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• Sniffing out SQL Code Smells: Inconsistent use of Symbolic names and Datatypes

  - by Phil Factor

  It is an awkward feeling. You’ve just delivered a database application that seems to be working fine in production, and you just run a few checks on it. You discover that there is a potential bug that, out of sheer good chance, hasn’t kicked in to produce an error; but it lurks, like a smoking bomb. Worse, maybe you find that the bug has started its evil work of corrupting the data, but in ways that nobody has, so far detected. You investigate, and find the damage. You are somehow going to have to repair it. Yes, it still very occasionally happens to me. It is not a nice feeling, and I do anything I can to prevent it happening. That’s why I’m interested in SQL code smells. SQL Code Smells aren’t necessarily bad practices, but just show you where to focus your attention when checking an application. Sometimes with databases the bugs can be subtle. SQL is rather like HTML: the language does its best to try to carry out your wishes, rather than to be picky about your bugs. Most of the time, this is a great benefit, but not always. One particular place where this can be detrimental is where you have implicit conversion between different data types. Most of the time it is completely harmless but we’re  concerned about the occasional time it isn’t. Let’s give an example: String truncation. Let’s give another even more frightening one, rounding errors on assignment to a number of different precision. Each requires a blog-post to explain in detail and I’m not now going to try. Just remember that it is not always a good idea to assign data to variables, parameters or even columns when they aren’t the same datatype, especially if you are relying on implicit conversion to work its magic.For details of the problem and the consequences, see here:  SR0014: Data loss might occur when casting from {Type1} to {Type2} . For any experienced Database Developer, this is a more frightening read than a Vampire Story. This is why one of the SQL Code Smells that makes me edgy, in my own or other peoples’ code, is to see parameters, variables and columns that have the same names and different datatypes. Whereas quite a lot of this is perfectly normal and natural, you need to check in case one of two things have gone wrong. Either sloppy naming, or mixed datatypes. Sure it is hard to remember whether you decided that the length of a log entry was 80 or 100 characters long, or the precision of a number. That is why a little check like this I’m going to show you is excellent for tidying up your code before you check it back into source Control! 1/ Checking Parameters only If you were just going to check parameters, you might just do this. It simply groups all the parameters, either input or output, of all the routines (e.g. stored procedures or functions) by their name and checks to see, in the HAVING clause, whether their data types are all the same. If not, it lists all the examples and their origin (the routine) Even this little check can occasionally be scarily revealing. ;WITH userParameter AS  ( SELECT   c.NAME AS ParameterName,  OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(c.object_ID) + '.' + OBJECT_NAME(c.object_ID) AS ObjectName,  t.name + ' '     + CASE     --we may have to put in the length            WHEN t.name IN ('char', 'varchar', 'nchar', 'nvarchar')             THEN '('               + CASE WHEN c.max_length = -1 THEN 'MAX'                ELSE CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),                    CASE WHEN t.name IN ('nchar', 'nvarchar')                      THEN c.max_length / 2 ELSE c.max_length                    END)                END + ')'         WHEN t.name IN ('decimal', 'numeric')             THEN '(' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(4), c.precision)                   + ',' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(4), c.Scale) + ')'         ELSE ''      END  --we've done with putting in the length      + CASE WHEN XML_collection_ID <> 0         THEN --deal with object schema names             '(' + CASE WHEN is_XML_Document = 1                    THEN 'DOCUMENT '                    ELSE 'CONTENT '                   END              + COALESCE(               (SELECT QUOTENAME(ss.name) + '.' + QUOTENAME(sc.name)                FROM sys.xml_schema_collections sc                INNER JOIN Sys.Schemas ss ON sc.schema_ID = ss.schema_ID                WHERE sc.xml_collection_ID = c.XML_collection_ID),'NULL') + ')'          ELSE ''         END        AS [DataType]  FROM sys.parameters c  INNER JOIN sys.types t ON c.user_Type_ID = t.user_Type_ID  WHERE OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(c.object_ID) <> 'sys'   AND parameter_id>0)SELECT CONVERT(CHAR(80),objectName+'.'+ParameterName),DataType FROM UserParameterWHERE ParameterName IN   (SELECT ParameterName FROM UserParameter    GROUP BY ParameterName    HAVING MIN(Datatype)<>MAX(DataType))ORDER BY ParameterName   so, in a very small example here, we have a @ClosingDelimiter variable that is only CHAR(1) when, by the looks of it, it should be up to ten characters long, or even worse, a function that should be a char(1) and seems to let in a string of ten characters. Worth investigating. Then we have a @Comment variable that can't decide whether it is a VARCHAR(2000) or a VARCHAR(MAX) 2/ Columns and Parameters Actually, once we’ve cleared up the mess we’ve made of our parameter-naming in the database we’re inspecting, we’re going to be more interested in listing both columns and parameters. We can do this by modifying the routine to list columns as well as parameters. Because of the slight complexity of creating the string version of the datatypes, we will create a fake table of both columns and parameters so that they can both be processed the same way. After all, we want the datatypes to match Unfortunately, parameters do not expose all the attributes we are interested in, such as whether they are nullable (oh yes, subtle bugs happen if this isn’t consistent for a datatype). We’ll have to leave them out for this check. Voila! A slight modification of the first routine ;WITH userObject AS  ( SELECT   Name AS DataName,--the actual name of the parameter or column ('@' removed)  --and the qualified object name of the routine  OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(ObjectID) + '.' + OBJECT_NAME(ObjectID) AS ObjectName,  --now the harder bit: the definition of the datatype.  TypeName + ' '     + CASE     --we may have to put in the length. e.g. CHAR (10)           WHEN TypeName IN ('char', 'varchar', 'nchar', 'nvarchar')             THEN '('               + CASE WHEN MaxLength = -1 THEN 'MAX'                ELSE CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),                    CASE WHEN TypeName IN ('nchar', 'nvarchar')                      THEN MaxLength / 2 ELSE MaxLength                    END)                END + ')'         WHEN TypeName IN ('decimal', 'numeric')--a BCD number!             