Search Results

Search found 42993 results on 1720 pages for 'static method'.

Page 485/1720 | < Previous Page | 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492  | Next Page >

• Parallelism in .NET – Part 5, Partitioning of Work

  - by Reed

  When parallelizing any routine, we start by decomposing the problem.  Once the problem is understood, we need to break our work into separate tasks, so each task can be run on a different processing element.  This process is called partitioning. Partitioning our tasks is a challenging feat.  There are opposing forces at work here: too many partitions adds overhead, too few partitions leaves processors idle.  Trying to work the perfect balance between the two extremes is the goal for which we should aim.  Luckily, the Task Parallel Library automatically handles much of this process.  However, there are situations where the default partitioning may not be appropriate, and knowledge of our routines may allow us to guide the framework to making better decisions. First off, I’d like to say that this is a more advanced topic.  It is perfectly acceptable to use the parallel constructs in the framework without considering the partitioning taking place.  The default behavior in the Task Parallel Library is very well-behaved, even for unusual work loads, and should rarely be adjusted.  I have found few situations where the default partitioning behavior in the TPL is not as good or better than my own hand-written partitioning routines, and recommend using the defaults unless there is a strong, measured, and profiled reason to avoid using them.  However, understanding partitioning, and how the TPL partitions your data, helps in understanding the proper usage of the TPL. I indirectly mentioned partitioning while discussing aggregation.  Typically, our systems will have a limited number of Processing Elements (PE), which is the terminology used for hardware capable of processing a stream of instructions.  For example, in a standard Intel i7 system, there are four processor cores, each of which has two potential hardware threads due to Hyperthreading.  This gives us a total of 8 PEs – theoretically, we can have up to eight operations occurring concurrently within our system. In order to fully exploit this power, we need to partition our work into Tasks.  A task is a simple set of instructions that can be run on a PE.  Ideally, we want to have at least one task per PE in the system, since fewer tasks means that some of our processing power will be sitting idle.  A naive implementation would be to just take our data, and partition it with one element in our collection being treated as one task.  When we loop through our collection in parallel, using this approach, we’d just process one item at a time, then reuse that thread to process the next, etc.  There’s a flaw in this approach, however.  It will tend to be slower than necessary, often slower than processing the data serially. The problem is that there is overhead associated with each task.  When we take a simple foreach loop body and implement it using the TPL, we add overhead.  First, we change the body from a simple statement to a delegate, which must be invoked.  In order to invoke the delegate on a separate thread, the delegate gets added to the ThreadPool’s current work queue, and the ThreadPool must pull this off the queue, assign it to a free thread, then execute it.  If our collection had one million elements, the overhead of trying to spawn one million tasks would destroy our performance. The answer, here, is to partition our collection into groups, and have each group of elements treated as a single task.  By adding a partitioning step, we can break our total work into small enough tasks to keep our processors busy, but large enough tasks to avoid overburdening the ThreadPool.  There are two clear, opposing goals here: Always try to keep each processor working, but also try to keep the individual partitions as large as possible. When using Parallel.For, the partitioning is always handled automatically.  At first, partitioning here seems simple.  A naive implementation would merely split the total element count up by the number of PEs in the system, and assign a chunk of data to each processor.  Many hand-written partitioning schemes work in this exactly manner.  This perfectly balanced, static partitioning scheme works very well if the amount of work is constant for each element.  However, this is rarely the case.  Often, the length of time required to process an element grows as we progress through the collection, especially if we’re doing numerical computations.  In this case, the first PEs will finish early, and sit idle waiting on the last chunks to finish.  Sometimes, work can decrease as we progress, since previous computations may be used to speed up later computations.  In this situation, the first chunks will be working far longer than the last chunks.  In order to balance the workload, many implementations create many small chunks, and reuse threads.  This adds overhead, but does provide better load balancing, which in turn improves performance. The Task Parallel Library handles this more elaborately.  Chunks are determined at runtime, and start small.  They grow slowly over time, getting larger and larger.  This tends to lead to a near optimum load balancing, even in odd cases such as increasing or decreasing workloads.  Parallel.ForEach is a bit more complicated, however. When working with a generic IEnumerable<T>, the number of items required for processing is not known in advance, and must be discovered at runtime.  In addition, since we don’t have direct access to each element, the scheduler must enumerate the collection to process it.  Since IEnumerable<T> is not thread safe, it must lock on elements as it enumerates, create temporary collections for each chunk to process, and schedule this out.  By default, it uses a partitioning method similar to the one described above.  We can see this directly by looking at the Visual Partitioning sample shipped by the Task Parallel Library team, and available as part of the Samples for Parallel Programming.  When we run the sample, with four cores and the default, Load Balancing partitioning scheme, we see this: The colored bands represent each processing core.  You can see that, when we started (at the top), we begin with very small bands of color.  As the routine progresses through the Parallel.ForEach, the chunks get larger and larger (seen by larger and larger stripes). Most of the time, this is fantastic behavior, and most likely will out perform any custom written partitioning.  However, if your routine is not scaling well, it may be due to a failure in the default partitioning to handle your specific case.  With prior knowledge about your work, it may be possible to partition data more meaningfully than the default Partitioner. There is the option to use an overload of Parallel.ForEach which takes a Partitioner<T> instance.  The Partitioner<T> class is an abstract class which allows for both static and dynamic partitioning.  By overriding Partitioner<T>.SupportsDynamicPartitions, you can specify whether a dynamic approach is available.  If not, your custom Partitioner<T> subclass would override GetPartitions(int), which returns a list of IEnumerator<T> instances.  These are then used by the Parallel class to split work up amongst processors.  When dynamic partitioning is available, GetDynamicPartitions() is used, which returns an IEnumerable<T> for each partition.  If you do decide to implement your own Partitioner<T>, keep in mind the goals and tradeoffs of different partitioning strategies, and design appropriately. The Samples for Parallel Programming project includes a ChunkPartitioner class in the ParallelExtensionsExtras project.  This provides example code for implementing your own, custom allocation strategies, including a static allocator of a given chunk size.  Although implementing your own Partitioner<T> is possible, as I mentioned above, this is rarely required or useful in practice.  The default behavior of the TPL is very good, often better than any hand written partitioning strategy.

  Read the article

• Compiling examples for consuming the REST Endpoints for WCF Service using Agatha

  - by REA_ANDREW

  I recently made two contributions to the Agatha Project by Davy Brion over on Google Code, and one of the things I wanted to follow up with was a post showing examples and some, seemingly required tid bits.  The contributions which I made where: To support StructureMap To include REST (JSON and XML) support for the service contract The examples which I have made, I want to format them so they fit in with the current format of examples over on Agatha and hopefully create and submit a third patch which will include these examples to help others who wish to use these additions. Whilst building these examples for both XML and JSON I have learnt a couple of things which I feel are not really well documented, but are extremely good practice and once known make perfect sense.  I have chosen a real basic e-commerce context for my example Requests and Responses, and have also made use of the excellent tool AutoMapper, again on Google Code. Setting the scene I have followed the Pipes and Filters Pattern with the IQueryable interface on my Repository and exposed the following methods to query Products: IQueryable<Product> GetProducts(); IQueryable<Product> ByCategoryName(this IQueryable<Product> products, string categoryName) Product ByProductCode(this IQueryable<Product> products, String productCode) I have an interface for the IProductRepository but for the concrete implementation I have simply created a protected getter which populates a private List<Product> with 100 test products with random data.  Another good reason for following an interface based approach is that it will demonstrate usage of my first contribution which is the StructureMap support.  Finally the two Domain Objects I have made are Product and Category as shown below: public class Product { public String ProductCode { get; set; } public String Name { get; set; } public Decimal Price { get; set; } public Decimal Rrp { get; set; } public Category Category { get; set; } }   public class Category { public String Name { get; set; } }   Requirements for the REST Support One of the things which you will notice with Agatha is that you do not have to decorate your Request and Response objects with the WCF Service Model Attributes like DataContract, DataMember etc… Unfortunately from what I have seen, these are required if you want the same types to work with your REST endpoint.  I have not tried but I assume the same result can be achieved by simply decorating the same classes with the Serializable Attribute.  Without this the operation will fail. Another surprising thing I have found is that it did not work until I used the following Attribute parameters: Name Namespace e.g. [DataContract(Name = "GetProductsRequest", Namespace = "AgathaRestExample.Service.Requests")] public class GetProductsRequest : Request { }   Although I was surprised by this, things kind of explained themselves when I got round to figuring out the exact construct required for both the XML and the REST.  One of the things which you already know and are then reminded of is that each of your Requests and Responses ultimately inherit from an abstract base class respectively. This information needs to be represented in a way native to the format being used.  I have seen this in XML but I have not seen the format which is required for the JSON. JSON Consumer Example I have used JQuery to create the example and I simply want to make two requests to the server which as you will know with Agatha are transmitted inside an array to reduce the service calls.  I have also used a tool called json2 which is again over at Google Code simply to convert my JSON expression into its string format for transmission.  You will notice that I specify the type of Request I am using and the relevant Namespace it belongs to.  Also notice that the second request has a parameter so each of these two object are representing an abstract Request and the parameters of the object describe it. <script type="text/javascript"> var bodyContent = $.ajax({ url: "http://localhost:50348/service.svc/json/processjsonrequests", global: false, contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8", type: "POST", processData: true, data: JSON.stringify([ { __type: "GetProductsRequest:AgathaRestExample.Service.Requests" }, { __type: "GetProductsByCategoryRequest:AgathaRestExample.Service.Requests", CategoryName: "Category1" } ]), dataType: "json", success: function(msg) { alert(msg); } }).responseText; </script>   XML Consumer Example For the XML Consumer example I have chosen to use a simple Console Application and make a WebRequest to the service using the XML as a request.  I have made a crude static method which simply reads from an XML File, replaces some value with a parameter and returns the formatted XML.  I say crude but it simply shows how XML Templates for each type of Request could be made and then have a wrapper utility in whatever language you use to combine the requests which are required.  The following XML is the same Request array as shown above but simply in the XML Format. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <ArrayOfRequest xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/Agatha.Common" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <Request i:type="a:GetProductsRequest" xmlns:a="AgathaRestExample.Service.Requests"/> <Request i:type="a:GetProductsByCategoryRequest" xmlns:a="AgathaRestExample.Service.Requests"> <a:CategoryName>{CategoryName}</a:CategoryName> </Request> </ArrayOfRequest>   It is funny because I remember submitting a question to StackOverflow asking whether there was a REST Client Generation tool similar to what Microsoft used for their RestStarterKit but which could be applied to existing services which have REST endpoints attached.  I could not find any but this is now definitely something which I am going to build, as I think it is extremely useful to have but also it should not be too difficult based on the information I now know about the above.  Finally I thought that the Strategy Pattern would lend itself really well to this type of thing so it can accommodate for different languages. I think that is about it, I have included the code for the example Console app which I made below incase anyone wants to have a mooch at the code.  As I said above I want to reformat these to fit in with the current examples over on the Agatha project, but also now thinking about it, make a Documentation Web method…{brain ticking} :-) Cheers for now and here is the final bit of code: static void Main(string[] args) { var request = WebRequest.Create("http://localhost:50348/service.svc/xml/processxmlrequests"); request.Method = "POST"; request.ContentType = "text/xml"; using(var writer = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream())) { writer.WriteLine(GetExampleRequestsString("Category1")); } var response = request.GetResponse(); using(var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())) { Console.WriteLine(reader.ReadToEnd()); } Console.ReadLine(); } static string GetExampleRequestsString(string categoryName) { var data = File.ReadAllText(Path.Combine(Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location), "ExampleRequests.xml")); data = data.Replace("{CategoryName}", categoryName); return data; } }

