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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, November 07, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, November 07, 2011Popular ReleasesGoogleMap Control: GoogleMap Control 6.0: Major design changes to the control in order to achieve better scalability and extensibility for the new features comming with GoogleMaps API. GoogleMap control switched to GoogleMaps API v3 and .NET 4.0. GoogleMap control is 100% ScriptControl now, it requires ScriptManager to be registered on the pages where and before it is used. Markers, polylines, polygons and directions were implemented as ExtenderControl, instead of being inner properties of GoogleMap control. Better perfomance. Better...WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: V2.1: Version 2.1 (click on the right) this uses V4.0 of .net Version 2.1 adds the following features: (apologize if I forget some, added a lot of little things) Manual Lookup with TV or Movie (finally huh!), you can look up a movie or TV episode directly, you can right click on anythign, and choose manual lookup, then will allow you to type anything you want to look up and it will assign it to the file you right clicked. No Rename: a very popular request, this is an option you can set so that t...Bulk Copy Test Cases Tool for Microsoft Test Manager & TFS: Bulk Copy Test Cases Tool: A while ago I had written a blog post Microsoft Test Manager Test Case Versioning on how to manage Test Cases over multiple releases which required you to manually copy test cases individually. Now there is a tool to help with the bulk copying of Test Cases that updates the Iteration field at the same time.Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF and Silverlight: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 0.9.9 Update 2: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 0.9.9 for Entity Framework 4.0. No change to the self-tracking entity generator v 0.9.9. WPF sample (SchoolSample) is updated with unit testing for both ViewModel and Model classes.SubExtractor: Release 1020: Feature: added "baseline double quotes" character to selector box Feature: added option to save SRT files as ANSI (instead of previous UTF-8 only) Feature: made "Save Sup files to Source directory" apply to both Sup and Idx source files. Fix: removed SDH text (...) or [...] that is split over 2 lines Fix: better decision-making in when to prefix a line with a '-' because SDH was removedAcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.6.1: ?? ● AcDown??????????、??????，??????????????????????，???????Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、???、Tucao.cc、SF???、?????80????，???????????、?????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ?? v3.6.1?? ??.hlv...Track Folder Changes: Track Folder Changes 1.1: Fixed exception when right-clicking the root nodeKinect Toolbox: Kinect Toolbox v1.1.0.2: This version adds support for the Kinect for Windows SDK beta 2.MapWindow 4: MapWindow GIS v4.8.6 - Final release - 32Bit: This is the final release of MapWindow v4.8. It has 4.8.6 as version number. This version has been thoroughly tested. If you do get an exception send the exception to us. Don't forget to include your e-mail address. Use the forums at http://www.mapwindow.org/phorum/ for questions. Please consider donating a small portion of the money you have saved by having free GIS tools: http://www.mapwindow.org/pages/donate.php What’s New in 4.8.6 (Final release) · A few minor issues have been fixed Wha...Kinect Mouse Cursor: Kinect Mouse Cursor 1.1: Updated for Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0 Beta 2!Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit: Coding4Fun Kinect Toolkit 1.1: Updated for Kinect for Windows SDK v1.0 Beta 2!Async Executor: 1.0: Source code of the AsyncExecutorMedia Companion: MC 3.421b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) TV Show Resolutions... Fix to show the season-specials.tbn when selecting an episode from season 00. Before, MC would try & load season00.tbn Fix for issue #197 - new show added by 'Manually Add Path' not being picked up. Also made non-visible the same thing in Root Folders...Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v7.0: Version 7.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: UI: Flexible layout to handle both list and table-like template layouts. Theming - Visual choice of themes: Deliver some templates on installation, export/import functionality, preview. Allow site owners to choose default list sort order for the forums. Forum latest activity. Visit the project Roadmap for more details. Webdeploy packages sha1 checksum: e6bb913e591543ab292a753d1a16cdb779488c10?????????? - ????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-11-02: http://download.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1codechs&DownloadId=216140 ??????，11??，?????20????Microsoft OneCode Sample，????6?Program Language Sample，2?Windows Base Sample，2?GDI+ Sample，4?Internet Explorer Sample?6?ASP.NET Sample。?????????????。 ????，?????。http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 Program Language CSImageFullScreenSlideShow VBImageFullScreenSlideShow CSDynamicallyBuildLambdaExpressionWithFie...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.1 Alpha: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 1.1 Alpha. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python programming language. This release includes new core IDE features, a couple of new sample libraries for interacting with Kinect and Excel, and many bug fixes for issues reported since the release of 1.0. For the core IDE features we’ve added many new features which improve the basic edit...BExplorer (Better Explorer): Better Explorer 2.0.0.631 Alpha: Changelog: Added: Some new functions in ribbon Added: Possibility to choose displayed columns Added: Basic Search Fixed: Some bugs after navigation Fixed: Attempt to fix slow navigation and slow start Known issues: - BreadcrumbBar fails on some situations - Basic search not work quite well in some situations Please if anyone find bugs be kind and report them at the Issue Tracker! Thanks!DotNetNuke® Community Edition: 05.06.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue with upgrades on systems that had upgraded the Telerik library to 6.0.0 Fixed issue with Razor Host upgrade to 5.6.3 The logic for module administration checks contains incorrect logic in 1 place, opening the possibility of a user with edit permissions gaining access to functionality they should not have through a particularly crafted url Security FixesBrowsers support the ability to remember common strings such as usernames/addresses etc. Code was adde...Terminals: Version 2.0 - Beta 3 Release: Beta 3 Refresh Dont forget to backup your config files BEFORE upgrading! The team has finally put the nail into the official release date for version 2.0. As bugs are winding down on the 2.0 Roadmap we decided to push out another build - the first 2.0 Beta build. Please take time to use and abuse this release. We left logging in place, and this is a debug build so be sure to submit your logs on each bug reported, and please do report all bugs! Check the source code page on the site, th...iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.4.4322: Added German (unverified, apologies if incorrect) Properly source invariant resources with correct resIDs Replaced obsolete lyric providers with working providers Fix Pseudolater to correctly morph every third char Fix null reference in CatalogBaseNew ProjectsA Blog: This is a blog plus personal web page frameworkAccess 1-D Intersection: This is an Access VBA Module containing functions that allow make it easy to determine overlaps in 1-D intervals. For instance if table A contains a range of 0-7 and Table B contains a range of 5-10, the intersection is 5-7.AkismetPC: A C# implementation of the popular anti-spam plugin Akismet. There aren't many .NET versions of Akismet so I decided to write one and that can be used with .NET blog engines such as Subtext, etc.AlertMonkey: A multicast chat client that enables users to send html, images, sounds, and files to connected users. Provides specialized alert types such as lunch and happy hour, as well as channel support.Azzeton: azzetonBKWork: private project.Blue: Blue is a web application for italian baseball and softball umpires.Build Javascript Models from .Net Classes: Build JavaScript Data Models from .Net Classes automaticallycmpp: cmppCRM 2011 TreeView for Dependent Picklist: This utility will allow CRM Customizer to configure Dependent Picklist items which will be shown as TreeView control on CRM form.DirSign: DirSign is a console exe that evaluates or checks directory signature. DirSign is used to check if something in a directory tree has changed (a file date or a file size or a new or missing file). You can use DirSign in scenario where you need to check if something changed since last time but where you can't install a file system watcher.epictactics: Game for WP7Export SharePoint 2010 External List to Excel: Export SharePoint 2010 external list to Excel with custom ribbon plugin. Export current external list with selected view to office 97 - 2003 or office 2007 - 2010.Floridum: Project for a XML Database.GNU ISO8583: GISO (GNU ISO) is a tool that makes it easier to analyze ISO 8583 financial transactions and also provides a platform to create a host simulator, capable of receiving requests and sending back the responses. It’s a WinForms application and it’s developed using C#.G's Syndication Pocket: G's Syndication Pocket is simple RSS Aggregate application. This is suitable for .NET Compact Framework. I checked it on Sharp's W-ZERO3.Hatena Netfx Library: .NET Library for Hatena Services.inohigo: a programming language that was developed by inohiro.Internet Cache Examiner: Internet Cache Examiner allows Internet Explorer INDEX.DAT files to be read directly, allowing the extraction of more information than is displayed in Internet Explorer, and without being limited to viewing only the activity of the current user. It's developed in C#.Javascript to IQueryable: javascript to IQueryable is an implementation that allows to write a simple query in javascript and then execute it on the server with EntityFramework or a linq provider that implement IQueryable.kisd: Just my code, wanted to keep it safe.LUCA UI for Silverlight 4: LUCA UI is a collection of flexible layout controls for Silverlight 4. Basically, using these controls you can create the same type of user-definable UI that Visual Studio and Expression Blend have.Messenger Game - Starter Kit: Kom godt i gang med at lave spil til Messenger med dette komplette Starter Kit. Indeholder et komplet netværksspil lavet med Messenger Activity API og Silverlight.Music Keys: Music KeysMyNote: MyNoteOpen Source Data System: DataSystem is a file based database system that is thread safe. It is a dynamically generated database meaning developers can either structure it outside the application prior or development. PhotoDesktop: Create background images for your desktop using hundreds of your photos off your local computer. (coming soon - use flickr [or other RSS] feeds)SharePoint Backup Augmentation Cmdlets: The SharePoint Backup Augmentation Cmdlets (SharePointBAC) provide administrators with additional PowerShell cmdlets to complement and extend SharePoint 2010's native backup and restore capabilities. SharePointBAC makes it possible to groom backup sets, archive backups, and more.SharpClassifier: C "Classifier" is an AI software component that tries to classify instances from given evidence (if shiny then diamond). A famous example is classifying email spam, separating it from ham. SharpClassifier currently only contains a single classifier - A Bayesian Naive Classifier. Most Bayesian Naive Classifiers for C# you'll find out there only handles two classes (spam/ham), but this implementation supports any number of classses.Shell Sort Web service and Application: this is a webservice of Sorting methode. use Shell sort methode to sorthing a unsorted number, and it can give a boundary as you input this project is made by Information System students, Ma Chung University , Malang - East Java - Indonesia [url:www.Machung.ac.id] Anna Letizia & SetiawanEka Prayuda Barbiezztissa@gmail.com & setya_09@hotmail.comSistema UELS: adsfasdfSorting Number use Insertion Sort on Web Service: This program can simulate the insertion sort easily.TA_Sorted_App01: First implementation of TA_Sorted Algorithm ThinkDeeper MVC framework: ThinkDeeper MVC is a WPF MVC for .NET 3.5. Typing Game: The Nottingham Game Developer's first game.xBlog: xBlog is a project to build a simple and extensible Blog Engine based on xml and linqXNA DebugDrawer Using Spritebatch: This project serves to show how to draw lines and rectangles using XNA's Spritebatch. This project uses XNA 4.0 and C# programming languageYet another Scedule Planner: YASP - Yet another Scedule Planner

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• Developing a Cost Model for Cloud Applications

  - by BuckWoody

  Note - please pay attention to the date of this post. As much as I attempt to make the information below accurate, the nature of distributed computing means that components, units and pricing will change over time. The definitive costs for Microsoft Windows Azure and SQL Azure are located here, and are more accurate than anything you will see in this post: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/  When writing software that is run on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering like Windows Azure / SQL Azure, one of the questions you must answer is how much the system will cost. I will not discuss the comparisons between on-premise costs (which are nigh impossible to calculate accurately) versus cloud costs, but instead focus on creating a general model for estimating costs for a given application. You should be aware that there are (at this writing) two billing mechanisms for Windows and SQL Azure: “Pay-as-you-go” or consumption, and “Subscription” or commitment. Conceptually, you can consider the former a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan, where you pay by the unit used (at a slightly higher rate) and the latter as a standard cell phone plan where you commit to a contract and thus pay lower rates. In this post I’ll stick with the pay-as-you-go mechanism for simplicity, which should be the maximum cost you would pay. From there you may be able to get a lower cost if you use the other mechanism. In any case, the model you create should hold. Developing a good cost model is essential. As a developer or architect, you’ll most certainly be asked how much something will cost, and you need to have a reliable way to estimate that. Businesses and Organizations have been used to paying for servers, software licenses, and other infrastructure as an up-front cost, and power, people to the systems and so on as an ongoing (and sometimes not factored) cost. When presented with a new paradigm like distributed computing, they may not understand the true cost/value proposition, and that’s where the architect and developer can guide the conversation to make a choice based on features of the application versus the true costs. The two big buckets of use-types for these applications are customer-based and steady-state. In the customer-based use type, each successful use of the program results in a sale or income for your organization. Perhaps you’ve written an application that provides the spot-price of foo, and your customer pays for the use of that application. In that case, once you’ve estimated your cost for a successful traversal of the application, you can build that into the price you charge the user. It’s a standard restaurant model, where the price of the meal is determined by the cost of making it, plus any profit you can make. In the second use-type, the application will be used by a more-or-less constant number of processes or users and no direct revenue is attached to the system. A typical example is a customer-tracking system used by the employees within your company. In this case, the cost model is often created “in reverse” - meaning that you pilot the application, monitor the use (and costs) and that cost is held steady. This is where the comparison with an on-premise system becomes necessary, even though it is more difficult to estimate those on-premise true costs. For instance, do you know exactly how much cost the air conditioning is because you have a team of system administrators? This may sound trivial, but that, along with the insurance for the building, the wiring, and every other part of the system is in fact a cost to the business. There are three primary methods that I’ve been successful with in estimating the cost. None are perfect, all are demand-driven. The general process is to lay out a matrix of: components units cost per unit and then multiply that times the usage of the system, based on which components you use in the program. That sounds a bit simplistic, but using those metrics in a calculation becomes more detailed. In all of the methods that follow, you need to know your application. The components for a PaaS include computing instances, storage, transactions, bandwidth and in the case of SQL Azure, database size. In most cases, architects start with the first model and progress through the other methods to gain accuracy. Simple Estimation The simplest way to calculate costs is to architect the application (even UML or on-paper, no coding involved) and then estimate which of the components you’ll use, and how much of each will be used. Microsoft provides two tools to do this - one is a simple slider-application located here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing-calculator/  The other is a tool you download to create an “Return on Investment” (ROI) spreadsheet, which has the advantage of leading you through various questions to estimate what you plan to use, located here: https://roianalyst.alinean.com/msft/AutoLogin.do?d=176318219048082115  You can also just create a spreadsheet yourself with a structure like this: Program Element Azure Component Unit of Measure Cost Per Unit Estimated Use of Component Total Cost Per Component Cumulative Cost               Of course, the consideration with this model is that it is difficult to predict a system that is not running or hasn’t even been developed. Which brings us to the next model type. Measure and Project A more accurate model is to actually write the code for the application, using the Software Development Kit (SDK) which can run entirely disconnected from Azure. The code should be instrumented to estimate the use of the application components, logging to a local file on the development system. A series of unit and integration tests should be run, which will create load on the test system. You can use standard development concepts to track this usage, and even use Windows Performance Monitor counters. The best place to start with this method is to use the Windows Azure Diagnostics subsystem in your code, which you can read more about here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sumitm/archive/2009/11/18/introducing-windows-azure-diagnostics.aspx This set of API’s greatly simplifies tracking the application, and in fact you can use this information for more than just a cost model. After you have the tracking logs, you can plug the numbers into ay of the tools above, which should give a representative cost or in some cases a unit cost. The consideration with this model is that the SDK fabric is not a one-to-one comparison with performance on the actual Windows Azure fabric. Those differences are usually smaller, but they do need to be considered. Also, you may not be able to accurately predict the load on the system, which might lead to an architectural change, which changes the model. This leads us to the next, most accurate method for a cost model. Sample and Estimate Using standard statistical and other predictive math, once the application is deployed you will get a bill each month from Microsoft for your Azure usage. The bill is quite detailed, and you can export the data from it to do analysis, and using methods like regression and so on project out into the future what the costs will be. I normally advise that the architect also extrapolate a unit cost from those metrics as well. This is the information that should be reported back to the executives that pay the bills: the past cost, future projected costs, and unit cost “per click” or “per transaction”, as your case warrants. The challenge here is in the model itself - statistical methods are not foolproof, and the larger the sample (in this case I recommend the entire population, not a smaller sample) is key. References and Tools Articles: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/patrick_butler_monterde/archive/2010/02/10/windows-azure-billing-overview.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg213848.aspx http://blog.codingoutloud.com/2011/06/05/azure-faq-how-much-will-it-cost-me-to-run-my-application-on-windows-azure/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/johnalioto/archive/2010/08/25/10054193.aspx http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable/archive/2010/02/08/qampa-how-can-i-calculate-the-tco-and-roi-when.aspx   Other Tools: http://cloud-assessment.com/ http://communities.quest.com/community/cloud_tools