THEN '(' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(4), Precision)                   + ',' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(4), Scale) + ')'         ELSE ''      END  --we've done with putting in the length      + CASE WHEN XML_collection_ID <> 0 --tush tush. XML         THEN --deal with object schema names             '(' + CASE WHEN is_XML_Document = 1                    THEN 'DOCUMENT '                    ELSE 'CONTENT '                   END              + COALESCE(               (SELECT TOP 1 QUOTENAME(ss.name) + '.' + QUOTENAME(sc.Name)                FROM sys.xml_schema_collections sc                INNER JOIN Sys.Schemas ss ON sc.schema_ID = ss.schema_ID                WHERE sc.xml_collection_ID = XML_collection_ID),'NULL') + ')'          ELSE ''         END        AS [DataType],       DataObjectType  FROM   (Select t.name AS TypeName, REPLACE(c.name,'@','') AS Name,          c.max_length AS MaxLength, c.precision AS [Precision],           c.scale AS [Scale], c.[Object_id] AS ObjectID, XML_collection_ID,          is_XML_Document,'P' AS DataobjectType  FROM sys.parameters c  INNER JOIN sys.types t ON c.user_Type_ID = t.user_Type_ID  AND parameter_id>0  UNION all  Select t.name AS TypeName, c.name AS Name, c.max_length AS MaxLength,          c.precision AS [Precision], c.scale AS [Scale],          c.[Object_id] AS ObjectID, XML_collection_ID,is_XML_Document,          'C' AS DataobjectType            FROM sys.columns c  INNER JOIN sys.types t ON c.user_Type_ID = t.user_Type_ID   WHERE OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(c.object_ID) <> 'sys'  )f)SELECT CONVERT(CHAR(80),objectName+'.'   + CASE WHEN DataobjectType ='P' THEN '@' ELSE '' END + DataName),DataType FROM UserObjectWHERE DataName IN   (SELECT DataName FROM UserObject   GROUP BY DataName    HAVING MIN(Datatype)<>MAX(DataType))ORDER BY DataName     Hmm. I can tell you I found quite a few minor issues with the various tabases I tested this on, and found some potential bugs that really leap out at you from the results. Here is the start of the result for AdventureWorks. Yes, AccountNumber is, for some reason, a Varchar(10) in the Customer table. Hmm. odd. Why is a city fifty characters long in that view?  The idea of the description of a colour being 256 characters long seems over-ambitious. Go down the list and you'll spot other mistakes. There are no bugs, but just mess. We started out with a listing to examine parameters, then we mixed parameters and columns. Our last listing is for a slightly more in-depth look at table columns. You’ll notice that we’ve delibarately removed the indication of whether a column is persisted, or is an identity column because that gives us false positives for our code smells. If you just want to browse your metadata for other reasons (and it can quite help in some circumstances) then uncomment them! ;WITH userColumns AS  ( SELECT   c.NAME AS columnName,  OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(c.object_ID) + '.' + OBJECT_NAME(c.object_ID) AS ObjectName,  REPLACE(t.name + ' '   + CASE WHEN is_computed = 1 THEN ' AS ' + --do DDL for a computed column          (SELECT definition FROM sys.computed_columns cc           WHERE cc.object_id = c.object_id AND cc.column_ID = c.column_ID)     --we may have to put in the length            WHEN t.Name IN ('char', 'varchar', 'nchar', 'nvarchar')             THEN '('               + CASE WHEN c.Max_Length = -1 THEN 'MAX'                ELSE CONVERT(VARCHAR(4),                    CASE WHEN t.Name IN ('nchar', 'nvarchar')                      THEN c.Max_Length / 2 ELSE c.Max_Length                    END)                END + ')'       WHEN t.name IN ('decimal', 'numeric')       THEN '(' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(4), c.precision) + ',' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(4), c.Scale) + ')'       ELSE ''      END + CASE WHEN c.is_rowguidcol = 1          THEN ' ROWGUIDCOL'          ELSE ''         END + CASE WHEN XML_collection_ID <> 0            THEN --deal with object schema names             '(' + CASE WHEN is_XML_Document = 1                THEN 'DOCUMENT '                ELSE 'CONTENT '               END + COALESCE((SELECT                QUOTENAME(ss.name) + '.' + QUOTENAME(sc.name)                FROM                sys.xml_schema_collections sc                INNER JOIN Sys.Schemas ss ON sc.schema_ID = ss.schema_ID                WHERE                sc.xml_collection_ID = c.XML_collection_ID),                'NULL') + ')'            ELSE ''           END + CASE WHEN is_identity = 1             THEN CASE WHEN OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id,                'IsUserTable') = 1 AND COLUMNPROPERTY(object_id,                c.name,                'IsIDNotForRepl') = 0 AND OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id,                'IsMSShipped') = 0                THEN ''                ELSE ' NOT FOR REPLICATION '               END             ELSE ''            END + CASE WHEN c.is_nullable = 0               THEN ' NOT NULL'               ELSE ' NULL'              END + CASE                WHEN c.default_object_id <> 0                THEN ' DEFAULT ' + object_Definition(c.default_object_id)                ELSE ''               END + CASE                WHEN c.collation_name IS NULL                THEN ''                WHEN c.collation_name <> (SELECT                collation_name                FROM                sys.databases                WHERE                name = DB_NAME()) COLLATE Latin1_General_CI_AS                THEN COALESCE(' COLLATE ' + c.collation_name,                '')                ELSE ''                END,'  ',' ') AS [DataType]FROM sys.columns c  INNER JOIN sys.types t ON c.user_Type_ID = t.user_Type_ID  WHERE OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(c.object_ID) <> 'sys')SELECT CONVERT(CHAR(80),objectName+'.'+columnName),DataType FROM UserColumnsWHERE columnName IN (SELECT columnName FROM UserColumns  GROUP BY columnName  HAVING MIN(Datatype)<>MAX(DataType))ORDER BY columnName If you take a look down the results against Adventureworks, you'll see once again that there are things to investigate, mostly, in the illustration, discrepancies between null and non-null datatypes So I here you ask, what about temporary variables within routines? If ever there was a source of elusive bugs, you'll find it there. Sadly, these temporary variables are not stored in the metadata so we'll have to find a more subtle way of flushing these out, and that will, I'm afraid, have to wait!