  Read the article

• Do not use “using” in WCF Client

  - by oazabir

  You know that any IDisposable object must be disposed using using. So, you have been using using to wrap WCF service’s ChannelFactory and Clients like this: using(var client = new SomeClient()) {. ..} Or, if you are doing it the hard and slow way (without really knowing why), then: using(var factory = new ChannelFactory<ISomeService>()) {var channel= factory.CreateChannel();...} That’s what we have all learnt in school right? We have learnt it wrong! When there’s a network related error or the connection is broken, or the call is timed out before Dispose is called by the using keyword, then it results in the following exception when the using keyword tries to dispose the channel: failed: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationObjectFaultedException : The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. Server stack trace: at System.ServiceModel.Channels.CommunicationObject.Close(TimeSpan timeout) Exception rethrown at [0]: at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg) at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32 type) at System.ServiceModel.ICommunicationObject.Close(TimeSpan timeout) at System.ServiceModel.ClientBase`1.System.ServiceModel.ICommunicationObject.Close(TimeSpan timeout) at System.ServiceModel.ClientBase`1.Close() at System.ServiceModel.ClientBase`1.System.IDisposable.Dispose() There are various reasons for which the underlying connection can be at broken state before the using block is completed and the .Dispose() is called. Common problems like network connection dropping, IIS doing an app pool recycle at that moment, some proxy sitting between you and the service dropping the connection for various reasons and so on. The point is, it might seem like a corner case, but it’s a likely corner case. If you are building a highly available client, you need to treat this properly before you go-live. So, do NOT use using on WCF Channel/Client/ChannelFactory. Instead you need to use an alternative. Here’s what you can do: First create an extension method. public static class WcfExtensions{ public static void Using<T>(this T client, Action<T> work) where T : ICommunicationObject { try { work(client); client.Close(); } catch (CommunicationException e) { client.Abort(); } catch (TimeoutException e) { client.Abort(); } catch (Exception e) { client.Abort(); throw; } }} Then use this instead of the using keyword: new SomeClient().Using(channel => { channel.Login(username, password);}); Or if you are using ChannelFactory then: new ChannelFactory<ISomeService>().Using(channel => { channel.Login(username, password);}); Enjoy!

