normal mapping - Page 491

Implicit constructor available for all types derived from Base excepted the current type?

- by Vincent

The following code sum up my problem : template<class Parameter> class Base {}; template<class Parameter1, class Parameter2, class Parameter> class Derived1 : public Base<Parameter> { }; template<class Parameter1, class Parameter2, class Parameter> class Derived2 : public Base<Parameter> { public : // Copy constructor Derived2(const Derived2& x); // An EXPLICIT constructor that does a special conversion for a Derived2 // with other template parameters template<class OtherParameter1, class OtherParameter2, class OtherParameter> explicit Derived2( const Derived2<OtherParameter1, OtherParameter2, OtherParameter>& x ); // Now the problem : I want an IMPLICIT constructor that will work for every // type derived from Base EXCEPT // Derived2<OtherParameter1, OtherParameter2, OtherParameter> template<class Type, class = typename std::enable_if</* SOMETHING */>::type> Derived2(const Type& x); }; How to restrict an implicit constructor to all classes derived from the parent class excepted the current class whatever its template parameters, considering that I already have an explicit constructor as in the example code ? EDIT : For the implicit constructor from Base, I can obviously write : template<class OtherParameter> Derived2(const Base<OtherParameter>& x); But in that case, do I have the guaranty that the compiler will not use this constructor as an implicit constructor for Derived2<OtherParameter1, OtherParameter2, OtherParameter> ? EDIT2: Here I have a test : (LWS here : http://liveworkspace.org/code/cd423fb44fb4c97bc3b843732d837abc) #include <iostream> template<typename Type> class Base {}; template<typename Type> class Other : public Base<Type> {}; template<typename Type> class Derived : public Base<Type> { public: Derived() {std::cout<<"empty"<<std::endl;} Derived(const Derived<Type>& x) {std::cout<<"copy"<<std::endl;} template<typename OtherType> explicit Derived(const Derived<OtherType>& x) {std::cout<<"explicit"<<std::endl;} template<typename OtherType> Derived(const Base<OtherType>& x) {std::cout<<"implicit"<<std::endl;} }; int main() { Other<int> other0; Other<double> other1; std::cout<<"1 = "; Derived<int> dint1; // <- empty std::cout<<"2 = "; Derived<int> dint2; // <- empty std::cout<<"3 = "; Derived<double> ddouble; // <- empty std::cout<<"4 = "; Derived<double> ddouble1(ddouble); // <- copy std::cout<<"5 = "; Derived<double> ddouble2(dint1); // <- explicit std::cout<<"6 = "; ddouble = other0; // <- implicit std::cout<<"7 = "; ddouble = other1; // <- implicit std::cout<<"8 = "; ddouble = ddouble2; // <- nothing (normal : default assignment) std::cout<<"\n9 = "; ddouble = Derived<double>(dint1); // <- explicit std::cout<<"10 = "; ddouble = dint2; // <- implicit : WHY ?!?! return 0; } The last line worry me. Is it ok with the C++ standard ? Is it a bug of g++ ?

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How do would you use jQuery's .each() to apply the same script to each element with the same class?

- by derekmx271

I have a with multiple cart items listed. I have a "x-men logo" looking remove button that I want to fade-in next to the item when the customer hovers over a cart item. I had no issue getting this to work when there is only one item in the list. However, when there are multiple items in the cart, the jQuery operates funky. It still does the fade in, but only when I hover over the last item in the cart, and of course all of the "remove X" images become visible. Argh... So i searched around and think the .each() is my savior. I have been trying to get it to work, with no luck. My script just breaks when I attempt to implement it. Anyone have any pointers on this *.each() thing and how to implement it into my script?* I have tried putting a cartItem.each(function(){ around the mouseEnter/mouseLeave events (and used some $(this) selectors to make it "make sense") and that didn't do anything. Tried some other things as well with no luck... Here is the HTML (Sorry, there's a lot): <ul id="head-cart-items">  <li>  <div class="head-cart-item"> <div class="head-cart-img" style='background-image:url("/viewimageresize.asp?mh=50&mw=50&p=AFE&f=Air_Intakes_Magnum_FORCE_Stage-1_PRO_5R")'> </div> <div class="head-cart-desc"> <h3> <a href="/partdetails/AFE/Intakes/Air_Intakes/Magnum_FORCE_Stage-1_PRO_5R/19029">AFE Magnum FORCE Stage-1 PRO 5R Air Intakes</a> </h3> <span class="head-cart-qty">Qty: 1</span> <span class="head-cart-price">$195.00</span>  <a class="remove-x" href='/cart//7806887'> <img src="/images/misc/remove-x.png"> </a> </div> </div> </li>  <li>  <div class="head-cart-item"> <div class="head-cart-img" style='background-image:url("/viewimageresize.asp?mh=50&mw=50&p=Exedy&f=Clutch_Kits_Carbon-R")'> </div> <div class="head-cart-desc"> <h3> <a href="/partdetails/Exedy/Clutch/Clutch_Kits/Carbon-R/19684">Exedy Carbon-R Clutch Kits</a> </h3> <span class="head-cart-qty">Qty: 1</span> <span class="head-cart-price">$2,880.00</span>  <a class="remove-x" href='/cart//7806888'> <img src="/images/misc/remove-x.png"> </a> </div> </div> </li> </ul> And here is the jQuery... $(document).ready(function(){ var removeX = $(".remove-x"); var cartItem = $(".head-cart-item"); // Start with an invisible X removeX.fadeTo(0,0); // When hovering over Cart Item cartItem.mouseenter(function(){ // Fade the X to 100% removeX.fadeTo("normal",1); // On mouseout, fade it back to 0% $(this).mouseleave(function(){ removeX.fadeTo("fast",0); }); }); }); If you didn't see it, here is the "X" I am trying to fade...  <a class="remove-x" href='/cart//7806887'> <img src="/images/misc/remove-x.png"> </a> Thanks for the help in advance. You guys always rock my world on here. I need ya (can't go home til this is live... :(

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Simple prime number program - Weird issue with threads C#

- by Para

Hi! This is my code: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading; namespace FirePrime { class Program { static bool[] ThreadsFinished; static bool[] nums; static bool AllThreadsFinished() { bool allThreadsFinished = false; foreach (var threadFinished in ThreadsFinished) { allThreadsFinished &= threadFinished; } return allThreadsFinished; } static bool isPrime(int n) { if (n < 2) { return false; } if (n == 2) { return true; } if (n % 2 == 0) { return false; } int d = 3; while (d * d <= n) { if (n % d == 0) { return false; } d += 2; } return true; } static void MarkPrimes(int startNumber,int stopNumber,int ThreadNr) { for (int j = startNumber; j < stopNumber; j++) nums[j] = isPrime(j); lock (typeof(Program)) { ThreadsFinished[ThreadNr] = true; } } static void Main(string[] args) { int nrNums = 100; int nrThreads = 10; //var threadStartNums = new List<int>(); ThreadsFinished = new bool[nrThreads]; nums = new bool[nrNums]; //var nums = new List<bool>(); nums[0] = false; nums[1] = false; for(int i=2;i<nrNums;i++) nums[i] = true; int interval = (int)(nrNums / nrThreads); //threadStartNums.Add(2); //int aux = firstStartNum; //int i = 2; //while (aux < interval) //{ // aux = interval*i; // i=i+1; // threadStartNums.Add(aux); //} int startNum = 0; for (int i = 0; i < nrThreads; i++) { var _thread = new System.Threading.Thread(() => MarkPrimes(startNum, Math.Min(startNum + interval, nrNums), i)); startNum = startNum + interval; //set the thread to run in the background _thread.IsBackground = true; //start our thread _thread.Start(); } while (!AllThreadsFinished()) { Thread.Sleep(1); } for (int i = 0; i < nrNums; i++) if(nums[i]) Console.WriteLine(i); } } } This should be a pretty simple program that is supposed to find and output the first nrNums prime numbers using nrThreads threads working in parallel. So, I just split nrNums into nrThreads equal chunks (well, the last one won't be equal; if nrThreads doesn't divide by nrNums, it will also contain the remainder, of course). I start nrThreads threads. They all test each number in their respective chunk and see if it is prime or not; they mark everything out in a bool array that keeps a tab on all the primes. The threads all turn a specific element in another boolean array ThreadsFinished to true when they finish. Now the weird part begins: The threads never all end. If I debug, I find that ThreadNr is not what I assign to it in the loop but another value. I guess this is normal since the threads execute afterwards and the counter (the variable i) is already increased by then but I cannot understand how to make the code be right. Can anyone help? Thank you in advance. P.S.: I know the algorithm is not very efficient; I am aiming at a solution using the sieve of Eratosthenes also with x given threads. But for now I can't even get this one to work and I haven't found any examples of any implementations of that algorithm anywhere in a language that I can understand.

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CSS: Centering a floated block level element in IE6 (It almost works)

- by Louis W

I have a block level element which I am centering on the page. I have gotten it to work for all other browsers except IE6 where it ALMOST works. http://tinyurl.com/28sh9eq If I view the page in IE6 the red box is slightly off center of the pink one in IE. If I then resize the browser window it snaps into place where I want it. Uhhhhh.... yea.... what gives? How come resizing the window makes it work? I have also tried setting an explicit width on the wrapper with no avail. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"> <html> <head> <title></title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" /> <style type="text/css"> BODY { text-align: center; font-family: Arial; } .row_wrap { height: 100px; margin-bottom: 30px; background-color: pink; } .row { float: right; position: relative; left: -50%; text-align: left; clear: both; } .button1 { color: #FFF; height: 36px; text-decoration: none; position: relative; padding: 0 30px; background: url('button.gif') no-repeat 0 0; display: block; float: left; left: 50%; } .button1 .end { width: 20px; height: 37px; position: absolute; right: -2px; top: 0; background: url('button.gif') no-repeat right 0; } .button1 .text { font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; white-space: nowrap; height: 36px; padding-top: 7px; display: block; float: left; } .button1 .text .arrow { vertical-align: 1px; } </style> </head> <body> <h2>RTL: Button 1</h2> <div class="row_wrap"> <div class="row" dir="rtl"> <a href="#" class="button1"> <span class="end"></span> <span class="text"><span class="arrow">»</span> Hello 1.</span> </a> </div> </div> <h2>RTL: Button 1-2</h2> <div class="row_wrap" style="width: 400px;"> <div class="row" dir="rtl"> <a href="#" class="button1"> <span class="end"></span> <span class="text"><span class="arrow">»</span> Hello 1.</span> </a> </div> </div> <br/><br/> <h2>Normal: Button 1</h2> <div class="row_wrap"> <div class="row"> <a href="#" class="button1"> <span class="end"></span> <span class="text"><span class="arrow">»</span> Hello.</span> </a> </div> </div> </body> Thanks for your help.

