run into something like this, try setting the target framework to .NET Framework 4 instead of the client version.   Identifiers of default panes Identifier Type Title Designer_TimelinePane TimelinePane Objects and Timeline Designer_ToolPane ToolPane Tools Designer_ProjectPane ProjectPane Projects Designer_DataPane DataPane Data Designer_ResourcePane ResourcePane Resources Designer_PropertyInspector PropertyInspector Properties Designer_TriggersPane TriggersPane Triggers Interaction_Skin SkinView States Designer_AssetPane AssetPane Assets Interaction_Parts PartsPane Parts Designer_ResultsPane ResultsPane Results

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• How to upgrade your Solaris 11 with the latest available SRUs ?

  - by jim

  1 ) Follow the instructions (*) in the document "Updating the Software on Your Oracle Solaris 11 System" * see and apply "How to Configure the Oracle Solaris support Repository" then run: # pkg update --accept Reboot if necessary (see "why" in STEP 3) Note: it is possible that your "pkg" package is not up to date # pkg update WARNING: pkg(5) appears to be out of date, and should be updated before running update.  Please update pkg(5) using 'pfexec pkg install pkg:/package/pkg' and then retry the update. -> So just upgrade it: # pkg install pkg:/package/pkg Reboot if necessary (see "why" in STEP 3) By the way, note that I am using the DEV tree: # pkg publisher -PPUBLISHER                             TYPE     STATUS   URIsolaris                               origin   online   https://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/dev/ 2 ) Now our system is ready to jump to the latest SRUs so check what is available: # pkg list -af entire NAME (PUBLISHER)                     VERSION                    IFO entire                                            0.5-DOT-11-0.175.1.0.0.24-DOT-2    ---   --> Latest version available in the repository ! entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.23.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.22.1    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.21.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.20.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.19.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.18.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.17.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.16.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.15.1    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.14.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.13.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.12.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.11.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.10.0    --- entire                                            0.5.11-0.175.0.11.0.4.1    i--   --> this is at what level your OS is ! 3 ) Apply the latest SRU: (don´t forget the --accept parameter) # pkg update --accept entire-AT-0.5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24.2------------------------------------------------------------Package: pkg://solaris/consolidation/osnet/osnet-incorporation-AT-0.5.11,5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24.2:20120919T184141ZLicense: usr/src/pkg/license_files/lic_OTNOracle Technology Network Developer License AgreementOracle Solaris, Oracle Solaris Cluster and Oracle Solaris ExpressEXPORT CONTROLSSelecting the "Accept License Agreement" button is a confirmationof your agreement that you comply, now and during the trial term(if applicable), with each of the following statements:-You are not a citizen, national, or resident of, and are not undercontrol of, the government of Cuba, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Syria,or any country to which the United States has prohibited export. <....> Packages to remove:  10 Packages to install:  38 Packages to update: 443 Mediators to change:   2 Create boot environment: Yes   --> a reboot is required and a new BE will be created for you !! Create backup boot environment:  No DOWNLOAD                               PKGS       FILES    XFER (MB)Completed                                491/491 23113/23113  504.2/504.2PHASE                                        ACTIONSRemoval Phase                           10359/10359 Install Phase                               15530/15530 Update Phase                              15543/15543 PHASE                                          ITEMSPackage State Update Phase         932/932 Package Cache Update Phase       452/452 Image State Update Phase                    2/2 A clone of solaris-1 exists and has been updated and activated.On the next boot the Boot Environment solaris-2 will bemounted on '/'.  Reboot when ready to switch to this updated BE. 4 ) Reboot your system # reboot  5 ) Resources Solaris 11 Express and Solaris 11 Support Repositories Explained [ID 1021281.1] Oracle Solaris 11 Release Notes Updating the Software on Your Oracle Solaris 11 System

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• Google and Bing Map APIs Compared