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, November 26, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, November 26, 2010Popular ReleasesMath.NET Numerics: Beta 1: First beta of Math.NET Numerics. Only contains the managed linear algebra provider. Beta 2 will include the native linear algebra providers along with better documentation and examples.WatchersNET.SiteMap: WatchersNET.SiteMap 01.03.02: Whats NewNew Tax Filter, You can now select which Terms you want to Use.TextGen - Another Template Based Text Generator: TextGen v0.2: This is the first version of TextGen exposing its core functionality to COM. See the Access demo (Access 2000 file format) included in the package. For installation and usage instructions see ReadMe.txt. Have fun and provide feedback!Minecraft GPS: Minecraft GPS 1.1: 1.1 Release New Features Compass! New style. Set opacity on main window to allow overlay of Minecraft.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: Visual Studio 2010 Code Samples 2010-11-25: Code samples for Visual Studio 2010Typps (formerly jiffycms) wysiwyg rich text HTML editor for ASP.NET AJAX: Typps 2.9: -When uploading files (not images), through the file uploader and the multi-file uploader, FileUploaded and MultiFileUploaded event handlers were reporting an empty event argument, this is fixed now. -Fixed also url field not updating when uploading a file ( not image)Wii Backup Fusion: Wii Backup Fusion 0.8.5 Beta: - WBFS repair (default) options fixed - Transfer to image fixed - Settings ui widget names fixed - Some little bug fixes You need to reset the settings! Delete WiiBaFu's config file or registry entries on windows: Linux: ~/.config/WiiBaFu/wiibafu.conf Windows: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WiiBaFu\wiibafu Mac OS X: ~/Library/Preferences/com.wiibafu.wiibafu.plist Caution: This is a BETA version! Errors, crashes and data loss not impossible! Use in test environments only, not on productive syste...Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.3: Added process count and world size calculation progress to the status bar. Added View->'Status Bar' menu item to show/hide the status bar. Status bar is automatically shown when loading a world. Added a prompt, when loading a world, to use or clear cached images.SQL Monitor: SQL Monitor 1.4: 1.added automatically load sql server instances 2.added friendly wait cursor 3.fixed problem with 4.0 fx 4.added exception handlingLateBindingApi.Excel: LateBindingApi.Excel Release 0.7f (fixed): Unterschiede zur Vorgängerversion: - XlConverter.ToRgb umbenannt zu XlConverter.ToDouble - XlConverter.GetFileExtension hinzugefügt (.xls oder .xlsx) - Insert Methoden+Overloads für Range und ShapeNodes - Xml Doku im Code entfernt Release+Samples V0.7f: - Enthält Laufzeit DLL und Beispielprojekte Beispielprojekte: COMAddinExample - Demonstriert ein versionslos angebundenes COMAddin Example01 - Background Colors und Borders für Cells Example02 - Font Attributes undAlignment für Cells Examp...Deep Zoom for WPF: First Release: This first release of the Deep Zoom control has the same source code, binaries and demos as the CodeProject article (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/DeepZoom.aspx).BlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.0 RC: This is a Release Candidate version for BlogEngine.NET 2.0. The most current, stable version of BlogEngine.NET is version 1.6. Find out more about the BlogEngine.NET 2.0 RC here. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. To get started, be sure to check out our installation documentation and the installation screencast. If you are upgrading from a previous version, please take a look at the Upgrading to BlogEngine.NET 2.0 instructions. As this ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.156: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release adds a feature for aggregating the overall metrics in a folder full of NodeXL workbooks, adds geographical coordinates to the Twitter import features, and fixes a memory-related bug. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Please Note: There is a new option in the setup program to install for "Just Me" or "Everyone." Most people...VFPX: FoxBarcode v.0.11: FoxBarcode v.0.11 - Released 2010.11.22 FoxBarcode is a 100% Visual FoxPro class that provides a tool for generating images with different bar code symbologies to be used in VFP forms and reports, or exported to other applications. Its use and distribution is free for all Visual FoxPro Community. Whats is new? Added a third parameter to the BarcodeImage() method Fixed some minor bugs History FoxBarcode v.0.10 - Released 2010.11.19 - 85 Downloads Project page: FoxBarcodeDotNetAge -a lightweight Mvc jQuery CMS: DotNetAge 1.1.0.5: What is new in DotNetAge 1.1.0.5 ?Document Library features and template added. Resolve issues of templates Improving publishing service performance Opml support added. What is new in DotNetAge 1.1 ? D.N.A Core updatesImprove runtime performance , more stabilize. The DNA core objects model added. Personalization features added that allows users create the personal website, manage their resources, store personal data DynamicUIFixed the PageManager could not move page node bug. ...ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers): 1.3.1 and demos: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form and Pager tested on mozilla, safari, chrome, opera, ie 9b/8/7/6MDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.24.6966: Fixed Updater; Fixed minor bugs;WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.1: Version: 2.0.0.1 (Milestone 1): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ....NET Extensions - Extension Methods Library for C# and VB.NET: Release 2011.01: Added new extensions for - object.CountLoopsToNull Added new extensions for DateTime: - DateTime.IsWeekend - DateTime.AddWeeks Added new extensions for string: - string.Repeat - string.IsNumeric - string.ExtractDigits - string.ConcatWith - string.ToGuid - string.ToGuidSave Added new extensions for Exception: - Exception.GetOriginalException Added new extensions for Stream: - Stream.Write (overload) And other new methods ... Release as of dotnetpro 01/2011Free language translator and file converter: Free Language Translator 2.2: Starting with version 2.0, the translator encountered a major redesign that uses MEF based plugins and .net 4.0. I've also fixed some bugs and added support for translating subtitles that can show up in video media players. Version 2.1 shows the context menu 'Translate' in Windows Explorer on right click. Version 2.2 has links to start the media file with its associated subtitle. Download the zip file and expand it in a temporary location on your local disk. At a minimum , you should uninstal...New Projects.NET DroneController: The .NET DroneController makes it easy to write applications that allow you to control an ARDrone quadricopter. BELT (A PowerShell Snapin for IE Browser Automation): BELT is a PowerShell snapin for IE browser automation. BELT makes it easier to control IE by PowerShell. "BELT" originally stands for "Browser Element Locating Tool".BusStationInfo: BusStationInfoDadaist: Dadaist is a random natural language generator that allows creation of random yet understandable (and often crazy) placeholder text for web designers. It could one day replace "Lorem ipsum" altogether! It is developed in C# and is a console application.Darskade LMS: Darskade is a kind of Learning Management System (LMS as a branch of CMS) and its main goal is to help professors and teacher assistants to manage classes, communicate with students, upload course contents ,put assignments and grades on it and more.ESRI for TableTops: An extension of the ESRI Api for use on digital tabletops and multitouch surfaces.Execute a SQL Server Agent Job - SSIS Package: The focus of SSMSAGENTJOBVBS is to explain how you can execute a SQL Server Agent Job remotely with the SSIS package, or DTSX file, as a job step. Look at the source code and dissect. Format.NET: Format.NET is an easy to use library to enable advanced and smart object formatting in .NET projects. Extends the default String.Format(...) allowing property resolution, custom formatting and text alignment.Gallery.net: Gallery.net is a tag-based image management solution, initially targeting for High Schools to manage and organize their large digital image assets. It is developed in C#, ASP.Net MVC3. GroupChallenge: GroupChallenge is a trivia game for one or more simultaneous players to interactively answer questions and submit questions to a hosted game server. Source code includes a WCF Data Service (OData) server, Windows Phone client, and a Silverlight client. Great for User Groups.GSWork: Manage clients and events in your company in a fast and efficient, without relying on a physical file. Ideal for companies with workers with no need to be in the same place.hermesystest1: ????? test ???.HTC Sense Util: Windows Mobile application for managing HTC Sense Tabs. The application will control sense and manage the tab control file.IdentityChecker: IdentityCheckerIndexed Material Splatting for Terrain Rendering Demo: This project is a demo using Indexed Material Splatting technique for terrain renderingIntegra: PFCKinet SDK: Kinect SDKLyra 3: Lyra is a small Windows Application to create and manage song-books. Each song-book may contain an arbitrary number of songs which can be created or edited within Lyra and projected using any screen device (e.g. a beamer). Support for full text search and presentation templates.NETWorking: NETWorking allows developers to easily integrate Internet connectivity into their applications. Be it a fault-tolerant distributed cluster or a peer-to-peer system, NETWorking exposes high-performance classes to facilitate application needs in a concise and understandable manner.RAD Platform: Rapid Application Development (RAD) Platform is a free run time report/form/chart designer and generator engine and multi-platform web/windows application servers. New generation of database independent .Net software framework. Design once, run at once on web and windows. Enjoy!Razor Repository Engine: <project name>RazorRepository</project> <programming language>C#</programming language> <activity>Finished</activity>Scientific Calculator: HTML 5 and CSS 3: Online SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR implements latest features, available in HTML 5, CSS 3 and jQuery. Developed as Rich Internet Application (RIA) w/extremely small footprint (<20kb), it demonstrates best scripting techniques and coding practices; does not require any image files.Seguimiento Facon: Control de seguimiento faconSharePoint Social: Have you ever needed to show the facebook, twitter updates of your organization on your sharepoint portal ? If yes, this project is for you. Simple auto update tool: Makes a easy way to auto update your client software.SteelBattalion.NET: .NET-based library for interfacing with the original Steel Battalion X-Box controller. Utilizes LibUSB drivers. Works on 32-bit and 64-bit platforms, including Windows 7.SystemTimeFreezer: Freezes system datetime to some value you've selectedTeam Explorer Remover: Utility to completely remove TFS Team Explorer from VS.NET 2010. * Removes all registry entries regarding Team Explorer. * Removes all files related to Team Explorer. * Removes all VS.NET commands, menu items and hyperlinks related to Team Explorer (incl. one on StartUp page)TIMESHARE-SELLERS: TIMESHARE-SELLERSVsi Builder 2010: Vsi Builder is an extension for Visual Studio 2010 which allows packaging code snippets and old-style add-ins into .Vsi redistributable packagesWCF Peer Resolver: WCF Peer Resolver is an very extendable and simplified resolver framework to use instead of the built in CurstomPeerResolver in .Net Framework. It is completely developed in C# with .Net Framework 3.5.wsPDV2010: Primeiro desenvolvimento experimental de PDV.

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

  - by Chris Hoffman

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

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• Master Data

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Let's take a deeper look at what we mean when we talk about 'Master' data. In its most general sense, master data is data that exists in more than one operational application. These are the applications that automate business processes. These applications require significant amounts of data to function correctly.  This includes data about the objects that are involved in transactions, as well as the transaction data itself.  For example, when a customer buys a product, the transaction is managed by a sales application.  The objects of the transaction are the Customer and the Product.  The transactional data is the time, place, price, discount, payment methods, etc. used at the point of sale. Many thousands of transactional data attributes are needed within the application. These important data elements are local to the applications and have no bearing on other applications. Harmonization and synchronization across applications is not necessary. The Customer and Product objects of the transaction also have a large number of attributes. Customer for example, includes hierarchies, hierarchical and matrixed relationships, contacts, classifications, preferences, accounts, identifiers, profiles, and addresses galore for 'ship to', 'mail to'; 'service at'; etc. Dozens of attributes exist for individuals, hundreds for organizations, and thousands for products. This data has meaning beyond any particular application. It exists in many applications and drives the vital cross application enterprise business processes. These are the processes that define and differentiate the organization. At every decision point, information about the objects of the process determines the direction of the process flow. This is the nature of the data that exists in more than one application, and this is why we call it 'master data'. Let me elaborate. Parties Oracle has developed a party schema to model all participants in your daily business operations. It models people, organizations, groups, customers, contacts, employees, and suppliers. It models their accounts, locations, classifications, and preferences.  And most importantly, it models the vast array of hierarchical and matrixed relationships that exist between all the participants in your real world operations.  The model logically separates people and organizations from their relationships and accounts.  This separation creates flexibility unmatched in the industry and accounts for the fact that the Oracle schema for Customers, Suppliers, and Accounts is a true superset of the wide variety of commercial and homegrown customer models in existence. Sites Sites are places where business is conducted. They can be addresses, clusters such as retail malls, locations within a cluster, floors within a building, places where meters are located, rooms on floors, etc.  Fully understanding all attributes of a site is key to many business processes. Attributes such as 'noise abatement policy' at a point of delivery, or the size of an oven in a business kitchen drive day-to-day activities such as delivery schedules or food promotions. Typically this kind of data is siloed in departments and scattered across applications and spreadsheets.  This leads to conflicting information and poor operational efficiencies. Oracle's Global Single Schema can hold all site attributes in one place and enables a single version of authoritative site information across the enterprise. Products and Services The Oracle Global Single Schema also includes a number of entities that define the products and services a company creates and offers for sale. Key entities include Items organized into Catalogs and Price Lists. The Catalog structures provide for the ability to capture different views of a product such as engineering, manufacturing, and service which are based on a unified product model. As a result, designers, manufacturing engineers, purchasers and partners can work simultaneously on a common product definition. The Catalog schema allows for unlimited attributes, combines them into meaningful groups, and maps them to catalog categories to track these different types of information. The model also maps an unlimited number of functional structures for each item. For example, multiple Bills of Material (BOMs) can be constructed representing requirements BOM, features BOM, and packaging BOM for an item. The Catalog model also supports hierarchical information about each item and all standard Global Data Synchronization attributes. Business Processes Utilizing Linked Data Entities Each business entity codified into a centralized master data environment significantly improves the efficiency of the automated business processes that use the consolidated data.  When all the key business entities used by an organization's process are so consolidated, the advantages are multiplied.  The primary reason for business process breakdowns (i.e. data errors across application boundaries) is eliminated. All processes are positively impacted and business process automation is itself automated.  I like to use the "Call to Resolution" business process as an example to help illustrate this important point. It involves call center applications, service applications, RMA applications, transportation applications, inventory applications, etc. Customer, Site, Product and Supplier master data must all be correct and consistent across these applications.  What's more, the data relationships between customer and product, and product and suppliers must be right. This is the minimum quality needed to insure the business process flows without error. But that is not the end of the story. Critical master data attributes such as customer loyalty, profitability, credit worthiness, and propensity to buy can optimize the call center point of contact component of the process. Critical product information such as alternative parts or equivalent products can optimize the resolution selected by the process. A comprehensive understanding of the 'service at' location can help insure multiple trips are avoided in the process. Full supplier information on reliability, delivery delays, and potential alternates can prevent supplier exceptions and play a significant role in optimizing the process.  In other words, these master data attributes enable the optimization of the "Call to Resolution" enterprise business process. Master data supports and guides business process flows. Thus the phrase 'Master Data' is indeed appropriate. MDM is the software that houses, manages, and governs the master data that resides in all applications and controls the enterprise business processes. A complete master data solution takes a data model that holds fully attributed master data entities and their inter-relationships. Oracle has this model. Oracle, with its deep understanding of application data is the logical choice for managing all your master data within the enterprise whether or not your organization actually runs any Oracle Applications.

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• Waterfall Model (SDLC) vs. Prototyping Model