  Read the article

• Toorcon14

  - by danx

  Toorcon 2012 Information Security Conference San Diego, CA, http://www.toorcon.org/ Dan Anderson, October 2012 It's almost Halloween, and we all know what that means—yes, of course, it's time for another Toorcon Conference! Toorcon is an annual conference for people interested in computer security. This includes the whole range of hackers, computer hobbyists, professionals, security consultants, press, law enforcement, prosecutors, FBI, etc. We're at Toorcon 14—see earlier blogs for some of the previous Toorcon's I've attended (back to 2003). This year's "con" was held at the Westin on Broadway in downtown San Diego, California. The following are not necessarily my views—I'm just the messenger—although I could have misquoted or misparaphrased the speakers. Also, I only reviewed some of the talks, below, which I attended and interested me. MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections, Aditya K. Sood Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata, Rebecca "bx" Shapiro Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules?, Valkyrie Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI, Dan Griffin You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program, Boris Sverdlik What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking, Dave Maas & Jason Leopold Accessibility and Security, Anna Shubina Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance, Adam Brand McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend, Jay James & Shane MacDougall MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections Aditya K. Sood, IOActive, Michigan State PhD candidate Aditya talked about Android smartphone malware. There's a lot of old Android software out there—over 50% Gingerbread (2.3.x)—and most have unpatched vulnerabilities. Of 9 Android vulnerabilities, 8 have known exploits (such as the old Gingerbread Global Object Table exploit). Android protection includes sandboxing, security scanner, app permissions, and screened Android app market. The Android permission checker has fine-grain resource control, policy enforcement. Android static analysis also includes a static analysis app checker (bouncer), and a vulnerablity checker. What security problems does Android have? User-centric security, which depends on the user to grant permission and make smart decisions. But users don't care or think about malware (the're not aware, not paranoid). All they want is functionality, extensibility, mobility Android had no "proper" encryption before Android 3.0 No built-in protection against social engineering and web tricks Alternative Android app markets are unsafe. Simply visiting some markets can infect Android Aditya classified Android Malware types as: Type A—Apps. These interact with the Android app framework. For example, a fake Netflix app. Or Android Gold Dream (game), which uploads user files stealthy manner to a remote location. Type K—Kernel. Exploits underlying Linux libraries or kernel Type H—Hybrid. These use multiple layers (app framework, libraries, kernel). These are most commonly used by Android botnets, which are popular with Chinese botnet authors What are the threats from Android malware? These incude leak info (contacts), banking fraud, corporate network attacks, malware advertising, malware "Hackivism" (the promotion of social causes. For example, promiting specific leaders of the Tunisian or Iranian revolutions. Android malware is frequently "masquerated". That is, repackaged inside a legit app with malware. To avoid detection, the hidden malware is not unwrapped until runtime. The malware payload can be hidden in, for example, PNG files. Less common are Android bootkits—there's not many around. What they do is hijack the Android init framework—alteering system programs and daemons, then deletes itself. For example, the DKF Bootkit (China). Android App Problems: no code signing! all self-signed native code execution permission sandbox — all or none alternate market places no robust Android malware detection at network level delayed patch process Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata Rebecca "bx" Shapiro, Dartmouth College, NH https://github.com/bx/elf-bf-tools @bxsays on twitter Definitions. "ELF" is an executable file format used in linking and loading executables (on UNIX/Linux-class machines). "Weird machine" uses undocumented computation sources (I think of them as unintended virtual machines). Some examples of "weird machines" are those that: return to weird location, does SQL injection, corrupts the heap. Bx then talked about using ELF metadata as (an uintended) "weird machine". Some ELF background: A compiler takes source code and generates a ELF object file (hello.o). A static linker makes an ELF executable from the object file. A runtime linker and loader takes ELF executable and loads and relocates it in memory. The ELF file has symbols to relocate functions and variables. ELF has two relocation tables—one at link time and another one at loading time: .rela.dyn (link time) and .dynsym (dynamic table). GOT: Global Offset Table of addresses for dynamically-linked functions. PLT: Procedure Linkage Tables—works with GOT. The memory layout of a process (not the ELF file) is, in order: program (+ heap), dynamic libraries, libc, ld.so, stack (which includes the dynamic table loaded into memory) For ELF, the "weird machine" is found and exploited in the loader. ELF can be crafted for executing viruses, by tricking runtime into executing interpreted "code" in the ELF symbol table. One can inject parasitic "code" without modifying the actual ELF code portions. Think of the ELF symbol table as an "assembly language" interpreter. It has these elements: instructions: Add, move, jump if not 0 (jnz) Think of symbol table entries as "registers" symbol table value is "contents" immediate values are constants direct values are addresses (e.g., 0xdeadbeef) move instruction: is a relocation table entry add instruction: relocation table "addend" entry jnz instruction: takes multiple relocation table entries The ELF weird machine exploits the loader by relocating relocation table entries. The loader will go on forever until told to stop. It stores state on stack at "end" and uses IFUNC table entries (containing function pointer address). The ELF weird machine, called "Brainfu*k" (BF) has: 8 instructions: pointer inc, dec, inc indirect, dec indirect, jump forward, jump backward, print. Three registers - 3 registers Bx showed example BF source code that implemented a Turing machine printing "hello, world". More interesting was the next demo, where bx modified ping. Ping runs suid as root, but quickly drops privilege. BF modified the loader to disable the library function call dropping privilege, so it remained as root. Then BF modified the ping -t argument to execute the -t filename as root. It's best to show what this modified ping does with an example: $ whoami bx $ ping localhost -t backdoor.sh # executes backdoor $ whoami root $ The modified code increased from 285948 bytes to 290209 bytes. A BF tool compiles "executable" by modifying the symbol table in an existing ELF executable. The tool modifies .dynsym and .rela.dyn table, but not code or data. Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules? "Valkyrie" (Christie Dudley, Santa Clara Law JD candidate) Valkyrie talked about mobile handset privacy. Some background: Senator Franken (also a comedian) became alarmed about CarrierIQ, where the carriers track their customers. Franken asked the FCC to find out what obligations carriers think they have to protect privacy. The carriers' response was that they are doing just fine with self-regulation—no worries! Carriers need to collect data, such as missed calls, to maintain network quality. But carriers also sell data for marketing. Verizon sells customer data and enables this with a narrow privacy policy (only 1 month to opt out, with difficulties). The data sold is not individually identifiable and is aggregated. But Verizon recommends, as an aggregation workaround to "recollate" data to other databases to identify customers indirectly. The FCC has regulated telephone privacy since 1934 and mobile network privacy since 2007. Also, the carriers say mobile phone privacy is a FTC responsibility (not FCC). FTC is trying to improve mobile app privacy, but FTC has no authority over carrier / customer relationships. As a side note, Apple iPhones are unique as carriers have extra control over iPhones they don't have with other smartphones. As a result iPhones may be more regulated. Who are the consumer advocates? Everyone knows EFF, but EPIC (Electrnic Privacy Info Center), although more obsecure, is more relevant. What to do? Carriers must be accountable. Opt-in and opt-out at any time. Carriers need incentive to grant users control for those who want it, by holding them liable and responsible for breeches on their clock. Location information should be added current CPNI privacy protection, and require "Pen/trap" judicial order to obtain (and would still be a lower standard than 4th Amendment). Politics are on a pro-privacy swing now, with many senators and the Whitehouse. There will probably be new regulation soon, and enforcement will be a problem, but consumers will still have some benefit. Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI Dan Griffin, JWSecure, Inc., Seattle, @JWSdan Dan talked about hacking measured UEFI boot. First some terms: UEFI is a boot technology that is replacing BIOS (has whitelisting and blacklisting). UEFI protects devices against rootkits. TPM - hardware security device to store hashs and hardware-protected keys "secure boot" can control at firmware level what boot images can boot "measured boot" OS feature that tracks hashes (from BIOS, boot loader, krnel, early drivers). "remote attestation" allows remote validation and control based on policy on a remote attestation server. Microsoft pushing TPM (Windows 8 required), but Google is not. Intel TianoCore is the only open source for UEFI. Dan has Measured Boot Tool at http://mbt.codeplex.com/ with a demo where you can also view TPM data. TPM support already on enterprise-class machines. UEFI Weaknesses. UEFI toolkits are evolving rapidly, but UEFI has weaknesses: assume user is an ally trust TPM implicitly, and attached to computer hibernate file is unprotected (disk encryption protects against this) protection migrating from hardware to firmware delays in patching and whitelist updates will UEFI really be adopted by the mainstream (smartphone hardware support, bank support, apathetic consumer support) You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program Boris Sverdlik, ISDPodcast.com co-host Boris talked about problems typical with current security audits. "IT Security" is an oxymoron—IT exists to enable buiness, uptime, utilization, reporting, but don't care about security—IT has conflict of interest. There's no Magic Bullet ("blinky box"), no one-size-fits-all solution (e.g., Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs)). Regulations don't make you secure. The cloud is not secure (because of shared data and admin access). Defense and pen testing is not sexy. Auditors are not solution (security not a checklist)—what's needed is experience and adaptability—need soft skills. Step 1: First thing is to Google and learn the company end-to-end before you start. Get to know the management team (not IT team), meet as many people as you can. Don't use arbitrary values such as CISSP scores. Quantitive risk assessment is a myth (e.g. AV*EF-SLE). Learn different Business Units, legal/regulatory obligations, learn the business and where the money is made, verify company is protected from script kiddies (easy), learn sensitive information (IP, internal use only), and start with low-hanging fruit (customer service reps and social engineering). Step 2: Policies. Keep policies short and relevant. Generic SANS "security" boilerplate policies don't make sense and are not followed. Focus on acceptable use, data usage, communications, physical security. Step 3: Implementation: keep it simple stupid. Open source, although useful, is not free (implementation cost). Access controls with authentication & authorization for local and remote access. MS Windows has it, otherwise use OpenLDAP, OpenIAM, etc. Application security Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel—use existing static analysis tools. Review high-risk apps and major revisions. Don't run different risk level apps on same system. Assume host/client compromised and use app-level security control. Network security VLAN != segregated because there's too many workarounds. Use explicit firwall rules, active and passive network monitoring (snort is free), disallow end user access to production environment, have a proxy instead of direct Internet access. Also, SSL certificates are not good two-factor auth and SSL does not mean "safe." Operational Controls Have change, patch, asset, & vulnerability management (OSSI is free). For change management, always review code before pushing to production For logging, have centralized security logging for business-critical systems, separate security logging from administrative/IT logging, and lock down log (as it has everything). Monitor with OSSIM (open source). Use intrusion detection, but not just to fulfill a checkbox: build rules from a whitelist perspective (snort). OSSEC has 95% of what you need. Vulnerability management is a QA function when done right: OpenVas and Seccubus are free. Security awareness The reality is users will always click everything. Build real awareness, not compliance driven checkbox, and have it integrated into the culture. Pen test by crowd sourcing—test with logging COSSP http://www.cossp.org/ - Comprehensive Open Source Security Project What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking Dave Maas, San Diego CityBeat Jason Leopold, Truthout.org The difference between hackers and investigative journalists: For hackers, the motivation varies, but method is same, technological specialties. For investigative journalists, it's about one thing—The Story, and they need broad info-gathering skills. J-School in 60 Seconds: Generic formula: Person or issue of pubic interest, new info, or angle. Generic criteria: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence. Media awareness of hackers and trends: journalists becoming extremely aware of hackers with congressional debates (privacy, data breaches), demand for data-mining Journalists, use of coding and web development for Journalists, and Journalists busted for hacking (Murdock). Info gathering by investigative journalists include Public records laws. Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is good, but slow. California Public Records Act is a lot stronger. FOIA takes forever because of foot-dragging—it helps to be specific. Often need to sue (especially FBI). CPRA is faster, and requests can be vague. Dumps and leaks (a la Wikileaks) Journalists want: leads, protecting ourselves, our sources, and adapting tools for news gathering (Google hacking). Anonomity is important to whistleblowers. They want no digital footprint left behind (e.g., email, web log). They don't trust encryption, want to feel safe and secure. Whistleblower laws are very weak—there's no upside for whistleblowers—they have to be very passionate to do it. Accessibility and Security or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Halting Problem Anna Shubina, Dartmouth College Anna talked about how accessibility and security are related. Accessibility of digital content (not real world accessibility). mostly refers to blind users and screenreaders, for our purpose. Accessibility is about parsing documents, as are many security issues. "Rich" executable content causes accessibility to fail, and often causes security to fail. For example MS Word has executable format—it's not a document exchange format—more dangerous than PDF or HTML. Accessibility is often the first and maybe only sanity check with parsing. They have no choice because someone may want to read what you write. Google, for example, is very particular about web browser you use and are bad at supporting other browsers. Uses JavaScript instead of links, often requiring mouseover to display content. PDF is a security nightmare. Executible format, embedded flash, JavaScript, etc. 15 million lines of code. Google Chrome doesn't handle PDF correctly, causing several security bugs. PDF has an accessibility checker and PDF tagging, to help with accessibility. But no PDF checker checks for incorrect tags, untagged content, or validates lists or tables. None check executable content at all. The "Halting Problem" is: can one decide whether a program will ever stop? The answer, in general, is no (Rice's theorem). The same holds true for accessibility checkers. Language-theoretic Security says complicated data formats are hard to parse and cannot be solved due to the Halting Problem. W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines: "Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust" Not much help though, except for "Robust", but here's some gems: * all information should be parsable (paraphrasing) * if not parsable, cannot be converted to alternate formats * maximize compatibility in new document formats Executible webpages are bad for security and accessibility. They say it's for a better web experience. But is it necessary to stuff web pages with JavaScript for a better experience? A good example is The Drudge Report—it has hand-written HTML with no JavaScript, yet drives a lot of web traffic due to good content. A bad example is Google News—hidden scrollbars, guessing user input. Solutions: Accessibility and security problems come from same source Expose "better user experience" myth Keep your corner of Internet parsable Remember "Halting Problem"—recognize false solutions (checking and verifying tools) Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance Adam Brand, protiviti @adamrbrand, http://www.picfun.com/ Adam talked about PCI compliance for retail sales. Take an example: for PCI compliance, 50% of Brian's time (a IT guy), 960 hours/year was spent patching POSs in 850 restaurants. Often applying some patches make no sense (like fixing a browser vulnerability on a server). "Scanner worship" is overuse of vulnerability scanners—it gives a warm and fuzzy and it's simple (red or green results—fix reds). Scanners give a false sense of security. In reality, breeches from missing patches are uncommon—more common problems are: default passwords, cleartext authentication, misconfiguration (firewall ports open). Patching Myths: Myth 1: install within 30 days of patch release (but PCI §6.1 allows a "risk-based approach" instead). Myth 2: vendor decides what's critical (also PCI §6.1). But §6.2 requires user ranking of vulnerabilities instead. Myth 3: scan and rescan until it passes. But PCI §11.2.1b says this applies only to high-risk vulnerabilities. Adam says good recommendations come from NIST 800-40. Instead use sane patching and focus on what's really important. From NIST 800-40: Proactive: Use a proactive vulnerability management process: use change control, configuration management, monitor file integrity. Monitor: start with NVD and other vulnerability alerts, not scanner results. Evaluate: public-facing system? workstation? internal server? (risk rank) Decide:on action and timeline Test: pre-test patches (stability, functionality, rollback) for change control Install: notify, change control, tickets McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend Jay James, Shane MacDougall, Tactical Intelligence Inc., Canada "McAfee Secure Trustmark" is a website seal marketed by McAfee. A website gets this badge if they pass their remote scanning. The problem is a removal of trustmarks act as flags that you're vulnerable. Easy to view status change by viewing McAfee list on website or on Google. "Secure TrustGuard" is similar to McAfee. Jay and Shane wrote Perl scripts to gather sites from McAfee and search engines. If their certification image changes to a 1x1 pixel image, then they are longer certified. Their scripts take deltas of scans to see what changed daily. The bottom line is change in TrustGuard status is a flag for hackers to attack your site. Entire idea of seals is silly—you're raising a flag saying if you're vulnerable.

  Read the article

• How to create item in SharePoint2010 document library using SharePoint Web service

  - by ybbest

  Today, I’d like to show you how to create item in SharePoint2010 document library using SharePoint Web service. Originally, I thought I could use the WebSvcLists(list.asmx) that provides methods for working with lists and list data. However, after a bit Googling , I realize that I need to use the WebSvcCopy (copy.asmx).Here are the code used private const string siteUrl = "http://ybbest"; private static void Main(string[] args) { using (CopyWSProxyWrapper copyWSProxyWrapper = new CopyWSProxyWrapper(siteUrl)) { copyWSProxyWrapper.UploadFile("TestDoc2.pdf", new[] {string.Format("{0}/Shared Documents/TestDoc2.pdf", siteUrl)}, Resource.TestDoc, GetFieldInfos().ToArray()); } } private static List<FieldInformation> GetFieldInfos() { var fieldInfos = new List<FieldInformation>(); //The InternalName , DisplayName and FieldType are both required to make it work fieldInfos.Add(new FieldInformation { InternalName = "Title", Value = "TestDoc2.pdf", DisplayName = "Title", Type = FieldType.Text }); return fieldInfos; } Here is the code for the proxy wrapper. public class CopyWSProxyWrapper : IDisposable { private readonly string siteUrl; public CopyWSProxyWrapper(string siteUrl) { this.siteUrl = siteUrl; } private readonly CopySoapClient proxy = new CopySoapClient(); public void UploadFile(string testdoc2Pdf, string[] destinationUrls, byte[] testDoc, FieldInformation[] fieldInformations) { using (CopySoapClient proxy = new CopySoapClient()) { proxy.Endpoint.Address = new EndpointAddress(String.Format("{0}/_vti_bin/copy.asmx", siteUrl)); proxy.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential = CredentialCache.DefaultNetworkCredentials; proxy.ClientCredentials.Windows.AllowedImpersonationLevel = TokenImpersonationLevel.Impersonation; CopyResult[] copyResults = null; try { proxy.CopyIntoItems(testdoc2Pdf, destinationUrls, fieldInformations, testDoc, out copyResults); } catch (Exception e) { System.Console.WriteLine(e); } if (copyResults != null) System.Console.WriteLine(copyResults[0].ErrorMessage); System.Console.ReadLine(); } } public void Dispose() { proxy.Close(); } } You can download the source code here . ******Update********** It seems to be a bug that , you can not set the contentType when create a document item using Copy.asmx. In sp2007 the field type was Choice, however, in sp2010 it is actually Computed. I have tried using the Computed field type with no luck. I have also tried sending the ContentTypeId and this does not work.You might have to write your own web services to handle this.You can check my previous blog on how to get started with you own custom WCF in SP2010 here. References: SharePoint 2010 Web Services SharePoint2007 Web Services SharePoint MSDN Forum