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Symfony2 same form, different entities NOT related

- by user1381537

I'm trying to write one form for submitting against MySQL DB, but I can't get it working, I've tried a lot of things (separate forms, create an ->add('foo', new foo()) to a field, and trying to parse plain SQL with a normal HTML form is my only solution, which is obviously not the best. This is my DB structure: As you can see I need to insert the comments textarea to ticketcomments among the user who wrote it, etc. On crmentity the description field. Then on ticketcf the fields that I need to submit from form, are this (because you wont know if I don't tell you because of the field names): tcf.cf594 AS Type, tcf.cf675 AS Suscription, tcf.cf770 AS ID_PRODUCT, tcf.cf746 AS NotificationDate, tcf.cf747 AS ResponseDate, tcf.cf748 AS ResolutionDate, And, of course, every table needs to have the same ticketid id for the submitted form, so we can retrieve it with one simple query. It will be easy to do with plain SQL instead of using DQL and Symfony2 forms, but is not a good way to do it. Also, here's my "Ticket list" query, if you need it to have it more clear... SELECT t.ticketNo AS Ticket, t.title AS Asunto, t.status AS Estado, t.updateLog AS LOG, t.hours AS Horas, t.solution AS Solucion, t.priority AS Prioridad, tcf.cf594 AS Tipo, tcf.cf675 AS Suscripcion, tcf.cf770 AS IDPROD, tcf.cf746 AS F_Noti, tcf.cf747 AS F_Resp, tcf.cf748 AS F_Reso, CONCAT (cd.firstname, cd.lastname) AS Contacto, crm.description AS Descripcion, crm.crmid AS id FROM WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerTroubletickets t INNER JOIN WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerTicketcf tcf WITH t.ticketid = tcf.ticketid INNER JOIN WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerContactdetails cd WITH t.parentId = cd.contactid INNER JOIN WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerCrmentity crm WITH t.ticketid = crm.crmid WHERE t.parentId IN ( SELECT cd1.contactid FROM WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerContactdetails cd1 WHERE cd1.accountid = ( SELECT cd2.accountid FROM WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerContactdetails cd2 WHERE cd2.contactid = :contactid)) AND t.status <> \'Closed\' And also "Ticket details" query (which is not in DQL format yet, only SQL) is so simple, it only retrieve the comments field and createdtime from ticketcomments appended to this query so we have all the fields... Thank you. This is a test form, using troubletickets and ticketcomments, it's returning errores because I can't set a comments field because troubletickets doesn't has it, but I need that field to be submitted to ticketcomments ... VtigerTicketcommentsType <?php namespace WbsGo\clientsBundle\Form\Type; use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType, Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface; use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolverInterface; class VtigerTicketcommentsType extends AbstractType { public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) { $builder ->add('ticketid') ->add('comments') ->add('ownerid') ->add('ownertype') ->add('createdtype') ; } public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver) { $resolver->setDefaults(array( 'data_class' => 'WbsGo\clientsBundle\Entity\VtigerTicketcomments' )); } public function getName() { return 'comments'; } } OpenTicketType.php <?php namespace WbsGo\clientsBundle\Form; use Symfony\Component\Form\AbstractType, Symfony\Component\Form\FormBuilderInterface ; use WbsGo\clientsBundle\Form\Type\VtigerTicketcommentsType; use Symfony\Component\OptionsResolver\OptionsResolverInterface; class OpenTicketType extends AbstractType { public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) { $builder ->add('title') ->add('priority') ->add('solution') ->add('comments', 'collection', array( 'type' => new VtigerTicketcommentsType() )) ; } public function setDefaultOptions(OptionsResolverInterface $resolver) { $resolver->setDefaults(array( 'data_class' => 'WbsGo\clientsBundle\Entity\VtigerTroubletickets' )); } public function getName() { return 'ticket'; } } TicketController.php <?php namespace WbsGo\clientsBundle\Controller; use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller; use WbsGo\clientsBundle\Entity\VtigerTroubletickets; use WbsGo\clientsBundle\Entity\VtigerTicketcomments; use WbsGo\clientsBundle\Form\OpenTicketType; use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request; class TicketController extends Controller { public function indexAction() { $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager(); $tickets = $em ->getRepository('WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerTroubletickets') ->findAllOpenByCustomerId($this->getUser()->getId()); $userdata = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager() ->getRepository('WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerContactdetails') ->findContact($this->getUser()->getId()); return $this ->render('WbsGoclientsBundle:Ticket:index.html.twig', array('tickets' => $tickets, 'userdata' => $userdata)); } public function addAction() { $assets = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager() ->getRepository('WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerAssets') ->findAssetByAccountId($this->getUser()->getId()); $assetlist = array(); foreach ($assets as $key => $v) { $assetlist[$key] = $key; } $form = $this->createForm(new OpenTicketType(), new VtigerTroubletickets()); return $this ->render('WbsGoclientsBundle:Ticket:add.html.twig', array('form' => $form->createView(), 'assets' => $assets,)); } } This is the error Symfony2 is returning Neither the property "comments" nor one of the methods "getComments()", "isComments()", "hasComments()", "_get()" or "_call()" exist and have public access in class "WbsGo\clientsBundle\Entity\VtigerTroubletickets". EDIT 2 This code is actually rendering my forms, but I need help in order to submit each XXXType form to its corresponding table. public function buildForm(FormBuilderInterface $builder, array $options) { $builder ->add('descripcion') ->add('prioridad') ->add('solucion') ->add('comment', new VtigerTicketcommentsType() ) ->add('contacto') ->add('suscripcion') ->add('producto', 'entity', array( 'class' => 'WbsGo\clientsBundle\Entity\VtigerAssets', 'property' => 'assetname', 'empty_value' => '--SELECT--', 'query_builder' => function(\WbsGo\clientsBundle\Entity\VtigerAssetsRepository $repository) { //return $repository->findAssetByAccountId($this->customerId); return $repository->createQueryBuilder('a') ->select('a') ->where('a.account = (SELECT cd.accountid FROM WbsGoclientsBundle:VtigerContactdetails cd WHERE cd.contactid = ?1)') ->setParameter(1, $this->customerId); } ) ) ->add('hardware') ->add('backup') ->add('web') ->add('restore') ->add('customerId') ; } I also removed ->add('ticketid') from VtigerTicketcommentsType.php because it has relationship and is not needed. it's auto_incremental and must be generated once everything is submitted.

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Expand <div> tag to bottom of page with CSS

- by typoknig

Hi all, I know this question gets asked a lot because I have looked at many "solutions" trying to get this to work for me. I can get it to work if I hack up the html but I want to use all CSS. All I want is a header with two columns below it, and I want these three items to fill the entire page/screen, and I want to do it with CSS and without frames or tables. The XAMPP user interface looks exactly how I want my page to look, but again, I do not want to use frames. I cannot get the two orangeish colored columns to extend to the bottom of the screen. I do have it so it looks like the right column extends to the bottom of the screen just by changing the body background color to the same color as the background color of the right column, but I would like both columns to extend to the bottom so I didn't have to do that. Here is what I have so far: HTML <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html dir="ltr" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>MY SITE</title> <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" /> <link href="stylesheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="container"> <div id="masthead"> MY SITE</div> <div id="left_col"> Employee Management<br /> <a href="Employee%20Management.php">Add New Employee</a><br /> <a href="Employee%20Management.php">Edit Existing Employee</a><br /> <br/> Load Management<br /> <a href="Load%20Management.php">Log New Load</a><br /> <a href="Load%20Management.php">Edit Existing Load</a><br /> <br/> Report Management<br /> <a href="Report%20Management.php">Employee Report</a><br /> <a href="Report%20Management.php">Load Report</a></div> <div id="page_content"> <div id="page_content_heading">Welcome!</div> Lots of words</div> </div> </body> </html> CSS #masthead { background-color:#FFFFFF; font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:xx-large; font-weight:bold; padding:30px; text-align:center; } #container { min-width: 600px; min-height: 100%; } #left_col { padding: 10px; background-color: #339933; float: left; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: bold; width: 210px; } #page_content { background-color: #CCCCCC; margin-left: 230px; padding: 20px; } #page_content_heading { font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:large; font-weight:bold; padding-bottom:10px; padding-top:10px; } a { color:#0000FF; font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:medium; font-weight:normal; } a:hover { color:#FF0000; } html, body { height: 100%; padding: 0; margin: 0; background-color: #CCCCCC; }

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Wierd characters in exported csv files when converting

- by Ahue

Hey guys, I came across a problem I cannot solve on my own concerning the downloadable csv formatted trends data files from Google Insights for Search. I'm to lazy to reformat the files I4S gives me manually what means: Extracting the section with the actual trends data and reformatting the columns so that I can use it with a modelling program I do for school. So I wrote a tiny script the should do the work for me: Taking a file, do some magic and give me a new file in proper format. What it's supposed to do is reading the file contents, extracting the trends section, splitting it by newlines, splitting each line and then reorder the columns and maybe reformat them. When looking at a untouched I4S csv file it looks normal containing CR LF caracters at line breaks (maybe thats only because I'm using Windows). When just reading the contents and then writing them to a new file using the script wierd asian characters appear between CR and LF. I tried the script with a manually written similar looking file and even tried a csv file from Google Trends and it works fine. I use Python and the script (snippet) I used for the following example looks like this: # Read from an input file file = open(file,"r") contents = file.read() file.close() cfile = open("m.log","w+") cfile.write(contents) cfile.close() Has anybody an idea why those characters appear??? Thank you for you help! I'll give you and example: First few lines of I4S csv file: Web Search Interest: foobar Worldwide; 2004 - present Interest over time Week foobar 2004-01-04 - 2004-01-10 44 2004-01-11 - 2004-01-17 44 2004-01-18 - 2004-01-24 37 2004-01-25 - 2004-01-31 40 2004-02-01 - 2004-02-07 49 2004-02-08 - 2004-02-14 51 2004-02-15 - 2004-02-21 45 2004-02-22 - 2004-02-28 61 2004-02-29 - 2004-03-06 51 2004-03-07 - 2004-03-13 48 2004-03-14 - 2004-03-20 50 2004-03-21 - 2004-03-27 56 2004-03-28 - 2004-04-03 59 Output file when reading and writing contents: Web Search Interest: foobar ??????????? ? ? ? ????????? ????????? ???? ?????? Week foobar ?? ?? ?? ? ? ? ?? ??? ????? 2004-01-11 - 2004-01-17 44 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ????????? 2004-01-25 - 2004-01-31 40 ?? ?? ?? ? ? ? ?? ?? ?????? 2004-02-08 - 2004-02-14 51 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ????????? 2004-02-22 - 2004-02-28 61 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ?? ?????? 2004-03-07 - 2004-03-13 48 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ??? ?? ?? 2004-03-21 - 2004-03-27 56 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ?? ?????? 2004-04-04 - 2004-04-10 69 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ????????? 2004-04-18 - 2004-04-24 51 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ?? ?????? 2004-05-02 - 2004-05-08 56 ?? ?? ?? ? ? ? ?? ????????? 2004-05-16 - 2004-05-22 54 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ????????? 2004-05-30 - 2004-06-05 74 ?? ?? ?? ? ? ? ?? ????????? 2004-06-13 - 2004-06-19 50 ?? ?? ??? ? ? ?? ????????? 2004-06-27 - 2004-07-03 58 ?? ?? ?? ? ? ? ?? ??? ????? 2004-07-11 - 2004-07-17 59 ?? ?? ???? ? ? ?? ?????????

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ASP.Net MVC 2 Auto Complete Textbox With Custom View Model Attribute & EditorTemplate