  The characters in the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare can easily be used to demonstrate the similarities and differences between the Waterfall and Prototyping software development models. This children fable is about a race between a consistently slow moving but steadfast turtle and an extremely fast but unreliable rabbit. After closely comparing each character’s attributes in correlation with both software development models, a trend seems to appear in that the Waterfall closely resembles the Tortoise in that Waterfall Model is typically a slow moving process that is broken up in to multiple sequential steps that must be executed in a standard linear pattern. The Tortoise can be quoted several times in the story saying “Slow and steady wins the race.” This is the perfect mantra for the Waterfall Model in that this model is seen as a cumbersome and slow moving. Waterfall Model Phases Requirement Analysis & Definition This phase focuses on defining requirements for a project that is to be developed and determining if the project is even feasible. Requirements are collected by analyzing existing systems and functionality in correlation with the needs of the business and the desires of the end users. The desired output for this phase is a list of specific requirements from the business that are to be designed and implemented in the subsequent steps. In addition this phase is used to determine if any value will be gained by completing the project. System Design This phase focuses primarily on the actual architectural design of a system, and how it will interact within itself and with other existing applications. Projects at this level should be viewed at a high level so that actual implementation details are decided in the implementation phase. However major environmental decision like hardware and platform decision are typically decided in this phase. Furthermore the basic goal of this phase is to design an application at the system level in those classes, interfaces, and interactions are defined. Additionally decisions about scalability, distribution and reliability should also be considered for all decisions. The desired output for this phase is a functional  design document that states all of the architectural decisions that have been made in regards to the project as well as a diagrams like a sequence and class diagrams. Software Design This phase focuses primarily on the refining of the decisions found in the functional design document. Classes and interfaces are further broken down in to logical modules based on the interfaces and interactions previously indicated. The output of this phase is a formal design document. Implementation / Coding This phase focuses primarily on implementing the previously defined modules in to units of code. These units are developed independently are intergraded as the system is put together as part of a whole system. Software Integration & Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing each of the units of code developed as well as testing the system as a whole. There are basic types of testing at this phase and they include: Unit Test and Integration Test. Unit Test are built to test the functionality of a code unit to ensure that it preforms its desired task. Integration testing test the system as a whole because it focuses on results of combining specific units of code and validating it against expected results. The output of this phase is a test plan that includes test with expected results and actual results. System Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing the system as a whole in regards to the list of project requirements and desired operating environment. Operation & Maintenance his phase primarily focuses on handing off the competed project over to the customer so that they can verify that all of their requirements have been met based on their original requirements. This phase will also validate the correctness of their requirements and if any changed need to be made. In addition, any problems not resolved in the previous phase will be handled in this section. The Waterfall Model’s linear and sequential methodology does offer a project certain advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of the Waterfall Model Simplistic to implement and execute for projects and/or company wide Limited demand on resources Large emphasis on documentation Disadvantages of the Waterfall Model Completed phases cannot be revisited regardless if issues arise within a project Accurate requirement are never gather prior to the completion of the requirement phase due to the lack of clarification in regards to client’s desires. Small changes or errors that arise in applications may cause additional problems The client cannot change any requirements once the requirements phase has been completed leaving them no options for changes as they see their requirements changes as the customers desires change. Excess documentation Phases are cumbersome and slow moving Learn more about the Major Process in the Sofware Development Life Cycle and Waterfall Model. Conversely, the Hare shares similar traits with the prototyping software development model in that ideas are rapidly converted to basic working examples and subsequent changes are made to quickly align the project with customers desires as they are formulated and as software strays from the customers vision. The basic concept of prototyping is to eliminate the use of well-defined project requirements. Projects are allowed to grow as the customer needs and request grow. Projects are initially designed according to basic requirements and are refined as requirement become more refined. This process allows customer to feel their way around the application to ensure that they are developing exactly what they want in the application This model also works well for determining the feasibility of certain approaches in regards to an application. Prototypes allow for quickly developing examples of implementing specific functionality based on certain techniques. Advantages of Prototyping Active participation from users and customers Allows customers to change their mind in specifying requirements Customers get a better understanding of the system as it is developed Earlier bug/error detection Promotes communication with customers Prototype could be used as final production Reduced time needed to develop applications compared to the Waterfall method Disadvantages of Prototyping Promotes constantly redefining project requirements that cause major system rewrites Potential for increased complexity of a system as scope of the system expands Customer could believe the prototype as the working version. Implementation compromises could increase the complexity when applying updates and or application fixes When companies trying to decide between the Waterfall model and Prototype model they need to evaluate the benefits and disadvantages for both models. Typically smaller companies or projects that have major time constraints typically head for more of a Prototype model approach because it can reduce the time needed to complete the project because there is more of a focus on building a project and less on defining requirements and scope prior to the start of a project. On the other hand, Companies with well-defined requirements and time allowed to generate proper documentation should steer towards more of a waterfall model because they are in a position to obtain clarified requirements and have to design and optimal solution prior to the start of coding on a project.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, November 17, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, November 17, 2011Popular ReleasesSharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLR: SharpMap-0.9-AnyCPU-Trunk-2011.11.17: This is a build of SharpMap from the 0.9 development trunk as per 2011-11-17 For most applications the AnyCPU release is the recommended, but in case you need an x86 build that is included to. For some dataproviders (GDAL/OGR, SqLite, PostGis) you need to also referense the SharpMap.Extensions assembly For SqlServer Spatial you need to reference the SharpMap.SqlServerSpatial assemblySQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQLMon 4.1 alpha 5: 1. added basic schema support 2. added server instance name and process id 3. fixed problem with object search index out of range 4. improved version comparison with previous/next difference navigation 5. remeber main window spliter and object explorer spliter positionAJAX Control Toolkit: November 2011 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - November 2011 Release Version 51116November 2011 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - The current version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is not compatible with ASP.NET 2.0. The latest version that is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 can be found h...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.5.5: Added: Now the DateRanteAttribute accepts complex expressions containing "Now" and "Today" as static minimum and maximum. Menu, MenuFor helpers capable of handling a "currently selected element". The developer can choose between using a standard nested menu based on a standard SimpleMenuItem class or specifying an item template based on a custom class. Added also helpers to build the tree structure containing all data items the menu takes infos from. Improved the pager. Now the developer ...SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.7: Reworked API to be more consistent. See Supported formats table. Added some more helper methods - e.g. OpenEntryStream (RarArchive/RarReader does not support this) Fixed up testsFiles Name Copier: 1.0.0.1: Files Name Copier is a simple easy to use utility that allows you to drag and drop any number of files onto it. The clipboard will now contain the list of files you dropped.Silverlight Toolkit: Windows Phone Toolkit - Nov 2011 (7.1 SDK): This release is coming soon! What's new ListPicker once again works in a ScrollViewer LongListSelector bug fixes around OutOfRange exceptions, wrong ordering of items, grouping issues, and scrolling events. ItemTuple is now refactored to be the public type LongListSelectorItem to provide users better access to the values in selection changed handlers. PerformanceProgressBar binding fix for IsIndeterminate (item 9767 and others) There is no longer a GestureListener dependency with the C...DotNetNuke® Community Edition: 06.01.01: Major Highlights Fixed problem with the core skin object rendering CSS above the other framework inserted files, which caused problems when using core style skin objects Fixed issue with iFrames getting removed when content is saved Fixed issue with the HTML module removing styling and scripts from the content Fixed issue with inserting the link to jquery after the header of the page Security Fixesnone Updated Modules/Providers ModulesHTML version 6.1.0 ProvidersnoneDotNetNuke Performance Settings: 01.00.00: First release of DotNetNuke SQL update queries to set the DNN installation for optimimal performance. Please review and rate this release... (stars are welcome)SCCM Client Actions Tool: SCCM Client Actions Tool v0.8: SCCM Client Actions Tool v0.8 is currently the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added "Wake On LAN" action. WOL.EXE is now included. Added new action "Get all active advertisements" to list all machine based advertisements on remote computers. Added new action "Get all active user advertisements" to list all user based advertisements for logged on users on remote computers. Added config.ini setting "enablePingTest" to control whether ping test is ru...QuickGraph, Graph Data Structures And Algorithms for .Net: 3.6.61116.0: Portable library build that allows to use QuickGraph in any .NET environment: .net 4.0, silverlight 4.0, WP7, Win8 Metro apps.Devpad: 4.7: Whats new for Devpad 4.7: New export to Rich Text New export to FlowDocument Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsC.B.R. : Comic Book Reader: CBR 0.3: New featuresAdd magnifier size and scale New file info view in the backstage Add dynamic properties on book and settings Sorting and grouping in the explorer with new design Rework on conversion : Images, PDF, Cbr/rar, Cbz/zip, Xps to the destination formats Images, Cbz and XPS ImprovmentsSuppress MainViewModel and ExplorerViewModel dependencies Add view notifications and Messages from MVVM Light for ViewModel=>View notifications Make thread better on open catalog, no more ihm freeze, less t...Desktop Google Reader: 1.4.2: This release remove the like and the broadcast buttons as Google Reader stopped supporting them (no, we don't like this decission...) Additionally and to have at least a small plus: the login window now automaitcally logs you in if you stored username and passwort (no more extra click needed) Finally added WebKit .NET to the about window and removed Awesomium MD5-Hash: 5fccf25a2fb4fecc1dc77ebabc8d3897 SHA-Hash: d44ff788b123bd33596ad1a75f3b9fa74a862fdbRDRemote: Remote Desktop remote configurator V 1.0.0: Remote Desktop remote configurator V 1.0.0Rawr: Rawr 4.2.7: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...VidCoder: 1.2.2: Updated Handbrake core to svn 4344. Fixed the 6-channel discrete mixdown option not appearing for AAC encoders. Added handling for possible exceptions when copying to the clipboard, added retries and message when it fails. Fixed issue with audio bitrate UI not appearing sometimes when switching audio encoders. Added extra checks to protect against reported crashes. Added code to upgrade encoding profiles on old queued items.Composite C1 CMS: Composite C1 3.0 RC3 (3.0.4332.33416): This is currently a Release Candidate. Upgrade guidelines and "what's new" are pending.Media Companion: MC 3.422b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) TV Show Resolutions... Made the TV Shows folder list sorted. Re-visibled 'Manually Add Path' in Root Folders. Sorted list to process during new tv episode search Rebuild Movies now processes thru folders alphabetically Fix for issue #208 - Display Missing Episodes is not popu...DotSpatial: DotSpatial Release Candidate: Supports loading extensions using System.ComponentModel.Composition. DemoMap compiled as x86 so that GDAL runs on x64 machines. How to: Use an Assembly from the WebBe aware that your browser may add an identifier to downloaded files which results in "blocked" dll files. You can follow the following link to learn how to "Unblock" files. Right click on the zip file before unzipping, choose properties, go to the general tab and click the unblock button. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library...New Projects#WP7_chameleon: Simple augmented reality app for WP7 that explores the new Mango webcam API. ASP.NET MVC Manialink Extensions: ASP.NET MVC Manialink extensions are a set of extensions for the Razor HtmlHelper class that programmatically generate Manialink XML elements. It's developed in C# (.NET 4.0) for the ASP.NET MVC 3 framework.Basic Text Games in C#: Have fun converting some old B.A.S.I.C. text games into C# using MEF for plug-in capabilities. This is a good project for beginners to learn how to follow logic and convert between languages.Chuanzhuo: Chuanzhuo projCountriesGame: A simple game, players needs to find a country starts with given letterDeployAssistant: You can use it to update you website EntSGE: SGEExtended Immediate Window Mark 2: An Extended Immediate Window for Visual Studio that can use multiple lines of code at a time rather then just one.Facebook Suite Connect Orchard module: Part of the Facebook Suite Orchard module that provides simple login functionality with Facebook ConnectGet TFS 2010 Users: Use this tool to read extended group membership of a TFS 2010 Server. GoogleTestAddin: GoogleTestAddin is an Add-In for Visual Studio 2010. It makes it easier to execute/debug googletest functions by selecting them. You'll no longer have to set the command arguments of your test application. The googletest output is redirected to the Visual Studio output window.Home Financial Manager: ;photel_organizer: Hotel organizer project from a group of students at the university deggendorfInfoCine: Aplicación en Windows Phone 7 para dar información acerca de la cartelera de los cines.Injection of values using Annotation and Reflection: Example of reflection and annotation to inject values in variables in java.Interviews: My implementation of some common problems asked at various interviews.iPipal: adsfadsfadISDS: Informacni systemy a datove skladyivvy vendor management CMS: This is vendor CMS module of the ivvy suite Ross BrodskiyKaartenASPApplicatie: ASP.Net applicatieMap Viet Nam: Control Map VietNamMoney Transfer: A project for rotating money. Software for brokering service.Music Renamer: Renames music files into the format of "00 Track Name.ext"NetOS: NetOS is an Operating System designed for Netbooks and Tablets.Orchard Audit: For Orchard CMS, a framework for logging common audit events such as viewing, editing, deleting content - allowing you to track who changed what and when, with an extensible API to audit any custom events, and configurable in admin with the Rules engine in Orchard 1.3.Orchard Layout Selector: A simple part for switching to different versions of Layout.cshtml when editing Orchard content items.PT Kurejas: This is a small tool to create image tests for web sites. Now is only available only in lithuanian language.Reactive State Machine: Reactive State Machine is a State Machine implementation based on Reactive Extensions. It plays nicely with the Visual State Manager of WPF.Root finding and related routines: C++ generic algorithms for finding roots of floating point functions.Shaping Menu Manager: Shaping Menu ManagerShuttleBus: ShuttleBus is a lightweight Service Bus implementation designed to be easily extensible and unobtrusive.silverlight ? flash? policy ??: silverlight? flash? policy socket server? ??Technical trading indicators: Small classes for computing indicators used in technical analysis.Umbraco Active Directory Role Provider: Active Directory Role Provider for umbraco membership (and sample user control) With this role provider, a user control and some IIS configuration you can do seamless authentication (no login prompt) onto your umbraco site and user the Active Directory roles insider umbraco.UtilityLibrary.Security: UtilityLibrary.SecurityUtilityLibrary.Serialize: UtilityLibrary.SerializeUtilityLibrary.StringOperator: UtilityLibrary.StringOperatorUtilityLibrary.Task: UtilityLibrary.TaskVSTweaker: VSTweaker allows you to modify the components that Visual Studio loads. This can lead to performance benefits by reducing the overhead of unused components. XNA Simple Game Engine: XNA Simple Game Engine is a small and simple engine that makes it easy to make simple projects with XNA 4.0r and C#.

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• Configuring Oracle HTTP Server 12c for WebLogic Server Domain

  - by Emin Askerov

  Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) 12c 12.1.2 which was released in July 2013 as a part of Oracle Web Tier 12c is the web server component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. In essence this is Apache HTTP Server 2.2.22 (with critical bug fixes from higher versions) which includes modules developed specifically by Oracle. It provides a listener functionality for Oracle WebLogic Server and the framework for hosting static pages, dynamic pages, and applications over the Web. OHS can be easily managed by Weblogic Management Framework, a set of tools which provides administrative capabilities (start, stop, lifecycle operations, etc.) for Oracle Fusion Middleware products. In other words all tools which are familiar to us (Node Manager, WLST, Administration Console, Fusion Middleware Control etc.) presented as a part of Weblogic Management Framework and using for managing Java and System Components both for Weblogic Server and Standalone Domain types. You can familiarize yourself with these terms using related documentation: 1. Introduction to Oracle HTTP Server: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/webtier/index.html 2. Weblogic Management Framework: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/core/ASCON/terminology.htm#ASCON11260 In the given post I would like to cover rather simple use case how to configure OHS as web proxy in Weblogic Cluster environment. For example, we have existing Weblogic Domain where some managed servers have been joined to cluster and host business applications. We need to configure web proxy component which will act as entry point, load balancer for our cluster for user requests. Of course, we could install old good Apache HTTP Server and configure mod_wl plugin. However this solution not optimal from manageability perspective: we need to install Apache, install additional plugin then configure it by editing configuration file which is not really convenient for FMW Administrators and often increase time of performing of simple administrative task. Alternatively, we could use OHS as System Component within Weblogic Domain and use full power of Weblogic Management Framework in order to configure, manage and monitor it! I like this idea! What about you? I hope after reading this post you will agree with me. First of all it is necessary to download OHS binaries. You can use this link for downloading: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/webtier/downloads/index2-303202.html As we will use Fusion Middleware Control for managing OHS instances it is necessary to extend your domain with Enterprise Manager and Oracle ADF and JRF templates. This is not topic for focusing in this post, but you could get more information from documentation or one of my previous posts: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/wls/WLDTR/fmw_templates.htm#sthref64 https://blogs.oracle.com/imc/entry/the_specifics_of_adf_12c Note: you should have properly configured Node Manager utility for managing OHS instances Let’s consider configuration process step by step: 1. Shut down all Weblogic instances of existing domain including Admin Server; 2. Install Oracle HTTP Server. You should use your Fusion Middleware Home Path (e.g. /u01/Oracle/FMW12) for Installation Location and select Colocated HTTP Server option as Installation Type. I will not focus on this topic in this post. All information related to OHS installation you could find here: http://docs.oracle.com/middleware/1212/webtier/WTINS/install_gui.htm#i1082009 3. Next we need to extend our existing domain with OHS component. In order to do this you should do the following: a. Run Fusion Middleware Configuration Wizard (ORACLE_HOME/oracle_common/common/bin/config.sh); b. On the step 1 select Update an existing domain option and point your Fusion Middleware Home Path; c. On the step 2 check Oracle HTTP Server, Oracle Enterprise Manager Plugin for WEBTIER templates; d. Go through other steps without any changes and finish configuration process. 4. Start Admin Server and all managed servers related to your cluster 5. Log in to Enterprise Manager FMW Control using http://<hostname>:<port>/em URL 6. Now we will create OHS instance within our Weblogic Domain Infrastructure. Navigate to Weblogic Domain -> Administration -> Create/Delete OHS menu item; 7. Enter to edit mode, clicking Changes -> Lock&Edit menu item; 8. Create new OHS instance clicking Create button; 9. Define Instance Name (e.g. DevOSH) and Machine parameters; 10. Now we need to define listen port. By default OHS will use 7777 port number for income HTTP requests. We could change it to any free port number we would like to use. In order to do it, right click on our created OHS instance (left hand panel) and navigate to Administration -> Port Configuration; 11. Click on record with port number 7777 and then click Edit button; 12. Change port number value (in our case this will be 8080) and then click OK button; 13. Now we need to edit mod_wl_ohs configuration in order to enable OHS to act as proxy for WebLogic Server Instances/Cluster; 14. In order to do it right click on our created OHS instance (left panel) and navigate to Administration -> mod_wl_ohs Configuration; a. In Weblogic Cluster you should enter cluster address (define <host:port> for all managed servers which participated in cluster), e.g: 192.168.56.2:7004,192.168.56.2:7005 b. Define Weblogic Port parameter at which the Oracle WebLogic Server host is listening for connection requests from the module (or from other servers); c. Check Dynamic Server List option. This will dynamically update cluster list for every request; d. In the Location table define list of endpoint locations which you would like to process. In order to do this click Add Row button and define Location, Weblogic Cluster, Path Trim and Path Prefix parameters (if required); e. Click Apply button in order to save changes. 15. Activate changes clicking Changes ? Activate Changes menu item; 16. Finally we will start configured OHS instance. Right click on OHS instance tree item under Web Tier folder, select Control -> Start Up menu item; 17. Ensure that OHS instance up and running and then test your environment. 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• SQL SERVER – Windows File/Folder and Share Permissions – Notes from the Field #029

  - by Pinal Dave

  [Note from Pinal]: This is a 29th episode of Notes from the Field series. Security is the task which we should give it to the experts. If there is a small overlook or misstep, there are good chances that security of the organization is compromised. This is very true, but there are always devils’s advocates who believe everyone should know the security. As a DBA and Administrator, I often see people not taking interest in the Windows Security hiding behind the reason of not expert of Windows Server. We all often miss the important mission statement for the success of any organization – Teamwork. In this blog post Brian tells the story in very interesting lucid language. Read On! In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Brian Kelley explains a very crucial issue DBAs and Developer faces on their production server. Linchpin People are database coaches and wellness experts for a data driven world. Read the experience of Brian in his own words. When I talk security among database professionals, I find that most have at least a working knowledge of how to apply security within a database. When I talk with DBAs in particular, I find that most have at least a working knowledge of security at the server level if we’re speaking of SQL Server. One area I see continually that is weak is in the area of Windows file/folder (NTFS) and share permissions. The typical response is, “I’m a database developer and the Windows system administrator is responsible for that.” That may very well be true – the system administrator may have the primary responsibility and accountability for file/folder and share security for the server. However, if you’re involved in the typical activities surrounding databases and moving data around, you should know these permissions, too. Otherwise, you could be setting yourself up where someone is able to get to data he or she shouldn’t, or you could be opening the door where human error puts bad data in your production system. File/Folder Permission Basics: I wrote about file/folder permissions a few years ago to give the basic permissions that are most often seen. Here’s what you must know as a minimum at the file/folder level: Read - Allows you to read the contents of the file or folder. Having read permissions allows you to copy the file or folder. Write  – Again, as the name implies, it allows you to write to the file or folder. This doesn’t include the ability to delete, however, nothing stops a person with this access from writing an empty file. Delete - Allows the file/folder to be deleted. If you overwrite files, you may need this permission. Modify - Allows read, write, and delete. Full Control - Same as modify + the ability to assign permissions. File/Folder permissions aggregate, unless there is a DENY (where it trumps, just like within SQL Server), meaning if a person is in one group that gives Read and antoher group that gives Write, that person has both Read and Write permissions. As you might expect me to say, always apply the Principle of Least Privilege. This likely means that any additional permission you might add does not need Full Control. Share Permission Basics: At the share level, here are the permissions. Read - Allows you to read the contents on the share. Change - Allows you to read, write, and delete contents on the share. Full control - Change + the ability to modify permissions. Like with file/folder permissions, these permissions aggregate, and DENY trumps. So What Access Does a Person / Process Have? Figuring out what someone or some process has depends on how the location is being accessed: Access comes through the share (\\ServerName\Share) – a combination of permissions is considered. Access is through a drive letter (C:\, E:\, S:\, etc.) – only the file/folder permissions are considered. The only complicated one here is access through the share. Here’s what Windows does: Figures out what the aggregated permissions are at the file/folder level. Figures out what the aggregated permissions are at the share level. Takes the most restrictive of the two sets of permissions. You can test this by granting Full Control over a folder (this is likely already in place for the Users local group) and then setting up a share. Give only Read access through the share, and that includes to Administrators (if you’re creating a share, likely you have membership in the Administrators group). Try to read a file through the share. Now try to modify it. The most restrictive permission is the Share level permissions. It’s set to only allow Read. Therefore, if you come through the share, it’s the most restrictive. Does This Knowledge Really Help Me? In my experience, it does. I’ve seen cases where sensitive files were accessible by every authenticated user through a share. Auditors, as you might expect, have a real problem with that. I’ve also seen cases where files to be imported as part of the nightly processing were overwritten by files intended from development. And I’ve seen cases where a process can’t get to the files it needs for a process because someone changed the permissions. If you know file/folder and share permissions, you can spot and correct these types of security flaws. Given that there are a lot of database professionals that don’t understand these permissions, if you know it, you set yourself apart. And if you’re able to help on critical processes, you begin to set yourself up as a linchpin (link to .pdf) for your organization. If you want to get started with performance tuning and database security with the help of experts, read more over at Fix Your SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Security, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Inheritance Mapping Strategies with Entity Framework Code First CTP5: Part 2 – Table per Type (TPT)

  - by mortezam

  In the previous blog post you saw that there are three different approaches to representing an inheritance hierarchy and I explained Table per Hierarchy (TPH) as the default mapping strategy in EF Code First. We argued that the disadvantages of TPH may be too serious for our design since it results in denormalized schemas that can become a major burden in the long run. In today’s blog post we are going to learn about Table per Type (TPT) as another inheritance mapping strategy and we'll see that TPT doesn’t expose us to this problem. Table per Type (TPT)Table per Type is about representing inheritance relationships as relational foreign key associations. Every class/subclass that declares persistent properties—including abstract classes—has its own table. The table for subclasses contains columns only for each noninherited property (each property declared by the subclass itself) along with a primary key that is also a foreign key of the base class table. This approach is shown in the following figure: For example, if an instance of the CreditCard subclass is made persistent, the values of properties declared by the BillingDetail base class are persisted to a new row of the BillingDetails table. Only the values of properties declared by the subclass (i.e. CreditCard) are persisted to a new row of the CreditCards table. The two rows are linked together by their shared primary key value. Later, the subclass instance may be retrieved from the database by joining the subclass table with the base class table. TPT Advantages The primary advantage of this strategy is that the SQL schema is normalized. In addition, schema evolution is straightforward (modifying the base class or adding a new subclass is just a matter of modify/add one table). Integrity constraint definition are also straightforward (note how CardType in CreditCards table is now a non-nullable column). Another much more important advantage is the ability to handle polymorphic associations (a polymorphic association is an association to a base class, hence to all classes in the hierarchy with dynamic resolution of the concrete class at runtime). A polymorphic association to a particular subclass may be represented as a foreign key referencing the table of that particular subclass. Implement TPT in EF Code First We can create a TPT mapping simply by placing Table attribute on the subclasses to specify the mapped table name (Table attribute is a new data annotation and has been added to System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace in CTP5): public abstract class BillingDetail {     public int BillingDetailId { get; set; }     public string Owner { get; set; }     public string Number { get; set; } } [Table("BankAccounts")] public class BankAccount : BillingDetail {     public string BankName { get; set; }     public string Swift { get; set; } } [Table("CreditCards")] public class CreditCard : BillingDetail {     public int CardType { get; set; }     public string ExpiryMonth { get; set; }     public string ExpiryYear { get; set; } } public class InheritanceMappingContext : DbContext {     public DbSet<BillingDetail> BillingDetails { get; set; } } If you prefer fluent API, then you can create a TPT mapping by using ToTable() method: protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder) {     modelBuilder.Entity<BankAccount>().ToTable("BankAccounts");     modelBuilder.Entity<CreditCard>().ToTable("CreditCards"); } Generated SQL For QueriesLet’s take an example of a simple non-polymorphic query that returns a list of all the BankAccounts: var query = from b in context.BillingDetails.OfType<BankAccount>() select b; Executing this query (by invoking ToList() method) results in the following SQL statements being sent to the database (on the bottom, you can also see the result of executing the generated query in SQL Server Management Studio): Now, let’s take an example of a very simple polymorphic query that requests all the BillingDetails which includes both BankAccount and CreditCard types: projects some properties out of the base class BillingDetail, without querying for anything from any of the subclasses: var query = from b in context.BillingDetails             select new { b.BillingDetailId, b.Number, b.Owner }; -- var query = from b in context.BillingDetails select b; This LINQ query seems even more simple than the previous one but the resulting SQL query is not as simple as you might expect: -- As you can see, EF Code First relies on an INNER JOIN to detect the existence (or absence) of rows in the subclass tables CreditCards and BankAccounts so it can determine the concrete subclass for a particular row of the BillingDetails table. Also the SQL CASE statements that you see in the beginning of the query is just to ensure columns that are irrelevant for a particular row have NULL values in the returning flattened table. (e.g. BankName for a row that represents a CreditCard type) TPT ConsiderationsEven though this mapping strategy is deceptively simple, the experience shows that performance can be unacceptable for complex class hierarchies because queries always require a join across many tables. In addition, this mapping strategy is more difficult to implement by hand— even ad-hoc reporting is more complex. This is an important consideration if you plan to use handwritten SQL in your application (For ad hoc reporting, database views provide a way to offset the complexity of the TPT strategy. A view may be used to transform the table-per-type model into the much simpler table-per-hierarchy model.) SummaryIn this post we learned about Table per Type as the second inheritance mapping in our series. So far, the strategies we’ve discussed require extra consideration with regard to the SQL schema (e.g. in TPT, foreign keys are needed). This situation changes with the Table per Concrete Type (TPC) that we will discuss in the next post. References ADO.NET team blog Java Persistence with Hibernate book a { text-decoration: none; } a:visited { color: Blue; } .title { padding-bottom: 5px; font-family: Segoe UI; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; padding-top: 15px; } .code, .typeName { font-family: consolas; } .typeName { color: #2b91af; } .padTop5 { padding-top: 5px; } .padTop10 { padding-top: 10px; } p.MsoNormal { margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 115%; font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: "Calibri" , "sans-serif"; }