  Read the article

• ESB Toolkit 2.0 EndPointConfig (HTTPS with WCF-BasicHttp and the ESB Toolkit 2.0)

  - by Andy Morrison

  Earlier this week I had an ESB endpoint (Off-Ramp in ESB parlance) that I was sending to over http using WCF-BasicHttp.  I needed to switch the protocol to https: which I did by changing my UDDI Binding over to https:  No problem from a management perspective; however, when I tried to run the process I saw this exception: Event Type:                     Error Event Source:                BizTalk Server 2009 Event Category:            BizTalk Server 2009 Event ID:   5754 Date:                                    3/10/2010 Time:                                   2:58:23 PM User:                                    N/A Computer:                       XXXXXXXXX Description: A message sent to adapter "WCF-BasicHttp" on send port "SPDynamic.XXX.SR" with URI "https://XXXXXXXXX.com/XXXXXXX/whatever.asmx" is suspended.  Error details: System.ArgumentException: The provided URI scheme 'https' is invalid; expected 'http'. Parameter name: via    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.TransportChannelFactory`1.ValidateScheme(Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory.ValidateCreateChannelParameters(EndpointAddress remoteAddress, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.HttpChannelFactory.OnCreateChannel(EndpointAddress remoteAddress, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ChannelFactoryBase`1.InternalCreateChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ChannelFactoryBase`1.CreateChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelFactory.ServiceChannelFactoryOverRequest.CreateInnerChannelBinder(EndpointAddress to, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelFactory.CreateServiceChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannelFactory.CreateChannel(Type channelType, EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory`1.CreateChannel(EndpointAddress address, Uri via)    at System.ServiceModel.ChannelFactory`1.CreateChannel()    at Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapter.Wcf.Runtime.WcfClient`2.GetChannel[TChannel](IBaseMessage bizTalkMessage, ChannelFactory`1& cachedFactory)    at Microsoft.BizTalk.Adapter.Wcf.Runtime.WcfClient`2.SendMessage(IBaseMessage bizTalkMessage)  MessageId:  {1170F4ED-550F-4F7E-B0E0-1EE92A25AB10}  InstanceID: {1640C6C6-CA9C-4746-AEB0-584FDF7BB61E} I knew from a previous experience that I likely needed to set the SecurityMode setting for my Send Port.  But how do you do this for a Dynamic port (which I was using since this is an ESB solution)? Within the UDDI portal you have to add an additional Instance Info to your Binding named: EndPointConfig  Then you have to set its value to:  SecurityMode=Transport Like this:    The EndPointConfig is how the ESB Toolkit 2.0 provides extensibility for the various transports.  To see what the key-value pair options are for a given transport, open up an itinerary and change one of your resolvers to a “static” resolver by setting the “Resolver Implementation” to Static.  Then select a “Transport Name” ”, for instance to WCF-BasicHttp.  At this point you can then click on the “EndPoint Configuration” property for to see an adapter/ramp specific properties dialog (key-value pairs.)    Here’s the dialog that popped up for WCF-BasicHttp:   I simply set the SecurityMode to Transport.  Please note that you will get different properties within the window depending on the Transport Name you select for the resolver. When you are done with your settings, export the itinerary to disk and find that xml; then find that resolver’s xml within that file.  It will look like endpointConfig=SecurityMode=Transport in this case.  Note that if you set additional properties you will have additional key-value pairs after endpointConfig= Copy that string and paste it into the UDDI portal for you Binding’s EndPointConfig Instance Info value.

  Read the article

• MVC Portable Areas &ndash; Web Application Projects

  - by Steve Michelotti

  This is the first post in a series related to build and deployment considerations as I’ve been exploring MVC Portable Areas: #1 – Using Web Application Project to build portable areas #2 – Conventions for deploying portable area static files #3 – Portable area static files as embedded resources Portable Areas is a relatively new feature available in MvcContrib that builds upon the new feature called Areas that was introduced in MVC 2. In short, portable areas provide a way to distribute MVC binary components as simple .NET assemblies rather than an assembly along with all the physical files for the views. At the heart of portable areas is a custom view engine that delivers the *.aspx pages by pulling them from embedded resources rather than from the physical file system. A portable area can be something as small as a tiny snippet of html that eventually gets rendered on a page, to something as large as an entire MVC web application. You should read this 4-part series to get up to speed on what portable areas are. Web Application Project In most of the posts to date, portable areas are shown being created with a simple C# class library. This is cool and it serves as an effective way to illustrate the simplicity of portable areas. However, the problem with that is that the developer loses out on the normal developer experience with the various tooling/scaffolding options that we’ve come to expect in visual studio like the ability to add controllers, views, etc. easily: I’ve had good results just using a normal web application project (rather than a class library) to develop portable areas and get the normal vs.net benefits. However, one gotcha that comes as a result is that it’s easy to forget to set the file to “Embedded Resource” every time you add a new aspx page. To mitigate this, simply add this MSBuild snippet shown below to your *.csproj file and all *.aspx, *ascx will automatically be set as embedded resources when your project compiles: 1: <Target Name="BeforeBuild"> 2: <ItemGroup> 3: <EmbeddedResource Include="**\*.aspx;**\*.ascx" /> 4: </ItemGroup> 5: </Target> Also, you should remove the Global.asax from this web application as it is not the host. Being able to have the normal tooling experience we’ve come to expect from Visual Studio makes creating portable areas quite simple. This even allows us to do things like creating a project template such as “MVC Portable Area Web Application” that would come pre-configured with routes set up in the PortableAreaRegistration and no Global.asax file.

  Read the article

• FluentPath: a fluent wrapper around System.IO

  - by Latest Microsoft Blogs

  .NET is now more than eight years old, and some of its APIs got old with more grace than others. System.IO in particular has always been a little awkward. It’s mostly static method calls ( Path.* , Directory.* , etc.) and some stateful classes ( DirectoryInfo Read More......(read more)