- by SeanMcAlinden

In this post I’m going to show how to create a generic, ajax driven Auto Complete text box using the new MVC 2 Templates and the jQuery UI library. The template will be automatically displayed when a property is decorated with a custom attribute within the view model. The AutoComplete text box in action will look like the following: The first thing to do is to do is visit my previous blog post to put the custom model metadata provider in place, this is necessary when using custom attributes on the view model. http://weblogs.asp.net/seanmcalinden/archive/2010/06/11/custom-asp-net-mvc-2-modelmetadataprovider-for-using-custom-view-model-attributes.aspx Once this is in place, make sure you visit the jQuery UI and download the latest stable release – in this example I’m using version 1.8.2. You can download it here. Add the jQuery scripts and css theme to your project and add references to them in your master page. Should look something like the following: Site.Master <head runat="server"> <title><asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="TitleContent" runat="server" /></title> <link href="../../Content/Site.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="../../css/ui-lightness/jquery-ui-1.8.2.custom.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script src="../../Scripts/jquery-1.4.2.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="../../Scripts/jquery-ui-1.8.2.custom.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> Once this is place we can get started. Creating the AutoComplete Custom Attribute The auto complete attribute will derive from the abstract MetadataAttribute created in my previous post. It will look like the following: AutoCompleteAttribute using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Web.Mvc; using System.Web.Routing; namespace Mvc2Templates.Attributes { public class AutoCompleteAttribute : MetadataAttribute { public RouteValueDictionary RouteValueDictionary; public AutoCompleteAttribute(string controller, string action, string parameterName) { this.RouteValueDictionary = new RouteValueDictionary(); this.RouteValueDictionary.Add("Controller", controller); this.RouteValueDictionary.Add("Action", action); this.RouteValueDictionary.Add(parameterName, string.Empty); } public override void Process(ModelMetadata modelMetaData) { modelMetaData.AdditionalValues.Add("AutoCompleteUrlData", this.RouteValueDictionary); modelMetaData.TemplateHint = "AutoComplete"; } } } As you can see, the constructor takes in strings for the controller, action and parameter name. The parameter name will be used for passing the search text within the auto complete text box. The constructor then creates a new RouteValueDictionary which we will use later to construct the url for getting the auto complete results via ajax. The main interesting method is the method override called Process. With the process method, the route value dictionary is added to the modelMetaData AdditionalValues collection. The TemplateHint is also set to AutoComplete, this means that when the view model is parsed for display, the MVC 2 framework will look for a view user control template called AutoComplete, if it finds one, it uses that template to display the property. The View Model To show you how the attribute will look, this is the view model I have used in my example which can be downloaded at the end of this post. View Model using System.ComponentModel; using Mvc2Templates.Attributes; namespace Mvc2Templates.Models { public class TemplateDemoViewModel { [AutoComplete("Home", "AutoCompleteResult", "searchText")] [DisplayName("European Country Search")] public string SearchText { get; set; } } } As you can see, the auto complete attribute is called with the controller name, action name and the name of the action parameter that the search text will be passed into. The AutoComplete Template Now all of this is in place, it’s time to create the AutoComplete template. Create a ViewUserControl called AutoComplete.ascx at the following location within your application – Views/Shared/EditorTemplates/AutoComplete.ascx Add the following code: AutoComplete.ascx <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> <% var propertyName = ViewData.ModelMetadata.PropertyName; var propertyValue = ViewData.ModelMetadata.Model; var id = Guid.NewGuid().ToString(); RouteValueDictionary urlData = (RouteValueDictionary)ViewData.ModelMetadata.AdditionalValues.Where(x => x.Key == "AutoCompleteUrlData").Single().Value; var url = Mvc2Templates.Views.Shared.Helpers.RouteHelper.GetUrl(this.ViewContext.RequestContext, urlData); %> <input type="text" name="<%= propertyName %>" value="<%= propertyValue %>" id="<%= id %>" class="autoComplete" /> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function () { $("#<%= id %>").autocomplete({ source: function (request, response) { $.ajax({ url: "<%= url %>" + request.term, dataType: "json", success: function (data) { response(data); } }); }, minLength: 2 }); }); </script> There is a lot going on in here but when you break it down it’s quite simple. Firstly, the property name and property value are retrieved through the model meta data. These are required to ensure that the text box input has the correct name and data to allow for model binding. If you look at line 14 you can see them being used in the text box input creation. The interesting bit is on line 8 and 9, this is the code to retrieve the route value dictionary we added into the model metada via the custom attribute. Line 11 is used to create the url, in order to do this I created a quick helper class which looks like the code below titled RouteHelper. The last bit of script is the code to initialise the jQuery UI AutoComplete control with the correct url for calling back to our controller action. RouteHelper using System.Web.Mvc; using System.Web.Routing; namespace Mvc2Templates.Views.Shared.Helpers { public static class RouteHelper { const string Controller = "Controller"; const string Action = "Action"; const string ReplaceFormatString = "REPLACE{0}"; public static string GetUrl(RequestContext requestContext, RouteValueDictionary routeValueDictionary) { RouteValueDictionary urlData = new RouteValueDictionary(); UrlHelper urlHelper = new UrlHelper(requestContext); int i = 0; foreach(var item in routeValueDictionary) { if (item.Value == string.Empty) { i++; urlData.Add(item.Key, string.Format(ReplaceFormatString, i.ToString())); } else { urlData.Add(item.Key, item.Value); } } var url = urlHelper.RouteUrl(urlData); for (int index = 1; index <= i; index++) { url = url.Replace(string.Format(ReplaceFormatString, index.ToString()), string.Empty); } return url; } } } See it in action All you need to do to see it in action is pass a view model from your controller with the new AutoComplete attribute attached and call the following within your view: <%= this.Html.EditorForModel() %> NOTE: The jQuery UI auto complete control expects a JSON string returned from your controller action method… as you can’t use the JsonResult to perform GET requests, use a normal action result, convert your data into json and return it as a string via a ContentResult. If you download the solution it will be very clear how to handle the controller and action for this demo. The full source code for this post can be downloaded here. It has been developed using MVC 2 and Visual Studio 2010. As always, I hope this has been interesting/useful. Kind Regards, Sean McAlinden.

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Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

- by mbcrump

Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created. Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands. For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

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Metro: Declarative Data Binding

- by Stephen.Walther

The goal of this blog post is to describe how declarative data binding works in the WinJS library. In particular, you learn how to use both the data-win-bind and data-win-bindsource attributes. You also learn how to use calculated properties and converters to format the value of a property automatically when performing data binding. By taking advantage of WinJS data binding, you can use the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) pattern when building Metro style applications with JavaScript. By using the MVVM pattern, you can prevent your JavaScript code from spinning into chaos. The MVVM pattern provides you with a standard pattern for organizing your JavaScript code which results in a more maintainable application. Using Declarative Bindings You can use the data-win-bind attribute with any HTML element in a page. The data-win-bind attribute enables you to bind (associate) an attribute of an HTML element to the value of a property. Imagine, for example, that you want to create a product details page. You want to show a product object in a page. In that case, you can create the following HTML page to display the product details: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title>  <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script>  <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Product Details</h1> <div class="field"> Product Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Product Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Product Picture: <br /> <img data-win-bind="src:photo;alt:name" /> </div> </body> </html> The HTML page above contains three data-win-bind attributes – one attribute for each product property displayed. You use the data-win-bind attribute to set properties of the HTML element associated with the data-win-attribute. The data-win-bind attribute takes a semicolon delimited list of element property names and data source property names: data-win-bind=”elementPropertyName:datasourcePropertyName; elementPropertyName:datasourcePropertyName;…” In the HTML page above, the first two data-win-bind attributes are used to set the values of the innerText property of the SPAN elements. The last data-win-bind attribute is used to set the values of the IMG element’s src and alt attributes. By the way, using data-win-bind attributes is perfectly valid HTML5. The HTML5 standard enables you to add custom attributes to an HTML document just as long as the custom attributes start with the prefix data-. So you can add custom attributes to an HTML5 document with names like data-stephen, data-funky, or data-rover-dog-is-hungry and your document will validate. The product object displayed in the page above with the data-win-bind attributes is created in the default.js file: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var product = { name: "Tesla", price: 80000, photo: "/images/TeslaPhoto.png" }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, product); } }; app.start(); })(); In the code above, a product object is created with a name, price, and photo property. The WinJS.Binding.processAll() method is called to perform the actual binding (Don’t confuse WinJS.Binding.processAll() and WinJS.UI.processAll() – these are different methods). The first parameter passed to the processAll() method represents the root element for the binding. In other words, binding happens on this element and its child elements. If you provide the value null, then binding happens on the entire body of the document (document.body). The second parameter represents the data context. This is the object that has the properties which are displayed with the data-win-bind attributes. In the code above, the product object is passed as the data context parameter. Another word for data context is view model. Creating Complex View Models In the previous section, we used the data-win-bind attribute to display the properties of a simple object: a single product. However, you can use binding with more complex view models including view models which represent multiple objects. For example, the view model in the following default.js file represents both a customer and a product object. Furthermore, the customer object has a nested address object: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var viewModel = { customer: { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone", address: { street: "1 Rocky Way", city: "Bedrock", country: "USA" } }, product: { name: "Bowling Ball", price: 34.55 } }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, viewModel); } }; app.start(); })(); The following page displays the customer (including the customer address) and the product. Notice that you can use dot notation to refer to child objects in a view model such as customer.address.street. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title>  <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script>  <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Customer Details</h1> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.lastName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Address: <address> <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.address.street"></span> <br /> <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.address.city"></span> <br /> <span data-win-bind="innerText:customer.address.country"></span> </address> </div> <h1>Product</h1> <div class="field"> Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:product.name"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:product.price"></span> </div> </body> </html> A view model can be as complicated as you need and you can bind the view model to a view (an HTML document) by using declarative bindings. Creating Calculated Properties You might want to modify a property before displaying the property. For example, you might want to format the product price property before displaying the property. You don’t want to display the raw product price “80000”. Instead, you want to display the formatted price “$80,000”. You also might need to combine multiple properties. For example, you might need to display the customer full name by combining the values of the customer first and last name properties. In these situations, it is tempting to call a function when performing binding. For example, you could create a function named fullName() which concatenates the customer first and last name. Unfortunately, the WinJS library does not support the following syntax: <span data-win-bind=”innerText:fullName()”></span> Instead, in these situations, you should create a new property in your view model that has a getter. For example, the customer object in the following default.js file includes a property named fullName which combines the values of the firstName and lastName properties: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var customer = { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone", get fullName() { return this.firstName + " " + this.lastName; } }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, customer); } }; app.start(); })(); The customer object has a firstName, lastName, and fullName property. Notice that the fullName property is defined with a getter function. When you read the fullName property, the values of the firstName and lastName properties are concatenated and returned. The following HTML page displays the fullName property in an H1 element. You can use the fullName property in a data-win-bind attribute in exactly the same way as any other property. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title>  <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script>  <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1 data-win-bind="innerText:fullName"></h1> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:lastName"></span> </div> </body> </html> Creating a Converter In the previous section, you learned how to format the value of a property by creating a property with a getter. This approach makes sense when the formatting logic is specific to a particular view model. If, on the other hand, you need to perform the same type of formatting for multiple view models then it makes more sense to create a converter function. A converter function is a function which you can apply whenever you are using the data-win-bind attribute. Imagine, for example, that you want to create a general function for displaying dates. You always want to display dates using a short format such as 12/25/1988. The following JavaScript file – named converters.js – contains a shortDate() converter: (function (WinJS) { var shortDate = WinJS.Binding.converter(function (date) { return date.getMonth() + 1 + "/" + date.getDate() + "/" + date.getFullYear(); }); // Export shortDate WinJS.Namespace.define("MyApp.Converters", { shortDate: shortDate }); })(WinJS); The file above uses the Module Pattern, a pattern which is used through the WinJS library. To learn more about the Module Pattern, see my blog entry on namespaces and modules: http://stephenwalther.com/blog/archive/2012/02/22/windows-web-applications-namespaces-and-modules.aspx The file contains the definition for a converter function named shortDate(). This function converts a JavaScript date object into a short date string such as 12/1/1988. The converter function is created with the help of the WinJS.Binding.converter() method. This method takes a normal function and converts it into a converter function. Finally, the shortDate() converter is added to the MyApp.Converters namespace. You can call the shortDate() function by calling MyApp.Converters.shortDate(). The default.js file contains the customer object that we want to bind. Notice that the customer object has a firstName, lastName, and birthday property. We will use our new shortDate() converter when displaying the customer birthday property: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { var customer = { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone", birthday: new Date("12/1/1988") }; WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, customer); } }; app.start(); })(); We actually use our shortDate converter in the HTML document. The following HTML document displays all of the customer properties: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title>  <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script>  <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="js/converters.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Customer Details</h1> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:lastName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Birthday: <span data-win-bind="innerText:birthday MyApp.Converters.shortDate"></span> </div> </body> </html> Notice the data-win-bind attribute used to display the birthday property. It looks like this: <span data-win-bind="innerText:birthday MyApp.Converters.shortDate"></span> The shortDate converter is applied to the birthday property when the birthday property is bound to the SPAN element’s innerText property. Using data-win-bindsource Normally, you pass the view model (the data context) which you want to use with the data-win-bind attributes in a page by passing the view model to the WinJS.Binding.processAll() method like this: WinJS.Binding.processAll(null, viewModel); As an alternative, you can specify the view model declaratively in your markup by using the data-win-datasource attribute. For example, the following default.js script exposes a view model with the fully-qualified name of MyWinWebApp.viewModel: (function () { "use strict"; var app = WinJS.Application; app.onactivated = function (eventObject) { if (eventObject.detail.kind === Windows.ApplicationModel.Activation.ActivationKind.launch) { // Create view model var viewModel = { customer: { firstName: "Fred", lastName: "Flintstone" }, product: { name: "Bowling Ball", price: 12.99 } }; // Export view model to be seen by universe WinJS.Namespace.define("MyWinWebApp", { viewModel: viewModel }); // Process data-win-bind attributes WinJS.Binding.processAll(); } }; app.start(); })(); In the code above, a view model which represents a customer and a product is exposed as MyWinWebApp.viewModel. The following HTML page illustrates how you can use the data-win-bindsource attribute to bind to this view model: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Application1</title>  <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.0.6/js/ui.js"></script>  <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet"> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <h1>Customer Details</h1> <div data-win-bindsource="MyWinWebApp.viewModel.customer"> <div class="field"> First Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:firstName"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Last Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:lastName"></span> </div> </div> <h1>Product</h1> <div data-win-bindsource="MyWinWebApp.viewModel.product"> <div class="field"> Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> <div class="field"> Price: <span data-win-bind="innerText:price"></span> </div> </div> </body> </html> The data-win-bindsource attribute is used twice in the page above: it is used with the DIV element which contains the customer details and it is used with the DIV element which contains the product details. If an element has a data-win-bindsource attribute then all of the child elements of that element are affected. The data-win-bind attributes of all of the child elements are bound to the data source represented by the data-win-bindsource attribute. Summary The focus of this blog entry was data binding using the WinJS library. You learned how to use the data-win-bind attribute to bind the properties of an HTML element to a view model. We also discussed several advanced features of data binding. We examined how to create calculated properties by including a property with a getter in your view model. We also discussed how you can create a converter function to format the value of a view model property when binding the property. Finally, you learned how to use the data-win-bindsource attribute to specify a view model declaratively.