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• Danger from the Deep

  <b>Linux Journal:</b> "If you remember my December Linux Journal column, I was excited about a particularly cool-looking submarine simulator, Danger from the Deep. This month, I'm proud to feature it."

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• Best approach for a flexible layout for ASP.NET application

  - by Rohith Nair

  I am looking for a best approach for designing a dynamic page. I want my users to be able to determine the position of set of controls to be loaded into a page. Should be able to add new controls or swap in and out new controls into an existing page. Eg: Portal based applications,iGoogle kind of websites I am afraid that I will be re-inventing the wheel if I go and create a portal structure for my web application. There are a couple of things in my mind to look into: Good third-party suites which can do the same Should I look into Silverlight RIA application? I have researched about the Infragistics and Telerik controls and the price is high for just a control like LayoutManager which I need. Any alternatives? What is the best approach for this kind of situation, to add to the list?

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• (Libgdx) Move Vector2 along angle?

  - by gemurdock

  I have seen several answers on here about moving along angle, but I can't seem to get this to work properly for me and I am new to LibGDX... just trying to learn. These are my Vector2's that I am using for this function. public Vector2 position = new Vector2(); public Vector2 velocity = new Vector2(); public Vector2 movement = new Vector2(); public Vector2 direction = new Vector2(); Here is the function that I use to move the position vector along an angle. setLocation() just sets the new location of the image. public void move(float delta, float degrees) { position.set(image.getX() + image.getWidth() / 2, image.getY() + image.getHeight() / 2); direction.set((float) Math.cos(degrees), (float) Math.sin(degrees)).nor(); velocity.set(direction).scl(speed); movement.set(velocity).scl(delta); position.add(movement); setLocation(position.x, position.y); // Sets location of image } I get a lot of different angles with this, just not the correct angles. How should I change this function to move a Vector2 along an angle using the Vector2 class from com.badlogic.gdx.math.Vector2 within the LibGDX library? I found this answer, but not sure how to implement it. Update: I figured out part of the issue. Should convert degrees to radians. However, the angle of 0 degrees is towards the right. Is there any way to fix this? As I shouldn't have to add 90 to degrees in order to have correct heading. New code is below public void move(float delta, float degrees) { degrees += 90; // Set degrees to correct heading, shouldn't have to do this position.set(image.getX() + image.getWidth() / 2, image.getY() + image.getHeight() / 2); direction.set(MathUtils.cos(degrees * MathUtils.degreesToRadians), MathUtils.sin(degrees * MathUtils.degreesToRadians)).nor(); velocity.set(direction).scl(speed); movement.set(velocity).scl(delta); position.add(movement); setLocation(position.x, position.y); }

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• What more a Business Service can do?

  - by Rajesh Sharma

  Business services can be accessed from outside the application via XAI inbound service, or from within the application via scripting, Java, or info zones. Below is an example to what you can do with a business service wrapping an info zone.   Generally, a business service is specific to a page service program which references a maintenance object, that means one business service = one service program = one maintenance object. There have been quite a few threads in the forum around this topic where the business service is misconstrued to perform services only on a single object, for e.g. only for CILCSVAP - SA Page Maintenance, CILCPRMP - Premise Page Maintenance, CILCACCP - Account Page Maintenance, etc.   So what do you do when you want to retrieve some "non-persistent" field or information associated with some object/entity? Consider few business requirements: ·         Retrieve all the field activities associated to an account. ·         Retrieve the last bill date for an account. ·         Retrieve next bill date for an account.   It can be as simple as described below, for this post, we'll use the first scenario - Retrieve all the field activities associated to an account. To achieve this we'll have to do the following:   Step 1: Define an info zone   (A basic Zone of type F1-DE-SINGLE - Info Data Explorer - Single SQL has been used; you can use F1-DE - Info Data Explorer - Multiple SQLs for more complex scenarios)   Parameter Description Value To Enter User Filter 1 F1 Initial Display Columns C1 C2 C3 SQL Condition F1 SQL Statement SELECT     FA_ID, FA_STATUS_FLG, CRE_DTTM FROM     CI_FA WHERE     SP_ID IN         (SELECT SP_ID         FROM CI_SA_SP         WHERE             SA_ID IN                 (SELECT SA_ID                  FROM CI_SA                  WHERE                     ACCT_ID = :F1)) Column 1 source=SQLCOL sqlcol=FA_ID Column 2 source=SQLCOL sqlcol=FA_STATUS_FLG Column 3 type=TIME source=SQLCOL sqlcol=CRE_DTTM order=DESC   Note: Zone code specified was 'CM_ACCTFA'   Step 2: Define a business service Create a business service linked to 'Service Name' FWLZDEXP - Data Explorer. Schema will look like this:   <schema> <zoneCd mapField="ZONE_CD" default="CM_ACCTFA"/>      <accountId mapField="F1_VALUE"/>      <rowCount mapField="ROW_CNT"/>      <result type="group">         <selectList type="list" mapList="DE">             <faId mapField="COL_VALUE">                 <row mapList="DE_VAL">                     <SEQNO is="1"/>                 </row>             </faId>              <status mapField="COL_VALUE">                 <row mapList="DE_VAL">                     <SEQNO is="2"/>                 </row>             </status>              <createdDateTime mapField="COL_VALUE">                 <row mapList="DE_VAL">                     <SEQNO is="3"/>                 </row>             </createdDateTime>         </selectList>     </result> </schema>      What's next? As mentioned above, you can invoke this business service from an outside application via XAI inbound service or call this business service from within a script.   Step 3: Create a XAI inbound service for above created business service         Step 4: Test the inbound service   Go to XAI Submission and test the newly created service   <RXS_AccountFA>       <accountId>5922116763</accountId> </RXS_AccountFA>  

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• Set up a TFS Server/Service demo environment in less than 1 minute now!

  - by Tarun Arora

  Release Notes – http://tfsdemosetup.codeplex.com/  | Download | Source Code | Report a Bug | Ideas To Demonstrate the capabilities of TFS 2012 Server/Service Task board you would need to set up TFS with some teams, a few team members, some sample stories, tasks, etc. That’s too many steps if you as me! Hi! My name is Tarun Arora, I am a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio ALM & a Visual Studio ALM Ranger, as a consultant I have had to demo TFS Preview to potential customers several times a day. I usually create the team project during the demo to show off how quick and efficient it is, but setting up teams, team members, tasks usually takes longer I don’t prefer carrying out these steps during the demo. I have developed a .net based console application which uses the TFS API to create a standard demo environment saving me from all these manual steps. The console application reads the set up information from an XML file, leaving the setup process highly customizable. Figure 1 – Demo Dictionary, change values here for unique setup The console application today sets up, 1. Create a new Team 2. Set the team as the default team 3. Configure team settings      a. Set Backlog Iteration path      b. Set Team Iterations and start & finish dates      c. Set Team Area path 4. Add Team Members 5. Add Product Backlog Items & linked Tasks. Image 2 – The team website before (on the left) and after (on the right) running the console app Image 3 – Team configuration before (on left) and after (on right) with new team Demo and 2 members Image 4 – Iteration configuration before (on left) and after (on right) with new backlog iteration path & sprint dates set Image 5 – Area configuration (on left) and after (on right) with area path configured for the team   Image 6 – A demo ready Task Board and Task Board for Team Members Credits, - Mattias Sköld [Visual Studio ALM Ranger] – I have used TfsTeamTools to perform team creation & add members - Ivan Popek – TFS 2012 API blog posts had some fantastic reusable samples.  - Shai Raiten [Microsoft ALM MVP] – Great collection of posts on TFS API. Enjoy!