  Read the article

• An Honest look at SharePoint Web Services

  - by juanlarios

  INTRODUCTION If you are a SharePoint developer you know that there are two basic ways to develop against SharePoint. 1) The object Model 2) Web services. SharePoint object model has the advantage of being quite rich. Anything you can do through the SharePoint UI as an administrator or end user, you can do through the object model. In fact everything that is done through the UI is done through the object model behind the scenes. The major disadvantage to getting at SharePoint this way is that the code needs to run on the server. This means that all web parts, event receivers, features, etc… all of this is code that is deployed to the server. The second way to get to SharePoint is through the built in web services. There are many articles on how to manipulate web services, how to authenticate to them and interact with them. The basic idea is that a remote application or process can contact SharePoint through a web service. Lots has been written about how great these web services are. This article is written to document the limitations, some of the issues and frustrations with working with SharePoint built in web services. Ultimately, for the tasks I was given to , SharePoint built in web services did not suffice. My evaluation of SharePoint built in services was compared against creating my own WCF Services to do what I needed. The current project I'm working on right now involved several "integration points". A remote application, installed on a separate server was to contact SharePoint and perform an task or operation. So I decided to start up Visual Studio and built a DLL and basically have 2 layers of logic. An integration layer and a data layer. A good friend of mine pointed me to SOLID principles and referred me to some videos and tutorials about it. I decided to implement the methodology (although a lot of the principles are common sense and I already incorporated in my coding practices). I was to deliver this dll to the application team and they would simply call the methods exposed by this dll and voila! it would do some task or operation in SharePoint. SOLUTION My integration layer implemented an interface that defined some of the basic integration tasks that I was to put together. My data layer was about the same, it implemented an interface with some of the tasks that I was going to develop. This gave me the opportunity to develop different data layers, ultimately different ways to get at SharePoint if I needed to. This is a classic SOLID principle. In this case it proved to be quite helpful because I wrote one data layer completely implementing SharePoint built in Web Services and another implementing my own WCF Service that I wrote. I should mention there is another layer underneath the data layer. In referencing SharePoint or WCF services in my visual studio project I created a class for every web service call. So for example, if I used List.asx. I created a class called "DocumentRetreival" this class would do the grunt work to connect to the correct URL, It would perform the basic operation of contacting the service and so on. If I used a view.asmx, I implemented a class called "ViewRetrieval" with the same idea as the last class but it would now interact with all he operations in view.asmx. This gave my data layer the ability to perform multiple calls without really worrying about some of the grunt work each class performs. This again, is a classic SOLID principle. So, in order to compare them side by side we can look at both data layers and with is involved in each. Lets take a look at the "Create Project" task or operation. The integration point is described as , "dll is to provide a way to create a project in SharePoint". Projects , in this case are basically document libraries. I am to implement a way in which a remote application can create a document library in SharePoint. Easy enough right? Use the list.asmx Web service in SharePoint. So here we go! Lets take a look at the code. I added the List.asmx web service reference to my project and this is the class that contacts it:  class DocumentRetrieval     {         private ListsSoapClient _service;      d   private bool _impersonation;         public DocumentRetrieval(bool impersonation, string endpt)         {             _service = new ListsSoapClient();             this.SetEndPoint(string.Format("{0}/{1}", endpt, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["List"]));             _impersonation = impersonation;             if (_impersonation)             {                 _service.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.Password = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["password"];                 _service.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.UserName = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["username"];                 _service.ClientCredentials.Windows.AllowedImpersonationLevel =                     System.Security.Principal.TokenImpersonationLevel.Impersonation;             }     private void SetEndPoint(string p)          {             _service.Endpoint.Address = new EndpointAddress(p);          }          /// <summary>         /// Creates a document library with specific name and templateID         /// </summary>         /// <param name="listName">New list name</param>         /// <param name="templateID">Template ID</param>         /// <returns></returns>         public XmlElement CreateLibrary(string listName, int templateID, ref ExceptionContract exContract)         {             XmlDocument sample = new XmlDocument();             XmlElement viewCol = sample.CreateElement("Empty");             try             {                 _service.Open();                 viewCol = _service.AddList(listName, "", templateID);             }             catch (Exception ex)             {                 exContract = new ExceptionContract("DocumentRetrieval/CreateLibrary", ex.GetType(), "Connection Error", ex.StackTrace, ExceptionContract.ExceptionCode.error);                             }finally             {                 _service.Close();             }                                      return viewCol;         } } There was a lot more in this class (that I am not including) because i was reusing the grunt work and making other operations with LIst.asmx, For example, updating content types, changing or configuring lists or document libraries. One of the first things I noticed about working with the built in services is that you are really at the mercy of what is available to you. Before creating a document library (Project) I wanted to expose a IsProjectExisting method. This way the integration or data layer could recognize if a library already exists. Well there is no service call or method available to do that check. So this is what I wrote:   public bool DocLibExists(string listName, ref ExceptionContract exContract)         {             try             {                 var allLists = _service.GetListCollection();                                return allLists.ChildNodes.OfType<XmlElement>().ToList().Exists(x => x.Attributes["Title"].Value ==listName);             }             catch (Exception ex)             {                 exContract = new ExceptionContract("DocumentRetrieval/GetList/GetListWSCall", ex.GetType(), "Unable to Retrieve List Collection", ex.StackTrace, ExceptionContract.ExceptionCode.error);             }             return false;         } This really just gets an XMLElement with all the lists. It was then up to me to sift through the clutter and noise and see if Document library already existed. This took a little bit of getting used to. Now instead of working with code, you are working with XMLElement response format from web service. I wrote a LINQ query to go through and find if the attribute "Title" existed and had a value of the listname then it would return True, if not False. I didn't particularly like working this way. Dealing with XMLElement responses and then having to manipulate it to get at the exact data I was looking for. Once the check for the DocLibExists, was done, I would either create the document library or send back an error indicating the document library already existed. Now lets examine the code that actually creates the document library. It does what you are really after, it creates a document library. Notice how the template ID is really an integer. Every document library template in SharePoint has an ID associated with it. Document libraries, Image Library, Custom List, Project Tasks, etc… they all he a unique integer associated with it. Well, that's great but the client came back to me and gave me some specifics that each "project" or document library, should have. They specified they had 3 types of projects. Each project would have unique views, about 10 views for each project. Each Project specified unique configurations (auditing, versioning, content types, etc…) So what turned out to be a simple implementation of creating a document library as a repository for a project, turned out to be quite involved.  The first thing I thought of was to create a template for document library. There are other ways you can do this too. Using the web Service call, you could configure views, versioning, even content types, etc… the only catch is, you have to be working quite extensively with CAML. I am not fond of CAML. I can do it and work with it, I just don't like doing it. It is quite touchy and at times it is quite tough to understand where errors were made with CAML statements. Working with Web Services and CAML proved to be quite annoying. The service call would return a generic error message that did not particularly point me to a CAML statement syntax error, or even a CAML error. I was not sure if it was a security , performance or code based issue. It was quite tough to work with. At times it was difficult to work with because of the way SharePoint handles metadata. There are "Names", "Display Name", and "StaticName" fields. It was quite tough to understand at times, which one to use. So it took a lot of trial and error. There are tools that can help with CAML generation. There is also now intellisense for CAML statements in Visual Studio that might help but ultimately I'm not fond of CAML with Web Services.   So I decided on the template. So my plan was to create create a document library, configure it accordingly and then use The Template Builder that comes with the SharePoint SDK. This tool allows you to create site templates, list template etc… It is quite interesting because it does not generate an STP file, it actually generates an xml definition and a feature you can activate and make that template available on a site or site collection. The first issue I experienced with this is that one of the specifications to this template was that the "All Documents" view was to have 2 web parts on it. Well, it turns out that using the template builder , it did not include the web parts as part of the list template definition it generated. It backed up the settings, the views, the content types but not the custom web parts. I still decided to try this even without the web parts on the page. This new template defined a new Document library definition with a unique ID. The problem was that the service call accepts an int but it only has access to the built in library int definitions. Any new ones added or created will not be available to create. So this made it impossible for me to approach the problem this way.     I should also mention that one of the nice features about SharePoint is the ability to create list templates, back them up and then create lists based on that template. It can all be done by end user administrators. These templates are quite unique because they are saved as an STP file and not an xml definition. I also went this route and tried to see if there was another service call where I could create a document library based no given template name. Nope! none.      After some thinking I decide to implement a WCF service to do this creation for me. I was quite certain that the object model would allow me to create document libraries base on a template in which an ID was required and also templates saved as STP files. Now I don't want to bother with posting the code to contact WCF service because it's self explanatory, but I will post the code that I used to create a list with custom template. public ServiceResult CreateProject(string name, string templateName, string projectId)         {             string siteurl = SPContext.Current.Site.Url;             Guid webguid = SPContext.Current.Web.ID;                        using (SPSite site = new SPSite(siteurl))             {                 using (SPWeb rootweb = site.RootWeb)                 {                     SPListTemplateCollection temps = site.GetCustomListTemplates(rootweb);                     ProcessWeb(siteurl, webguid, web => Act_CreateProject(web, name, templateName, projectId, temps));                 }//SpWeb             }//SPSite              return _globalResult;                   }         private void Act_CreateProject(SPWeb targetsite, string name, string templateName, string projectId, SPListTemplateCollection temps) {                         var temp = temps.Cast<SPListTemplate>().FirstOrDefault(x => x.Name.Equals(templateName));             if (temp != null)             {                             try                 {                                         Guid listGuid = targetsite.Lists.Add(name, "", temp);                     SPList newList = targetsite.Lists[listGuid];                     _globalResult = new ServiceResult(true, "Success", "Success");                 }                 catch (Exception ex)                 {                     _globalResult = new ServiceResult(false, (string.IsNullOrEmpty(ex.Message) ? "None" : ex.Message + " " + templateName), ex.StackTrace.ToString());                 }                                       }        private void ProcessWeb(string siteurl, Guid webguid, Action<SPWeb> action) {                        using (SPSite sitecollection = new SPSite(siteurl)) {                 using (SPWeb web = sitecollection.AllWebs[webguid]) {                     action(web);                 }                     }                  } This code is actually some of the code I implemented for the service. there was a lot more I did on Project Creation which I will cover in my next blog post. I implemented an ACTION method to process the web. This allowed me to properly dispose the SPWEb and SPSite objects and not rewrite this code over and over again. So I implemented a WCF service to create projects for me, this allowed me to do a lot more than just create a document library with a template, it now gave me the flexibility to do just about anything the client wanted at project creation. Once this was implemented , the client came back to me and said, "we reference all our projects with ID's in our application. we want SharePoint to do the same". This has been something I have been doing for a little while now but I do hope that SharePoint 2010 can have more of an answer to this and address it properly. I have been adding metadata to SPWebs through property bag. I believe I have blogged about it before. This time it required metadata added to a document library. No problem!!! I also mentioned these web parts that were to go on the "All Documents" View. I took the opportunity to configure them to the appropriate settings. There were two settings that needed to be set on these web parts. One of them was a Project ID configured in the webpart properties. The following code enhances and replaces the "Act_CreateProject " method above:  private void Act_CreateProject(SPWeb targetsite, string name, string templateName, string projectId, SPListTemplateCollection temps) {                         var temp = temps.Cast<SPListTemplate>().FirstOrDefault(x => x.Name.Equals(templateName));             if (temp != null)             {                 SPLimitedWebPartManager wpmgr = null;                               try                 {                                         Guid listGuid = targetsite.Lists.Add(name, "", temp);                     SPList newList = targetsite.Lists[listGuid];                     SPFolder rootFolder = newList.RootFolder;                     rootFolder.Properties.Add(KEY, projectId);                     rootFolder.Update();                     if (rootFolder.ParentWeb != targetsite)                         rootFolder.ParentWeb.Dispose();                     if (!templateName.Contains("Natural"))                     {                         SPView alldocumentsview = newList.Views.Cast<SPView>().FirstOrDefault(x => x.Title.Equals(ALLDOCUMENTS));                         SPFile alldocfile = targetsite.GetFile(alldocumentsview.ServerRelativeUrl);                         wpmgr = alldocfile.GetLimitedWebPartManager(PersonalizationScope.Shared);                         ConfigureWebPart(wpmgr, projectId, CUSTOMWPNAME);                                              alldocfile.Update();                     }                                        if (newList.ParentWeb != targetsite)                         newList.ParentWeb.Dispose();                     _globalResult = new ServiceResult(true, "Success", "Success");                 }                 catch (Exception ex)                 {                     _globalResult = new ServiceResult(false, (string.IsNullOrEmpty(ex.Message) ? "None" : ex.Message + " " + templateName), ex.StackTrace.ToString());                 }                 finally                 {                     if (wpmgr != null)                     {                         wpmgr.Web.Dispose();                         wpmgr.Dispose();                     }                 }             }                         }       private void ConfigureWebPart(SPLimitedWebPartManager mgr, string prjId, string webpartname)         {             var wp = mgr.WebParts.Cast<System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.WebPart>().FirstOrDefault(x => x.DisplayTitle.Equals(webpartname));             if (wp != null)             {                           (wp as ListRelationshipWebPart.ListRelationshipWebPart).ProjectID = prjId;                 mgr.SaveChanges(wp);             }         }   This Shows you how I was able to set metadata on the document library. It has to be added to the RootFolder of the document library, Unfortunately, the SPList does not have a Property bag that I can add a key\value pair to. It has to be done on the root folder. Now everything in the integration will reference projects by ID's and will not care about names. My, "DocLibExists" will now need to be changed because a web service is not set up to look at property bags.  I had to write another method on the Service to do the equivalent but with ID's instead of names.  The second thing you will notice about the code is the use of the Webpartmanager. I have seen several examples online, and also read a lot about memory leaks, The above code does not produce memory leaks. The web part manager creates an SPWeb, so just dispose it like I did. CONCLUSION This is a long long post so I will stop here for now, I will continue with more comparisons and limitations in my next post. My conclusion for this example is that Web Services will do the trick if you can suffer through CAML and if you are doing some simple operations. For Everything else, there's WCF! **** fireI apologize for the disorganization of this post, I was on a bus on a 12 hour trip to IOWA while I wrote it, I was half asleep and half awake, hopefully it makes enough sense to someone.

  Read the article

• Earthquake Locator - Live Demo and Source Code

  - by Bobby Diaz

  Quick Links Live Demo Source Code I finally got a live demo up and running!  I signed up for a shared hosting account over at discountasp.net so I could post a working version of the Earthquake Locator application, but ran into a few minor issues related to RIA Services.  Thankfully, Tim Heuer had already encountered and explained all of the problems I had along with solutions to these and other common pitfalls.  You can find his blog post here.  The ones that got me were the default authentication tag being set to Windows instead of Forms, needed to add the <baseAddressPrefixFilters> tag since I was running on a shared server using host headers, and finally the Multiple Authentication Schemes settings in the IIS7 Manager.   To get the demo application ready, I pulled down local copies of the earthquake data feeds that the application can use instead of pulling from the USGS web site.  I basically added the feed URL as an app setting in the web.config:       <appSettings>         <!-- USGS Data Feeds: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/ -->         <!--<add key="FeedUrl"             value="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/1day-M2.5.xml" />-->         <!--<add key="FeedUrl"             value="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/catalogs/7day-M2.5.xml" />-->         <!--<add key="FeedUrl"             value="~/Demo/1day-M2.5.xml" />-->         <add key="FeedUrl"              value="~/Demo/7day-M2.5.xml" />     </appSettings> You will need to do the same if you want to run from local copies of the feed data.  I also made the following minor changes to the EarthquakeService class so that it gets the FeedUrl from the web.config:       private static readonly string FeedUrl = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FeedUrl"];       /// <summary>     /// Gets the feed at the specified URL.     /// </summary>     /// <param name="url">The URL.</param>     /// <returns>A <see cref="SyndicationFeed"/> object.</returns>     public static SyndicationFeed GetFeed(String url)     {         SyndicationFeed feed = null;           if ( !String.IsNullOrEmpty(url) && url.StartsWith("~") )         {             // resolve virtual path to physical file system             url = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(url);         }           try         {             log.Debug("Loading RSS feed: " + url);               using ( var reader = XmlReader.Create(url) )             {                 feed = SyndicationFeed.Load(reader);             }         }         catch ( Exception ex )         {             log.Error("Error occurred while loading RSS feed: " + url, ex);         }           return feed;     } You can now view the live demo or download the source code here, but be sure you have WCF RIA Services installed before running the application locally and make sure the FeedUrl is pointing to a valid location.  Please let me know if you have any comments or if you run into any issues with the code.   Enjoy!