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• Profiling Startup Of VS2012 &ndash; SpeedTrace Profiler

  - by Alois Kraus

  SpeedTrace is a relatively unknown profiler made a company called Ipcas. A single professional license does cost 449€+VAT. For the test I did use SpeedTrace 4.5 which is currently Beta. Although it is cheaper than dotTrace it has by far the most options to influence how profiling does work. First you need to create a tracing project which does configure tracing for one process type. You can start the application directly from the profiler or (much more interesting) it does attach to a specific process when it is started. For this you need to check “Trace the specified …” radio button and enter the process name in the “Process Name of the Trace” edit box. You can even selectively enable tracing for processes with a specific command line. Then you need to activate the trace project by pressing the Activate Project button and you are ready to start VS as usual. If you want to profile the next 10 VS instances that you start you can set the Number of Processes counter to e.g. 10. This is immensely helpful if you are trying to profile only the next 5 started processes. As you can see there are many more tabs which do allow to influence tracing in a much more sophisticated way. SpeedTrace is the only profiler which does not rely entirely on the profiling Api of .NET. Instead it does modify the IL code (instrumentation on the fly) to write tracing information to disc which can later be analyzed. This approach is not only very fast but it does give you unprecedented analysis capabilities. Once the traces are collected they do show up in your workspace where you can open the trace viewer. I do skip the other windows because this view is by far the most useful one. You can sort the methods not only by Wall Clock time but also by CPU consumption and wait time which none of the other products support in their views at the same time. If you want to optimize for CPU consumption sort by CPU time. If you want to find out where most time is spent you need Clock Total time and Clock Waiting. There you can directly see if the method did take long because it did wait on something or it did really execute stuff that did take so long. Once you have found a method you want to drill deeper you can double click on a method to get to the Caller/Callee view which is similar to the JetBrains Method Grid view. But this time you do see much more. In the middle is the clicked method. Above are the methods that call you and below are the methods that you do directly call. Normally you would then start digging deeper to find the end of the chain where the slow method worth optimizing is located. But there is a shortcut. You can press the magic   button to calculate the aggregation of all called methods. This is displayed in the lower left window where you can see each method call and how long it did take. There you can also sort to see if this call stack does only contain methods (e.g. WCF connect calls which you cannot make faster) not worth optimizing. YourKit has a similar feature where it is called Callees List. In the Functions tab you have in the context menu also many other useful analysis options One really outstanding feature is the View Call History Drilldown. When you select this one you get not a sum of all method invocations but a list with the duration of each method call. This is not surprising since SpeedTrace does use tracing to get its timings. There you can get many useful graphs how this method did behave over time. Did it become slower at some point in time or was only the first call slow? The diagrams and the list will tell you that. That is all fine but what should I do when one method call was slow? I want to see from where it was coming from. No problem select the method in the list hit F10 and you get the call stack. This is a life saver if you e.g. search for serialization problems. Today Serializers are used everywhere. You want to find out from where the 5s XmlSerializer.Deserialize call did come from? Hit F10 and you get the call stack which did invoke the 5s Deserialize call. The CPU timeline tab is also useful to find out where long pauses or excessive CPU consumption did happen. Click in the graph to get the Thread Stacks window where you can get a quick overview what all threads were doing at this time. This does look like the Stack Traces feature in YourKit. Only this time you get the last called method first which helps to quickly see what all threads were executing at this moment. YourKit does generate a rather long list which can be hard to go through when you have many threads. The thread list in the middle does not give you call stacks or anything like that but you see which methods were found most often executing code by the profiler which is a good indication for methods consuming most CPU time. This does sound too good to be true? I have not told you the best part yet. The best thing about this profiler is the staff behind it. When I do see a crash or some other odd behavior I send a mail to Ipcas and I do get usually the next day a mail that the problem has been fixed and a download link to the new version. The guys at Ipcas are even so helpful to log in to your machine via a Citrix Client to help you to get started profiling your actual application you want to profile. After a 2h telco I was converted from a hater to a believer of this tool. The fast response time might also have something to do with the fact that they are actively working on 4.5 to get out of the door. But still the support is by far the best I have encountered so far. The only downside is that you should instrument your assemblies including the .NET Framework to get most accurate numbers. You can profile without doing it but then you will see very high JIT times in your process which can severely affect the correctness of the measured timings. If you do not care about exact numbers you can also enable in the main UI in the Data Trace tab logging of method arguments of primitive types. If you need to know what files at which times were opened by your application you can find it out without a debugger. Since SpeedTrace does read huge trace files in its reader you should perhaps use a 64 bit machine to be able to analyze bigger traces as well. The memory consumption of the trace reader is too high for my taste. But they did promise for the next version to come up with something much improved.

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• Use a Fake Http Channel to Unit Test with HttpClient

  - by Steve Michelotti

  Applications get data from lots of different sources. The most common is to get data from a database or a web service. Typically, we encapsulate calls to a database in a Repository object and we create some sort of IRepository interface as an abstraction to decouple between layers and enable easier unit testing by leveraging faking and mocking. This works great for database interaction. However, when consuming a RESTful web service, this is is not always the best approach. The WCF Web APIs that are available on CodePlex (current drop is Preview 3) provide a variety of features to make building HTTP REST services more robust. When you download the latest bits, you’ll also find a new HttpClient which has been updated for .NET 4.0 as compared to the one that shipped for 3.5 in the original REST Starter Kit. The HttpClient currently provides the best API for consuming REST services on the .NET platform and the WCF Web APIs provide a number of extension methods which extend HttpClient and make it even easier to use. Let’s say you have a client application that is consuming an HTTP service – this could be Silverlight, WPF, or any UI technology but for my example I’ll use an MVC application: 1: using System; 2: using System.Net.Http; 3: using System.Web.Mvc; 4: using FakeChannelExample.Models; 5: using Microsoft.Runtime.Serialization; 6:   7: namespace FakeChannelExample.Controllers 8: { 9: public class HomeController : Controller 10: { 11: private readonly HttpClient httpClient; 12:   13: public HomeController(HttpClient httpClient) 14: { 15: this.httpClient = httpClient; 16: } 17:   18: public ActionResult Index() 19: { 20: var response = httpClient.Get("Person(1)"); 21: var person = response.Content.ReadAsDataContract<Person>(); 22:   23: this.ViewBag.Message = person.FirstName + " " + person.LastName; 24: 25: return View(); 26: } 27: } 28: } On line #20 of the code above you can see I’m performing an HTTP GET request to a Person resource exposed by an HTTP service. On line #21, I use the ReadAsDataContract() extension method provided by the WCF Web APIs to serialize to a Person object. In this example, the HttpClient is being passed into the constructor by MVC’s dependency resolver – in this case, I’m using StructureMap as an IoC and my StructureMap initialization code looks like this: 1: using StructureMap; 2: using System.Net.Http; 3:   4: namespace FakeChannelExample 5: { 6: public static class IoC 7: { 8: public static IContainer Initialize() 9: { 10: ObjectFactory.Initialize(x => 11: { 12: x.For<HttpClient>().Use(() => new HttpClient("http://localhost:31614/")); 13: }); 14: return ObjectFactory.Container; 15: } 16: } 17: } My controller code currently depends on a concrete instance of the HttpClient. Now I *could* create some sort of interface and wrap the HttpClient in this interface and use that object inside my controller instead – however, there are a few why reasons that is not desirable: For one thing, the API provided by the HttpClient provides nice features for dealing with HTTP services. I don’t really *want* these to look like C# RPC method calls – when HTTP services have REST features, I may want to inspect HTTP response headers and hypermedia contained within the message so that I can make intelligent decisions as to what to do next in my workflow (although I don’t happen to be doing these things in my example above) – this type of workflow is common in hypermedia REST scenarios. If I just encapsulate HttpClient behind some IRepository interface and make it look like a C# RPC method call, it will become difficult to take advantage of these types of things. Second, it could get pretty mind-numbing to have to create interfaces all over the place just to wrap the HttpClient. Then you’re probably going to have to hard-code HTTP knowledge into your code to formulate requests rather than just “following the links” that the hypermedia in a message might provide. Third, at first glance it might appear that we need to create an interface to facilitate unit testing, but actually it’s unnecessary. Even though the code above is dependent on a concrete type, it’s actually very easy to fake the data in a unit test. The HttpClient provides a Channel property (of type HttpMessageChannel) which allows you to create a fake message channel which can be leveraged in unit testing. In this case, what I want is to be able to write a unit test that just returns fake data. I also want this to be as re-usable as possible for my unit testing. I want to be able to write a unit test that looks like this: 1: [TestClass] 2: public class HomeControllerTest 3: { 4: [TestMethod] 5: public void Index() 6: { 7: // Arrange 8: var httpClient = new HttpClient("http://foo.com"); 9: httpClient.Channel = new FakeHttpChannel<Person>(new Person { FirstName = "Joe", LastName = "Blow" }); 10:   11: HomeController controller = new HomeController(httpClient); 12:   13: // Act 14: ViewResult result = controller.Index() as ViewResult; 15:   16: // Assert 17: Assert.AreEqual("Joe Blow", result.ViewBag.Message); 18: } 19: } Notice on line #9, I’m setting the Channel property of the HttpClient to be a fake channel. I’m also specifying the fake object that I want to be in the response on my “fake” Http request. I don’t need to rely on any mocking frameworks to do this. All I need is my FakeHttpChannel. The code to do this is not complex: 1: using System; 2: using System.IO; 3: using System.Net.Http; 4: using System.Runtime.Serialization; 5: using System.Threading; 6: using FakeChannelExample.Models; 7:   8: namespace FakeChannelExample.Tests 9: { 10: public class FakeHttpChannel<T> : HttpClientChannel 11: { 12: private T responseObject; 13:   14: public FakeHttpChannel(T responseObject) 15: { 16: this.responseObject = responseObject; 17: } 18:   19: protected override HttpResponseMessage Send(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken) 20: { 21: return new HttpResponseMessage() 22: { 23: RequestMessage = request, 24: Content = new StreamContent(this.GetContentStream()) 25: }; 26: } 27:   28: private Stream GetContentStream() 29: { 30: var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(T)); 31: Stream stream = new MemoryStream(); 32: serializer.WriteObject(stream, this.responseObject); 33: stream.Position = 0; 34: return stream; 35: } 36: } 37: } The HttpClientChannel provides a Send() method which you can override to return any HttpResponseMessage that you want. You can see I’m using the DataContractSerializer to serialize the object and write it to a stream. That’s all you need to do. In the example above, the only thing I’ve chosen to do is to provide a way to return different response objects. But there are many more features you could add to your own re-usable FakeHttpChannel. For example, you might want to provide the ability to add HTTP headers to the message. You might want to use a different serializer other than the DataContractSerializer. You might want to provide custom hypermedia in the response as well as just an object or set HTTP response codes. This list goes on. This is the just one example of the really cool features being added to the next version of WCF to enable various HTTP scenarios. The code sample for this post can be downloaded here.

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• Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion

  Communication with your environment is an essential part of everyone's life. And it doesn't matter whether you are actually living in a rural area in the middle of nowhere, within the pulsating heart of a big city, or in my case on a wonderful island in the Indian Ocean. The ability to exchange your thoughts, your experience and your worries with another person helps you to get different points of view and new ideas on how to resolve an issue you might be confronted with. Benefits of community work What happens to be common sense in your daily life, also applies to your work environment. Working in IT, or ICT as it is called in Mauritius, requires a lot of reading and learning. Not only during your lectures at the university but with your colleagues in a project assignment and hopefully with 'unknown' pals in the universe of online communities. At least I can say that I learned quite a lot from other developers code, their responses in various forums, their numerous blog articles, and while attending local user group meetings. When I started to work as a professional software developer (or engineer some may say) years ago I immediately checked the existence of communities on the programming language, the database technology and other vital information on software development in general. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to find. My employer had a subscription of the monthly magazines and newsletters of a national organisation which also run the biggest forum in that area. Getting in touch with other developers and reading their common problems but also solutions was a huge benefit to my growth. Image courtesy of Michael Kappel (CC BY-NC 2.0) Active participation and regular contribution to this community gave me some nice advantages, too. Within three years I was listed as a conference speaker at the annual developer's conference and provided several sessions on different topics during consecutive years. Back in 2004, I took over the responsibility and management of the monthly meetings of a regional user group, and organised it for more than two years. Furthermore, I was invited to the newly-founded community program of Microsoft Germany (Community Leader/Insider Program - CLIP). My website on Active FoxPro Pages was nominated in the second batch of online communities. Due to my community work and providing advice to others, I had the honour to be awarded as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) - Visual Developer for Visual FoxPro in the years 2006 and 2007. It was a great experience to meet with other like-minded people and I'm really grateful for that. Just in case, more details are listed in my Curriculum Vitae. But this all changed when I moved to Mauritius... Cyber island Mauritius? During the first months in Mauritius I was way too busy to think about community activities at all. First of all, there was the new company that had to be set up, the new staff had to be trained and of course the communication work-flows and so on with the project managers back in Germany had to be sorted out, too. Second, I had to get a grip of my private matters like getting the basics for my new household or exploring the neighbourhood, and last but not least I needed a break from the hectic and intensive work prior to my departure. As soon as the sea literally calmed down, I started to have conversations with my colleagues about communities and user groups. Sadly, it turned out that there were none, or at least no one was aware of any at that time. Oh oh, what did I do? Anyway, having this kind of background and very positive experience with off-line and on-line activities I decided for myself that some day I'm going to found a community in Mauritius for all kind of IT/ICT-related fields. The main focus might be on software development but not on a certain technology or methodology. It was clear to me that it should be an open infrastructure and anyone is welcome to join, to experience, to share and to contribute if they would like to. That was the idea at that time... Ok, fast-forward to recent events. At the end of October 2012 I was invited to an event called Open Days organised by Microsoft Indian Ocean Islands together with other local partners and resellers. There I got in touch with local Technical Evangelist Arnaud Meslier and we had a good conversation on communities during the breaks. Eventually, I left a good impression on him, as we are having chats on Facebook or Skype irregularly. Well, seeing that my personal and professional surroundings have been settled and running smooth, having that great exchange and contact with Microsoft IOI (again), and being really eager to re-animate my intentions from 2007, I recently founded a new community: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community - #MSCC It took me a while to settle down with the name but it was obvious that the community should not be attached to one single technology, like ie. .NET user group, Oracle developers, or Joomla friends (these are fictitious names). There are several other reasons why I came up with 'Craftsmanship' as the core topic of this community. The expression of 'engineering' didn't feel right with the fields covered. Software development in all kind of facets is a craft, and therefore demands a lot of practice but also guidance from more experienced developers. It also includes the process of designing, modelling and drafting the ideas. Has to deal with various types of tests and test methodologies, and of course should be focused on flexible and agile ways of acting. In order to meet and to excel a customer's request for a solution. Next, I was looking for an easy way to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments. Using all kind of social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing, etc. I was never really confident about their features of event handling. More by chance I stumbled upon Meetup.com and in combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I am looking forward to advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there will be a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians!