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• The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise Removal

  - by YatriTrivedi

  Laying down some vocals?  Starting your own podcast?  Here’s how to remove noise from a messy audio track in Audacity quickly and easily. This is the second part in our series covering how to edit audio and create music using your PC. Be sure to check out the first part in the series, where we covered the basics of using Audacity, and then check out how to add MP3 format support as well Latest Features How-To Geek ETC HTG Projects: How to Create Your Own Custom Papercraft Toy How to Combine Rescue Disks to Create the Ultimate Windows Repair Disk What is Camera Raw, and Why Would a Professional Prefer it to JPG? The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics How To Boot 10 Different Live CDs From 1 USB Flash Drive The 20 Best How-To Geek Linux Articles of 2010 Take Better Panoramic Photos with Any Camera Make Creating App Tabs Easier in Firefox Peach and Zelda Discuss the Benefits and Perks of Being Kidnapped [Video] The Life of Gadgets in Price and Popularity [Infographic] Apture Highlights Turns Your Cursor into a Search Tool Add Classic Sci-Fi Goodness to Your Desktop with the Matrix Theme for Windows 7

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• Should I comment Tables or Columns in my database?

  - by jako

  I like to comment my code with various information, and I think most people nowadays do so while writing some code. But when it comes to database tables or columns, I have never seen anyone setting some comments, and, to be honest, I don't even think of looking for comments there. So I am wondering if some people are commenting their DB strcuture here, and if I should bother commenting, for instance when I create a new column to an existing table?

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• Manage and Monitor Identity Ranges in SQL Server Transactional Replication

  - by Yaniv Etrogi

  Problem When using transactional replication to replicate data in a one way topology from a publisher to a read-only subscriber(s) there is no need to manage identity ranges. However, when using  transactional replication to replicate data in a two way replication topology - between two or more servers there is a need to manage identity ranges in order to prevent a situation where an INSERT commands fails on a PRIMARY KEY violation error  due to the replicated row being inserted having a value for the identity column which already exists at the destination database. Solution There are two ways to address this situation: Assign a range of identity values per each server. Work with parallel identity values. The first method requires some maintenance while the second method does not and so the scripts provided with this article are very useful for anyone using the first method. I will explore this in more detail later in the article. In the first solution set server1 to work in the range of 1 to 1,000,000,000 and server2 to work in the range of 1,000,000,001 to 2,000,000,000.  The ranges are set and defined using the DBCC CHECKIDENT command and when the ranges in this example are well maintained you meet the goal of preventing the INSERT commands to fall due to a PRIMARY KEY violation. The first insert at server1 will get the identity value of 1, the second insert will get the value of 2 and so on while on server2 the first insert will get the identity value of 1000000001, the second insert 1000000002 and so on thus avoiding a conflict. Be aware that when a row is inserted the identity value (seed) is generated as part of the insert command at each server and the inserted row is replicated. The replicated row includes the identity column’s value so the data remains consistent across all servers but you will be able to tell on what server the original insert took place due the range that  the identity value belongs to. In the second solution you do not manage ranges but enforce a situation in which identity values can never get overlapped by setting the first identity value (seed) and the increment property one time only during the CREATE TABLE command of each table. So a table on server1 looks like this: CREATE TABLE T1 (  c1 int NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 5) PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ,c2 int NOT NULL ); And a table on server2 looks like this: CREATE TABLE T1(  c1 int NOT NULL IDENTITY(2, 5) PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ,c2 int NOT NULL ); When these two tables are inserted the results of the identity values look like this: Server1:  1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26… Server2:  2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27… This assures no identity values conflicts while leaving a room for 3 additional servers to participate in this same environment. You can go up to 9 servers using this method by setting an increment value of 9 instead of 5 as I used in this example. Continues…

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• Will having many timers affect my game performance?

  - by iQue

  I'm making a game for android, and earlier today I was trying to add some cool stuff to my game. The problem is this thing needs like 5 timers. I build my timers like this: timer += deltaTime; if(timer >= 2.0f){ doStuff; timer -= 2.0f; } // this timers gets stuff done every 2 secs Will having to many timers like this, getting checked every frame, screw up my games performance? The effect I wanted to add was a crosshair every 2 sec, then remove it after 2 sec and do a timed animation. So an array of crosshairs dependent on a bunch of timers to be exact. This caused my game to shut down when used, so thats why Im wondering if using that many timers causes my game to flip out.

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• SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE with the SQL MERGE Statement

  In today's column we'll demonstrate how and when to use the new TSQL MERGE statement and how this can be a helpful addition to your toolbox.

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• SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE with the SQL MERGE Statement

  In today's column we'll demonstrate how and when to use the new TSQL MERGE statement and how this can be a helpful addition to your toolbox.

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• Is the Google Webmaster Tools verification temporary?

  - by Senseful

  When you add a site to Google Webmaster Tools, it asks you to verify it (e.g. via a <meta> tag). I verified a site a while ago, but when I logged in, I noticed that it isn't verified anymore. The history shows that it was verified 58 days ago, but then 30 days ago it tried and failed saying that "revierification failed". I'm not sure if this is a result of some setting I changed which required a reverification, or if Google Webmaster Tools periodically tries to verify the site. I was under the impression that the verification only happens once when you add the site, and then you can delete the <meta> tag. If this is not how it works, and it does reverify periodically, will it require a different <meta> tag value or can I keep the original one I used and never have to worry about it again?

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• Full-text Indexing Books Online