  Read the article

• Thinktecture.IdentityModel: WIF Support for WCF REST Services and OData

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  The latest drop of Thinktecture.IdentityModel includes plumbing and support for WIF, claims and tokens for WCF REST services and Data Services (aka OData). Cibrax has an alternative implementation that uses the WCF Rest Starter Kit. His recent post reminded me that I should finally “document” that part of our library. Features include: generic plumbing for all WebServiceHost derived WCF services support for SAML and SWT tokens support for ClaimsAuthenticationManager and ClaimsAuthorizationManager based solely on native WCF extensibility points (and WIF) This post walks you through the setup of an OData / WCF DataServices endpoint with token authentication and claims support. This sample is also included in the codeplex download along a similar sample for plain WCF REST services. Setting up the Data Service To prove the point I have created a simple WCF Data Service that renders the claims of the current client as an OData set. public class ClaimsData {     public IQueryable<ViewClaim> Claims     {         get { return GetClaims().AsQueryable(); }     }       private List<ViewClaim> GetClaims()     {         var claims = new List<ViewClaim>();         var identity = Thread.CurrentPrincipal.Identity as IClaimsIdentity;           int id = 0;         identity.Claims.ToList().ForEach(claim =>             {                 claims.Add(new ViewClaim                 {                    Id = ++id,                    ClaimType = claim.ClaimType,                    Value = claim.Value,                    Issuer = claim.Issuer                 });             });           return claims;     } } …and hooked that up with a read only data service: public class ClaimsDataService : DataService<ClaimsData> {     public static void InitializeService(IDataServiceConfiguration config)     {         config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("*", EntitySetRights.AllRead);     } } Enabling WIF Before you enable WIF, you should generate your client proxies. Afterwards the service will only accept requests with an access token – and svcutil does not support that. All the WIF magic is done in a special service authorization manager called the FederatedWebServiceAuthorizationManager. This code checks incoming calls to see if the Authorization HTTP header (or X-Authorization for environments where you are not allowed to set the authorization header) contains a token. This header must either start with SAML access_token= or WRAP access_token= (for SAML or SWT tokens respectively). For SAML validation, the plumbing uses the normal WIF configuration. For SWT you can either pass in a SimpleWebTokenRequirement or the SwtIssuer, SwtAudience and SwtSigningKey app settings are checked.If the token can be successfully validated, ClaimsAuthenticationManager and ClaimsAuthorizationManager are invoked and the IClaimsPrincipal gets established. The service authorization manager gets wired up by the FederatedWebServiceHostFactory: public class FederatedWebServiceHostFactory : WebServiceHostFactory {     protected override ServiceHost CreateServiceHost(       Type serviceType, Uri[] baseAddresses)     {         var host = base.CreateServiceHost(serviceType, baseAddresses);           host.Authorization.ServiceAuthorizationManager =           new FederatedWebServiceAuthorizationManager();         host.Authorization.PrincipalPermissionMode = PrincipalPermissionMode.Custom;           return host;     } } The last step is to set up the .svc file to use the service host factory (see the sample download). Calling the Service To call the service you need to somehow get a token. This is up to you. You can either use WSTrustChannelFactory (for the full CLR), WSTrustClient (Silverlight) or some other way to obtain a token. The sample also includes code to generate SWT tokens for testing – but the whole WRAP/SWT support will be subject of a separate post. I created some extensions methods for the most common web clients (WebClient, HttpWebRequest, DataServiceContext) that allow easy setting of the token, e.g.: public static void SetAccessToken(this DataServiceContext context,   string token, string type, string headerName) {     context.SendingRequest += (s, e) =>     {         e.RequestHeaders[headerName] = GetHeader(token, type);     }; } Making a query against the Data Service could look like this: static void CallService(string token, string type) {     var data = new ClaimsData(new Uri("https://server/odata.svc/"));     data.SetAccessToken(token, type);       data.Claims.ToList().ForEach(c =>         Console.WriteLine("{0}\n {1}\n ({2})\n", c.ClaimType, c.Value, c.Issuer)); } HTH

  Read the article

• Using a WCF Message Inspector to extend AppFabric Monitoring

  - by Shawn Cicoria

  I read through Ron Jacobs post on Monitoring WCF Data Services with AppFabric http://blogs.msdn.com/b/endpoint/archive/2010/06/09/tracking-wcf-data-services-with-windows-server-appfabric.aspx What is immediately striking are 2 things – it’s so easy to get monitoring data into a viewer (AppFabric Dashboard) w/ very little work.  And the 2nd thing is, why can’t this be a WCF message inspector on the dispatch side. So, I took the base class WCFUserEventProvider that’s located in the WCF/WF samples [1] in the following path, \WF_WCF_Samples\WCF\Basic\Management\AnalyticTraceExtensibility\CS\WCFAnalyticTracingExtensibility\  and then created a few classes that project the injection as a IEndPointBehavior There are just 3 classes to drive injection of the inspector at runtime via config: IDispatchMessageInspector implementation BehaviorExtensionElement implementation IEndpointBehavior implementation The full source code is below with a link to the solution file here: [Solution File] using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.ServiceModel.Dispatcher; using System.ServiceModel.Channels; using System.ServiceModel; using System.ServiceModel.Configuration; using System.ServiceModel.Description; using Microsoft.Samples.WCFAnalyticTracingExtensibility; namespace Fabrikam.Services { public class AppFabricE2EInspector : IDispatchMessageInspector { static WCFUserEventProvider evntProvider = null; static AppFabricE2EInspector() { evntProvider = new WCFUserEventProvider(); } public object AfterReceiveRequest( ref Message request, IClientChannel channel, InstanceContext instanceContext) { OperationContext ctx = OperationContext.Current; var opName = ctx.IncomingMessageHeaders.Action; evntProvider.WriteInformationEvent("start", string.Format("operation: {0} at address {1}", opName, ctx.EndpointDispatcher.EndpointAddress)); return null; } public void BeforeSendReply(ref System.ServiceModel.Channels.Message reply, object correlationState) { OperationContext ctx = OperationContext.Current; var opName = ctx.IncomingMessageHeaders.Action; evntProvider.WriteInformationEvent("end", string.Format("operation: {0} at address {1}", opName, ctx.EndpointDispatcher.EndpointAddress)); } } public class AppFabricE2EBehaviorElement : BehaviorExtensionElement { #region BehaviorExtensionElement /// <summary> /// Gets the type of behavior. /// </summary> /// <value></value> /// <returns>The type that implements the end point behavior<see cref="T:System.Type"/>.</returns> public override Type BehaviorType { get { return typeof(AppFabricE2EEndpointBehavior); } } /// <summary> /// Creates a behavior extension based on the current configuration settings. /// </summary> /// <returns>The behavior extension.</returns> protected override object CreateBehavior() { return new AppFabricE2EEndpointBehavior(); } #endregion BehaviorExtensionElement } public class AppFabricE2EEndpointBehavior : IEndpointBehavior //, IServiceBehavior { #region IEndpointBehavior public void AddBindingParameters(ServiceEndpoint endpoint, BindingParameterCollection bindingParameters) {} public void ApplyClientBehavior(ServiceEndpoint endpoint, ClientRuntime clientRuntime) { throw new NotImplementedException(); } public void ApplyDispatchBehavior(ServiceEndpoint endpoint, EndpointDispatcher endpointDispatcher) { endpointDispatcher.DispatchRuntime.MessageInspectors.Add(new AppFabricE2EInspector()); } public void Validate(ServiceEndpoint endpoint) { ; } #endregion IEndpointBehavior } }     [1] http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=35ec8682-d5fd-4bc3-a51a-d8ad115a8792&displaylang=en

  Read the article

• Dynamically creating a Generic Type at Runtime

  - by Rick Strahl

  I learned something new today. Not uncommon, but it's a core .NET runtime feature I simply did not know although I know I've run into this issue a few times and worked around it in other ways. Today there was no working around it and a few folks on Twitter pointed me in the right direction. The question I ran into is: How do I create a type instance of a generic type when I have dynamically acquired the type at runtime? Yup it's not something that you do everyday, but when you're writing code that parses objects dynamically at runtime it comes up from time to time. In my case it's in the bowels of a custom JSON parser. After some thought triggered by a comment today I realized it would be fairly easy to implement two-way Dictionary parsing for most concrete dictionary types. I could use a custom Dictionary serialization format that serializes as an array of key/value objects. Basically I can use a custom type (that matches the JSON signature) to hold my parsed dictionary data and then add it to the actual dictionary when parsing is complete. Generic Types at Runtime One issue that came up in the process was how to figure out what type the Dictionary<K,V> generic parameters take. Reflection actually makes it fairly easy to figure out generic types at runtime with code like this: if (arrayType.GetInterface("IDictionary") != null) { if (arrayType.IsGenericType) { var keyType = arrayType.GetGenericArguments()[0]; var valueType = arrayType.GetGenericArguments()[1]; … } } The GetArrayType method gets passed a type instance that is the array or array-like object that is rendered in JSON as an array (which includes IList, IDictionary, IDataReader and a few others). In my case the type passed would be something like Dictionary<string, CustomerEntity>. So I know what the parent container class type is. Based on the the container type using it's then possible to use GetGenericTypeArguments() to retrieve all the generic types in sequential order of definition (ie. string, CustomerEntity). That's the easy part. Creating a Generic Type and Providing Generic Parameters at RunTime The next problem is how do I get a concrete type instance for the generic type? I know what the type name and I have a type instance is but it's generic, so how do I get a type reference to keyvaluepair<K,V> that is specific to the keyType and valueType above? Here are a couple of things that come to mind but that don't work (and yes I tried that unsuccessfully first): Type elementType = typeof(keyvalue<keyType, valueType>); Type elementType = typeof(keyvalue<typeof(keyType), typeof(valueType)>); The problem is that this explicit syntax expects a type literal not some dynamic runtime value, so both of the above won't even compile. I turns out the way to create a generic type at runtime is using a fancy bit of syntax that until today I was completely unaware of: Type elementType = typeof(keyvalue<,>).MakeGenericType(keyType, valueType); The key is the type(keyvalue<,>) bit which looks weird at best. It works however and produces a non-generic type reference. You can see the difference between the full generic type and the non-typed (?) generic type in the debugger: The nonGenericType doesn't show any type specialization, while the elementType type shows the string, CustomerEntity (truncated above) in the type name. Once the full type reference exists (elementType) it's then easy to create an instance. In my case the parser parses through the JSON and when it completes parsing the value/object it creates a new keyvalue<T,V> instance. Now that I know the element type that's pretty trivial with: // Objects start out null until we find the opening tag resultObject = Activator.CreateInstance(elementType); Here the result object is picked up by the JSON array parser which creates an instance of the child object (keyvalue<K,V>) and then parses and assigns values from the JSON document using the types  key/value property signature. Internally the parser then takes each individually parsed item and adds it to a list of  List<keyvalue<K,V>> items. Parsing through a Generic type when you only have Runtime Type Information When parsing of the JSON array is done, the List needs to be turned into a defacto Dictionary<K,V>. This should be easy since I know that I'm dealing with an IDictionary, and I know the generic types for the key and value. The problem is again though that this needs to happen at runtime which would mean using several Convert.ChangeType() calls in the code to dynamically cast at runtime. Yuk. In the end I decided the easier and probably only slightly slower way to do this is a to use the dynamic type to collect the items and assign them to avoid all the dynamic casting madness: else if (IsIDictionary) { IDictionary dict = Activator.CreateInstance(arrayType) as IDictionary; foreach (dynamic item in items) { dict.Add(item.key, item.value); } return dict; } This code creates an instance of the generic dictionary type first, then loops through all of my custom keyvalue<K,V> items and assigns them to the actual dictionary. By using Dynamic here I can side step all the explicit type conversions that would be required in the three highlighted areas (not to mention that this nested method doesn't have access to the dictionary item generic types here). Static <- -> Dynamic Dynamic casting in a static language like C# is a bitch to say the least. This is one of the few times when I've cursed static typing and the arcane syntax that's required to coax types into the right format. It works but it's pretty nasty code. If it weren't for dynamic that last bit of code would have been a pretty ugly as well with a bunch of Convert.ChangeType() calls to litter the code. Fortunately this type of type convulsion is rather rare and reserved for system level code. It's not every day that you create a string to object parser after all :-)© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in .NET  CSharp   Tweet (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); })();