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• Expectations + Rewards = Innovation

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  “Innovation” is a heavy word. We regard those that embrace it as “Innovators”. We describe organizations as being “Innovative”. We hold those associated with the word in high regard, even though its dictionary definition is very simple: Introducing something new. What our culture has done is wrapped Innovation in white robes and a gold crown. Innovation is rarely just introducing something new. Innovations and innovators are typically associated with other terms: groundbreaking, genius, industry-changing, creative, leading. Being a true innovator and creating innovations are a big deal, and something companies try to strive for…or at least say they strive for. There’s huge value in being recognized as an innovator in an industry, since the idea is that innovation equates to increased profitability. IBM ran an ad a few years back that showed what their view of innovation is: “The point of innovation is to make actual money.” If the money aspect makes you feel uneasy, consider it another way: the point of innovation is to <insert payoff here>. Companies that innovate will be more successful. Non-profits that innovate can better serve their target clients. Governments that innovate can better provide services to their citizens. True innovation is not easy to come by though. As with anything in business, how well an organization will innovate is reliant on the employees it retains, the expectations placed on those employees, and the rewards available to them. In a previous blog post I talked about one formula: Right Employees + Happy Employees = Productive Employees I want to introduce a new one, that builds upon the previous one: Expectations + Rewards = Innovation  The level of innovation your organization will realize is directly associated with the expectations you place on your staff and the rewards you make available to them. Expectations We may feel uncomfortable with the idea of placing expectations on our staff, mainly because expectation has somewhat of a negative or cold connotation to it: “I expect you to act this way or else!” The problem is in the or-else part…we focus on the negative aspects of failing to meet expectations instead of looking at the positive side. “I expect you to act this way because it will produce <insert benefit here>”. Expectations should not be set to punish but instead be set to ensure quality. At a recent conference I spoke with some Microsoft employees who told me that you have five years from starting with the company to reach a “Senior” level. If you don’t, then you’re let go. The expectation Microsoft placed on their staff is that they should be working towards improving themselves, taking more responsibility, and thus ensure that there is a constant level of quality in the workforce. Rewards Let me be clear: a paycheck is not a reward. A paycheck is simply the employer’s responsibility in the employee/employer relationship. A paycheck will never be the key motivator to drive innovation. Offering employees something over and above their required compensation can spur them to greater performance and achievement. Working in the food service industry, this tactic was used again and again: whoever has the highest sales over lunch will receive a free lunch/gift certificate/entry into a draw/etc. There was something to strive for, to try beyond the baseline of what our serving jobs were. It was through this that innovative sales techniques would be tried and honed, with key servers being top sellers time and time again. At a code camp I spoke at, I was amazed to see that all the employees from one company receive $100 Visa gift cards as a thank you for taking time to speak. Again, offering something over and above that can give that extra push for employees. Rewards work. But what about the fairness angle? In the restaurant example I gave, there were servers that would never win the competition. They just weren’t good enough at selling and never seemed to get better. So should those that did work at performing better and produce more sales for the restaurant not get rewarded because those who weren’t working at performing better might get upset? Of course not! Organizations succeed because of their top performers and those that strive to join their ranks. The Expectation/Reward Graph While the Expectations + Rewards = Innovation formula may seem like a simple mathematics formula, there’s much more going under the hood. In fact there are three different outcomes that could occur based on what you put in as values for Expectations and Rewards. Consider the graph below and the descriptions that follow: Disgruntled – High Expectation, Low Reward I worked at a company where the mantra was “Company First, Because We Pay You”. Even today I still hear stories of how this sentiment continues to be perpetuated: They provide you a paycheck and a means to live, therefore you should always put them as your top priority. Of course, this is a huge imbalance in the expectation/reward equation. Why would anyone willingly meet high expectations of availability, workload, deadlines, etc. when there is no reward other than a paycheck to show for it? Remember: paychecks are not rewards! Instead, you see employees be disgruntled which not only affects the level of production but also the level of quality within an organization. It also means that you see higher turnover. Complacent – Low Expectation, Low Reward Complacency is a systemic problem that typically exists throughout all levels of an organization. With no real expectations or rewards, nobody needs to excel. In fact, those that do try to innovate, improve, or introduce new things into the organization might be shunned or pushed out by the rest of the staff who are just doing things the same way they’ve always done it. The bigger issue for the organization with low/low values is that at best they’ll never grow beyond their current size (and may shrink actually), and at worst will cease to exist. Entitled – Low Expectation, High Reward It’s one thing to say you have the best people and reward them as such, but its another thing to actually have the best people and reward them as such. Organizations with Entitled employees are the former: their organization provides them with all types of comforts, benefits, and perks. But there’s no requirement before the rewards are dolled out, and there’s no short-list of who receives the rewards. Everyone in the company is treated the same and is given equal share of the spoils. Entitlement is actually almost identical with Complacency with one notable difference: just try to introduce higher expectations into an entitled organization! Entitled employees have been spoiled for so long that they can’t fathom having rewards taken from them, or having to achieve specific levels of performance before attaining them. Those running the organization also buy in to the Entitled sentiment, feeling that they must persist the same level of comforts to appease their staff…even though the quality of the employee pool may be suspect. Innovative – High Expectation, High Reward Finally we have the Innovative organization which places high expectations but also provides high rewards. This organization gets it: if you truly want the best employees you need to apply equal doses of pressure and praise. Realize that I’m not suggesting crazy overtime or un-realistic working conditions. I do not agree with the “Glengary-Glenross” method of encouragement. But as anyone who follows sports can tell you, the teams that win are the ones where the coaches push their players to be their best; to achieve new levels of performance that they didn’t know they could receive. And the result for the players is more money, fame, and opportunity. It’s in this environment that organizations can focus on innovation – true innovation that builds the business and allows everyone involved to truly benefit. In Closing Organizations love to use the word “Innovation” and its derivatives, but very few actually do innovate. For many, the term has just become another marketing buzzword to lump in with all the other business terms that get overused. But for those organizations that truly get the value of innovation, they will be the ones surging forward while other companies simply fade into the background. And they will be the organizations that expect more from their employees, and give them their just rewards.

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• BRE (Business Rules Engine) Data Services is out...!!!

  - by Vishal

  A few months ago we at Tellago had open sourced the BizTalk Data Services. We were meanwhile working on other artifacts which comes along with BizTalk Server like the “Business Rules Engine”.  We are happy to announce the first version of BRE Data Services. BRE Data Services is a same concept which we covered through BTS Data Services, providing a RESTFul OData – based API to interact with the Business Rules Engine via HTTP using ATOM Publishing Protocol or JSON as the encoding mechanism.   In the first version release, we mainly focused on the browsing, querying and searching BRE artifacts via a RESTFul interface. Also along with that we provide the functionality to execute Business Rules by inserting the Facts for policies via the IUpdatable implementation of WCF Data Services.   The BRE Data Services API provides a lightweight interface for managing Business Rules Engine artifacts such as Policies, Rules, Vocabularies, Conditions, Actions, Facts etc. The following are some examples which details some of the available features in the current version of the API.   Basic Querying: Querying BRE Policies http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Policies Querying BRE Rules http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Rules Querying BRE Vocabularies http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Vocabularies   Navigation: The BRE Data Services API also leverages WCF Data Services to enable navigation across related different BRE objects. Querying a specific Policy http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Policies(‘PolicyName’) Querying a specific Rule http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Rules(‘RuleName’) Querying all Rules under a Policy http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Policies('PolicyName')/Rules Querying all Facts under a Policy http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Policies('PolicyName')/Facts Querying all Actions for a specific Rule http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Rules('RuleName')/Actions Querying all Conditions for a specific Rule http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Rules('RuleName')/Actions Querying a specific Vocabulary: http://localhost/BREDataServices/BREMananagementService.svc/Vocabularies('VocabName')   Implementation: With the BRE Data Services, we also provide the functionality of executing a particular policy via HTTP. There are couple of ways you can do that though the API.   Ø First is though Service Operations feature of WCF Data Services in which you can execute the Facts by passing them in the URL itself. This is a very simple implementations of the executing the policies due to the limitations & restrictions (only primitive types of input parameters which can be passed) currently of the Service Operations of the WCF Data Services. Below is a code sample.                Below is a traced Request/Response message.                                 Ø Second is through the IUpdatable Interface of WCF Data Services. In this method, you can first query the rule which you want to execute and then inserts Facts for that particular Rules and finally when you perform the SaveChanges() call for the IUpdatable Interface API, it executes the policy with the facts which you inserted at runtime. Below is a sample of client side code. Due to the limitations of current version of WCF Data Services where there is no way you can return back the updates happening on the service side back to the client via the SaveChanges() method. Here we are executing the rule passing a serialized XML as Facts and there is no changes made to any data where we can query back to fetch the changes. This is overcome though the first way to executing the policies which is by executing it as a Service Operation call.     This actually generates a AtomPub message shown as below:   POST /Tellago.BRE.REST.ServiceHost/BREMananagementService.svc/$batch HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Microsoft ADO.NET Data Services DataServiceVersion: 1.0;NetFx MaxDataServiceVersion: 2.0;NetFx Accept: application/atom+xml,application/xml Accept-Charset: UTF-8 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=batch_6b9a5ced-5ecb-4585-940a-9d5e704c28c7 Host: localhost:8080 Content-Length: 1481 Expect: 100-continue   --batch_6b9a5ced-5ecb-4585-940a-9d5e704c28c7 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=changeset_184a8c59-a714-4ba9-bb3d-889a88fe24bf   --changeset_184a8c59-a714-4ba9-bb3d-889a88fe24bf Content-Type: application/http Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary   MERGE http://localhost:8080/Tellago.BRE.REST.ServiceHost/BREMananagementService.svc/Facts('TestPolicy') HTTP/1.1 Content-ID: 4 Content-Type: application/atom+xml;type=entry Content-Length: 927   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?> <entry xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" font-size: x-small"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">   <category scheme="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/scheme" term="Tellago.BRE.REST.Resources.Fact" />   <title />   <author>     <name />   </author>   <updated>2011-01-31T20:09:15.0023982Z</updated>   <id>http://localhost:8080/Tellago.BRE.REST.ServiceHost/BREMananagementService.svc/Facts('TestPolicy')</id>   <content type="application/xml">     <m:properties>       <d:FactInstance>&lt;ns0:LoanStatus xmlns:ns0="http://tellago.com"&gt;&lt;Age&gt;10&lt;/Age&gt;&lt;Status&gt;true&lt;/Status&gt;&lt;/ns0:LoanStatus&gt;</d:FactInstance>       <d:FactType>TestSchema</d:FactType>       <d:ID>TestPolicy</d:ID>     </m:properties>   </content> </entry> --changeset_184a8c59-a714-4ba9-bb3d-889a88fe24bf-- --batch_6b9a5ced-5ecb-4585-940a-9d5e704c28c7—     Installation: The installation of the BRE Data Services is pretty straight forward. ·         Create a new IIS website say BREDataServices. ·         Download the SourceCode from TellagoCodeplex and copy the content from Tellago.BRE.REST.ServiceHost to the physical location of the above created website.     ·         The appPool account running the website should have admin access to the BizTalkRuleEngineDb database. ·         TheRight click the BREManagementService.svc in the IIS ContentView for the website and wala..     Conclusion: The BRE Data Services API is an experiment intended to bring the capabilities of RESTful/OData based services to the Traditional BTS/BRE Solutions. The future releases will target on technologies like BAM, ESB Toolkit. This version has been tested with various version of BizTalk Server and we have uploaded the source code to our Tellago's DevLabs workspace at Codeplex. I hope you guys enjoy this release. Keep an eye on our new releases @ Tellago Codeplex. We are working on various other Biztalk Artifacts like BAM, ESB Toolkit.     Till than happy BizzRuling…!!!     Thanks,   Vishal Mody

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• Algorithm for Shortest Job First with Preemption

  - by Shray

  I want to implement a shortest job first routine using C# or C++. Priority of Jobs are based on their processing time. Jobs are processed using a binary (min) heap. There are three types of jobs. Type 1 is when jobs come in between every 4-6 seconds, with processing times between 4-6. Type 2 job comes in between 8-12 seconds, with processing times between 8-12. Type 3 job comes in between 24-26 seconds, with processing times between 14-16. So far, I have written the binary heap functionality, but Im kinda confused on how to start processing spawn and also the processor. #include <iostream> #include <stdlib.h> #include <time.h> using namespace std; int timecounting = 20; struct process{ int atime; int ptime; int type; }; class pque{ private: int count; public: process pheap[100]; process type1[100]; process type2[100]; process type3[100]; process type4[100]; pque(){ count = 0; } void swap(int a, int b){ process tempa = pheap[a]; process tempb = pheap[b]; pheap[b] = tempa; pheap[a] = tempb; } void add(process c){ int current; count++; pheap[count] = c; if(count > 0){ current = count; while(pheap[count/2].ptime > pheap[current].ptime){ swap(current/2, current); current = current/2; } } } void remove(){ process temp = pheap[1]; // saves process to temporary pheap[1] = pheap[count]; //takes last process in heap, and puts it at the root int n = 1; int leftchild = 2*n; int rightchild = 2*n + 1; while(leftchild < count && rightchild < count) { if(pheap[leftchild].ptime > pheap[rightchild].ptime) { if(pheap[leftchild].ptime > pheap[n].ptime) { swap(leftchild, n); n = leftchild; int leftchild = 2*n; int rightchild = 2*n + 1; } } else { if(pheap[rightchild].ptime > pheap[n].ptime) { swap(rightchild, n); n = rightchild; int leftchild = 2*n; int rightchild = 2*n + 1; } } } } void spawn1(){ process p; process p1; p1.atime = 0; int i = 0; srand(time(NULL)); while(i < timecounting) { p.atime = rand()%3 + 4 + p1.atime; p.ptime = rand()%5 + 1; p1.atime = p.atime; p.type = 1; type1[i+1] = p; i++; } } void spawn2(){ process p; process p1; p1.atime = 0; srand(time(NULL)); int i = 0; while(i < timecounting) { p.atime = rand()%3 + 9 + p1.atime; p.ptime = rand()%5 + 6; p1.atime = p.atime; p.type = 2; type2[i+1] = p; i++; } } void spawn3(){ process p; process p1; p1.atime = 0; srand(time(NULL)); int i = 0; while(i < timecounting) { p.atime = rand()%3 + 25 + p1.atime; p.ptime = rand()%5 + 11; p1.atime = p.atime; p.type = 3; type3[i+1] = p; i++; } } void spawn4(){ process p; process p1; p1.atime = 0; srand(time(NULL)); int i = 0; while(i < timecounting) { p.atime = rand()%6 + 30 + p1.atime; p.ptime = rand()%5 + 8; p1.atime = p.atime; p.type = 4; type4[i+1] = p; i++; } } void processor() { process p; process p1; p1.atime = 0; int n = 1; int n1 = 1; int n2 = 1; for(int i = 0; i<timecounting;i++) { if(type1[n].atime == i) { add(type1[n]); n++; } if(type2[n1].atime == i) { add(type1[n1]); n1++; } if(type3[n2].atime == i) { add(type1[n2]); n2++; } /* if(pheap[1].atime <= i) { while(pheap[1].atime != 0){ pheap[1].atime--; i++; } remove(); }*/ } } };