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  While preparing for a recent SQL Saturday presentation, I was struck by a crazy idea (shocking, I know): Could someone import the content of SQL Server Books Online into a database and apply full-text indexing to it?  The answer is yes, and it's really quite easy to do. The first step is finding the installed help files.  If you have SQL Server 2012, BOL is installed under the Microsoft Help Library.  You can find the install location by opening SQL Server Books Online and clicking the gear icon for the Help Library Manager.  When the new window pops up click the Settings link, you'll get the following: You'll see the path under Library Location. Once you navigate to that path you'll have to drill down a little further, to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary\content\Microsoft\store.  This is where the help file content is kept if you downloaded it for offline use. Depending on which products you've downloaded help for, you may see a few hundred files.  Fortunately they're named well and you can easily find the "SQL_Server_Denali_Books_Online_" files.  We are interested in the .MSHC files only, and can skip the Installation and Developer Reference files. Despite the .MHSC extension, these files are compressed with the standard Zip format, so your favorite archive utility (WinZip, 7Zip, WinRar, etc.) can open them.  When you do, you'll see a few thousand files in the archive.  We are only interested in the .htm files, but there's no harm in extracting all of them to a folder.  7zip provides a command-line utility and the following will extract to a D:\SQLHelp folder previously created: 7z e –oD:\SQLHelp "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\HelpLibrary\content\Microsoft\store\SQL_Server_Denali_Books_Online_B780_SQL_110_en-us_1.2.mshc" *.htm Well that's great Rob, but how do I put all those files into a full-text index? I'll tell you in a second, but first we have to set up a few things on the database side.  I'll be using a database named Explore (you can certainly change that) and the following setup is a fragment of the script I used in my presentation: USE Explore; GO CREATE SCHEMA help AUTHORIZATION dbo; GO -- Create default fulltext catalog for later FT indexes CREATE FULLTEXT CATALOG FTC AS DEFAULT; GO CREATE TABLE help.files(file_id int not null IDENTITY(1,1) CONSTRAINT PK_help_files PRIMARY KEY, path varchar(256) not null CONSTRAINT UNQ_help_files_path UNIQUE, doc_type varchar(6) DEFAULT('.xml'), content varbinary(max) not null); CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX ON help.files(content TYPE COLUMN doc_type LANGUAGE 1033) KEY INDEX PK_help_files; This will give you a table, default full-text catalog, and full-text index on that table for the content you're going to insert.  I'll be using the command line again for this, it's the easiest method I know: for %a in (D:\SQLHelp\*.htm) do sqlcmd -S. -E -d Explore -Q"set nocount on;insert help.files(path,content) select '%a', cast(c as varbinary(max)) from openrowset(bulk '%a', SINGLE_CLOB) as c(c)" You'll need to copy and run that as one line in a command prompt.  I'll explain what this does while you run it and watch several thousand files get imported: The "for" command allows you to loop over a collection of items.  In this case we want all the .htm files in the D:\SQLHelp folder.  For each file it finds, it will assign the full path and file name to the %a variable.  In the "do" clause, we'll specify another command to be run for each iteration of the loop.  I make a call to "sqlcmd" in order to run a SQL statement.  I pass in the name of the server (-S.), where "." represents the local default instance. I specify -d Explore as the database, and -E for trusted connection.  I then use -Q to run a query that I enclose in double quotes. The query uses OPENROWSET(BULK…SINGLE_CLOB) to open the file as a data source, and to treat it as a single character large object.  In order for full-text indexing to work properly, I have to convert the text content to varbinary. I then INSERT these contents along with the full path of the file into the help.files table created earlier.  This process continues for each file in the folder, creating one new row in the table. And that's it! 5 SQL Statements and 2 command line statements to unzip and import SQL Server Books Online!  In case you're wondering why I didn't use FILESTREAM or FILETABLE, it's simply because I haven't learned them…yet. I may return to this blog after I figure that out and update it with the steps to do so.  I believe that will make it even easier. In the spirit of exploration, I'll leave you to work on some fulltext queries of this content.  I also recommend playing around with the sys.dm_fts_xxxx DMVs (I particularly like sys.dm_fts_index_keywords, it's pretty interesting).  There are additional example queries in the download material for my presentation linked above. Many thanks to Kevin Boles (t) for his advice on (re)checking the content of the help files.  Don't let that .htm extension fool you! The 2012 help files are actually XML, and you'd need to specify '.xml' in your document type column in order to extract the full-text keywords.  (You probably noticed this in the default definition for the doc_type column.)  You can query sys.fulltext_document_types to get a complete list of the types that can be full-text indexed. I also need to thank Hilary Cotter for giving me the original idea. I believe he used MSDN content in a full-text index for an article from waaaaaaaaaaay back, that I can't find now, and had forgotten about until just a few days ago.  He is also co-author of Pro Full-Text Search in SQL Server 2008, which I highly recommend.  He also has some FTS articles on Simple Talk: http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/learn-sql-server/sql-server-full-text-search-language-features/ http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/learn-sql-server/sql-server-full-text-search-language-features,-part-2/

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• SQL University: What and why of database refactoring

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  This is a post for a great idea called SQL University started by Jorge Segarra also famously known as SqlChicken on Twitter. It’s a collection of blog posts on different database related topics contributed by several smart people all over the world. So this week is mine and we’ll be talking about database testing and refactoring. In 3 posts we’ll cover: SQLU part 1 - What and why of database testing SQLU part 2 - What and why of database refactoring SQLU part 3 - Tools of the trade This is a second part of the series and in it we’ll take a look at what database refactoring is and why do it. Why refactor a database To know why refactor we first have to know what refactoring actually is. Code refactoring is a process where we change module internals in a way that does not change that module’s input/output behavior. For successful refactoring there is one crucial thing we absolutely must have: Tests. Automated unit tests are the only guarantee we have that we haven’t broken the input/output behavior before refactoring. If you haven’t go back ad read my post on the matter. Then start writing them. Next thing you need is a code module. Those are views, UDFs and stored procedures. By having direct table access we can kiss fast and sweet refactoring good bye. One more point to have a database abstraction layer. And no, ORM’s don’t fall into that category. But also know that refactoring is NOT adding new functionality to your code. Many have fallen into this trap. Don’t be one of them and resist the lure of the dark side. And it’s a strong lure. We developers in general love to add new stuff to our code, but hate fixing our own mistakes or changing existing code for no apparent reason. To be a good refactorer one needs discipline and focus. Now we know that refactoring is all about changing inner workings of existing code. This can be due to performance optimizations, changing internal code workflows or some other reason. This is a typical black box scenario to the outside world. If we upgrade the car engine it still has to drive on the road (preferably faster) and not fly (no matter how cool that would be). Also be aware that white box tests will break when we refactor. What to refactor in a database Refactoring databases doesn’t happen that often but when it does it can include a lot of stuff. Let us look at a few common cases. Adding or removing database schema objects Adding, removing or changing table columns in any way, adding constraints, keys, etc… All of these can be counted as internal changes not visible to the data consumer. But each of these carries a potential input/output behavior change. Dropping a column can result in views not working anymore or stored procedure logic crashing. Adding a unique constraint shows duplicated data that shouldn’t exist. Foreign keys break a truncate table command executed from an application that runs once a month. All these scenarios are very real and can happen. With the proper database abstraction layer fully covered with black box tests we can make sure something like that does not happen (hopefully at all). Changing physical structures Physical structures include heaps, indexes and partitions. We can pretty much add or remove those without changing the data returned by the database. But the performance can be affected. So here we use our performance tests. We do have them, right? Just by adding a single index we can achieve orders of magnitude performance improvement. Won’t that make users happy? But what if that index causes our write operations to crawl to a stop. again we have to test this. There are a lot of things to think about and have tests for. Without tests we can’t do successful refactoring! Fixing bad code We all have some bad code in our systems. We usually refer to that code as code smell as they violate good coding practices. Examples of such code smells are SQL injection, use of SELECT *, scalar UDFs or cursors, etc… Each of those is huge code smell and can result in major code changes. Take SELECT * from example. If we remove a column from a table the client using that SELECT * statement won’t have a clue about that until it runs. Then it will gracefully crash and burn. Not to mention the widely unknown SELECT * view refresh problem that Tomas LaRock (@SQLRockstar on Twitter) and Colin Stasiuk (@BenchmarkIT on Twitter) talk about in detail. Go read about it, it’s informative. Refactoring this includes replacing the * with column names and most likely change to application using the database. Breaking apart huge stored procedures Have you ever seen seen a stored procedure that was 2000 lines long? I have. It’s not pretty. It hurts the eyes and sucks the will to live the next 10 minutes. They are a maintenance nightmare and turn into things no one dares to touch. I’m willing to bet that 100% of time they don’t have a single test on them. Large stored procedures (and functions) are a clear sign that they contain business logic. General opinion on good database coding practices says that business logic has no business in the database. That’s the applications part. Refactoring such behemoths requires writing lots of edge case tests for the stored procedure input/output behavior and then start to refactor it. First we split the logic inside into smaller parts like new stored procedures and UDFs. Those then get called from the master stored procedure. Once we’ve successfully modularized the database code it’s best to transfer that logic into the applications consuming it. This only leaves the stored procedure with common data manipulation logic. Of course this isn’t always possible so having a plethora of performance and behavior unit tests is absolutely necessary to confirm we’ve actually improved the codebase in some way.   Refactoring is not a popular chore amongst developers or managers. The former don’t like fixing old code, the latter can’t see the financial benefit. Remember how we talked about being lousy at estimating future costs in the previous post? But there comes a time when it must be done. Hopefully I’ve given you some ideas how to get started. In the last post of the series we’ll take a look at the tools to use and an example of testing and refactoring.