  Read the article

• Setting up OpenGL camera with off-center perspective

  - by user5484

  Hi, I'm using OpenGL ES (in iOS) and am struggling with setting up a viewport with an off-center distance point. Consider a game where you have a character in the left hand side of the screen, and some controls alpha'd over the left-hand side. The "main" part of the screen is on the right, but you still want to show whats in the view on the left. However when the character moves "forward" you want the character to appear to be going "straight", or "up" on the device, and not heading on an angle to the point that is geographically at the mid-x position in the screen. Here's the jist of how i set my viewport up where it is centered in the middle: // setup the camera // glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); const GLfloat zNear = 0.1; const GLfloat zFar = 1000.0; const GLfloat fieldOfView = 90.0; // can definitely adjust this to see more/less of the scene GLfloat size = zNear * tanf(DEGREES_TO_RADIANS(fieldOfView) / 2.0); CGRect rect; rect.origin = CGPointMake(0.0, 0.0); rect.size = CGSizeMake(backingWidth, backingHeight); glFrustumf(-size, size, -size / (rect.size.width / rect.size.height), size / (rect.size.width / rect.size.height), zNear, zFar); glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); // rotate the whole scene by the tilt to face down on the dude const float tilt = 0.3f; const float yscale = 0.8f; const float zscale = -4.0f; glTranslatef(0.0, yscale, zscale); const int rotationMinDegree = 0; const int rotationMaxDegree = 180; glRotatef(tilt * (rotationMaxDegree - rotationMinDegree) / 2, 1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); glTranslatef(0, -yscale, -zscale); static float b = -25; //0; static float c = 0; // rotate by to face in the direction of the dude float a = RADIANS_TO_DEGREES(-atan2f(-gCamera.orientation.x, -gCamera.orientation.z)); glRotatef(a, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0); // and move to where it is glTranslatef(-gCamera.pos.x, -gCamera.pos.y, -gCamera.pos.z); // draw the rest of the scene ... I've tried a variety of things to make it appear as though "the dude" is off to the right: - do a translate after the frustrum to the x direction - do a rotation after the frustrum about the up/y-axis - move the camera with a biased lean to the left of the dude Nothing i do seems to produce good results, the dude will either look like he's stuck on an angle, or the whole scene will appear tilted. I'm no OpenGL expert, so i'm hoping someone can suggest some ideas or tricks on how to "off-center" these model views in OpenGL. Thanks!

  Read the article

• Survey: How's Your Economy?

  - by andyleonard

  Another quick survey question, slightly off-topic: How's your economy? Have things picked up for you recently? Slowed down? Remained static? :{> Andy Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!...(read more)

  Read the article

• Problem to match font size to the screen resolution in libgdx

  - by Iñaki Bedoya

  I'm having problems to show text on my game at same size on different screens, and I did a simple test. This test consists to show a text fitting at the screen, I want the text has the same size independently from the screen and from DPI. I've found this and this answer that I think should solve my problem but don't. In desktop the size is ok, but in my phone is too big. This is the result on my Nexus 4: (768x1280, 2.0 density) And this is the result on my MacBook: (480x800, 0.6875 density) I'm using the Open Sans Condensed (link to google fonts) As you can see on desktop looks good, but on the phone is so big. Here the code of my test: public class TextTest extends ApplicationAdapter { private static final String TAG = TextTest.class.getName(); private static final String TEXT = "Tap the screen to start"; private OrthographicCamera camera; private Viewport viewport; private SpriteBatch batch; private BitmapFont font; @Override public void create () { Gdx.app.log(TAG, "Screen size: "+Gdx.graphics.getWidth()+"x"+Gdx.graphics.getHeight()); Gdx.app.log(TAG, "Density: "+Gdx.graphics.getDensity()); camera = new OrthographicCamera(); viewport = new ExtendViewport(Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), Gdx.graphics.getWidth(), camera); batch = new SpriteBatch(); FreeTypeFontGenerator generator = new FreeTypeFontGenerator(Gdx.files.internal("fonts/OpenSans-CondLight.ttf")); font = createFont(generator, 64); generator.dispose(); } private BitmapFont createFont(FreeTypeFontGenerator generator, float dp) { FreeTypeFontGenerator.FreeTypeFontParameter parameter = new FreeTypeFontGenerator.FreeTypeFontParameter(); int fontSize = (int)(dp * Gdx.graphics.getDensity()); parameter.size = fontSize; Gdx.app.log(TAG, "Font size: "+fontSize+"px"); return generator.generateFont(parameter); } @Override public void render () { Gdx.gl.glClearColor(1, 1, 1, 1); Gdx.gl.glClear(GL20.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); int w = -(int)(font.getBounds(TEXT).width / 2); batch.setProjectionMatrix(camera.combined); batch.begin(); font.setColor(Color.BLACK); font.draw(batch, TEXT, w, 0); batch.end(); } @Override public void resize(int width, int height) { viewport.update(width, height); } @Override public void dispose() { font.dispose(); batch.dispose(); } } I'm trying to find a neat way to fix this. What I'm doing wrong? is the camera? the viewport? UPDATE: What I want is to keep the same margins in proportion, independently of the screen size or resolution. This image illustrates what I mean.

  Read the article

• Converting System.DateTime to JD Edwards Date

  - by Christopher House

  As a follow up to my post the other day on converting a JD Edwards date to a .Net System.DateTime, here is some code to convert a System.DateTime to a JD Edwards date: public static double ToJdeDate(DateTime theDate) {   double jdeDate = 0d;   int dayInYear = theDate.DayOfYear;   int theYear = theDate.Year - 1900;   jdeDate = (theYear * 1000) + dayInYear;   return jdeDate; }

  Read the article

• Rapid UI Prototyping with Microsoft Expression Blend 3

  In today's environment prototyping your UI can be paramount. This article will show users how to use the Microsoft Expression Blend 3 prototyping tool and discuss the differences between static, interactive and convertible prototypes.

  Read the article

• Dynamically loading Assemblies to reduce Runtime Dependencies

  - by Rick Strahl

  Using a static language like C# tends to work with hard assembly bindings for everything. But what if you want only want to provide an assembly optionally, if the functionality is actually used by the user? In this article I discuss a scenario where dynamic loading and activation made sense for me and show the code required to activate and use components loaded at runtime using Reflection and dynamic in combination.