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Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

- by raul.goycoolea

@font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Abstract Reference architecture provides needed architectural information that can be provided in advance to an enterprise to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps business owners to actualize their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. It evaluates the IT systems, based on Reference Architecture goals, principles, and standards. It helps to reduce IT costs by increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc. Telecom Reference Architecture provides customers with the flexibility to view bundled service bills online with the provision of multiple services. It provides real-time, flexible billing and charging systems, to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Enterprises. It lays the foundation for a Telecom Reference Architecture by articulating the requirements, drivers, and pitfalls for telecom service providers. It describes generic reference architecture for telecom enterprises and moves on to explain how to achieve Enterprise Reference Architecture by using SOA. Introduction A Reference Architecture provides a methodology, set of practices, template, and standards based on a set of successful solutions implemented earlier. These solutions have been generalized and structured for the depiction of both a logical and a physical architecture, based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that describe observations in a number of successful implementations. It helps as a reference for the various architectures that an enterprise can implement to solve various problems. It can be used as the starting point or the point of comparisons for various departments/business entities of a company, or for the various companies for an enterprise. It provides multiple views for multiple stakeholders. Major artifacts of the Enterprise Reference Architecture are methodologies, standards, metadata, documents, design patterns, etc. Purpose of Reference Architecture In most cases, architects spend a lot of time researching, investigating, defining, and re-arguing architectural decisions. It is like reinventing the wheel as their peers in other organizations or even the same organization have already spent a lot of time and effort defining their own architectural practices. This prevents an organization from learning from its own experiences and applying that knowledge for increased effectiveness. Reference architecture provides missing architectural information that can be provided in advance to project team members to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps an enterprise to achieve the following at the abstract level: · Reference architecture is more of a communication channel to an enterprise · Helps the business owners to accommodate to their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. · Evaluates the IT systems based on Reference Architecture Principles · Reduces IT spending through increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc · A Real-time Integration Model helps to reduce the latency of the data updates Is used to define a single source of Information · Provides a clear view on how to manage information and security · Defines the policy around the data ownership, product boundaries, etc. · Helps with cost optimization across project and solution portfolios by eliminating unused or duplicate investments and assets · Has a shorter implementation time and cost Once the reference architecture is in place, the set of architectural principles, standards, reference models, and best practices ensure that the aligned investments have the greatest possible likelihood of success in both the near term and the long term (TCO). Common pitfalls for Telecom Service Providers Telecom Reference Architecture serves as the first step towards maturity for a telecom service provider. During the course of our assignments/experiences with telecom players, we have come across the following observations – Some of these indicate a lack of maturity of the telecom service provider: · In markets that are growing and not so mature, it has been observed that telcos have a significant amount of in-house or home-grown applications. In some of these markets, the growth has been so rapid that IT has been unable to cope with business demands. Telcos have shown a tendency to come up with workarounds in their IT applications so as to meet business needs. · Even for core functions like provisioning or mediation, some telcos have tried to manage with home-grown applications. · Most of the applications do not have the required scalability or maintainability to sustain growth in volumes or functionality. · Applications face interoperability issues with other applications in the operator's landscape. Integrating a new application or network element requires considerable effort on the part of the other applications. · Application boundaries are not clear, and functionality that is not in the initial scope of that application gets pushed onto it. This results in the development of the multiple, small applications without proper boundaries. · Usage of Legacy OSS/BSS systems, poor Integration across Multiple COTS Products and Internal Systems. Most of the Integrations are developed on ad-hoc basis and Point-to-Point Integration. · Redundancy of the business functions in different applications • Fragmented data across the different applications and no integrated view of the strategic data • Lot of performance Issues due to the usage of the complex integration across OSS and BSS systems However, this is where the maturity of the telecom industry as a whole can be of help. The collaborative efforts of telcos to overcome some of these problems have resulted in bodies like the TM Forum. They have come up with frameworks for business processes, data, applications, and technology for telecom service providers. These could be a good starting point for telcos to clean up their enterprise landscape. Industry Trends in Telecom Reference Architecture Telecom reference architectures are evolving rapidly because telcos are facing business and IT challenges. “The reality is that there probably is no killer application, no silver bullet that the telcos can latch onto to carry them into a 21st Century.... Instead, there are probably hundreds – perhaps thousands – of niche applications.... And the only way to find which of these works for you is to try out lots of them, ramp up the ones that work, and discontinue the ones that fail.” – Martin Creaner President & CTO TM Forum. The following trends have been observed in telecom reference architecture: · Transformation of business structures to align with customer requirements · Adoption of more Internet-like technical architectures. The Web 2.0 concept is increasingly being used. · Virtualization of the traditional operations support system (OSS) · Adoption of SOA to support development of IP-based services · Adoption of frameworks like Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and IP Multimedia Subsystem · (IMS) to enable seamless deployment of various services over fixed and mobile networks · Replacement of in-house, customized, and stove-piped OSS/BSS with standards-based COTS products · Compliance with industry standards and frameworks like eTOM, SID, and TAM to enable seamless integration with other standards-based products Drivers of Reference Architecture The drivers of the Reference Architecture are Reference Architecture Goals, Principles, and Enterprise Vision and Telecom Transformation. The details are depicted below diagram. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Figure 1. Drivers for Reference Architecture @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Today’s telecom reference architectures should seamlessly integrate traditional legacy-based applications and transition to next-generation network technologies (e.g., IP multimedia subsystems). This has resulted in new requirements for flexible, real-time billing and OSS/BSS systems and implications on the service provider’s organizational requirements and structure. Telecom reference architectures are today expected to: · Integrate voice, messaging, email and other VAS over fixed and mobile networks, back end systems · Be able to provision multiple services and service bundles • Deliver converged voice, video and data services · Leverage the existing Network Infrastructure · Provide real-time, flexible billing and charging systems to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. · Support charging of advanced data services such as VoIP, On-Demand, Services (e.g. Video), IMS/SIP Services, Mobile Money, Content Services and IPTV. · Help in faster deployment of new services • Serve as an effective platform for collaboration between network IT and business organizations · Harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP) · Ensure better service delivery and zero revenue leakage through real-time balance and credit management · Lower operating costs to drive profitability Enterprise Reference Architecture The Enterprise Reference Architecture (RA) fills the gap between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the reference model and the implementation. Reference architecture provides detailed architectural information in a common format such that solutions can be repeatedly designed and deployed in a consistent, high-quality, supportable fashion. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Application Usage and how to achieve the Enterprise Level Reference Architecture using SOA. • Telecom Reference Architecture • Enterprise SOA based Reference Architecture Telecom Reference Architecture Tele Management Forum’s New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) is an architectural framework for organizing, integrating, and implementing telecom systems. NGOSS is a component-based framework consisting of the following elements: · The enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) is a business process framework. · The Shared Information Data (SID) model provides a comprehensive information framework that may be specialized for the needs of a particular organization. · The Telecom Application Map (TAM) is an application framework to depict the functional footprint of applications, relative to the horizontal processes within eTOM. · The Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) is an integrated framework. TNA is an architecture that is sustainable through technology changes. NGOSS Architecture Standards are: · Centralized data · Loosely coupled distributed systems · Application components/re-use · A technology-neutral system framework with technology specific implementations · Interoperability to service provider data/processes · Allows more re-use of business components across multiple business scenarios · Workflow automation The traditional operator systems architecture consists of four layers, · Business Support System (BSS) layer, with focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information. · Operations Support System (OSS) layer, built around product, service, and resource inventories. · Networks layer – consists of Network elements and 3rd Party Systems. · Integration Layer – to maximize application communication and overall solution flexibility. Reference architecture for telecom enterprises is depicted below. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 2. Telecom Reference Architecture The major building blocks of any Telecom Service Provider architecture are as follows: 1. Customer Relationship Management CRM encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer: customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, and service activation, customer care and support, proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell, and retention/loyalty. CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its application to personalize, customize, and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise. The key functionalities related to Customer Relationship Management are · Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for products. · Create and manage customer profiles. · Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, requests, and responses. · Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits through Middleware. · Work with Order Management System, Product, and Service Management components within CRM. · Manage customer preferences – Involve all the touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers, self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile device, chat, email, SMS, mail, the customer's bill, etc.). · Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions. CRM applications interact with customers through customer touch points like portals, point-of-sale terminals, interactive voice response systems, etc. The requests by customers are sent via fulfillment/provisioning to billing system for ordering processing. 2. Billing and Revenue Management Billing and Revenue Management handles the collection of appropriate usage records and production of timely and accurate bills – for providing pre-bill usage information and billing to customers; for processing their payments; and for performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status, and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services. The key functionalities provided by these applications are · To ensure that enterprise revenue is billed and invoices delivered appropriately to customers. · To manage customers’ billing accounts, process their payments, perform payment collections, and monitor the status of the account balance. · To ensure the timely and effective fulfillment of all customer bill inquiries and complaints. · Collect the usage records from mediation and ensure appropriate rating and discounting of all usage and pricing. · Support revenue sharing; split charging where usage is guided to an account different from the service consumer. · Support prepaid and post-paid rating. · Send notification on approach / exceeding the usage thresholds as enforced by the subscribed offer, and / or as setup by the customer. · Support prepaid, post paid, and hybrid (where some services are prepaid and the rest of the services post paid) customers and conversion from post paid to prepaid, and vice versa. · Support different billing function requirements like charge prorating, promotion, discount, adjustment, waiver, write-off, account receivable, GL Interface, late payment fee, credit control, dunning, account or service suspension, re-activation, expiry, termination, contract violation penalty, etc. · Initiate direct debit to collect payment against an invoice outstanding. · Send notification to Middleware on different events; for example, payment receipt, pre-suspension, threshold exceed, etc. Billing systems typically get usage data from mediation systems for rating and billing. They get provisioning requests from order management systems and inquiries from CRM systems. Convergent and real-time billing systems can directly get usage details from network elements. 3. Mediation Mediation systems transform/translate the Raw or Native Usage Data Records into a general format that is acceptable to billing for their rating purposes. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Mediation system in the end-to-end solution. · Collect Usage Data Records from different data sources – like network elements, routers, servers – via different protocol and interfaces. · Process Usage Data Records – Mediation will process Usage Data Records as per the source format. · Validate Usage Data Records from each source. · Segregates Usage Data Records coming from each source to multiple, based on the segregation requirement of end Application. · Aggregates Usage Data Records based on the aggregation rule if any from different sources. · Consolidates multiple Usage Data Records from each source. · Delivers formatted Usage Data Records to different end application like Billing, Interconnect, Fraud Management, etc. · Generates audit trail for incoming Usage Data Records and keeps track of all the Usage Data Records at various stages of mediation process. · Checks duplicate Usage Data Records across files for a given time window. 4. Fulfillment This area is responsible for providing customers with their requested products in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution that can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, and ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer. These processes are responsible for accepting and issuing orders. They deal with pre-order feasibility determination, credit authorization, order issuance, order status and tracking, customer update on customer order activities, and customer notification on order completion. Order management and provisioning applications fall into this category. The key functionalities provided by these applications are · Issuing new customer orders, modifying open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders; · Verifying whether specific non-standard offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable; · Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process; · Testing the completed offering to ensure it is working correctly; · Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled; · Assigning and tracking customer provisioning activities; · Managing customer provisioning jeopardy conditions; and · Reporting progress on customer orders and other processes to customer. These applications typically get orders from CRM systems. They interact with network elements and billing systems for fulfillment of orders. 5. Enterprise Management This process area includes those processes that manage enterprise-wide activities and needs, or have application within the enterprise as a whole. They encompass all business management processes that · Are necessary to support the whole of the enterprise, including processes for financial management, legal management, regulatory management, process, cost, and quality management, etc.; · Are responsible for setting corporate policies, strategies, and directions, and for providing guidelines and targets for the whole of the business, including strategy development and planning for areas, such as Enterprise Architecture, that are integral to the direction and development of the business; · Occur throughout the enterprise, including processes for project management, performance assessments, cost assessments, etc. (i) Enterprise Risk Management: Enterprise Risk Management focuses on assuring that risks and threats to the enterprise value and/or reputation are identified, and appropriate controls are in place to minimize or eliminate the identified risks. The identified risks may be physical or logical/virtual. Successful risk management ensures that the enterprise can support its mission critical operations, processes, applications, and communications in the face of serious incidents such as security threats/violations and fraud attempts. Two key areas covered in Risk Management by telecom operators are: · Revenue Assurance: Revenue assurance system will be responsible for identifying revenue loss scenarios across components/systems, and will help in rectifying the problems. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Revenue Assurance system in the end-to-end solution. o Identify all usage information dropped when networks are being upgraded. o Interconnect bill verification. o Identify where services are routinely provisioned but never billed. o Identify poor sales policies that are intensifying collections problems. o Find leakage where usage is sent to error bucket and never billed for. o Find leakage where field service, CRM, and network build-out are not optimized. · Fraud Management: Involves collecting data from different systems to identify abnormalities in traffic patterns, usage patterns, and subscription patterns to report suspicious activity that might suggest fraudulent usage of resources, resulting in revenue losses to the operator. The key roles and responsibilities of the system component are as follows: o Fraud management system will capture and monitor high usage (over a certain threshold) in terms of duration, value, and number of calls for each subscriber. The threshold for each subscriber is decided by the system and fixed automatically. o Fraud management will be able to detect the unauthorized access to services for certain subscribers. These subscribers may have been provided unauthorized services by employees. The component will raise the alert to the operator the very first time of such illegal calls or calls which are not billed. o The solution will be to have an alarm management system that will deliver alarms to the operator/provider whenever it detects a fraud, thus minimizing fraud by catching it the first time it occurs. o The Fraud Management system will be capable of interfacing with switches, mediation systems, and billing systems (ii) Knowledge Management This process focuses on knowledge management, technology research within the enterprise, and the evaluation of potential technology acquisitions. Key responsibilities of knowledge base management are to · Maintain knowledge base – Creation and updating of knowledge base on ongoing basis. · Search knowledge base – Search of knowledge base on keywords or category browse · Maintain metadata – Management of metadata on knowledge base to ensure effective management and search. · Run report generator. · Provide content – Add content to the knowledge base, e.g., user guides, operational manual, etc. (iii) Document Management It focuses on maintaining a repository of all electronic documents or images of paper documents relevant to the enterprise using a system. (iv) Data Management It manages data as a valuable resource for any enterprise. For telecom enterprises, the typical areas covered are Master Data Management, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence. It is also responsible for data governance, security, quality, and database management. Key responsibilities of Data Management are · Using ETL, extract the data from CRM, Billing, web content, ERP, campaign management, financial, network operations, asset management info, customer contact data, customer measures, benchmarks, process data, e.g., process inputs, outputs, and measures, into Enterprise Data Warehouse. · Management of data traceability with source, data related business rules/decisions, data quality, data cleansing data reconciliation, competitors data – storage for all the enterprise data (customer profiles, products, offers, revenues, etc.) · Get online update through night time replication or physical backup process at regular frequency. · Provide the data access to business intelligence and other systems for their analysis, report generation, and use. (v) Business Intelligence It uses the Enterprise Data to provide the various analysis and reports that contain prospects and analytics for customer retention, acquisition of new customers due to the offers, and SLAs. It will generate right and optimized plans – bolt-ons for the customers. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Business Intelligence system at the Enterprise Level: · It will do Pattern analysis and reports problem. · It will do Data Analysis – Statistical analysis, data profiling, affinity analysis of data, customer segment wise usage patterns on offers, products, service and revenue generation against services and customer segments. · It will do Performance (business, system, and forecast) analysis, churn propensity, response time, and SLAs analysis. · It will support for online and offline analysis, and report drill down capability. · It will collect, store, and report various SLA data. · It will provide the necessary intelligence for marketing and working on campaigns, etc., with cost benefit analysis and predictions. It will advise on customer promotions with additional services based on loyalty and credit history of customer · It will Interface with Enterprise Data Management system for data to run reports and analysis tasks. It will interface with the campaign schedules, based on historical success evidence. (vi) Stakeholder and External Relations Management It manages the enterprise's relationship with stakeholders and outside entities. Stakeholders include shareholders, employee organizations, etc. Outside entities include regulators, local community, and unions. Some of the processes within this grouping are Shareholder Relations, External Affairs, Labor Relations, and Public Relations. (vii) Enterprise Resource Planning It is used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the enterprise and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment. The key roles and responsibilities for Enterprise System are given below: · It will handle responsibilities such as core accounting, financial, and management reporting. · It will interface with CRM for capturing customer account and details. · It will interface with billing to capture the billing revenue and other financial data. · It will be responsible for executing the dunning process. Billing will send the required feed to ERP for execution of dunning. · It will interface with the CRM and Billing through batch interfaces. Enterprise management systems are like horizontals in the enterprise and typically interact with all major telecom systems. E.g., an ERP system interacts with CRM, Fulfillment, and Billing systems for different kinds of data exchanges. 6. External Interfaces/Touch Points The typical external parties are customers, suppliers/partners, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. External interactions from/to a Service Provider to other parties can be achieved by a variety of mechanisms, including: · Exchange of emails or faxes · Call Centers · Web Portals · Business-to-Business (B2B) automated transactions These applications provide an Internet technology driven interface to external parties to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These can provide fully or partially automated service to external parties through various touch points. Typical characteristics of these touch points are · Pre-integrated self-service system, including stand-alone web framework or integration front end with a portal engine · Self services layer exposing atomic web services/APIs for reuse by multiple systems across the architectural environment · Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a portal engine or web application These touch points mostly interact with the CRM systems for requests, inquiries, and responses. 7. Middleware The component will be primarily responsible for integrating the different systems components under a common platform. It should provide a Standards-Based Platform for building Service Oriented Architecture and Composite Applications. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Middleware component in the end-to-end solution. · As an integration framework, covering to and fro interfaces · Provide a web service framework with service registry. · Support SOA framework with SOA service registry. · Each of the interfaces from / to Middleware to other components would handle data transformation, translation, and mapping of data points. · Receive data from the caller / activate and/or forward the data to the recipient system in XML format. · Use standard XML for data exchange. · Provide the response back to the service/call initiator. · Provide a tracking until the response completion. · Keep a store transitional data against each call/transaction. · Interface through Middleware to get any information that is possible and allowed from the existing systems to enterprise systems; e.g., customer profile and customer history, etc. · Provide the data in a common unified format to the SOA calls across systems, and follow the Enterprise Architecture directive. · Provide an audit trail for all transactions being handled by the component. 8. Network Elements The term Network Element means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. Such terms also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service. Typical network elements in a GSM network are Home Location Register (HLR), Intelligent Network (IN), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), SMS Center (SMSC), and network elements for other value added services like Push-to-talk (PTT), Ring Back Tone (RBT), etc. Network elements are invoked when subscribers use their telecom devices for any kind of usage. These elements generate usage data and pass it on to downstream systems like mediation and billing system for rating and billing. They also integrate with provisioning systems for order/service fulfillment. 9. 3rd Party Applications 3rd Party systems are applications like content providers, payment gateways, point of sale terminals, and databases/applications maintained by the Government. Depending on applicability and the type of functionality provided by 3rd party applications, the integration with different telecom systems like CRM, provisioning, and billing will be done. 10. Service Delivery Platform A service delivery platform (SDP) provides the architecture for the rapid deployment, provisioning, execution, management, and billing of value added telecom services. SDPs are based on the concept of SOA and layered architecture. They support the delivery of voice, data services, and content in network and device-independent fashion. They allow application developers to aggregate network capabilities, services, and sources of content. SDPs typically contain layers for web services exposure, service application development, and network abstraction. SOA Reference Architecture SOA concept is based on the principle of developing reusable business service and building applications by composing those services, instead of building monolithic applications in silos. It’s about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services, using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques. In an SOA, resources are made available to participants in a value net, enterprise, line of business (typically spanning multiple applications within an enterprise or across multiple enterprises). It consists of a set of business-aligned IT services that collectively fulfill an organization’s business processes and goals. We can choreograph these services into composite applications and invoke them through standard protocols. SOA, apart from agility and reusability, enables: · The business to specify processes as orchestrations of reusable services · Technology agnostic business design, with technology hidden behind service interface · A contractual-like interaction between business and IT, based on service SLAs · Accountability and governance, better aligned to business services · Applications interconnections untangling by allowing access only through service interfaces, reducing the daunting side effects of change · Reduced pressure to replace legacy and extended lifetime for legacy applications, through encapsulation in services · A Cloud Computing paradigm, using web services technologies, that makes possible service outsourcing on an on-demand, utility-like, pay-per-usage basis The following section represents the Reference Architecture of logical view for the Telecom Solution. The new custom built application needs to align with this logical architecture in the long run to achieve EA benefits. Packaged implementation applications, such as ERP billing applications, need to expose their functions as service providers (as other applications consume) and interact with other applications as service consumers. COT applications need to expose services through wrappers such as adapters to utilize existing resources and at the same time achieve Enterprise Architecture goal and objectives. The following are the various layers for Enterprise level deployment of SOA. This diagram captures the abstract view of Enterprise SOA layers and important components of each layer. Layered architecture means decomposition of services such that most interactions occur between adjacent layers. However, there is no strict rule that top layers should not directly communicate with bottom layers. The diagram below represents the important logical pieces that would result from overall SOA transformation. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 3. Enterprise SOA Reference Architecture 1. Operational System Layer: This layer consists of all packaged applications like CRM, ERP, custom built applications, COTS based applications like Billing, Revenue Management, Fulfilment, and the Enterprise databases that are essential and contribute directly or indirectly to the Enterprise OSS/BSS Transformation. ERP holds the data of Asset Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Advanced Procurement and Human Capital Management, etc. CRM holds the data related to Order, Sales, and Marketing, Customer Care, Partner Relationship Management, Loyalty, etc. Content Management handles Enterprise Search and Query. Billing application consists of the following components: · Collections Management, Customer Billing Management, Invoices, Real-Time Rating, Discounting, and Applying of Charges · Enterprise databases will hold both the application and service data, whether structured or unstructured. MDM - Master data majorly consists of Customer, Order, Product, and Service Data. 2. Enterprise Component Layer: This layer consists of the Application Services and Common Services that are responsible for realizing the functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. This layer uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high availability, and load balancing. Application Services: This Service Layer enables application, technology, and database abstraction so that the complex accessing logic is hidden from the other service layers. This is a basic service layer, which exposes application functionalities and data as reusable services. The three types of the Application access services are: · Application Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application level functionalities as a reusable service between BSS to BSS and BSS to OSS integration. This layer is enabled using disparate technology such as Web Service, Integration Servers, and Adaptors, etc. · Data Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application data services as a reusable reference data service. This is done via direct interaction with application data. and provides the federated query. · Network Access Service: This Service Layer exposes provisioning layer as a reusable service from OSS to OSS integration. This integration service emphasizes the need for high performance, stateless process flows, and distributed design. Common Services encompasses management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as information services, portal services, interaction services, infrastructure services, and security services, etc. 3. Integration Layer: This consists of service infrastructure components like service bus, service gateway for partner integration, service registry, service repository, and BPEL processor. Service bus will carry the service invocation payloads/messages between consumers and providers. The other important functions expected from it are itinerary based routing, distributed caching of routing information, transformations, and all qualities of service for messaging-like reliability, scalability, and availability, etc. Service registry will hold all contracts (wsdl) of services, and it helps developers to locate or discover service during design time or runtime. • BPEL processor would be useful in orchestrating the services to compose a complex business scenario or process. • Workflow and business rules management are also required to support manual triggering of certain activities within business process. based on the rules setup and also the state machine information. Application, data, and service mediation layer typically forms the overall composite application development framework or SOA Framework. 4. Business Process Layer: These are typically the intermediate services layer and represent Shared Business Process Services. At Enterprise Level, these services are from Customer Management, Order Management, Billing, Finance, and Asset Management application domains. 5. Access Layer: This layer consists of portals for Enterprise and provides a single view of Enterprise information management and dashboard services. 6. Channel Layer: This consists of various devices; applications that form part of extended enterprise; browsers through which users access the applications. 7. Client Layer: This designates the different types of users accessing the enterprise applications. The type of user typically would be an important factor in determining the level of access to applications. 8. Vertical pieces like management, monitoring, security, and development cut across all horizontal layers Management and monitoring involves all aspects of SOA-like services, SLAs, and other QoS lifecycle processes for both applications and services surrounding SOA governance. 9. EA Governance, Reference Architecture, Roadmap, Principles, and Best Practices: EA Governance is important in terms of providing the overall direction to SOA implementation within the enterprise. This involves board-level involvement, in addition to business and IT executives. At a high level, this involves managing the SOA projects implementation, managing SOA infrastructure, and controlling the entire effort through all fine-tuned IT processes in accordance with COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology). Devising tools and techniques to promote reuse culture, and the SOA way of doing things needs competency centers to be established in addition to training the workforce to take up new roles that are suited to SOA journey. Conclusions Reference Architectures can serve as the basis for disparate architecture efforts throughout the organization, even if they use different tools and technologies. Reference architectures provide best practices and approaches in the independent way a vendor deals with technology and standards. Reference Architectures model the abstract architectural elements for an enterprise independent of the technologies, protocols, and products that are used to implement an SOA. Telecom enterprises today are facing significant business and technology challenges due to growing competition, a multitude of services, and convergence. Adopting architectural best practices could go a long way in meeting these challenges. The use of SOA-based architecture for communication to each of the external systems like Billing, CRM, etc., in OSS/BSS system has made the architecture very loosely coupled, with greater flexibility. Any change in the external systems would be absorbed at the Integration Layer without affecting the rest of the ecosystem. The use of a Business Process Management (BPM) tool makes the management and maintenance of the business processes easy, with better performance in terms of lead time, quality, and cost. Since the Architecture is based on standards, it will lower the cost of deploying and managing OSS/BSS applications over their lifecycles.