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• How to create dynamically LinkButton with Literal Control in ASP.NET

  - by SAMIR BHOGAYTA

  Step 1 : First take following control into the .aspx page. asp:UpdatePanel id="up1" runat="server" contenttemplate asp:Literal ID="lt1" Text="" runat="server" asp:PlaceHolder ID="ph1" runat="server" /asp:PlaceHolder /contenttemplate /asp:UpdatePanel Step 2 : string query = query for fill the dataset; DataSet ds = new DataSet(); ds = pass the query to retrive data; int i = 0; LinkButton lt = new LinkButton(); for (i = 0; i { lt = new LinkButton(); lt.ID = "link" + i.ToString(); lt.Text = ds.Tables[0].Rows[i].ItemArray[1].ToString(); ph1.Controls.Add(lt); ph1.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(" ")); }

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• How to structure game states in an entity/component-based system

  - by Eva

  I'm making a game designed with the entity-component paradigm that uses systems to communicate between components as explained here. I've reached the point in my development that I need to add game states (such as paused, playing, level start, round start, game over, etc.), but I'm not sure how to do it with my framework. I've looked at this code example on game states which everyone seems to reference, but I don't think it fits with my framework. It seems to have each state handling its own drawing and updating. My framework has a SystemManager that handles all the updating using systems. For example, here's my RenderingSystem class: public class RenderingSystem extends GameSystem { private GameView gameView_; /** * Constructor * Creates a new RenderingSystem. * @param gameManager The game manager. Used to get the game components. */ public RenderingSystem(GameManager gameManager) { super(gameManager); } /** * Method: registerGameView * Registers gameView into the RenderingSystem. * @param gameView The game view registered. */ public void registerGameView(GameView gameView) { gameView_ = gameView; } /** * Method: triggerRender * Adds a repaint call to the event queue for the dirty rectangle. */ public void triggerRender() { Rectangle dirtyRect = new Rectangle(); for (GameObject object : getRenderableObjects()) { GraphicsComponent graphicsComponent = object.getComponent(GraphicsComponent.class); dirtyRect.add(graphicsComponent.getDirtyRect()); } gameView_.repaint(dirtyRect); } /** * Method: renderGameView * Renders the game objects onto the game view. * @param g The graphics object that draws the game objects. */ public void renderGameView(Graphics g) { for (GameObject object : getRenderableObjects()) { GraphicsComponent graphicsComponent = object.getComponent(GraphicsComponent.class); if (!graphicsComponent.isVisible()) continue; GraphicsComponent.Shape shape = graphicsComponent.getShape(); BoundsComponent boundsComponent = object.getComponent(BoundsComponent.class); Rectangle bounds = boundsComponent.getBounds(); g.setColor(graphicsComponent.getColor()); if (shape == GraphicsComponent.Shape.RECTANGULAR) { g.fill3DRect(bounds.x, bounds.y, bounds.width, bounds.height, true); } else if (shape == GraphicsComponent.Shape.CIRCULAR) { g.fillOval(bounds.x, bounds.y, bounds.width, bounds.height); } } } /** * Method: getRenderableObjects * @return The renderable game objects. */ private HashSet<GameObject> getRenderableObjects() { return gameManager.getGameObjectManager().getRelevantObjects( getClass()); } } Also all the updating in my game is event-driven. I don't have a loop like theirs that simply updates everything at the same time. I like my framework because it makes it easy to add new GameObjects, but doesn't have the problems some component-based designs encounter when communicating between components. I would hate to chuck it just to get pause to work. Is there a way I can add game states to my game without removing the entity-component design? Does the game state example actually fit my framework, and I'm just missing something? EDIT: I might not have explained my framework well enough. My components are just data. If I was coding in C++, they'd probably be structs. Here's an example of one: public class BoundsComponent implements GameComponent { /** * The position of the game object. */ private Point pos_; /** * The size of the game object. */ private Dimension size_; /** * Constructor * Creates a new BoundsComponent for a game object with initial position * initialPos and initial size initialSize. The position and size combine * to make up the bounds. * @param initialPos The initial position of the game object. * @param initialSize The initial size of the game object. */ public BoundsComponent(Point initialPos, Dimension initialSize) { pos_ = initialPos; size_ = initialSize; } /** * Method: getBounds * @return The bounds of the game object. */ public Rectangle getBounds() { return new Rectangle(pos_, size_); } /** * Method: setPos * Sets the position of the game object to newPos. * @param newPos The value to which the position of the game object is * set. */ public void setPos(Point newPos) { pos_ = newPos; } } My components do not communicate with each other. Systems handle inter-component communication. My systems also do not communicate with each other. They have separate functionality and can easily be kept separate. The MovementSystem doesn't need to know what the RenderingSystem is rendering to move the game objects correctly; it just need to set the right values on the components, so that when the RenderingSystem renders the game objects, it has accurate data. The game state could not be a system, because it needs to interact with the systems rather than the components. It's not setting data; it's determining which functions need to be called. A GameStateComponent wouldn't make sense because all the game objects share one game state. Components are what make up objects and each one is different for each different object. For example, the game objects cannot have the same bounds. They can have overlapping bounds, but if they share a BoundsComponent, they're really the same object. Hopefully, this explanation makes my framework less confusing.