  Read the article

• Portal And Content - Content Integration - Best Practices

  - by Stefan Krantz

  Lately we have seen an increase in projects that have failed to either get user friendly content integration or non satisfactory performance. Our intention is to mitigate any knowledge gap that our previous post might have left you with, therefore this post will repeat some recommendation or reference back to old useful post. Moreover this post will help you understand ground up how to design, architect and implement business enabled, responsive and performing portals with complex requirements on business centric information publishing. Design the Information Model The key to successful portal deployments is Information modeling, it's a key task to understand the use case you designing for, therefore I have designed a set of question you need to ask yourself or your customer: Question: Who will own the content, IT or Business? Answer: BusinessQuestion: Who will publish the content, IT or Business? Answer: BusinessQuestion: Will there be multiple publishers? Answer: YesQuestion: Are the publishers computer scientist?Answer: NoQuestion: How often do the information changes, daily, weekly, monthly?Answer: Daily, weekly If your answers to the questions matches at least 2, we strongly recommend you design your content with following principles: Divide your pages in to logical sections, where each section is marked with its purpose Assign capabilities to each section, does it contain text, images, formatting and/or is it static and is populated through other contextual information Select editor/design element type WYSIWYG - Rich Text Plain Text - non-format text Image - Image object Static List - static list of formatted informationDynamic Data List - assembled information from multiple data files through CMIS query The result of such design map could look like following below examples: Based on the outcome of the required elements in the design column 3 from the left you will now simply design a data model in WebCenter Content - Site Studio by creating a Region Definition structure matching your design requirements.For more information on how to create a Region definition see following post: Region Definition Post - note see instruction 7 for details. Each region definition can now be used to instantiate data files, a data file will hold the actual data for each element in the region definition. Another way you can see this is to compare the region definition as an extension to the metadata model in WebCenter Content for each data file item. Design content templates With a solid dependable information model we can now proceed to template creation and page design, in this phase focuses on how to place the content sections from the region definition on the page via a Content Presenter template. Remember by creating content presenter templates you will leverage the latest and most integrated technology WebCenter has to offer. This phase is much easier since the you already have the information model and design wire-frames to base the logic on, however there is still few considerations to pay attention to: Base the template on ADF and make only necessary exceptions to markup when required Leverage ADF design components for Tabs, Accordions and other similar components, this way the design in the content published areas will comply with other design areas based on custom ADF taskflows There is no performance impact when using meta data or region definition based data All data access regardless of type, metadata or xml data it can be accessed via the Content Presenter - Node. See below for applied examples on how to access data Access metadata property from Document - #{node.propertyMap['myProp'].value}myProp in this example can be for instance (dDocName, dDocTitle, xComments or any other available metadata) Access element data from data file xml - #{node.propertyMap['[Region Definition Name]:[Element name]'].asTextHtml}Region Definition Name is the expect region definition that the current data file is instantiatingElement name is the element value you like to grab from the data file I recommend you read following  useful post on content template topic:CMIS queries and template creation - note see instruction 9 for detailsStatic List template rendering For more information on templates:Single Item Content TemplateMulti Item Content TemplateExpression Language Internationalization Considerations When integrating content assets via content presenter you by now probably understand that the content item/data file is wired to the page, what is also pretty common at this stage is that the content item/data file only support one language since its not practical or business friendly to mix that into a complex structure. Therefore you will be left with a very common dilemma that you will have to either build a complete new portal for each locale, which is not an good option! However with little bit of information modeling and clear naming convention this can be addressed. Basically you can simply make sure that all content item/data file are named with a predictable naming convention like "Content1_EN" for the English rendition and "Content1_ES" for the Spanish rendition. This way through simple none complex customizations you will be able to dynamically switch the actual content item/data file just before rendering. By following proposed approach above you not only enable a simple mechanism for internationalized content you also preserve the functionality in the content presenter to support business accessible run-time publishing of information on existing and new pages. I recommend you read following useful post on Internationalization topics:Internationalize with Content Presenter Integrate with Review & Approval processes Today the Review and approval functionality and configuration is based out of WebCenter Content - Criteria Workflows. Criteria Workflows uses the metadata of the checked in document to evaluate if the document is under any review/approval process. So for instance if a Criteria Workflow is configured to force any documents with Version = "2" or "higher" and Content Type is "Instructions", any matching content item version on check in will now enter the workflow before getting released for general access. Few things to consider when configuring Criteria Workflows: Make sure to not trigger on version one for Content Items that are Data Files - if you trigger on version 1 you will not only approve an empty document you will also have a content presenter pointing to a none existing document - since the document will only be available after successful completion of the workflow Approval workflows sometimes requires more complex criteria, the recommendation if that is the case is that the meta data triggering such criteria is automatically populated, this can be achieved through many approaches including Content Profiles Criteria workflows are configured and managed in WebCenter Content Administration Applets where you can configure one or more workflows. When you configured Criteria workflows the Content Presenter will support the editors with the approval process directly inline in the "Contribution mode" of the portal. In addition to approve/reject and details of the task, the content presenter natively support the user to view the current and future version of the change he/she is approving. See below for example: Architectural recommendation To support review&approval processes - minimize the amount of data files per page Each CMIS query can consume significant time depending on the complexity of the query - minimize the amount of CMIS queries per page Use Content Presenter Templates based on ADF - this way you minimize the design considerations and optimize the usage of caching Implement the page in as few Data files as possible - simplifies publishing process, increases performance and simplifies release process Named data file (node) or list of named nodes when integrating to pages increases performance vs. querying for data Named data file (node) or list of named nodes when integrating to pages enables business centric page creation and publishing and reduces the need for IT department interaction Summary Just because one architectural decision solves a business problem it doesn't mean its the right one, when designing portals all architecture has to be in harmony and not impacting each other. For instance the most technical complex solution is not always the best since it will most likely defeat the business accessibility, performance or both, therefore the best approach is to first design for simplicity that even a non-technical user can operate, after that consider the performance impact and final look at the technology challenges these brings and workaround them first with out-of-the-box features, after that design and develop functions to complement the short comings.

  Read the article

• Delegate performance of Roslyn Sept 2012 CTP is impressive

  - by dotneteer

  I wanted to dynamically compile some delegates using Roslyn. I came across this article by Piotr Sowa. The article shows that the delegate compiled with Roslyn CTP was not very fast. Since the article was written using the Roslyn June 2012, I decided to give Sept 2012 CTP a try. There are significant changes in Roslyn Sept 2012 CTP in both C# syntax supported as well as API. I found Anoop Madhisidanan’s article that has an example of the new API. With that, I was able to put together a comparison. In my test, the Roslyn compiled delegate is as fast as C# (VS 2012) compiled delegate. See the source code below and give it a try. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Diagnostics; using Roslyn.Compilers; using Roslyn.Scripting.CSharp; using Roslyn.Scripting; namespace RoslynTest { class Program { public Func del; static void Main(string[] args) { Stopwatch stopWatch = new Stopwatch(); Program p = new Program(); p.SetupDel(); //Comment out this line and uncomment the next line to compare //p.SetupScript(); stopWatch.Start(); int result = DoWork(p.del); stopWatch.Stop(); Console.WriteLine(result); Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed {0}", stopWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds); Console.Read(); } private void SetupDel() { del = (s, i) => ++s; } private void SetupScript() { //Create the script engine //Script engine constructor parameters go changed var engine=new ScriptEngine(); //Let us use engine's Addreference for adding the required //assemblies new[] { typeof (Console).Assembly, typeof (Program).Assembly, typeof (IEnumerable<>).Assembly, typeof (IQueryable).Assembly }.ToList().ForEach(asm => engine.AddReference(asm)); new[] { "System", "System.Linq", "System.Collections", "System.Collections.Generic" }.ToList().ForEach(ns=>engine.ImportNamespace(ns)); //Now, you need to create a session using engine's CreateSession method, //which can be seeded with a host object var session = engine.CreateSession(); var submission = session.CompileSubmission>("new Func((s, i) => ++s)"); del = submission.Execute(); //- See more at: http://www.amazedsaint.com/2012/09/roslyn-september-ctp-2012-overview-api.html#sthash.1VutrWiW.dpuf } private static int DoWork(Func del) { int result = Enumerable.Range(1, 1000000).Aggregate(del); return result; } } }  Since Roslyn Sept 2012 CTP is already over a year old, I cannot wait to see a new version coming out.

  Read the article

• An introduction to Dart, the structured web programming platform

  An introduction to Dart, the structured web programming platform Learn more about Dart at www.dartlang.org Seth Ladd presents Dart, the open source web programming platform. In this video, Seth gives an overview of the philosophy and motivation of the language, reviews some of the interesting new language features like optional static types and isolates, and gives a demo of the editor. Special thanks to http for recording the video, and for the invitation. From: GoogleDevelopers Views: 2 0 ratings Time: 01:01:44 More in Science & Technology

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER 2008 Introduction to Snapshot Database Restore From Snapshot

  Snapshot database is one of the most interesting concepts that I have used at some places recently.Here is a quick definition of the subject from Book On Line:A Database Snapshot is a read-only, static view of a database (the source database). Multiple snapshots can exist on a source database and can always reside on the [...]...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

  Read the article

• Translate jQuery UI Datepicker format to .Net Date format

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  I needed to use the same date format in client jQuery UI Datepicker and server ASP.NET code. The actual format can be different for different localization cultures.I decided to translate Datepicker format to .Net Date format similar as it was asked to do opposite operation in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8531247/jquery-datepickers-dateformat-how-to-integrate-with-net-current-culture-date Note that replace command need to replace whole words and order of calls is importantFunction that does opposite operation (translate  .Net Date format toDatepicker format) is described in http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/62031/JQueryUI-Datepicker-in-ASP-NET-MVC /// <summary> /// Uses regex '\b' as suggested in //http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6143642/way-to-have-string-replace-only-hit-whole-words /// </summary> /// <param name="original"></param> /// <param name="wordToFind"></param> /// <param name="replacement"></param> /// <param name="regexOptions"></param> /// <returns></returns> static public string ReplaceWholeWord(this string original, string wordToFind, string replacement, RegexOptions regexOptions = RegexOptions.None) { string pattern = String.Format(@"\b{0}\b", wordToFind); string ret=Regex.Replace(original, pattern, replacement, regexOptions); return ret; } /// <summary> /// E.g "DD, d MM, yy" to ,"dddd, d MMMM, yyyy" /// </summary> /// <param name="datePickerFormat"></param> /// <returns></returns> /// <remarks> /// Idea to replace from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8531247/jquery-datepickers-dateformat-how-to-integrate-with-net-current-culture-date ///From http://docs.jquery.com/UI/Datepicker/$.datepicker.formatDate to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx ///Format a date into a string value with a specified format. ///d - day of month (no leading zero) ---.Net the same ///dd - day of month (two digit) ---.Net the same ///D - day name short ---.Net "ddd" ///DD - day name long ---.Net "dddd" ///m - month of year (no leading zero) ---.Net "M" ///mm - month of year (two digit) ---.Net "MM" ///M - month name short ---.Net "MMM" ///MM - month name long ---.Net "MMMM" ///y - year (two digit) ---.Net "yy" ///yy - year (four digit) ---.Net "yyyy" /// </remarks> public static string JQueryDatePickerFormatToDotNetDateFormat(string datePickerFormat) { string sRet = datePickerFormat.ReplaceWholeWord("DD", "dddd").ReplaceWholeWord("D", "ddd"); sRet = sRet.ReplaceWholeWord("M", "MMM").ReplaceWholeWord("MM", "MMMM").ReplaceWholeWord("m", "M").ReplaceWholeWord("mm", "MM");//order is important sRet = sRet.ReplaceWholeWord("yy", "yyyy").ReplaceWholeWord("y", "yy");//order is important return sRet; }

  Read the article

• What micro web-framework has the lowest overhead but includes templating

  - by Simon Martin

  I want to rewrite a simple small (10 page) website and besides a contact form it could be written in pure html. It is currently built with classic asp and Dreamweaver templates. The reason I'm not simply writing 10 html pages is that I want to keep the layout all in 1 place so would need either includes or a masterpage. I don't want to use Dreamweaver templates, or batch processing (like org-mode) because I want to be able to edit using notepad (or Visual Studio) because occasionally I might need to edit a file on the server (Go Daddy's IIS admin interface will let me edit text). I don't want to use ASP.NET MVC or WebForms (which I use in my day job) because I don't need all the overhead they bring with them when essentially I'm serving up 9 static files, 1 contact form and 1 list of clubs (that I aim to use jQuery to filter). The shared hosting package I have on Go Daddy seems to take a long time to spin up when serving aspx files. Currently the clubs page is driven from an MS SQL database that I try to keep up to date by manually checking the dojo locator on the main HQ pages and editing the entries myself, this is again way over the top. I aim to get a text file with the club details (probably in JSON or xml format) and use that as the source for the clubs page. There will need to be a bit of programming for this as the HQ site is unable to provide an extract / feed so something will have to scrape the site periodically to update my clubs persistence file. I'd like that to be automated - but I'm happy to have that triggered on a visit to the clubs page so I don't need to worry about scheduling a job. I would probably have a separate process that updates the persistence that has nothing to do with the rest of the site. Ideally I'd like to use Mercurial (or git) to publish, I know Bitbucket (and github) both serve static page sites so they wouldn't work in this scenario (dynamic pages and a contact form) but that's the model I'd like to use if there is such a thing. My requirements are: Simple templating system, 1 place to define header, footers, menu etc., that can be edited using just notepad. Very minimal / lightweight framework. I don't need a monster for 10 pages Must run either on IIS7 (shared Go Daddy Windows hosting) or other free host

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492  | Next Page >