  - by SGWellens

  At one of the local golf courses I frequent, there is an open grass field next to the course. It is about eight acres in size and mowed regularly. It is permissible to hit golf balls there—you bring and shag our own balls. My golf colleagues and I spend hours there practicing, chatting and in general just wasting time. One of the guys brings Ginger, the amazing, incredible, wonder dog. Ginger is a Portuguese Pointer. She chases squirrels, begs for snacks and supervises us closely to make sure we don't misbehave.     Anyway, I decided to make a dedicated web page to measure distances on the field in yards using online mapping services. I started with Google maps and then did the same application with Bing maps. It is a good way to become familiar with the APIs. Here are images of the final two maps: Google:  Bing:   To start with online mapping services, you need to visit the respective websites and get a developers key. I pared the code down to the minimum to make it easier to compare the APIs. Google maps required this CSS (or it wouldn't work): <style type="text/css">     html     {         height: 100%;     }       body     {         height: 100%;         margin: 0;         padding: 0;     } Here is how the map scripts are included. Google requires the developer Key when loading the JavaScript, Bing requires it when the map object is created: Google: <script type="text/javascript" src="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?key=XXXXXXX&libraries=geometry&sensor=false" > </script> Bing: <script  type="text/javascript" src="http://ecn.dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=7.0"> </script> Note: I use jQuery to manipulate the DOM elements which may be overkill, but I may add more stuff to this application and I didn't want to have to add it later. Plus, I really like jQuery. Here is how the maps are created: Common Code (the same for both Google and Bing Maps):     <script type="text/javascript">         var gTheMap;         var gMarker1;         var gMarker2;           $(document).ready(DocLoaded);           function DocLoaded()         {             // golf course coordinates             var StartLat = 44.924254;             var StartLng = -93.366859;               // what element to display the map in             var mapdiv = $("#map_div")[0];   Google:         // where on earth the map should display         var StartPoint = new google.maps.LatLng(StartLat, StartLng);           // create the map         gTheMap = new google.maps.Map(mapdiv,             {                 center: StartPoint,                 zoom: 18,                 mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.SATELLITE             });           // place two markers         marker1 = PlaceMarker(new google.maps.LatLng(StartLat, StartLng + .0001));         marker2 = PlaceMarker(new google.maps.LatLng(StartLat, StartLng - .0001));           DragEnd(null);     } Bing:         // where on earth the map should display         var StartPoint = new  Microsoft.Maps.Location(StartLat, StartLng);           // create the map         gTheMap = new Microsoft.Maps.Map(mapdiv,             {                 credentials: 'Asbsa_hzfHl69XF3wxBd_WbW0dLNTRUH3ZHQG9qcV5EFRLuWEaOP1hjWdZ0A0P17',                 center: StartPoint,                 zoom: 18,                 mapTypeId: Microsoft.Maps.MapTypeId.aerial             });             // place two markers         marker1 = PlaceMarker(new Microsoft.Maps.Location(StartLat, StartLng + .0001));         marker2 = PlaceMarker(new Microsoft.Maps.Location(StartLat, StartLng - .0001));           DragEnd(null);     } Note: In the Bing documentation, mapTypeId: was missing from the list of options even though the sample code included it. Note: When creating the Bing map, use the developer Key for the credentials property. I immediately place two markers/pins on the map which is simpler that creating them on the fly with mouse clicks (as I first tried). The markers/pins are draggable and I capture the DragEnd event to calculate and display the distance in yards and draw a line when the user finishes dragging. Here is the code to place a marker: Google: // ---- PlaceMarker ------------------------------------   function PlaceMarker(location) {     var marker = new google.maps.Marker(         {             position: location,             map: gTheMap,             draggable: true         });     marker.addListener('dragend', DragEnd);     return marker; }   Bing: // ---- PlaceMarker ------------------------------------   function PlaceMarker(location) {     var marker = new Microsoft.Maps.Pushpin(location,     {         draggable : true     });     Microsoft.Maps.Events.addHandler(marker, 'dragend', DragEnd);     gTheMap.entities.push(marker);     return marker; } Here is the code than runs when the user stops dragging a marker: Google: // ---- DragEnd -------------------------------------------   var gLine = null;   function DragEnd(Event) {     var meters = google.maps.geometry.spherical.computeDistanceBetween(marker1.position, marker2.position);     var yards = meters * 1.0936133;     $("#message").text(yards.toFixed(1) + ' yards');    // draw a line connecting the points     var Endpoints = [marker1.position, marker2.position];       if (gLine == null)     {         gLine = new google.maps.Polyline({             path: Endpoints,             strokeColor: "#FFFF00",             strokeOpacity: 1.0,             strokeWeight: 2,             map: gTheMap         });     }     else        gLine.setPath(Endpoints); } Bing: // ---- DragEnd -------------------------------------------   var gLine = null;   function DragEnd(Args) {    var Distance =  CalculateDistance(marker1._location, marker2._location);      $("#message").text(Distance.toFixed(1) + ' yards');       // draw a line connecting the points    var Endpoints = [marker1._location, marker2._location];           if (gLine == null)    {        gLine = new Microsoft.Maps.Polyline(Endpoints,            {                strokeColor: new Microsoft.Maps.Color(0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF, 0),  // aRGB                strokeThickness : 2            });          gTheMap.entities.push(gLine);    }    else        gLine.setLocations(Endpoints);  }   Note: I couldn't find a function to calculate the distance between points in the Bing API, so I wrote my own (CalculateDistance). If you want to see the source for it, you can pick it off the web page. Note: I was able to verify the accuracy of the measurements by using the golf hole next to the field. I put a pin/marker on the center of the green, and then by zooming in, I was able to see the 150 markers on the fairway and put the other pin/marker on one of them. Final Notes: All in all, the APIs are very similar. Both made it easy to accomplish a lot with a minimum amount of code. In one aerial view, there are leaves on the tree, in the other, the trees are bare. I don't know which service has the newer data. Here are links to working pages: Bing Map Demo Google Map Demo I hope someone finds this useful. Steve Wellens   CodeProject

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