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IIS SSL Certificate Renewal Pain

- by Rick Strahl

I’m in the middle of my annual certificate renewal for the West Wind site and I can honestly say that I hate IIS’s certificate system. When it works it’s fine, but when it doesn’t man can it be a pain. Because I deal with public certificates on my site merely once a year, and you have to perform the certificate dance just the right way, I seem to run into some sort of trouble every year, thinking that Microsoft surely must have addressed the issues I ran into previously – HA! Not so. Don’t ever use the Renew Certificate Feature in IIS! The first rule that I should have never forgotten is that certificate renewals in IIS (7 is what I’m using but I think it’s no different in 7.5 and 8), simply don’t work if you’re submitting to get a public certificate from a certificate authority. I use DNSimple for my DNS domain management and SSL certificates because they provide ridiculously easy domain management and good prices for SSL certs – especially wildcard certificates, which is what I use on west-wind.com. Certificates in IIS can be found pegged to the machine root. If you go into the IIS Manager, go to the machine root the tree and then click on certificates and you then get various certificate options: Both of these options create a new Certificate request (CSR), which is just a text file. But if you’re silly enough like me to click on the Renew button on your old certificate, you’ll find that you end up generating a very long Certificate Request that looks nothing like the original certificate request and the format that’s used for this is not accepted by most certificate authorities. While I’m not sure exactly what the problem is, it simply looks like IIS is respecting none of your original certificate bit size choices and is generating a huge certificate request that is 3 times the size of a ‘normal’ certificate request. The end result is (and I’ve done this at least twice now) is that the certificate processor is likely to fail processing those renewals. Always create a new Certificate While it’s a little more work and you have to remember how to fill out the certificate request properly, this is the safe way to make sure your certificate generates properly. First comes the Distinguished Name Properties dialog: Ah yes you have to love the nomenclature of this stuff. Distinguished name, Common name – WTF is a common name? It doesn’t look common to me! Make sure this form gets filled out correctly. Common NameThis is the domain name of the Web site. In my case I’m creating a wildcard certificate so I’m using the * prefix. If you’re purchasing a certificate for a specific domain use www.west-wind.com or store.west-wind.com for example. Make sure this matches the EXACT domain you’re trying to use secure access on because that’s all the certificate is going to work on unless you get a wildcard certificate. Organization Is the name of your company or organization. Depending on the kind of certificate you purchase this name will show up on your certificate. Most low end SSL certificates (ie. those that cost under $100 for single domains) don’t list the organization, the higher signature certificates that also require extensive validation by the cert authority do. Regardless you should make sure this matches the right company/organization. Organizational Unit This can be anything. Not really sure what this is for, but traditionally I’ve always set this to Web because – well this is a Web thing after all right? I’ve never seen this used anywhere that I can tell other than to internally reference the cert. State and CountryPretty obvious. Should reflect the location of the business/organization/person or site. Next you have to configure the bit size used for the certificate: The default on this dialog is 1024, but I’ve found that most providers these days request a minimum bit length of 2048, as did my DNSimple provider. Again check with the provider when you submit to make sure. Bit length mismatches can cause problems if you use a size that isn’t supported by the provider. I had that happen last year when I submitted my CSR and it got rejected quite a bit later, when the certs usually are issued within an hour or less. When you’re done here, the certificate is saved to disk as a .txt file and it should look something like this (this is a 2048 bit length CSR):-----BEGIN NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- MIIEVGCCAz0CAQAwdjELMAkGA1UEBhMCVVMxDzANBgNVBAgMBkhhd2FpaTENMAsG A1UEBwwEUGFpYTEfMB0GA1UECgwWV2VzdCBXaW5kIFRlY2hub2xvZ2llczEMMAoG B1UECwwDV2ViMRgwFgYDVQQDDA8qLndlc3Qtd2luZC5jb20wggEiMA0GCSqGSIb3 DQEBAQUAA4IBDwAwggEKAoIBAQDIPWOFMkMVRp2Ftj9w/cCVV4OYYhoZYtl+8lTk oqDwKca0xWHLgioX/9v0rZLS6a82MHqKEBxVXu+cuCmSE4AQtB/1YH9lS4tpc/be OZDvnTotP6l4MCEzzAfROcw4CiIg6X0RMSnl8IATAvv2V5LQM9TDdt9oDdMpX2IY +vVC9RZ7PMHBmR9kwI2i/lrKitzhQKaHgpmKcRlM6iqpALUiX28w5HJaDKK1MDHN 607tyFJLHijuJKx7PdTqZYf50KkC3NupfZ2avVycf18Q13jHWj59tvwEOczoVzRL l4LQivAqbhyiqMpWnrZunIOUZta5aGm+jo7O1knGWJjxuraTAgMBAAGgggGYMBoG CisGAQQBgjcNAgMxDBYKNi4yLjkyMDAuMjA0BgkrBgEEAYI3FRQxJzAlAgEFDAZS QVNYUFMMC1JBU1hQU1xSaWNrDAtJbmV0TWdyLmV4ZTByBgorBgEEAYI3DQICMWQw YgIBAR5aAE0AaQBjAHIAbwBzAG8AZgB0ACAAUgBTAEEAIABTAEMAaABhAG4AbgBl AGwAIABDAHIAeQBwAHQAbwBnAHIAYQBwAGgAaQBjACAAUAByAG8AdgBpAGQAZQBy AwEAMIHPBgkqhkiG9w0BCQ4xgcEwgb4wDgYDVR0PAQH/BAQDAgTwMBMGA1UdJQQM MAoGCCsGAQUFBwMBMHgGCSqGSIb3DQEJDwRrMGkwDgYIKoZIhvcNAwICAgCAMA4G CCqGSIb3DQMEAgIAgDALBglghkgBZQMEASowCwYJYIZIAWUDBAEtMAsGCWCGSAFl AwQBAjALBglghkgBZQMEAQUwBwYFKw4DAgcwCgYIKoZIhvcNAwcwHQYDVR0OBBYE FD/yOsTbXE+GVFCFMmldzQvyloz9MA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBBQUAA4IBAQCK6LlsCuIM 1AU0niB6QZ9v0FTsGFxP1dYvVUnJyY6VEKNiGFiQjZac7UCs0p58yScdXWEFOE8V OsjAYD3xYNc05+ckyD67UHRGEUAVB9RBvbKW23KeR/8kBmEzc8PemD52YOgExxAJ 57xWmAwEHAvbgYzQvhO8AOzH3TGvvHbg5UKM1pYgNmuwZq5DkL/IDoeIJwfk/wrI wghNTuxxIFgbH4YrgLgv4PRvrS/LaTCRBdboaCgzATMczaOb1nd/DVNR+3fCtMhM W0psTAjzRbmXF3nJyAQa7jF/52gkY0RfFX2lG5tJnG+XDsVNvKNvh9Qa5Tlmkm06 ILKCm9ciWCKk -----END NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- You can take that certificate request and submit that to your certificate provider. Since this is base64 encoded you can typically just paste it into a text box on the submission page, or some providers will ask you to upload the CSR as a file. What does a Renewal look like? Note the length of the CSR will vary somewhat with key strength, but compare this to a renewal request that IIS generated from my existing site:-----BEGIN NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- MIIPpwYFKoZIhvcNAQcCoIIPmDCCD5QCAQExCzAJBgUrDgMCGgUAMIIIqAYJKoZI hvcNAQcBoIIImQSCCJUwggiRMIIH+gIBADBdMSEwHwYDVQQLDBhEb21haW4gQ29u dHJvbCBWYWxpFGF0ZWQxHjAcBgNVBAsMFUVzc2VudGlhbFNTTCBXaWxkY2FyZDEY MBYGA1UEAwwPKi53ZXN0LXdpbmQuY29tMIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCB iQKBgQCK4OuIOR18Wb8tNMGRZiD1c9X57b332Lj7DhbckFqLs0ys8kVDHrTXSj+T Ye9nmAvfPpZmBtE5p9qRNN79rUYugAdl+qEtE4IJe1bRfxXzcKa1SXa8+TEs3zQa zYSmcR2dDuC8om1eAdeCtt0NnkvANgm1VLwGOor/UHMASaEhCQIDAQABoIIG8jAa BgorBgEEAYI3DQIDMQwWCjYuMi45MjAwLjIwNAYJKwYBBAGCNxUUMScwJQIBBQwG UkFTWFBTDAtSQVNYUFNcUmljawwLSW5ldE1nci5leGUwZgYKKwYBBAGCNw0CAjFY MFYCAQIeTgBNAGkAYwByAG8AcwBvAGYAdAAgAFMAdAByAG8AbgBnACAAQwByAHkA cAB0AG8AZwByAGEAcABoAGkAYwAgAFAAcgBvAHYAaQBkAGUAcgMBADCCAQAGCSqG SIb3DQEJDjGB8jCB7zAOBgNVHQ8BAf8EBAMCBaAwDAYDVR0TAQH/BAIwADA0BgNV 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+XZ8bhM7vsAS+pZionR4MyuQ0mYIt/lDcsZVZ91KxTsIm8rNMkkYGFoSIXjQ0+0t CbxMF0i2qnpmNRpA6PU8l7lxxvPkplsk9KB8QIPFrR5p/i/SUAd9vECWh5+/ktlc rfFP2PK7XcEwWizsvMrNqLyvQVNXSUPTMYIBrzCCAasCAQEwgYcwcjELMAkGA1UE BhMCR0IxGzAZBgNVBAgTEkdyZWF0ZXIgTWFuY2hlc3RlcjEQMA4GA1UEBxMHU2Fs Zm9yZDEaMBgGA1UEChMRQ09NT0RPIENBIExpbWl0ZWQxGDAWBgNVBAMTD0Vzc2Vu dGlhbFNTTCBDQQIRAO7UTVPkm+2Sbks59IdptaUwCQYFKw4DAhoFADANBgkqhkiG 9w0BAQEFAASCAQB8PNQ6bYnQpWfkHyxnDuvNKw3wrqF2p7JMZm+SuN2qp3R2LpCR mW2LrGtQIm9Iob/QOYH+8houYNVdvsATGPXX2T8gzn+anof4tOG0vCTK1Bp9bwf9 MkRP+1c8RW/vkYmUW4X5/C+y3CZpMH5dDTaXBIpXFzjX/fxNpH/rvLzGiaYYL3Cn OLO+aOADr9qq5yoqwpiYCSfYNNYKTUNNGfYIidQwYtbHXEYhSukB2oR89xD2sZZ4 bOqFjUPgTa5SsERLDDeg3omMKiIXVYGxlqBEq51Kge6IQt4qQV9P9VgInW7cWmKe dTqNHI9ri3ttewdEnT++TKGKKfTjX9SR8Waj -----END NEW CERTIFICATE REQUEST----- Clearly there’s something very different between this an my original request! And it didn’t work. IIS creates a custom CSR that is encoded in a format that no certificate authority I’ve ever used uses. If you want the gory details of what’s in there look at this ServerFault question (thanks to Mika in the comments). In the end it doesn’t matter though – no certificate authority knows what to do with this CSR. So create a new CSR and skip the renewal. Always! Use the same Server Keep in mind that on IIS at least you should always create your certificate on a single server and then when you receive the final certificate from your provider import it on that server. IIS tracks the CSR it created and requires it in order to import the final certificate properly. So if for some reason you try to install the certificate on another server, it won’t work. I’ve also run into trouble trying to install the same certificate twice – this time around I didn’t give my certificate the proper friendly name and IIS failed to allow me to assign the certificate to any of my Web sites. So I removed the certificate and tried to import again, only to find it failed the second time around. There are other ways to fix this, but in my case I had to have the certificate re-issued to work – not what you want to do. Regardless of what you do though, when you import make sure you do it right the first time by crossing all your t’s and dotting your i's– it’ll save you a lot of grief! You don’t actually have to use the server that the certificate gets installed on to generate the CSR and first install it, but it is generally a good idea to do so just so you can get the certificate installed into the right place right away. If you have access to the server where you need to install the certificate you might as well use it. But you can use another machine to generated the and install the certificate, then export the certificate and move it to another machine as needed. So you can use your Dev machine to create a certificate then export it and install it on a live server. More on installation and back up/export later. Installing the Certificate Once you’ve submitted a CSR request your provider will process the request and eventually issue you a new final certificate that contains another text file with the final key to import into your certificate store. IIS does this by combining the content in your certificate request with the original CSR. If all goes well your new certificate shows up in the certificate list and you’re ready to assign the certificate to your sites. Make sure you use a friendly name that matches domain name of your site. So use *.mysite.com or www.mysite.com or store.mysite.com to ensure IIS recognizes the certificate. I made the mistake of not naming my friendly name this way and found that IIS was unable to link my sites to my wildcard certificate. It needed to have the *. as part of the certificate otherwise the Hostname input field was blanked out. Changing the Friendly Name If you by accidentally used an invalid friendly name you can change it later in the Windows certificate store. Bring up a Run Box Type MMC File | Add/Remove Snap In Add Certificates | Computer Account | Local Computer Drill into Certificates | Personal | Certificates Find your Certificate | Right Click | Properties Edit the Friendly Name | Click OK Backing up your Certificate The first thing you should do once your certificate is successfully installed is to back it up! In case your server crashes or you otherwise lose your configuration this will ensure you have an easy way to recover and reinstall your certificate either on the same server or a different one. If you’re running a server farm or using a wildcard certificate you also need to get the certificate onto other machines and a PFX file import is the easiest way to do this. To back up your certificate select your certificate and choose Export from the context or sidebar menu: The Export Certificate option allows you to export a password protected binary file that you can import in a single step. You can copy the resulting binary PFX file to back up or copy to other machines to install on. Importing the certificate on another machine is as easy as pointing at the PFX file and specifying the password. IIS handles the rest. Assigning a new certificate to your Site Once you have the new certificate installed, all that’s left to do is assign it to your site. In IIS select your Web site and bring up the Site Bindings from the right sidebar. Add a new binding for https, bind it to port 443, specify your hostname and pick the certificate from the pick list. If you’re using a root site make sure to set up your certificate for www.yoursite.com and also for yoursite.com so that both work properly with SSL. Note that you need to explicitly configure each hostname for a certificate if you plan to use SSL. Luckily if you update your SSL certificate in the following year, IIS prompts you and asks whether you like to update all other sites that are using the existing cert to the newer cert. And you’re done. So what’s the Pain? So, all of this is old hat and it doesn’t look all that bad right? So what’s the pain here? Well if you follow the instructions and do everything right, then the process is about as straight forward as you would expect it to be. You create a cert request, you import it and assign it to your sites. That’s the basic steps and to be perfectly fair it works well – if nothing goes wrong. However, renewing tends to be the problem. The first unintuitive issue is that you simply shouldn’t renew but create a new CSR and generate your new certificate from that. Over the years I’ve fallen prey to the belief that Microsoft eventually will fix this so that the renewal creates the same type of CSR as the old cert, but apparently that will just never happen. Booo! The other problem I ran into is that I accidentally misnamed my imported certificate which in turn set off a chain of events that caused my originally issued certificate to become uninstallable. When I received my completed certificate I installed it and it installed just fine, but the friendly name was wrong. As a result IIS refused to assign the certificate to any of my host headered sites. That’s strike number one. Why the heck should the friendly name have any effect on the ability to attach the certificate??? Next I uninstalled the certificate because I figured that would be the easiest way to make sure I get it right. But I found that I could not reinstall my certificate. I kept getting these stop errors: "ASN1 bad tag value met" that would prevent the installation from completion. After searching around for this error and reading countless long messages on forums, I found that this error supposedly does not actually mean the install failed, but the list wouldn’t refresh. Commodo has this to say: Note: There is a known issue in IIS 7 giving the following error: "Cannot find the certificate request associated with this certificate file. A certificate request must be completed on the computer where it was created." You may also receive a message stating "ASN1 bad tag value met". If this is the same server that you generated the CSR on then, in most cases, the certificate is actually installed. Simply cancel the dialog and press "F5" to refresh the list of server certificates. If the new certificate is now in the list, you can continue with the next step. If it is not in the list, you will need to reissue your certificate using a new CSR (see our CSR creation instructions for IIS 7). After creating a new CSR, login to your Comodo account and click the 'replace' button for your certificate. Not sure if this issue is fixed in IIS 8 but that’s an insane bug to have crop up. As it turns out, in my case the refresh didn’t work and the certificate didn’t show up in the IIS list after the reinstall. In fact when looking at the certificate store I could see my certificate was installed in the right place, but the private key is missing which is most likely why IIS is not picking it up. It looks like IIS could not match the final cert to the original CSR generated. But again some sort of message to that affect might be helpful instead of ASN1 bad tag value met. Recovering the Private Key So it turns out my original problem was that I received the published key, but when I imported the private key was missing. There’s a relatively easy way to recover from this. If your certificate doesn’t show up in IIS check in the certificate store for the local machine (see steps above on how to bring this up). If you look at the certificate in Certificates/Personal/Certificates make sure you see the key as shown in the image below: if the key is missing it means that the certificate is missing the private key most likely. To fix a certificate you can do the following: Double click the certificate Go to the Details Tab Copy down the Serial number You can copy the serial number from the area blurred out above. The serial number will be in a format like ?00 a7 9b a1 a4 9d 91 63 57 d6 9f 26 b8 ee 79 b5 cb and you’ll need to strip out the spaces in order to use it in the next step. Next open up an Administrative command prompt and issue the following command: certutil -repairstore my 00a79ba1a49d916357d69f26b8ee79b5cb You should get a confirmation message that the repair worked. If you now go back to the certificate store you should now see the key icon show up on the certificate. Your certificate is fixed. Now go back into IIS Manager and refresh the list of certificates and if all goes well you should see all the certificates that showed in the cert store now: Remember – back up the key first then map to your site… Summary I deal with a lot of customers who run their own IIS servers, and I can’t tell you how often I hear about botched SSL installations. When I posted some of my issues on Twitter yesterday I got a hell storm of “me too” responses. I’m clearly not the only one, who’s run into this especially with renewals. I feel pretty comfortable with IIS configuration and I do a lot of it for support purposes, but the SSL configuration is one that never seems to go seamlessly. This blog post is meant as reminder to myself to read next time I do a renewal. So I can dot my i's and dash my t’s before I get caught in the mess I’m dealing with today. Hopefully some of you find this useful as well.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in IIS7 Security Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Adding Unobtrusive Validation To MVCContrib Fluent Html