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, January 22, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, January 22, 2011Popular ReleasesMinecraft Tools: Minecraft Topographical Survey 1.3: MTS requires version 4 of the .NET Framework - you must download it from Microsoft if you have not previously installed it. This version of MTS adds automatic block list updates, so MTS will recognize blocks added in game updates properly rather than drawing them in bright pink. New in this version of MTS: Support for all new blocks added since the Halloween update Auto-update of blockcolors.xml to support future game updates A splash screen that shows while the program searches for upd...StyleCop for ReSharper: StyleCop for ReSharper 5.1.14996.000: New Features: ============= This release is just compiled against the latest release of JetBrains ReSharper 5.1.1766.4 Previous release: A considerable amount of work has gone into this release: Huge focus on performance around the violation scanning subsystem: - caching added to reduce IO operations around reading and merging of settings files - caching added to reduce creation of expensive objects Users should notice condsiderable perf boost and a decrease in memory usage. Bug Fixes...TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 9: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 9 ChangesAdded support for lists and suggested users Fixes based on user feedback Third Party Library VersionsHammock v1.1.6: http://hammock.codeplex.com Json.NET 4.0 Release 1: http://json.codeplex.comjqGrid ASP.Net MVC Control: Version 1.2.0.0: jqGrid 3.8 support jquery 1.4 support New and exciting features Many bugfixes Complete separation from the jquery, & jqgrid codeMediaScout: MediaScout 3.0 Preview 4: Update ReleaseCoding4Fun Tools: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1: Coding4Fun.Phone.Toolkit v1MFCMAPI: January 2011 Release: Build: 6.0.0.1024 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the tool, get the executable. If you want to debug it, get the symbol file and the source. The 64 bit build will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit build, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeAutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.5.4: Added champion: Renekton Removed automatic file association Fix: The recent files combobox didn't always open a file when an item was selected Fix: Removing a recently opened file caused an errorDotNetNuke® Community Edition: 05.06.01: Major Highlights Fixed issue to remove preCondition checks when upgrading to .Net 4.0 Fixed issue where some valid domains were failing email validation checks. Fixed issue where editing Host menu page settings assigns the page to a Portal. Fixed issue which caused XHTML validation problems in 5.6.0 Fixed issue where an aspx page in any subfolder was inaccessible. Fixed issue where Config.Touch method signature had an unintentional breaking change in 5.6.0 Fixed issue which caused...MiniTwitter: 1.65: MiniTwitter 1.65 ???? ?? List ????? in-reply-to ???????? ????????????????????????? ?? OAuth ????????????????????????????ASP.net Ribbon: Version 2.1: Tadaaa... So Version 2.1 brings a lot of things... Have a look at the homepage to see what's new. Also, I wanted to (really) improve the Designer. I wanted to add great things... but... it took to much time. And as some of you were waiting for fixes, I decided just to fix bugs and add some features. So have a look at the demo app to see new features. Thanks ! (You can expect some realeses if bugs are not fixed correctly... 2.2, 2.3, 2.4....)iTracker Asp.Net Starter Kit: Version 3.0.0: This is the inital release of the version 3.0.0 Visual Studio 2010 (.Net 4.0) remake of the ITracker application. I connsider this a working, stable application but since there are still some features missing to make it "complete" I'm leaving it listed as a "beta" release. I am hoping to make it feature complete for v3.1.0 but anything is possible.ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.6.1: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager changes: RenderView controller extension works for razor also live demo switched to razorBloodSim: BloodSim - 1.3.3.1: - Priority update to resolve a bug that was causing Boss damage to ignore Blood Shields entirelyRawr: Rawr 4.0.16 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of this release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Tracker. W...MvcContrib: an Outer Curve Foundation project: MVC 3 - 3.0.51.0: Please see the Change Log for a complete list of changes. MVC BootCamp Description of the releases: MvcContrib.Release.zip MvcContrib.dll MvcContrib.TestHelper.dll MvcContrib.Extras.Release.zip T4MVC. The extra view engines / controller factories and other functionality which is in the project. This file includes the main MvcContrib assembly. Samples are included in the release. You do not need MvcContrib if you download the Extras.Yahoo! UI Library: YUI Compressor for .Net: Version 1.5.0.0 - Jalthi: Updated solution to VS2010. New: Work Item #4450 - Optional MSBuild task parameter :: Do not error if no files were found. Fixed: Work Item #5028 - Output file encoding is the same as the optional MSBuild task encoding argument. Fixed: Work Item #5824 - MSBuilds where slow, after the first build due to the Current Thread being forced to en-gb, on none en-gb systems. Changed: Work Item #6873 - Project license changed from MS-PL to GPLv2. New: Added all the unit tests from the Java YU...N2 CMS: 2.1.1: N2 is a lightweight CMS framework for ASP.NET. It helps you build great web sites that anyone can update. 2.1.1 Maintenance release List of changes 2.1 Major Changes Support for auto-implemented properties ({get;set;}, based on contribution by And Poulsen) File manager improvements (multiple file upload, resize images to fit) New image gallery Infinite scroll paging on news Content templates First time with N2? Try the demo site Download one of the template packs (above) and open...DNN Menu Provider: 01.00.00 (DNN 5.X and newer): DNN Menu Provider v1.0.0Our first release build is a stable release. It requires at least DotNetNuke 5.1.0. Previous DNN versions are not suported. Major Highlights: Easy to use template system build on a selfmade and powerful engine. Ready for multilingual websites. A flexible translation integration based on the ASP.NET Provider Model as well as an build in provider for DNN Localization (DNN 5.5.X > required) and an provider for EALO Translation API. Advanced in-memory caching function...VidCoder: 0.8.1: Adds ability to choose an arbitrary range (in seconds or frames) to encode. Adds ability to override the title number in the output file name when enqueing multiple titles. Updated presets: Added iPhone 4, Apple TV 2, fixed some existing presets that should have had weightp=0 or trellis=0 on them. Added {parent} option to auto-name format. Use {parent:2} to refer to a folder 2 levels above the input file. Added {title:2} option to auto-name format. Adds leading zeroes to reach the sp...New Projectsagap: Système de gestion d'application.Blog in Silverlight With BlogEngine: I love silverlight and want to build my blog in silverlight base on BlogEngine.NETCavemanTools: Easy to use toolkit with extension methods and special goodies for faster development, written in C# on .Net 3.5. CloudCompanion: Windows Azure performance measurement & analytics tools.Delivery Madness: XNA Game Development ExampledFactor: Visual Studio Add-in. Provides extended refactoring options.GpSpotMe: El objetivo final de GPSmapPoint es mostrar la posición del usuario sobre un mapa topográfico, pero eso no es mas que una escusa para aprender y divertirse programando. Esta desarrollado en C# sobre .NET Compact Framework 3.5 y puede ser usado en teléfonos con Windows Mobile 6.xInvestment Calculator: Allows you to evaluate how much money you could have today if you invested to one of the predefined investment opportunities in the database at a given date.jbucknor: jbucknorLoad Generation: Generates load according to a given pattern over a long period of time for the given number of users. It can vary the load in different patters such as linear, exponential etc. Load can be generated on custom or standard protocol Orchard Profile Module: Provides user profilesOrchard Super Classic Theme: This Orchard Theme is used to demonstrate the dynamic themes capabilities offered by Orchard. Based on the Classic Theme for Orchard, you can chose among different variations from the Dashboard.Orchard Youtube Field Module: Youtube field for orchard.Osac DataLayer: Database layer to simplify the use of database connection, sql queries and commands. Powerd by OSAC. http://www.osac.nlPascal Design: Pascal Design. pascal design is for users writing pascal application or to students learning pascal and don't need to workout the design and want to make same fast "screens". it's developed in C#PathEditor: This tool simplified the access to the environment path variable. No long line, a nice grid for editing easy and secure with directory checking. PLG Graphic File Analyzer: PLG Analyzer is an application that loads a graphic scene described in PLG format, parses the file and displays the information in it on the screen in 3D coordinates using OpenTK for C#. This project is a university project (homework, not final project) so please bear in mind :)Read Application Cofiguration in Javascript: Would it be good , if "AppSettings" is accessed with "Javascript.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ServiceUrl"]"?Route#: A Microsoft .NET 4.0 C#/F# application to load routes and find minimal paths. The application is meant to let user create a network of nodes and connections representing a web to route. Starting from a point A the application will find the minimal path to B.Send SMS: Send SMS allows you to send SMS (Short Messaging Service) to all mobile operators across India. It allows you to send SMS through popular service providers like Way2SMS, Full On Sms, Tezsms, Sms Inside and more.SocialMe: This is a simple Facebook, MySpace & Twitter client, but small!StockViewer: This is an interactive way to browse stocks.Thailand IC2011 Training: Using for IC2011 training at KU. Topic. Windows Presentation Foundation Silverlight Windows Phone 7 TipTip: Online oblozuvanjeWeb Content Compressor: The objective of this project is to compress any Javascript (js file or inline script at some web files) and Cascading Style Sheets to an efficient level that works exactly as the original source, before it was minified. The library also is integrated with MSBuildwuyuhu: wuyuhuXaml Mvp: With Xaml Mvp you can create Windows Phone 7 applications based on the MVP pattern. By seperating Data from Behaviour you still get the benefit of MVVM without your View Model becoming a fat-controller. Silverlight and WPF coming soon! Developed using C#XnaWavPack: Native C# wavpack decoder, intended for use with the dynamic sound API in XNA4.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 10, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, March 10, 2011Popular ReleasesTweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Beta ChangesAdded user streams support Serialization is not attempted for Twitter 5xx errors Fixes based on feedback Third Party Library VersionsHammock v1.2.0: http://hammock.codeplex.com Json.NET 4.0 Release 1: http://json.codeplex.comSharePoint Field Groups To Users: GroupsToUsers Release 1.0: SharePoint "Groups to Users" is a custom field that displays two separate drop-down lists. The first drop-down populates with all SharePoint Groups from the current web. By selecting a particular group the second drop-down list gets populated with all Users within the selected SharePoint group.DirectQ: Release 1.8.7 (RC2): More fixes and improvements. Note for multiplayer - you may need to set r_waterwarp to 0 or 2 before connecting to a server, otherwise you will get a "Mod_PointInLeaf: bad model" error and not be able to connect. You can set it back to 1 after you connect, of course. This only came to light after releasing, and will be fixed in the next one.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: Visual Studio 2008 Code Samples 2011-03-09: Code samples for Visual Studio 2008Office Web.UI: Version 2.4: After having lost all modifications done for 2.3. I finally did it again... Have a look at http://www.officewebui.com/change-log Also, the documentation continues to grow... http://www.officewebui.com/category/kb ThanksmyCollections: Version 1.3: New in version 1.3 : Added Editor management for Books Added Amazon API for Books Us, Fr, De Added Amazon Us, Fr, De for Movies Added The MovieDB for Fr and De Added Author for Books Added Editor and Platform for Games Added Amazon Us, De for Games Added Studio for XXX Added Background for XXX Bug fixing with Softonic API Bug fixing with IMDB UI improvement Removed GraceNote Added Amazon Us,Fr, De for Series Added TVDB Fr and De for Series Added Tracks for Musi...Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 1.1: Version 1.1 (8 Mar 2011)new Dialog class for redirecting users to Facebook dialogs new Async publishing methods new Check for Extended Permissions option fixed bug: inappropiate condition of redirecting to login in Api class fixed bug: IframeRedirect method not workingpatterns & practices : Composite Services: Composite Services Guidance - CTP2: This is the second CTP of the p&p Composite Service Guidance.Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.0 Beta 1: Beta 1You can't install IronPython Tools for Visual Studio side-by-side with Python Tools for Visual Studio. A race condition sometimes causes local MPI debugging to miss breakpoints. When MPI jobs on a cluster fail they don’t get cleaned up correctly, which can cause debugging to stall because the associated MPI job is stuck in the queue. The "Threads" view has a race condition which can cause it not to display properly at times. VS2010 shortcuts that are pinned to the taskbar are so...DotNetAge -a lightweight Mvc jQuery CMS: DotNetAge 2: What is new in DotNetAge 2.0 ? Completely update DJME to DJME2, enhance user experience ,more beautiful and more interactively visit DJME project home to lean more about DJME http://www.dotnetage.com/sites/home/djme.html A new widget engine has came! Faster and easiler. Runtime performance enhanced. SEO enhanced. UI Designer enhanced. A new web resources explorer. Page manager enhanced. BlogML supports added that allows you import/export your blog data to/from dotnetage publishi...Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.0 Beta: Files in this downloadkooboo_CMS.zip: The kooboo application files Content_DBProvider.zip: Additional content database implementation of MSSQL,SQLCE, RavenDB and MongoDB. Default is XML based database. To use them, copy the related dlls into web root bin folder and remove old content provider dlls. Content provider has the name like "Kooboo.CMS.Content.Persistence.SQLServer.dll" View_Engines.zip: Supports of Razor, webform and NVelocity view engine. Copy the dlls into web root bin folder t...ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.7.2: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager added fullscreen for the popup and popupformIronPython: 2.7 Release Candidate 2: On behalf of the IronPython team, I am pleased to announce IronPython 2.7 Release Candidate 2. The releases contains a few minor bug fixes, including a working webbrowser module. Please see the release notes for 61395 for what was fixed in previous releases.LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.20: Mono 2.8, Silverlight, OAuth, 100% Twitter API coverage, streaming, extensibility via Raw Queries, and added documentation.Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.6: Once again supports biomes, thanks to an updated Minecraft Biome Extractor, which added support for the new Minecraft beta v1.3 map format. Updated mcmap to support new biome format.Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.3.0 Release: This release supports the Sandcastle June 2010 Release (v2.6.10621.1). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release is compiled under .NET 4.0, supports Visual Studio 2010 solutions and projects as documentation sources, and adds support for projects targeting the Silverlight Framework. This release uses the Sandcastle Guided Installation package used by Sandcastle Styles. Download and extract to a folder and then run SandcastleI...AutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.6.4: It is now possible to run the clicker anyway when it can't detect the Masteries Window Fixed a critical bug in the open file dialog Removed the resize button Some UI changes 3D camera movement is now more intuitive (Trackball rotation) When an error occurs on the clicker it will attempt to focus AutoLoLYAF.NET (aka Yet Another Forum.NET): v1.9.5.5 RTW: YAF v1.9.5.5 RTM (Date: 3/4/2011 Rev: 4742) Official Discussion Thread here: http://forum.yetanotherforum.net/yaf_postsm47149_v1-9-5-5-RTW--Date-3-4-2011-Rev-4742.aspx Changes in v1.9.5.5 Rev. #4661 - Added "Copy" function to forum administration -- Now instead of having to manually re-enter all the access masks, etc, you can just duplicate an existing forum and modify after the fact. Rev. #4642 - New Setting to Enable/Disable Last Unread posts links Rev. #4641 - Added Arabic Language t...Snippet Designer: Snippet Designer 1.3.1: Snippet Designer 1.3.1 for Visual Studio 2010This is a bug fix release. Change logFixed bug where Snippet Designer would fail if you had the most recent Productivity Power Tools installed Fixed bug where "Export as Snippet" was failing in non-english locales Fixed bug where opening a new .snippet file would fail in non-english localesChiave File Encryption: Chiave 1.0: Final Relase for Chave 1.0 Stable: Application for file encryption and decryption using 512 Bit rijndael encyrption algorithm with simple to use UI. Its written in C# and compiled in .Net version 3.5. It incorporates features of Windows 7 like Jumplists, Taskbar progress and Aero Glass. Now with added support to Windows XP! Change Log from 0.9.2 to 1.0: ==================== Added: > Added Icon Overlay for Windows 7 Taskbar Icon. >Added Thumbnail Toolbar buttons to make the navigation easier...New ProjectsAll2Iso: Convert any disk image format to ISO. Actually it can only convert from BIN. Any help is appreciated.Asset Management by Joko for GENCPROS: This is my initial test project using codeplex storageAxvius: Axvius' core C# API library. Includes, Now, a class for overriding the system clock; especially useful for unit tests.Collision Avoidance Simulator: The vertex buffer, in conjunction with the spatial conguration of human models, a particle system and a reduced set of rules are processed in order to obtain a dynamic knowledge base for collision avoidance calculations. Developed in C++.Configuring role link in Biztalk 2009: Configuring role link in Biztalk 2009CrazySnake: Crazy Snake é o famoso jogo da cobra, esse em sua versão tanto para windows, quanto para windows phone 7dIRca WP7 IRC Client: IRC client with possible SL/WPF ports. Utilizes native tcp sockets until the communication layer from MS solidifies. Basically put, this project would not exist without the work of some wp7 hackers. Pip pip old boys.DoanVienProject: Ðây là porject qu?n lý doàn viênDynamics AX Build Scripts: Sharing build scripts for Dynamics AX integration with source control, focused on Team Foundation Server (TFS)EPiServer CMS ElencySolutions.MultipleProperty: The MultipleProperty classes are for use in EPiServer CMS 6 and provide an easy way for developers to build complex custom properties that comprise of other EPiServer custom properties. Feriados Móveis Brasil: This project aim to calculate the holidays in Brazil who is based on catholic dates. The main holiday is the Easter Sunday and the other holidays are calculated based on that date. Cálculo de feriados móveis para o Brasil baseados nas datas festivas católicas.flyskynet: myselft projectGriffTom: GriffTomImage Resizer (????????): ??????????????????，????????????????。?????jpg??。 ??????，????????????。iPray: Islamic Prayer Software.Japanese Learners & Enthusiasts Kanji Project: Help create games, puzzles, and exercises to assist learners of Japanese to master Kanji comprehension. Games/etc. will be written in C#, jQuery and/or Silverlight for ASP.NET MVC 3 Razor. Initial goal is for a user of the site to master grade level 1 Kanji (first 80 Kanji).MailChimp Amazon Simple Email Service .NET Wrapper: A .NET 4 wrapper for MailChimp's Amazon Simple Email Service. It's developed in C# using Hammock.NGuice: .NET????Guice???????????。???.NET?????????，?Guice?.NET??????????。???????：http://code.google.com/p/google-guice/Rubrica Persone: Libreria che contiene gli oggetti e le form per la gestione di una rubrica di persone, facilmente integrabile in altre applicazioni.SCCM Client Center Integration Pack for Opalis: "SCCM Client Center Integration Pack for Opalis" is an System Center Opalis Integration Pack to manage and orchestrate System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Agents from Opalis workflows.Sugar-free programming: I like to think about breadth or depth developer, or Mort, Elvis, or Einstein developer stereotypes, as roles we could play accordingly to the task at hand…see more: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/marcod/archive/2011/03/01/sugarfreecs1.aspxTest Project 1: This is test project siteTestZoner: TestZoneTextBookReader: ???????????????????????，??????????，??????！ ??.net 2.0uSiteBuilder: uSiteBuilder is a framework made for .NET developers to simplify, speedup and take Umbraco development to next level. Aim of this framework is to reduce developer interaction with Umbraco back-end (browser based development), to create Umbraco websites in a more .NET way...VinculacionMicrosoft: Vinculacion Microsoft is a project for distributing Dreamsparks and Faculty Connection codes to students and professors. It is developed in ASP .Net and designed for Universities in Mexico interested in the different benefits that Microsoft has for them. Vio: Vio is an application for Sharetronix Based websites. Allowing users to connect to their community via their Windows Desktop.whatsnew.exe a command line utility to find new files: whatsnew.exe is a command line utility that lists the files created (new files) in a given number of days. whatsnew.exe 's syntax is very simple: whatsnew path numberofdays Also whatsnew supports other options like HTML or XML output, hyperlinked outputs and more.

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• PASS: Bylaw Change 2013

  - by Bill Graziano

  PASS launched a Global Growth Initiative in the Summer of 2011 with the appointment of three international Board advisors.  Since then we’ve thought and talked extensively about how we make PASS more relevant to our members outside the US and Canada.  We’ve collected much of that discussion in our Global Growth site.  You can find vision documents, plans, governance proposals, feedback sites, and transcripts of Twitter chats and town hall meetings.  We also address these plans at the Board Q&A during the 2012 Summit. One of the biggest changes coming out of this process is around how we elect Board members.  And that requires a change to the bylaws.  We published the proposed bylaw changes as a red-lined document so you can clearly see the changes.  Our goal in these bylaw changes was to address the changes required by the global growth initiatives, conduct a legal review of the document and address other minor issues in the document.  There are numerous small wording changes throughout the document.  For example, we replaced every reference of “The Corporation” with the word “PASS” so it now reads “PASS is organized…”. Board Composition The biggest change in these bylaw changes is how the Board is composed and elected.  This discussion starts in section VI.2.  This section now says that some elected directors will come from geographic regions.  I think this is the best way to make sure we give all of our members a voice in the leadership of the organization.  The key parts of this section are: The remaining Directors (i.e. the non-Officer Directors and non-Vendor Appointed Directors) shall be elected by the voting membership (“Elected Directors”). Elected Directors shall include representatives of defined PASS regions (“Regions”) as set forth below (“Regional Directors”) and at minimum one (1) additional Director-at-Large whose selection is not limited by region. Regional Directors shall include, but are not limited to, two (2) seats for the Region covering Canada and the United States of America. Additional Regions for the purpose of electing additional Regional Directors and additional Director-at-Large seats for the purpose of expanding the Board shall be defined by a majority vote of the current Board of Directors and must be established prior to the public call for nominations in the general election. Previously defined Regions and seats approved by the Board of Directors shall remain in effect and can only be modified by a 2/3 majority vote by the then current Board of Directors. Currently PASS has six At-Large Directors elected by the members.  These changes allow for a Regional Director position that is elected by the members but must come from a particular region.  It also stipulates that there must always be at least one Director-at-Large who can come from any region. We also understand that PASS is currently a very US-centric organization.  Our Summit is held in America, roughly half our chapters are in the US and Canada and most of the Board members over the last ten years have come from America.  We wanted to reflect that by making sure that our US and Canadian volunteers would continue to play a significant role by ensuring that two Regional seats are reserved specifically for Canada and the US. Other than that, the bylaws don’t create any specific regional seats.  These rules allow us to create Regional Director seats but don’t require it.  We haven’t fully discussed what the criteria will be in order for a region to have a seat designated for it or how many regions there will be.  In our discussions we’ve broadly discussed regions for United States and Canada Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Australia, New Zealand and Asia (also known as Asia Pacific or APAC) Mexico, South America, and Central America (LATAM) As you can see, our thinking is that there will be a few large regions.  I’ve also considered a non-North America region that we can gradually split into the regions above as our membership grows in those areas.  The regions will be defined by a policy document that will be published prior to the elections. I’m hoping that over the next year we can begin to publish more of what we do as Board-approved policy documents. While the bylaws only require a single non-region specific At-large Director, I would expect we would always have two.  That way we can have one in each election.  I think it’s important that we always have one seat open that anyone who is eligible to run for the Board can contest.  The Board is required to have any regions defined prior to the start of the election process. Board Elections – Regional Seats We spent a lot of time discussing how the elections would work for these Regional Director seats.  Ultimately we decided that the simplest solution is that every PASS member should vote for every open seat.  Section VIII.3 reads: Candidates who are eligible (i.e. eligible to serve in such capacity subject to the criteria set forth herein or adopted by the Board of Directors) shall be designated to fill open Board seats in the following order of priority on the basis of total votes received: (i) full term Regional Director seats, (ii) full term Director-at-Large seats, (iii) not full term (vacated) Regional Director seats, (iv) not full term (vacated) Director-at-Large seats. For the purposes of clarity, because of eligibility requirements, it is contemplated that the candidates designated to the open Board seats may not receive more votes than certain other candidates who are not selected to the Board. We debated whether to have multiple ballots or one single ballot.  Multiple ballot elections get complicated quickly.  Let’s say we have a ballot for US/Canada and one for Region 2.  After that we’d need a mechanism to merge those two together and come up with the winner of the at-large seat or have another election for the at-large position.  We think the best way to do this is a single ballot and putting the highest vote getters into the most restrictive seats.  Let’s look at an example: There are seats open for Region 1, Region 2 and at-large.  The election results are as follows: Candidate A (eligible for Region 1) – 550 votes Candidate B (eligible for Region 1) – 525 votes Candidate C (eligible for Region 1) – 475 votes Candidate D (eligible for Region 2) – 125 votes Candidate E (eligible for Region 2) – 75 votes In this case, Candidate A is the winner for Region 1 and is assigned that seat.  Candidate D is the winner for Region 2 and is assigned that seat.  The at-large seat is filled by the high remaining vote getter which is Candidate B. The key point to understand is that we may have a situation where a person with a lower vote total is elected to a regional seat and a person with a higher vote total is excluded.  This will be true whether we had multiple ballots or a single ballot.  Board Elections – Vacant Seats The other change to the election process is for vacant Board seats.  The actual changes are sprinkled throughout the document. Previously we didn’t have a mechanism that allowed for an election of a Board seat that we knew would be vacant in the future.  The most common case is when a Board members moves to an Officer role in the middle of their term.  One of the key changes is to allow the number of votes members have to match the number of open seats.  This allows each voter to express their preference on all open seats.  This only applies when we know about the opening prior to the call for nominations.  This all means that if there’s a seat will be open at the start of the next Board term, and we know about it prior to the call for nominations, we can include that seat in the elections.  Ultimately, the aim is to have PASS members decide who sits on the Board in as many situations as possible. We discussed the option of changing the bylaws to just take next highest vote-getter in all other cases.  I think that’s wrong for the following reasons: All voters aren’t able to express an opinion on all candidates.  If there are five people running for three seats, you can only vote for three.  You have no way to express your preference between #4 and #5. Different candidates may have different information about the number of seats available.  A person may learn that a Board member plans to resign at the end of the year prior to that information being made public. They may understand that the top four vote getters will end up on the Board while the rest of the members believe there are only three openings.  This may affect someone’s decision to run.  I don’t think this creates a transparent, fair election. Board members may use their knowledge of the election results to decide whether to remain on the Board or not.  Admittedly this one is unlikely but I don’t want to create a situation where this accusation can be leveled. I think the majority of vacancies in the future will be handled through elections.  The bylaw section quoted above also indicates that partial term vacancies will be filled after the full term seats are filled. Removing Directors Section VI.7 on removing directors has always had a clause that allowed members to remove an elected director.  We also had a clause that allowed appointed directors to be removed.  We added a clause that allows the Board to remove for cause any director with a 2/3 majority vote.  The updated text reads: Any Director may be removed for cause by a 2/3 majority vote of the Board of Directors whenever in its judgment the best interests of PASS would be served thereby. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the authority of any Director to act as in an official capacity as a Director or Officer of PASS may be suspended by the Board of Directors for cause. Cause for suspension or removal of a Director shall include but not be limited to failure to meet any Board-approved performance expectations or the presence of a reason for suspension or dismissal as listed in Addendum B of these Bylaws. The first paragraph is updated and the second and third are unchanged (except cleaning up language).  If you scroll down and look at Addendum B of these bylaws you find the following: Cause for suspension or dismissal of a member of the Board of Directors may include: Inability to attend Board meetings on a regular basis. Inability or unwillingness to act in a capacity designated by the Board of Directors. Failure to fulfill the responsibilities of the office. Inability to represent the Region elected to represent Failure to act in a manner consistent with PASS's Bylaws and/or policies. Misrepresentation of responsibility and/or authority. Misrepresentation of PASS. Unresolved conflict of interests with Board responsibilities. Breach of confidentiality. The bold line about your inability to represent your region is what we added to the bylaws in this revision.  We also added a clause to section VII.3 allowing the Board to remove an officer.  That clause is much less restrictive.  It doesn’t require cause and only requires a simple majority. The Board of Directors may remove any Officer whenever in their judgment the best interests of PASS shall be served by such removal. Other There are numerous other small changes throughout the document. Proxy voting.  The laws around how members and Board members proxy votes are specific in Illinois law.  PASS is an Illinois corporation and is subject to Illinois laws.  We changed section IV.5 to come into compliance with those laws.  Specifically this says you can only vote through a proxy if you have a written proxy through your authorized attorney.  English language proficiency.  As we increase our global footprint we come across more members that aren’t native English speakers.  The business of PASS is conducted in English and it’s important that our Board members speak English.  If we get big enough to afford translators, we may be able to relax this but right now we need English language skills for effective Board members. Committees.  The language around committees in section IX is old and dated.  Our lawyers advised us to clean it up.  This section specifically applies to any committees that the Board may form outside of portfolios.  We removed the term limits, quorum and vacancies clause.  We don’t currently have any committees that this would apply to.  The Nominating Committee is covered elsewhere in the bylaws. Electronic Votes.  The change allows the Board to vote via email but the results must be unanimous.  This is to conform with Illinois state law. Immediate Past President.  There was no mechanism to fill the IPP role if an outgoing President chose not to participate.  We changed section VII.8 to allow the Board to invite any previous President to fill the role by majority vote. Nominations Committee.  We’ve opened the language to allow for the transparent election of the Nominations Committee as outlined by the 2011 Election Review Committee. Revocation of Charters. The language surrounding the revocation of charters for local groups was flagged by the lawyers. We have allowed for the local user group to make all necessary payment before considering returning of items to PASS if required. Bylaw notification. We’ve spent countless meetings working on these bylaws with the intent to not open them again any time in the near future. Should the bylaws be opened again, we have included a clause ensuring that the PASS membership is involved. I’m proud that the Board has remained committed to transparency and accountability to members. This clause will require that same level of commitment in the future even when all the current Board members have rolled off. I think that covers everything.  I’d encourage you to look through the red-line document and see the changes.  It’s helpful to look at the language that’s being removed and the language that’s being added.  I’m happy to answer any questions here or you can email them to [email protected].