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• Undocumented Query Plans: Equality Comparisons

  - by Paul White

  The diagram below shows two data sets, with differences highlighted: To find changed rows using TSQL, we might write a query like this: The logic is clear: join rows from the two sets together on the primary key column, and return rows where a change has occurred in one or more data columns.  Unfortunately, this query only finds one of the expected four rows: The problem, of course, is that our query does not correctly handle NULLs.  The ‘not equal to’ operators <> and != do not evaluate...(read more)

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• Enable DreamScene in Any Version of Vista or Windows 7

  - by DigitalGeekery

  Windows DreamScene was a utility available for Vista Ultimate that allowed users to set video as desktop wallpaper. It was dropped in Windows 7, but we’ll take a look at how to play DreamScenes in all versions of Windows 7 or Vista. Downloading DreamScenes First, you’ll need to find some DreamScenes to download. We’ve found some nice ones at both DreamScene.org and DeviantArt. You can find those download links at the end of the article. They’ll come as compressed files, so you’ll need to extract them after downloading. Windows 7 DreamScene Activator If you are running Windows 7 you can use Windows 7 DreamScene Activator. This free portable utility enables DreamScene in both 32 & 64 bit versions of Windows 7. Users can then set either MPG or WMV files as desktop wallpaper. Download and extract the Windows 7 DreamScene Activator (link below). Once extracted, you’ll need to run the application as administrator. Right-click on the .exe and select Run as administrator. Click on Enable DreamScene. This will also restart Windows Explorer if it is open. To play your DreamScene, browse for the file in Windows Explorer, right-click the file and select Set as Desktop Background. Enjoy your new Windows 7 DreamScene.   Although it says it is for Windows 7 only, we were able to get it to work with no problems on Vista Home Premium x32 as well.   You can Pause the DreamScene at anytime by right-clicking on the desktop and selecting Pause DreamScene.   When you are ready for a change, click Disable DreamScene and switch back to your previous wallpaper. Using VLC Media Player Users of all versions of Windows 7 & Vista can enable a DreamScene using VLC. Recently, we showed you how to set a video as your desktop wallpaper in VLC.  Since DreamScenes are in MPEG or WMV format, we will use the same tactic to display them as desktop wallpaper. We’ll just need to make a few additional tweaks to the VLC settings. You’ll need to download and install VLC media player if you don’t already have it. You can find the download link below. Next, select Tools > Preferences from the Menu. Select the Video button on the left and then choose DirectX video output from the Output dropdown list. Next, select All under Show Settings at the lower left, then select the Video button on the left pane. Uncheck Show media title on video. This will prevent VLC from constantly showing the title of the video on the screen each time the video loops. Click Save and the restart VLC.   Now we will add the video to our playlist and set it to continuously loop. Select View > Playlist from the Menu. Select the Add file button from the bottom of the Playlist window and select Add file.   Browse for your file and click Open.   Click the Loop button at the bottom so the video plays in a continuous loop.   Now, we’re ready to play the video. After the video starts playing, select Video > DirectX Wallpaper from the Menu, then minimize VLC.   If you’re using Aero Themes, you may get a pop-up warning and Windows will switch automatically to a basic theme.   If looping one video gets to be a little repetitive, you can add multiple videos to your playlist in VLC and loop the entire playlist. Just make sure you toggle the Loop button on the playlist window to Loop All. Now you’ve got a nice DreamScene playing on your desktop. Another cool trick you can do with VLC is take snapshots of favorite movie scenes and set them as backgrounds. When you’re ready to go back to your old wallpaper, maximize VLC, select Video and click DirectX Wallpaper again to turn it off the video background. Occasionally we were left with a black screen and had to manually change our wallpaper back to normal even after turning off the DirectX Wallpaper. Note: Keep in mind that using the VLC method takes up a lot of resources so if you try to run it on older hardware, or say a netbook, you’re not going to get good results. We also tried to use the VLC method in XP, but couldn’t get it to work. If you have leave a comment and let us know. While the DreamScene feature never really caught on in Vista, we find them to be a cool way to pump a little life into your desktop on any version of Vista or Windows 7. Downloads DreamScenes from Dreamscene.org DreamScenes from DeviantArt Download VLC media player Windows 7 DreamScene Activator Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Wait, How do I Turn on DreamScene Again?Enable Run Command on Windows 7 or Vista Start MenuEnable or Disable UAC From the Windows 7 / Vista Command LineUnderstanding Windows Vista Aero Glass RequirementsEnable Mapping to \HostnameC$ Share on Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips HippoRemote Pro 2.2 Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Microsoft Office Web Apps Guide Know if Someone Accessed Your Facebook Account Shop for Music with Windows Media Player 12 Access Free Documentaries at BBC Documentaries Rent Cameras In Bulk At CameraRenter Download Songs From MySpace

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• Extending web server controls by providing client side functionality through Javascript

  - by nikolaosk

  In this post I will demonstrate how to extend the functionality of the web server controls by adding client side functionality with Javascript. Let's move on to our example. 1) Launch Visual Studio 2010/2008/2005. (express editions will work fine). Create a new empty website and choose a suitable name for it. 2) Add a new item in your site, a web form. Leave the default name. 3) We need to add some markup. < form id = "form1" runat = "server" > < div > < span id = "test1" > nikos...(read more)

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• Designing Algorithm Flowchart Application

  - by l46kok

  I need to develop an GUI application in C# where users can freely add conditional/statement blocks on the algorithm flowchart like the one shown below. By freely, I mean users can add a block on wherever the arrows are. I'm having some problems brainstorming how to approach this problem, especially what to choose for my datastructure to store the blocks. I was thinking LinkedList since everything follows a linear fashion and every node always has a head and tail, but the If/Else block (ba) has two branches (heads) to store, so this complicates things a little bit. How would a smart one approach problems like this? My apologies if this question isn't suited for Programmers stackexchange, but this is more of a conceptual problem rather than implementation problem so I figured this place was appropriate for the question.

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• How to attach a sprite to a TMXTiledMap at a particular coordinate, in AndEngine?

  - by shailenTJ

  I am trying to add a sprite at a "grid" location on the tiled map. The TMX tiled Map is like a grid, and you can access the size of the grid by calling mTMXtiledMap.getTileRows() and mTMXtiledMap.getTileColumns(). I want to add an object at grid location, say (2, 5). My tileMap is of size (10,10). How can I do that? There is no function like mTMXTiledMap.addChild(int x, int y, Entity mEntity). I would appreciate any suggestions!

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• Upgrading to Gnome 3.4 breaks Unity and gnome-shell

  - by mac

  I have upgraded my gnome shell to 3.4 in Ubuntu 11.10 through sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/testing sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3 sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade sudo apt-get install gnome-shell But it broke my system. Gnome shell is completely broken - When I login it just shows desktop wallpaper and nothing else. And importantly Unity is also broken. Attaching the screenshot Some main issues 1)Two menus are appearing now - Global menu as well as application menu 2)Icons on top-right panel are appearing weirdly 3)My Default Ambiance Theme also got screwed. Instead of black color menus, I am seeing white color menus. How do I fix them? Or Do I have an option to revert back to original settings or will reinstalling Unity/Gnome Shell helps ?