- by srkirkland

ASP.NET MVC 3 includes a new unobtrusive validation strategy that utilizes HTML5 data-* attributes to decorate form elements. Using a combination of jQuery validation and an unobtrusive validation adapter script that comes with MVC 3, those attributes are then turned into client side validation rules. A Quick Introduction to Unobtrusive Validation To quickly show how this works in practice, assume you have the following Order.cs class (think Northwind) [If you are familiar with unobtrusive validation in MVC 3 you can skip to the next section]: public class Order : DomainObject { [DataType(DataType.Date)] public virtual DateTime OrderDate { get; set; } [Required] [StringLength(12)] public virtual string ShipAddress { get; set; } [Required] public virtual Customer OrderedBy { get; set; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Note the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations attributes, which provide the validation and metadata information used by ASP.NET MVC 3 to determine how to render out these properties. Now let’s assume we have a form which can edit this Order class, specifically let’s look at the ShipAddress property: @Html.LabelFor(x => x.Order.ShipAddress) @Html.EditorFor(x => x.Order.ShipAddress) @Html.ValidationMessageFor(x => x.Order.ShipAddress) .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Now the Html.EditorFor() method is smart enough to look at the ShipAddress attributes and write out the necessary unobtrusive validation html attributes. Note we could have used Html.TextBoxFor() or even Html.TextBox() and still retained the same results. If we view source on the input box generated by the Html.EditorFor() call, we get the following: <input type="text" value="Rua do Paço, 67" name="Order.ShipAddress" id="Order_ShipAddress" data-val-required="The ShipAddress field is required." data-val-length-max="12" data-val-length="The field ShipAddress must be a string with a maximum length of 12." data-val="true" class="text-box single-line input-validation-error"> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } As you can see, we have data-val-* attributes for both required and length, along with the proper error messages and additional data as necessary (in this case, we have the length-max=”12”). And of course, if we try to submit the form with an invalid value, we get an error on the client: Working with MvcContrib’s Fluent Html The MvcContrib project offers a fluent interface for creating Html elements which I find very expressive and useful, especially when it comes to creating select lists. Let’s look at a few quick examples: @this.TextBox(x => x.FirstName).Class("required").Label("First Name:") @this.MultiSelect(x => x.UserId).Options(ViewModel.Users) @this.CheckBox("enabled").LabelAfter("Enabled").Title("Click to enable.").Styles(vertical_align => "middle") @(this.Select("Order.OrderedBy").Options(Model.Customers, x => x.Id, x => x.CompanyName) .Selected(Model.Order.OrderedBy != null ? Model.Order.OrderedBy.Id : "") .FirstOption(null, "--Select A Company--") .HideFirstOptionWhen(Model.Order.OrderedBy != null) .Label("Ordered By:")) .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } These fluent html helpers create the normal html you would expect, and I think they make life a lot easier and more readable when dealing with complex markup or select list data models (look ma: no anonymous objects for creating class names!). Of course, the problem we have now is that MvcContrib’s fluent html helpers don’t know about ASP.NET MVC 3’s unobtrusive validation attributes and thus don’t take part in client validation on your page. This is not ideal, so I wrote a quick helper method to extend fluent html with the knowledge of what unobtrusive validation attributes to include when they are rendered. Extending MvcContrib’s Fluent Html Before posting the code, there are just a few things you need to know. The first is that all Fluent Html elements implement the IElement interface (MvcContrib.FluentHtml.Elements.IElement), and the second is that the base System.Web.Mvc.HtmlHelper has been extended with a method called GetUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes which we can use to determine the necessary attributes to include. With this knowledge we can make quick work of extending fluent html: public static class FluentHtmlExtensions { public static T IncludeUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes<T>(this T element, HtmlHelper htmlHelper) where T : MvcContrib.FluentHtml.Elements.IElement { IDictionary<string, object> validationAttributes = htmlHelper .GetUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes(element.GetAttr("name")); foreach (var validationAttribute in validationAttributes) { element.SetAttr(validationAttribute.Key, validationAttribute.Value); } return element; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The code is pretty straight forward – basically we use a passed HtmlHelper to get a list of validation attributes for the current element and then add each of the returned attributes to the element to be rendered. The Extension In Action Now let’s get back to the earlier ShipAddress example and see what we’ve accomplished. First we will use a fluent html helper to render out the ship address text input (this is the ‘before’ case): @this.TextBox("Order.ShipAddress").Label("Ship Address:").Class("class-name") .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } And the resulting HTML: <label id="Order_ShipAddress_Label" for="Order_ShipAddress">Ship Address:</label> <input type="text" value="Rua do Paço, 67" name="Order.ShipAddress" id="Order_ShipAddress" class="class-name"> Now let’s do the same thing except here we’ll use the newly written extension method: @this.TextBox("Order.ShipAddress").Label("Ship Address:") .Class("class-name").IncludeUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes(Html) .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } And the resulting HTML: <label id="Order_ShipAddress_Label" for="Order_ShipAddress">Ship Address:</label> <input type="text" value="Rua do Paço, 67" name="Order.ShipAddress" id="Order_ShipAddress" data-val-required="The ShipAddress field is required." data-val-length-max="12" data-val-length="The field ShipAddress must be a string with a maximum length of 12." data-val="true" class="class-name"> .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Excellent! Now we can continue to use unobtrusive validation and have the flexibility to use ASP.NET MVC’s Html helpers or MvcContrib’s fluent html helpers interchangeably, and every element will participate in client side validation. Wrap Up Overall I’m happy with this solution, although in the best case scenario MvcContrib would know about unobtrusive validation attributes and include them automatically (of course if it is enabled in the web.config file). I know that MvcContrib allows you to author global behaviors, but that requires changing the base class of your views, which I am not willing to do. Enjoy!