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 26, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, May 26, 2014Popular ReleasesClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.71.1: More performance improvements. It's faster and consumes less memory.Role Based Views in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Role Based Views in CRM 2011 and 2013 - 1.1.0.0: Issues fixed in this build: 1. Works for CRM 2013 2. Lookup view not getting blockedSimCityPak: SimCityPak 0.3.1.0: Main New Features: Fixed Importing of Instance Names (get rid of the Dutch translations) Added advanced editor for Decal Dictionaries Added possibility to import .PNG to generate new decals Added advanced editor for Path display entriesSimple Connect To Db: SimpleConnectToDb_v1: SimpleConnectToDb_v1CRM 2011 / CRM 2013 Form Helper: v2014.05.25: v2014.05.25 Added PhoneFormat & PhoneFormatAreaCode v2014.05.24 Initial ReleaseCreate Word documents without MS Word: Release 3.0: Add support for Sections, Sections Headers and Footers and right to left languages.Corporate News App for SharePoint 2013: CorporateNewsApp v1.6.2.0: Important note This version contains a major bug fix about the generic error "Request failed. Unexpected response data from server null" This error occurs on SharePoint Online only, following an update of the Javascript API after May 2014. If you have installed this application manually in your applications company catalog, you can download the CorporateNewsApp.app file in the zip archive and update it manually. If you have installed this application directly from the SharePoint Store, it ...DevOS: DevOS: Plugin-system added Including:DevOS.exe DevOS API.dll Files must be in the some folderTiny Deduplicator: Tiny Deduplicator 1.0.1.0: Increased version number to 1.0.1.0 Moved all options to a separate 'Options' dialog window. Allows the user to specify a selection strategy which will help when dealing with large numbers of duplicate files. Available options are "None," "Keep First," and "Keep Last"C64 Studio: 3.5: Add: BASIC renumber function Add: !PET pseudo op Add: elseif for !if, } else { pseudo op Add: !TRACE pseudo op Add: Watches are saved/restored with a solution Add: Ctrl-A works now in export assembly controls Add: Preliminary graphic import dialog (not fully functional yet) Add: range and block selection in sprite/charset editor (Shift-Click = range, Alt-Click = block) Fix: Expression evaluator could miscalculate when both division and multiplication were in an expression without parenthesisSEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.031.009 Release 1: Added mirroring of ConveyorTubeCurved. Updated Ship cube rotation to rotate ship back to original location (cubes are reoriented but ship appears no different to outsider), and to rotate Grouped items. Repair now fixes the loss of Grouped controls due to changes in Space Engineers 01.030. Added export asteroids. Rejoin ships will merge grouping and conveyor systems (even though broken ships currently only maintain the Grouping on one part of the ship). Installation of this version wi...Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows and WP v2.0: Support for new Universal and Windows Phone 8.1 projects for both Xaml and JavaScript projects. See a detailed list of improvements, breaking changes and a general overview of version 2 ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows Phone 8.1 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applicat...TerraMap (Terraria World Map Viewer): TerraMap 1.0.6: Added support for the new Terraria v1.2.4 update. New items, walls, and tiles Added the ability to select multiple highlighted block types. Added a dynamic, interactive highlight opacity slider, making it easier to find highlighted tiles with dark colors (and fixed blurriness from 1.0.5 alpha). Added ability to find Enchanted Swords (in the stone) and Water Bolt books Fixed Issue 35206: Hightlight/Find doesn't work for Demon Altars Fixed finding Demon Hearts/Shadow Orbs Fixed inst...DotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 with Examples: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 Tested and adapted to the latest version of Highcharts 4.0.1 Added new chart type: Heatmap Added new type PointPlacement which represents enumeration or number for the padding of the X axis. Changed target framework from .NET Framework 4 to .NET Framework 4.5. Closed issues: 974: Add 'overflow' property to PlotOptionsColumnDataLabels class 997: Split container from JS 1006: Series/Categories with numeric names don't render DotNet.Highcharts.Samples Updated s...ConEmu - Windows console with tabs: ConEmu 140523 [Alpha]: ConEmu - developer build x86 and x64 versions. Written in C++, no additional packages required. Run "ConEmu.exe" or "ConEmu64.exe". Some useful information you may found: http://superuser.com/questions/tagged/conemu http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/ConEmuFAQ http://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/wiki/TableOfContents If you want to use ConEmu in portable mode, just create empty "ConEmu.xml" file near to "ConEmu.exe" Aspose for Apache POI: Missing Features of Apache POI SL - v 1.1: Release contain the Missing Features in Apache POI SL SDK in Comparison with Aspose.Slides for dealing with Microsoft Power Point. What's New ?Following Examples: Managing Slide Transitions Manage Smart Art Adding Media Player Adding Audio Frame to Slide Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are yet to come here. Keep visiting us. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit: PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit v3.1.3: Added CompressLogs option to the config file. Each Install / Uninstall creates a timestamped zip file with all MSI and PSAppDeployToolkit logs contained within Added variable expansion to all paths in the configuration file Added documentation for each of the Toolkit internal variables that can be used Changed Install-MSUpdates to continue if any errors are encountered when installing updates Implement /Force parameter on Update-GroupPolicy (ensure that any logoff message is ignored) ...WordMat: WordMat v. 1.07: A quick fix because scientific notation was broken in v. 1.06 read more at http://wordmat.blogspot.com????: 《????》: 《????》（c???）??“????”???????，???????????????C?????????。???????,???????????????????????. ??????????????????????????????????；????????????????????????????。Mini SQL Query: Mini SQL Query (1.0.72.457): Apologies for the previous update! FK issue fixed and also a template data cache issue.New ProjectsASP.Net MCV4 Simplified Code Samples: This project intended to simplify the same. In this project each task is implemented with minimum lines of code to reduces complicity.Calvin: net???CodeLatino by Latinosoft: A Modified version for codeShow -- Probably taking more than a month.freeasyBackup: A free and easy to use Backup Tool for everyone. Without any cloud restrictions. freeasyExplorer: A free and easy to use File Explorer for everyone.openPDFspeedreader: #spritz #pdfreader #speedreader PDF Editor to Edit PDF Files in your ASP.NET Applications: This sample application allows the users to edit PDF files online using Aspose.Pdf for .NET.SharePoint World Cup 2013: world cup 2014SSAS Long Running Query Performance Helper: This utility helps investigate long running multidimensional or mining queries in discovery, de-parameterization and re-parameterization back to source format.

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• Augmenting your Social Efforts via Data as a Service (DaaS)

  - by Mike Stiles

  The following is the 3rd in a series of posts on the value of leveraging social data across your enterprise by Oracle VP Product Development Don Springer and Oracle Cloud Data and Insight Service Sr. Director Product Management Niraj Deo. In this post, we will discuss the approach and value of integrating additional “public” data via a cloud-based Data-as-as-Service platform (or DaaS) to augment your Socially Enabled Big Data Analytics and CX Management. Let’s assume you have a functional Social-CRM platform in place. You are now successfully and continuously listening and learning from your customers and key constituents in Social Media, you are identifying relevant posts and following up with direct engagement where warranted (both 1:1, 1:community, 1:all), and you are starting to integrate signals for communication into your appropriate Customer Experience (CX) Management systems as well as insights for analysis in your business intelligence application. What is the next step? Augmenting Social Data with other Public Data for More Advanced Analytics When we say advanced analytics, we are talking about understanding causality and correlation from a wide variety, volume and velocity of data to Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to achieve and optimize business value. And in some cases, to predict future performance to make appropriate course corrections and change the outcome to your advantage while you can. The data to acquire, process and analyze this is very nuanced: It can vary across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data It can span across content, profile, and communities of profiles data It is increasingly public, curated and user generated The key is not just getting the data, but making it value-added data and using it to help discover the insights to connect to and improve your KPIs. As we spend time working with our larger customers on advanced analytics, we have seen a need arise for more business applications to have the ability to ingest and use “quality” curated, social, transactional reference data and corresponding insights. The challenge for the enterprise has been getting this data inline into an easily accessible system and providing the contextual integration of the underlying data enriched with insights to be exported into the enterprise’s business applications. The following diagram shows the requirements for this next generation data and insights service or (DaaS): Some quick points on these requirements: Public Data, which in this context is about Common Business Entities, such as - Customers, Suppliers, Partners, Competitors (all are organizations) Contacts, Consumers, Employees (all are people) Products, Brands This data can be broadly categorized incrementally as - Base Utility data (address, industry classification) Public Master Reference data (trade style, hierarchy) Social/Web data (News, Feeds, Graph) Transactional Data generated by enterprise process, workflows etc. This Data has traits of high-volume, variety, velocity etc., and the technology needed to efficiently integrate this data for your needs includes - Change management of Public Reference Data across all categories Applied Big Data to extract statics as well as real-time insights Knowledge Diagnostics and Data Mining As you consider how to deploy this solution, many of our customers will be using an online “cloud” service that provides quality data and insights uniformly to all their necessary applications. In addition, they are requesting a service that is: Agile and Easy to Use: Applications integrated with the service can obtain data on-demand, quickly and simply Cost-effective: Pre-integrated into applications so customers don’t have to Has High Data Quality: Single point access to reference data for data quality and linkages to transactional, curated and social data Supports Data Governance: Becomes more manageable and cost-effective since control of data privacy and compliance can be enforced in a centralized place Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) Just as the cloud has transformed and now offers a better path for how an enterprise manages its IT from their infrastructure, platform, and software (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), the next step is data (DaaS). Over the last 3 years, we have seen the market begin to offer a cloud-based data service and gain initial traction. On one side of the DaaS continuum, we see an “appliance” type of service that provides a single, reliable source of accurate business data plus social information about accounts, leads, contacts, etc. On the other side of the continuum we see more of an online market “exchange” approach where ISVs and Data Publishers can publish and sell premium datasets within the exchange, with the exchange providing a rich set of web interfaces to improve the ease of data integration. Why the difference? It depends on the provider’s philosophy on how fast the rate of commoditization of certain data types will occur. How do you decide the best approach? Our perspective, as shown in the diagram below, is that the enterprise should develop an elastic schema to support multi-domain applicability. This allows the enterprise to take the most flexible approach to harness the speed and breadth of public data to achieve value. The key tenet of the proposed approach is that an enterprise carefully federates common utility, master reference data end points, mobility considerations and content processing, so that they are pervasively available. One way you may already be familiar with this approach is in how you do Address Verification treatments for accounts, contacts etc. If you design and revise this service in such a way that it is also easily available to social analytic needs, you could extend this to launch geo-location based social use cases (marketing, sales etc.). Our fundamental belief is that value-added data achieved through enrichment with specialized algorithms, as well as applying business “know-how” to weight-factor KPIs based on innovative combinations across an ever-increasing variety, volume and velocity of data, will be where real value is achieved. Essentially, Data-as-a-Service becomes a single entry point for the ever-increasing richness and volume of public data, with enrichment and combined capabilities to extract and integrate the right data from the right sources with the right factoring at the right time for faster decision-making and action within your core business applications. As more data becomes available (and in many cases commoditized), this value-added data processing approach will provide you with ongoing competitive advantage. Let’s look at a quick example of creating a master reference relationship that could be used as an input for a variety of your already existing business applications. In phase 1, a simple master relationship is achieved between a company (e.g. General Motors) and a variety of car brands’ social insights. The reference data allows for easy sort, export and integration into a set of CRM use cases for analytics, sales and marketing CRM. In phase 2, as you create more data relationships (e.g. competitors, contacts, other brands) to have broader and deeper references (social profiles, social meta-data) for more use cases across CRM, HCM, SRM, etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as the amount of master reference relationships is constrained only by your imagination and the availability of quality curated data you have to work with. DaaS is just now emerging onto the marketplace as the next step in cloud transformation. For some of you, this may be the first you have heard about it. Let us know if you have questions, or perspectives. In the meantime, we will continue to share insights as we can.Photo: Erik Araujo, stock.xchng

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• Cancelling Route Navigation in AngularJS Controllers

  - by dwahlin

  If you’re new to AngularJS check out my AngularJS in 60-ish Minutes video tutorial or download the free eBook. Also check out The AngularJS Magazine for up-to-date information on using AngularJS to build Single Page Applications (SPAs). Routing provides a nice way to associate views with controllers in AngularJS using a minimal amount of code. While a user is normally able to navigate directly to a specific route, there may be times when a user triggers a route change before they’ve finalized an important action such as saving data. In these types of situations you may want to cancel the route navigation and ask the user if they’d like to finish what they were doing so that their data isn’t lost. In this post I’ll talk about a technique that can be used to accomplish this type of routing task.   The $locationChangeStart Event When route navigation occurs in an AngularJS application a few events are raised. One is named $locationChangeStart and the other is named $routeChangeStart (there are other events as well). At the current time (version 1.2) the $routeChangeStart doesn’t provide a way to cancel route navigation, however, the $locationChangeStart event can be used to cancel navigation. If you dig into the AngularJS core script you’ll find the following code that shows how the $locationChangeStart event is raised as the $browser object’s onUrlChange() function is invoked:   $browser.onUrlChange(function (newUrl) { if ($location.absUrl() != newUrl) { if ($rootScope.$broadcast('$locationChangeStart', newUrl, $location.absUrl()).defaultPrevented) { $browser.url($location.absUrl()); return; } $rootScope.$evalAsync(function () { var oldUrl = $location.absUrl(); $location.$$parse(newUrl); afterLocationChange(oldUrl); }); if (!$rootScope.$$phase) $rootScope.$digest(); } }); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The key part of the code is the call to $broadcast. This call broadcasts the $locationChangeStart event to all child scopes so that they can be notified before a location change is made. To handle the $locationChangeStart event you can use the $rootScope.on() function. For this example I’ve added a call to $on() into a function that is called immediately after the controller is invoked:   function init() { //initialize data here.. //Make sure they're warned if they made a change but didn't save it //Call to $on returns a "deregistration" function that can be called to //remove the listener (see routeChange() for an example of using it) onRouteChangeOff = $rootScope.$on('$locationChangeStart', routeChange); } This code listens for the $locationChangeStart event and calls routeChange() when it occurs. The value returned from calling $on is a “deregistration” function that can be called to detach from the event. In this case the deregistration function is named onRouteChangeOff (it’s accessible throughout the controller). You’ll see how the onRouteChangeOff function is used in just a moment.   Cancelling Route Navigation The routeChange() callback triggered by the $locationChangeStart event displays a modal dialog similar to the following to prompt the user:     Here’s the code for routeChange(): function routeChange(event, newUrl) { //Navigate to newUrl if the form isn't dirty if (!$scope.editForm.$dirty) return; var modalOptions = { closeButtonText: 'Cancel', actionButtonText: 'Ignore Changes', headerText: 'Unsaved Changes', bodyText: 'You have unsaved changes. Leave the page?' }; modalService.showModal({}, modalOptions).then(function (result) { if (result === 'ok') { onRouteChangeOff(); //Stop listening for location changes $location.path(newUrl); //Go to page they're interested in } }); //prevent navigation by default since we'll handle it //once the user selects a dialog option event.preventDefault(); return; } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Looking at the parameters of routeChange() you can see that it accepts an event object and the new route that the user is trying to navigate to. The event object is used to prevent navigation since we need to prompt the user before leaving the current view. Notice the call to event.preventDefault() at the end of the function. The modal dialog is shown by calling modalService.showModal() (see my previous post for more information about the custom modalService that acts as a wrapper around Angular UI Bootstrap’s $modal service). If the user selects “Ignore Changes” then their changes will be discarded and the application will navigate to the route they intended to go to originally. This is done by first detaching from the $locationChangeStart event by calling onRouteChangeOff() (recall that this is the function returned from the call to $on()) so that we don’t get stuck in a never ending cycle where the dialog continues to display when they click the “Ignore Changes” button. A call is then made to $location.path(newUrl) to handle navigating to the target view. If the user cancels the operation they’ll stay on the current view. Conclusion The key to canceling routes is understanding how to work with the $locationChangeStart event and cancelling it so that route navigation doesn’t occur. I’m hoping that in the future the same type of task can be done using the $routeChangeStart event but for now this code gets the job done. You can see this code in action in the Customer Manager application available on Github (specifically the customerEdit view). Learn more about the application here.