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• ASP.NET MVC 2 from Scratch &ndash; Part 1 Listing Data from Database

  - by Max

  Part 1 - Listing Data from Database: Let us now learn ASP.NET MVC 2 from Scratch by actually developing a front end website for the Chinook database, which is an alternative to the traditional Northwind database. You can get the Chinook database from here. As always the best way to learn something is by working on it and doing something. The Chinook database has the following schema, a quick look will help us implementing the application in a efficient way. Let us first implement a grid view table with the list of Employees with some details, this table also has the Details, Edit and Delete buttons on it to do some operations. This is series of post will concentrate on creating a simple CRUD front end for Chinook DB using ASP.NET MVC 2. In this post, we will look at listing all the possible Employees in the database in a tabular format, from which, we can then edit and delete them as required. In this post, we will concentrate on setting up our environment and then just designing a page to show a tabular information from the database. We need to first setup the SQL Server database, you can download the required version and then set it up in your localhost. Then we need to add the LINQ to SQL Classes required for us to enable interaction with our database. Now after you do the above step, just use your Server Explorer in VS 2010 to actually navigate to the database, expand the tables node and then drag drop all the tables onto the Object Relational Designer space and you go you will have the tables visualized as classes. As simple as that. Now for the purpose of displaying the data from Employee in a table, we will show only the EmployeeID, Firstname and lastname. So let us create a class to hold this information. So let us add a new class called EmployeeList to the ViewModels. We will send this data model to the View and this can be displayed in the page. public class EmployeeList { public int EmployeeID { get; set; } public string Firstname { get; set; } public string Lastname { get; set; } public EmployeeList(int empID, string fname, string lname) { this.EmployeeID = empID; this.Firstname = fname; this.Lastname = lname; } } Ok now we have got the backend ready. Let us now look at the front end view now. We will first create a master called Site.Master and reuse it across the site. The Site.Master content will be <%@ Master Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="Site.Master.cs" Inherits="ChinookMvcSample.Views.Shared.Site" %>   <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head id="Head1" runat="server"> <title></title> <style type="text/css"> html { background-color: gray; } .content { width: 880px; position: relative; background-color: #ffffff; min-width: 880px; min-height: 800px; float: inherit; text-align: justify; } </style> <script src="../../Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="head" runat="server"> </asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body> <center> <h1> My Website</h1> <div class="content"> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="body" runat="server"> </asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </div> </center> </body> </html> The backend Site.Master.cs does not contain anything. In the actual Index.aspx view, we add the code to simply iterate through the collection of EmployeeList that was sent to the View via the Controller. So in the top of the Index.aspx view, we have this inherits which says Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<IEnumerable<ChinookMvcSample.ViewModels.EmployeeList>>" In this above line, we dictate that the page is consuming a IEnumerable collection of EmployeeList. So once we specify this and compile the project. Then in our Index.aspx page, we can consume the EmployeeList object and access all its methods and properties. <table class="styled" cellpadding="3" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <th colspan="3"> </th> <th> First Name </th> <th> Last Name </th> </tr> <% foreach (var item in Model) { %> <tr> <td align="center"> <%: Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", new { id = item.EmployeeID }, new { id = "links" })%> </td> <td align="center"> <%: Html.ActionLink("Details", "Details", new { id = item.EmployeeID }, new { id = "links" })%> </td> <td align="center"> <%: Html.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.EmployeeID }, new { id = "links" })%> </td> <td> <%: item.Firstname %> </td> <td> <%: item.Lastname %> </td> </tr> <% } %> <tr> <td colspan="5"> <%: Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create") %> </td> </tr> </table> The Html.ActionLink is a Html Helper to a create a hyperlink in the page, in the one we have used, the first parameter is the text that is to be used for the hyperlink, second one is the action name, third one is the parameter to be passed, last one is the attributes to be added while the hyperlink is rendered in the page. Here we are adding the id=”links” to the hyperlinks that is created in the page. In the index.aspx page, we add some jQuery stuff add alternate row colours and highlight colours for rows on mouse over. Now the Controller that handles the requests and directs the request to the right view. For the index view, the controller would be public ActionResult Index() { //var Employees = from e in data.Employees select new EmployeeList(e.EmployeeId,e.FirstName,e.LastName); //return View(Employees.ToList()); return View(_data.Employees.Select(p => new EmployeeList(p.EmployeeId, p.FirstName, p.LastName))); } Let us also write a unit test using NUnit for the above, just testing EmployeeController’s Index. DataClasses1DataContext _data; public EmployeeControllerTest() { _data = new DataClasses1DataContext("Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=Chinook;Integrated Security=True"); }   [Test] public void TestEmployeeIndex() { var e = new EmployeeController(_data); var result = e.Index() as ViewResult; var employeeList = result.ViewData.Model; Assert.IsNotNull(employeeList, "Result is null."); } In the first EmployeeControllerTest constructor, we set the data context to be used while running the tests. And then in the actual test, We just ensure that the View results returned by Index is not null. Here is the zip of the entire solution files until this point. Let me know if you have any doubts or clarifications. Cheers! Have a nice day.

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• English-Focused Translation Bookmarklet for Your Browser

  - by Asian Angel

  Are you wanting a translation bookmarklet that just focuses on translating websites into English? Then you will want to take a look at the To English Bookmarklet. Get the Bookmarklet To install the To English Bookmarklet visit the webpage at Lifehacker (link below), grab the bookmarklet with your mouse, and drag it to your “Bookmarks Toolbar”. Now you are ready for one-click translation into English. To English in Action We decided to test our new bookmarklet on two different International Mozilla websites. The first one was in Swedish… One click and there it is. Notice that there is a “translation bar frame” that will still let you choose yet another language to translate the webpage into if you desire. Definitely a nice touch… Our second example was in Russian. Once again a single click and… The website is now in English. On this particular page the “central green graphic” was affected by the translation and the two sidebar buttons are “pre-made” but that is ok. You can read what you need to without any problems. Conclusion If you have been wanting a bookmarklet that just focuses on translating into English then this should be perfect for you. If you are looking for a bookmarklet that gives you access to a Google Translation Bar then be certain to see our article here. Links Add the To English Bookmarklet to Your Browser Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Add a Google Translation Bar to Your Favorite BrowserSkip “Next Links” with the PageZipper BookmarkletCreate Shortened goo.gl URLs in Your Favorite BrowserQuickly Translate Text to Another Language in Word 2007See Where Shortened URLs “Link To” in Your Favorite Browser TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook Recycle ! Find That Elusive Icon with FindIcons Looking for Good Windows Media Player 12 Plug-ins? Find Out the Celebrity You Resemble With FaceDouble Whoa !

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