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• &lt;%: %&gt;, HtmlEncode, IHtmlString and MvcHtmlString

  - by Shaun

  One of my colleague and friend, Robin is playing and struggling with the ASP.NET MVC 2 on a project these days while I’m struggling with a annoying client. Since it’s his first time to use ASP.NET MVC he was meetings with a lot of problem and I was very happy to share my experience to him. Yesterday he asked me when he attempted to insert a <br /> element into his page he found that the page was rendered like this which is bad. He found his <br /> was shown as a part of the string rather than creating a new line. After checked a bit in his code I found that it’s because he utilized a new ASP.NET markup supported in .NET 4.0 – “<%: %>”. If you have been using ASP.NET MVC 1 or in .NET 3.5 world it would be very common that using <%= %> to show something on the page from the backend code. But when you do it you must ensure that the string that are going to be displayed should be Html-safe, which means all the Html markups must be encoded. Otherwise this might cause an XSS (cross-site scripting) problem. So that you’d better use the code like this below to display anything on the page. In .NET 4.0 Microsoft introduced a new markup to solve this problem which is <%: %>. It will encode the content automatically so that you will no need to check and verify your code manually for the XSS issue mentioned below. But this also means that it will encode all things, include the Html element you want to be rendered. So I changed his code like this and it worked well. After helped him solved this problem and finished a spreadsheet for my boring project I considered a bit more on the <%: %>. Since it will encode all thing why it renders correctly when we use “<%: Html.TextBox(“name”) %>” to show a text box? As you know the Html.TextBox will render a “<input name="name" id="name" type="text"/>” element on the page. If <%: %> will encode everything it should not display a text box. So I dig into the source code of the MVC and found some comments in the class MvcHtmlString. 1: // In ASP.NET 4, a new syntax <%: %> is being introduced in WebForms pages, where <%: expression %> is equivalent to 2: // <%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(expression) %>. The intent of this is to reduce common causes of XSS vulnerabilities 3: // in WebForms pages (WebForms views in the case of MVC). This involves the addition of an interface 4: // System.Web.IHtmlString and a static method overload System.Web.HttpUtility::HtmlEncode(object). The interface 5: // definition is roughly: 6: // public interface IHtmlString { 7: // string ToHtmlString(); 8: // } 9: // And the HtmlEncode(object) logic is roughly: 10: // - If the input argument is an IHtmlString, return argument.ToHtmlString(), 11: // - Otherwise, return HtmlEncode(Convert.ToString(argument)). 12: // 13: // Unfortunately this has the effect that calling <%: Html.SomeHelper() %> in an MVC application running on .NET 4 14: // will end up encoding output that is already HTML-safe. As a result, we're changing out HTML helpers to return 15: // MvcHtmlString where appropriate. <%= Html.SomeHelper() %> will continue to work in both .NET 3.5 and .NET 4, but 16: // changing the return types to MvcHtmlString has the added benefit that <%: Html.SomeHelper() %> will also work 17: // properly in .NET 4 rather than resulting in a double-encoded output. MVC developers in .NET 4 will then be able 18: // to use the <%: %> syntax almost everywhere instead of having to remember where to use <%= %> and where to use 19: // <%: %>. This should help developers craft more secure web applications by default. 20: // 21: // To create an MvcHtmlString, use the static Create() method instead of calling the protected constructor. The comment said the encoding rule of the <%: %> would be: If the type of the content is IHtmlString it will NOT encode since the IHtmlString indicates that it’s Html-safe. Otherwise it will use HtmlEncode to encode the content. If we check the return type of the Html.TextBox method we will find that it’s MvcHtmlString, which was implemented the IHtmlString interface dynamically. That is the reason why the “<input name="name" id="name" type="text"/>” was not encoded by <%: %>. So if we want to tell ASP.NET MVC, or I should say the ASP.NET runtime that the content is Html-safe and no need, or should not be encoded we can convert the content into IHtmlString. So another resolution would be like this. Also we can create an extension method as well for better developing experience. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: using System.Linq; 4: using System.Web; 5: using System.Web.Mvc; 6:  7: namespace ShaunXu.Blogs.IHtmlStringIssue 8: { 9: public static class Helpers 10: { 11: public static MvcHtmlString IsHtmlSafe(this string content) 12: { 13: return MvcHtmlString.Create(content); 14: } 15: } 16: } Then the view would be like this. And the page rendered correctly.         Summary In this post I explained a bit about the new markup in .NET 4.0 – <%: %> and its usage. I also explained a bit about how to control the page content, whether it should be encoded or not. We can see the ASP.NET MVC gives us more points to control the web pages.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, November 28, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, November 28, 2010Popular ReleasesMDownloader: MDownloader-0.15.25.7002: Fixed updater Fixed FileServe Fixed LetItBitNotepad.NET: Notepad.NET 0.7 Preview 1: Whats New?* Optimized Code Generation: Which means it will run significantly faster. * Preview of Syntax Highlighting: Only VB.NET highlighting is supported, C# and Ruby will come in Preview 2. * Improved Editing Updates (when the line number, etc updates) to be more graceful. * Recent Documents works! * Images can be inserted but they're extremely large. Known Bugs* The Update Process hangs: This is a bug apparently spawning since 0.5. It will be fixed in Preview 2. Until then, perform a fr...Flickr Schedulr: Schedulr v2.2.3984: This is v2.2 of Flickr Schedulr, a Windows desktop application that automatically uploads pictures and videos to Flickr based on a schedule (e.g. to post a new picture every day at a certain time). What's new in this release? Videos are now supported as well. The application can now automatically add pictures to the queue when it starts up, from specific monitored folders. Sets and Groups can now be displayed as text only (without icons) to speed up the application. Fixed issue that ta...Cropper: 1.9.4: Mostly fixes for issues with a few feature requests. Fixed Issues 2730 & 3638 & 14467 11044 11447 11448 11449 14665 Implemented Features 6123 11581PFC: PFC for PB 11.5: This is just a migration from the 11.0 code. No changes have been made yet (and they are needed) for it to work properly with 11.5.PDF Rider: PDF Rider 0.5: This release does not add any new feature for pdf manipulation, but enables automatic updates checking, so it is reccomended to install it in order to stay updated with next releases. Prerequisites * Microsoft Windows Operating Systems (XP - Vista - 7) * Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 runtime * A PDF rendering software (i.e. Adobe Reader) that can be opened inside Internet Explorer. Installation instructionsChoose one of the following methods: 1. Download and run the "pdfRider0...XamlQuery/WPF - The Write Less, Do More, WPF Library: XamlQuery-WPF v1.2 (Runtime, Source): This is the first release of popular XamlQuery library for WPF. XamlQuery has already gained recognition among Silverlight developers.Math.NET Numerics: Beta 1: First beta of Math.NET Numerics. Only contains the managed linear algebra provider. Beta 2 will include the native linear algebra providers along with better documentation and examples.Minecraft GPS: Minecraft GPS 1.1: 1.1 Release New Features Compass! New style. Set opacity on main window to allow overlay of Minecraft.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework: Visual Studio 2010 Code Samples 2010-11-25: Code samples for Visual Studio 2010Wii Backup Fusion: Wii Backup Fusion 0.8.5 Beta: - WBFS repair (default) options fixed - Transfer to image fixed - Settings ui widget names fixed - Some little bug fixes You need to reset the settings! Delete WiiBaFu's config file or registry entries on windows: Linux: ~/.config/WiiBaFu/wiibafu.conf Windows: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WiiBaFu\wiibafu Mac OS X: ~/Library/Preferences/com.wiibafu.wiibafu.plist Caution: This is a BETA version! Errors, crashes and data loss not impossible! Use in test environments only, not on productive syste...Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.3: Added process count and world size calculation progress to the status bar. Added View->'Status Bar' menu item to show/hide the status bar. Status bar is automatically shown when loading a world. Added a prompt, when loading a world, to use or clear cached images.Sexy Select: sexy select v0.4: Changes in v0.4 Added method : elements. This returns all the option elements that are currently added to the select list Added method : selectOption. This method accepts two values, the element to be modified and the selected state. (true/false)Deep Zoom for WPF: First Release: This first release of the Deep Zoom control has the same source code, binaries and demos as the CodeProject article (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/DeepZoom.aspx).BlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.0 RC: This is a Release Candidate version for BlogEngine.NET 2.0. The most current, stable version of BlogEngine.NET is version 1.6. Find out more about the BlogEngine.NET 2.0 RC here. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. To get started, be sure to check out our installation documentation and the installation screencast. If you are upgrading from a previous version, please take a look at the Upgrading to BlogEngine.NET 2.0 instructions. As this ...NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.156: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release adds a feature for aggregating the overall metrics in a folder full of NodeXL workbooks, adds geographical coordinates to the Twitter import features, and fixes a memory-related bug. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Please Note: There is a new option in the setup program to install for "Just Me" or "Everyone." Most people...VFPX: FoxBarcode v.0.11: FoxBarcode v.0.11 - Released 2010.11.22 FoxBarcode is a 100% Visual FoxPro class that provides a tool for generating images with different bar code symbologies to be used in VFP forms and reports, or exported to other applications. Its use and distribution is free for all Visual FoxPro Community. Whats is new? Added a third parameter to the BarcodeImage() method Fixed some minor bugs History FoxBarcode v.0.10 - Released 2010.11.19 - 85 Downloads Project page: FoxBarcodeDotNetAge -a lightweight Mvc jQuery CMS: DotNetAge 1.1.0.5: What is new in DotNetAge 1.1.0.5 ?Document Library features and template added. Resolve issues of templates Improving publishing service performance Opml support added. What is new in DotNetAge 1.1 ? D.N.A Core updatesImprove runtime performance , more stabilize. The DNA core objects model added. Personalization features added that allows users create the personal website, manage their resources, store personal data DynamicUIFixed the PageManager could not move page node bug. ...ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers): 1.3.1 and demos: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form and Pager tested on mozilla, safari, chrome, opera, ie 9b/8/7/6DotSpatial: DotSpatial 11-21-2010: This release introduces the following Fixed bugs related to dispose, which caused issues when reordering layers in the legend Fixed bugs related to assigning categories where NULL values are in the fields New fast-acting resize using a bitmap "prediction" of what the final resize content will look like. ImageData.ReadBlock, ImageData.WriteBlock These allow direct file access for reading or writing a rectangular window. Bitmaps are used for holding the values. Removed the need to stor...New ProjectsAC: Just a simple AC ProjectAvailability Manager Project (CMPE290): Availability Manager Project (CMPE290)BCLExtensions: BCLExtensions is an extension method library for .NET 3.5 or higher which offers various extension methods for classes in the .NET Base Class Library (BCL)Command Browser 2.0 for Visual Studio: The Command Browser is a visual studio add-in that Lets you browse, and execute Visual Studio commands on the fly. It’s very handy for people that don’t tend to use bindings on daily basis and simply wants to learn new commands out of interest.EDM And T4: Generate a WCF Service from your edmxEmperor of the Multiverse: Szoftverarchitekturak rocks :)KINECT CALL: Kinect CallMultiSafepay for nopCommerce: This is MultiSafepay shop plugin voor nopCommerce. The current version supported is nopCommerce 1.60.MyGadgebydeleted: MyGadgebydeletedNHashcash: NHashcash is a .NET implementation of the Hashcash mechanism for paying for e-mail with burnt CPU cycles.OhYeah!: WP7 Note Demo ApplicationOMax - Online Market and Exchange for Real Estate: OMax Project - Online Real Estate Management System OMax stands for Online Market and eXchange and is a Real Estate management system focusing on both individuals (brokers, agents) and organizations (real estate companies) looking for online property management solutions.Opus - Silverlight UI Framework: The opus framework provides a simple way for creating UIs for Silverlight by leveraging your current MVVM structure. Outliner, the edge detection utility: Outliner is a vectorizer of the edges in the raster pictures. The new edge detection algorithm is used. It is developed in Visual C++ 2010 Express Edition, using WinAPI and STL.SharpDropBox Client for .NET: SharpDropBox Client is a DropBox client for (at first) WP7. It caches files/directories in ISO storage, and also uses Sterling DB to metadata info so that it can easily do hash checks against DropBox making it download only when there are changes. It can also be used offline.SicunSimpleDiary: ???????（????）Silverlight Navigation With Caliburn.Micro: Bring the power of the Cabliurn.Micro MVVM framework to Siliverlight 4 navigation applications. This sample application for CM shows how it can be used to create MVVM friendly Navigation applications which formerly required a view-first approach. SilverTrace - a tracer and logger for Silverlight applications: SilverTrace - a tracer and logger for Silverlight applications.StackDeck: StackDeck is a StackOverflow analysis tool written in WPFSVNHelper -- a small clean tool for visual studio: A small tool that used to clean your bin direcotry and temporary directory for the whole solutions. I usually use it before commit soure to a SVN Server. System.Xml.Serialization: Expressions.Compiler is a lightweight xml serialization framework. It is an addition to the standart .NET XML serialization. It is designed to support out-of-the-box features: * interface-driven Xml serialization * class-driven Xml serialization * runtime serializationVoXign: - Proposer une formation introductive à la langue des signes, en e-Learning. - autonomie de gestion de l’emploi du temps, du rythme - apprentissage d’un lexique de « première nécessité » - introduction à la culture sourde et approche des spécificités linguistiques de la LSF Weyland: A .NET metaprogramming framework.

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• Windows Azure – Write, Run or Use Software

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is a platform that has you covered, whether you need to write software, run software that is already written, or Install and use “canned” software whether you or someone else wrote it. Like any platform, it’s a set of tools you can use where it makes sense to solve a problem. The primary location for Windows Azure information is located at http://windowsazure.com. You can find everything there from the development kits for writing software to pricing, licensing and tutorials on all of that. I have a few links here for learning to use Windows Azure – although it’s best if you focus not on the tools, but what you want to solve. I’ve got it broken down here into various sections, so you can quickly locate things you want to know. I’ll include resources here from Microsoft and elsewhere – I use these same resources in the Architectural Design Sessions (ADS) I do with my clients worldwide. Write Software Also called “Platform as a Service” (PaaS), Windows Azure has lots of components you can use together or separately that allow you to write software in .NET or various Open Source languages to work completely online, or in partnership with code you have on-premises or both – even if you’re using other cloud providers. Keep in mind that all of the features you see here can be used together, or independently. For instance, you might only use a Web Site, or use Storage, but you can use both together. You can access all of these components through standard REST API calls, or using our Software Development Kit’s API’s, which are a lot easier. In any case, you simply use Visual Studio, Eclipse, Cloud9 IDE, or even a text editor to write your code from a Mac, PC or Linux.  Components you can use: Azure Web Sites: Windows Azure Web Sites allow you to quickly write an deploy websites, without setting a Virtual Machine, installing a web server or configuring complex settings. They work alone, with other Windows Azure Web Sites, or with other parts of Windows Azure. Web and Worker Roles: Windows Azure Web Roles give you a full stateless computing instance with Internet Information Services (IIS) installed and configured. Windows Azure Worker Roles give you a full stateless computing instance without Information Services (IIS) installed, often used in a "Services" mode. Scale-out is achieved either manually or programmatically under your control. Storage: Windows Azure Storage types include Blobs to store raw binary data, Tables to use key/value pair data (like NoSQL data structures), Queues that allow interaction between stateless roles, and a relational SQL Server database. Other Services: Windows Azure has many other services such as a security mechanism, a Cache (memcacheD compliant), a Service Bus, a Traffic Manager and more. Once again, these features can be used with a Windows Azure project, or alone based on your needs. Various Languages: Windows Azure supports the .NET stack of languages, as well as many Open-Source languages like Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, NodeJS, C++ and more.   Use Software Also called “Software as a Service” (SaaS) this often means consumer or business-level software like Hotmail or Office 365. In other words, you simply log on, use the software, and log off – there’s nothing to install, and little to even configure. For the Information Technology professional, however, It’s not quite the same. We want software that provides services, but in a platform. That means we want things like Hadoop or other software we don’t want to have to install and configure.  Components you can use: Kits: Various software “kits” or packages are supported with just a few clicks, such as Umbraco, Wordpress, and others. Windows Azure Media Services: Windows Azure Media Services is a suite of services that allows you to upload media for encoding, processing and even streaming – or even one or more of those functions. We can add DRM and even commercials to your media if you like. Windows Azure Media Services is used to stream large events all the way down to small training videos. High Performance Computing and “Big Data”: Windows Azure allows you to scale to huge workloads using a few clicks to deploy Hadoop Clusters or the High Performance Computing (HPC) nodes, accepting HPC Jobs, Pig and Hive Jobs, and even interfacing with Microsoft Excel. Windows Azure Marketplace: Windows Azure Marketplace offers data and programs you can quickly implement and use – some free, some for-fee.   Run Software Also known as “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS), this offering allows you to build or simply choose a Virtual Machine to run server-based software.  Components you can use: Persistent Virtual Machines: You can choose to install Windows Server, Windows Server with Active Directory, with SQL Server, or even SharePoint from a pre-configured gallery. You can configure your own server images with standard Hyper-V technology and load them yourselves – and even bring them back when you’re done. As a new offering, we also even allow you to select various distributions of Linux – a first for Microsoft. Windows Azure Connect: You can connect your on-premises networks to Windows Azure Instances. Storage: Windows Azure Storage can be used as a remote backup, a hybrid storage location and more using software or even hardware appliances.   Decision Matrix With all of these options, you can use Windows Azure to solve just about any computing problem. It’s often hard to know when to use something on-premises, in the cloud, and what kind of service to use. I’ve used a decision matrix in the last couple of years to take a particular problem and choose the proper technology to solve it. It’s all about options – there is no “silver bullet”, whether that’s Windows Azure or any other set of functions. I take the problem, decide which particular component I want to own and control – and choose the column that has that box darkened. For instance, if I have to control the wiring for a solution (a requirement in some military and government installations), that means the “Networking” component needs to be dark, and so I select the “On Premises” column for that particular solution. If I just need the solution provided and I want no control at all, I can look as “Software as a Service” solutions. Security, Pricing, and Other Info  Security: Security is one of the first questions you should ask in any distributed computing environment. We have certification info, coding guidelines and more, even a general “Request for Information” RFI Response already created for you.   Pricing: Are there licenses? How much does this cost? Is there a way to estimate the costs in this new environment? New Features: Many new features were added to Windows Azure - a good roundup of those changes can be found here. Support: Software Support on Virtual Machines, general support.    

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