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Shrinking TCP Window Size to 0 on Cisco ASA

- by Brent

Having an issue with any large file transfer that crosses our Cisco ASA unit come to an eventual pause. Setup Test1: Server A, FileZilla Client <- 1GBPS - Cisco ASA <- 1 GBPS - Server B, FileZilla Server TCP Window size on large transfers will drop to 0 after around 30 seconds of a large file transfer. RDP session then becomes unresponsive for a minute or two and then is sporadic. After a minute or two, the FTP transfer resumes, but at 1-2 MB/s. When the FTP transfer is over, the responsiveness of the RDP session returns to normal. Test2: Server C in same network as Server B, FileZilla Client <- local network - Server B, FileZilla Server File will transfer at 30+ MB/s. Details ASA: 5520 running 8.3(1) with ASDM 6.3(1) Windows: Server 2003 R2 SP2 with latest patches Server: VMs running on HP C3000 blade chasis FileZilla: 3.3.5.1, latest stable build Transfer: 20 GB SQL .BAK file Protocol: Active FTP over tcp/20, tcp/21 Switches: Cisco Small Business 2048 Gigabit running latest 2.0.0.8 VMware: 4.1 HP: Flex-10 3.15, latest version Notes All servers are VMs. Thoughts Pretty sure the ASA is at fault since a transfer between VMs on the same network will not show a shrinking Window size. Our ASA is pretty vanilla. No major changes made to any of the settings. It has a bunch of NAT and ACLs. Wireshark Sample No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info 234905 73.916986 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131981791 Win=65535 Len=0 234906 73.917220 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234907 73.917224 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234908 73.917231 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131984551 Win=64155 Len=0 234909 73.917463 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234910 73.917467 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234911 73.917469 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234912 73.917476 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131988691 Win=60015 Len=0 234913 73.917706 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234914 73.917710 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234915 73.917715 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131991451 Win=57255 Len=0 234916 73.917949 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234917 73.917953 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234918 73.917958 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131994211 Win=54495 Len=0 234919 73.918193 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234920 73.918197 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234921 73.918202 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131996971 Win=51735 Len=0 234922 73.918435 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234923 73.918440 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234924 73.918445 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131999731 Win=48975 Len=0 234925 73.918679 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234926 73.918684 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234927 73.918689 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132002491 Win=46215 Len=0 234928 73.918922 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234929 73.918927 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234930 73.918932 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132005251 Win=43455 Len=0 234931 73.919165 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234932 73.919169 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234933 73.919174 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132008011 Win=40695 Len=0 234934 73.919408 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234935 73.919413 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234936 73.919418 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132010771 Win=37935 Len=0 234937 73.919652 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234938 73.919656 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234939 73.919661 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132013531 Win=35175 Len=0 234940 73.919895 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234941 73.919899 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234942 73.919904 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132016291 Win=32415 Len=0 234943 73.920138 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234944 73.920142 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234945 73.920147 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132019051 Win=29655 Len=0 234946 73.920381 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234947 73.920386 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234948 73.920391 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132021811 Win=26895 Len=0 234949 73.920625 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234950 73.920629 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234951 73.920632 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234952 73.920638 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132025951 Win=22755 Len=0 234953 73.920868 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234954 73.920871 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234955 73.920876 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132028711 Win=19995 Len=0 234956 73.921111 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234957 73.921115 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234958 73.921120 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132031471 Win=17235 Len=0 234959 73.921356 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234960 73.921362 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234961 73.921370 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132034231 Win=14475 Len=0 234962 73.921598 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234963 73.921606 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234964 73.921613 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132036991 Win=11715 Len=0 234965 73.921841 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234966 73.921848 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234967 73.921855 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132039751 Win=8955 Len=0 234968 73.922085 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234969 73.922092 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234970 73.922099 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132042511 Win=6195 Len=0 234971 73.922328 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234972 73.922335 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234973 73.922342 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132045271 Win=3435 Len=0 234974 73.922571 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234975 73.922579 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234976 73.922586 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048031 Win=675 Len=0 234981 75.866453 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 675 bytes 234985 76.020168 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234989 76.771633 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234990 76.771648 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234997 78.279701 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234998 78.279714 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0

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How Expedia Made My New Bride Cry

- by Lance Robinson

Tweet this? Email Expedia and ask them to give me and my new wife our honeymoon? When Expedia followed up their failure with our honeymoon trip with a complete and total lack of acknowledgement of any responsibility for the problem and endless loops of explaining the issue over and over again - I swore that they would make it right. When they brought my new bride to tears, I got an immediate and endless supply of motivation. I hope you will help me make them make it right by posting our story on Twitter, Facebook, your blog, on Expedia itself, and when talking to your friends in person about their own travel plans. If you are considering using them now for an important trip - reconsider. Short summary: We arrived early for a flight - but Expedia had made a mistake with the data they supplied to JetBlue and Emirates, which resulted in us not being able to check in (one leg of our trip was missing)! At the time of this post, three people (myself, my wife, and an exceptionally patient JetBlue employee named Mary) each spent hours on the phone with Expedia. I myself spent right at 3 hours (according to iPhone records), Lauren spent an hour and a half or so, and poor Mary was probably on the phone for a good 3.5 hours. This is after 5 hours total at the airport. If you add up our phone time, that is nearly 8 hours of phone time over a 5 hour period with little or no help, stall tactics (?), run-around, denial, shifting of blame, and holding. Details below (times are approximate): First, my wife and I were married yesterday - June 18th, the 3 year anniversary of our first date. She is awesome. She is the nicest person I have ever known, a ton of fun, absolutely beautiful in every way. Ok enough mushy - here are the dirty details. 2:30 AM - Early Check-in Attempt - we attempted to check-in for our flight online. Some sort of technology error on website, instructed to checkin at desk. 4:30 AM - Arrive at airport. Try to check-in at kiosk, get the same error. We got to the JetBlue desk at RDU International Airport, where Mary helped us. Mary discovered that the Expedia provided itinerary does not match the Expedia provided tickets. We are informed that when that happens American, JetBlue, and others that use the same software cannot check you in for the flight because. Why? Because the itinerary was missing a leg of our flight! Basically we were not shown in the system as definitely being able to make it home. Mary called Expedia and was put on hold by their automated system. 4:55 AM - Mary, myself, and my brand new bride all waited for about 25 minutes when finally I decided I would make a call myself on my iPhone while Mary was on the airport phone. In their automated system, I chose "make a new reservation", thinking they might answer a little more quickly than "customer service". Not surprisingly I was connected to an Expedia person within 1 minute. They informed me that they would have to forward me to a customer service specialist. I explained to them that we were already on hold for that and had been for nearly half an hour, that we were going on our honeymoon and that our flight would be leaving soon - could they please help us. "Yes, I will help you". I hand the phone to JetBlue Mary who explains the situation 3 or 4 times. Obviously I couldn't hear both ends of the conversation at this point, but the Expedia person explained what the problem was by stating exactly what Mary had just spent 15 minutes explaining. Mary calmly confirms that this is the problem, and asks Expedia to re-issue the itinerary. Expedia tells Mary that they'll have to transfer her to customer service. Mary asks for someone specific so that we get an answer this time, and goes on hold. Mary get's connected, explains the situation, and then Mary's connection gets terminated. 5:10 AM - Mary calls back to the Expedia automated system again, and we wait for about 5 minutes on hold this time before I pick up my iPhone and call Expedia again myself. Again I go to sales, a person picks up the phone in less than a minute. I explain the situation and let them know that we are now very close to missing our flight for our honeymoon, could they please help us. "Yes, I will help you". Again I give the phone to Mary who provides them with a call back number in case we get disconnected again and explains the situation again. More back and forth with Expedia doing nothing but repeating the same questions, Mary answering the questions with the same information she provided in the original explanation, and Expedia simply restating the problem. Mary again asks them to re-issue the itinerary, and explains that doing so will fix the problem. Expedia again repeats the problem instead of fixing it, and Mary's connection gets terminated. 5:20 AM - Mary again calls back to Expedia. My beautiful bride also calls on her own phone. At this point she is struggling to hold back her tears, stumbling through an explanation of all that has happened and that we are about to miss our flight. Please help us. "Yes, I will help". My beautiful bride's connection gets terminated. Ok, maybe this disconnection isn't an accident. We've now been disconnected 3 times on two different phones. 5:45 AM - I walk away and pleadingly beg a person to help me. They "escalate" the issue to "Rosy" (sp?) at Expedia. I go through the whole song and dance again with Rosy, who gives me the same treatment Mary was given. Rosy blames JetBlue for now having the correct data. Meanwhile Mary is on the phone with Emirates Air (the airline for the second leg of our trip), who agrees with JetBlue that Expedia's data isn't up to date. We are informed by two airport employees that issues like this with Expedia are not uncommon, and that the fix is simple. On the phone iwth Rosy, I ask her to re-issue the itinerary because we are about to miss our flight. She again explains the problem to me. At this point, I am standing at the window, pleading with Rosy to help us get to our honeymoon, watching our airplane. Then our airplane leaves without us. 6:03 AM - At this point we have missed our flight. Re-issuing the itinerary is no longer a solution. I ask Rosy to start from the beginning and work us up a new trip. She says that she cannot do that. She says that she needs to talk to JetBlue and Emirates and find out why we cannot check-in for our flight. I remind Rosy that our flight has already left - I just watched it taxi away - it no longer matters why (not to mention the fact that we already knew why, and have known why since 4:30 AM), and have known the solution since 4:30 AM. Rosy, can you please book a new trip? Yes, but it will cost $400. Excuse me? Now you can, but it will cost ME to fix your mistake? Rosy says that she can escalate the situation to her supervisor but that will take 1.5 hours. 6:15 AM - I told Rosy that if they had re-issued the itinerary as JetBlue asked (at 4:30 AM), my new wife and I might be on the airplane now instead of dealing with this on the phone and missing the beginning (and how much more?) of our honeymoon. Rosy said that it was not necessary to re-issue the itinerary. Out of curiosity, i asked Rosy if there was some financial burden on them to re-issue the itinerary. "No", said Rosy. I asked her if it was a large time burden on Expedia to re-issue the itinerary. "No", said Rosy. I directly asked Rosy: Why wouldn't Expedia have re-issued the itinerary when JetBlue asked? No answer. I asked Rosy: If you had re-issued the itinerary at 4:30, isn't it possible that I would be on that flight right now? She actually surprised me by answering "Yes" to that question. So I pointed out that it followed that Expedia was responsible for the fact that we missed out flight, and she immediately went into more about how the problem was with JetBlue - but now it was ALSO an Emirates Air problem as well. I tell Rosy to go ahead and escalate the issue again, and please call me back in that 1.5 hours (which how is about 1 hour and 10 minutes away). 6:30 AM - I start tweeting my frustration with iPhone. It's now pretty much impossible for us to make it to The Maldives by 3pm, which is the time at which we would need to arrive in order to be allowed service to the actual island where we are staying. Expedia has now given me the run-around for 2 hours, caused me to miss my flight, and worst of all caused my amazing new wife Lauren to miss our honeymoon. You think I was mad? No. Furious. Its ok to make mistakes - but to refuse to fix them and to ruin our honeymoon? No, not ok, Expedia. I swore right then that Expedia would make this right. 7:45 AM - JetBlue mary is still talking her tail off to other people in JetBlue and Emirates Air. Mary works it out so that if Expedia simply books a new trip, JetBlue and Emirates will both waive all the fees. Now we just have to convince Expedia to fix their mistake and get us on our way! Around this time Expedia Rosy calls me back! I inform her of the excellent work of JetBlue Mary - that JetBlue and Emirates both will waive the fees so Expedia can fix their mistake and get us going on our way. She says that she sees documentation of this in her system and that she needs to put me on hold "for 1 to 10 minutes" to talk to Emirates Air (why I'm not exactly sure). I say ok. 8:45 AM - After an hour on hold, Rosy comes on the line and asks me to hold more. I ask her to call me back. 9:35 AM - I put down the iPhone Twitter app and picks up the laptop. You think I made some noise with my iPhone? Heh 11:25 AM - Expedia follows me and sends a canned "We're sorry, DM us the details". If you look at their Twitter feed, 16 out of the most recent 20 tweets are exactly the same canned response. The other 4? Ads. Um - #MultiFAIL? To Expedia: You now have had (as explained above) 8 hours of 3 different people explaining our situation, you know the email address of our Expedia account, you know my web blog, you know my Twitter address, you know my phone number. You also know how upset you have made both me and my new bride by treating us with such a ... non caring, scripted, uncooperative, argumentative, and possibly even deceitful manner. In the wise words of the great Kenan Thompson of SNL: "FIX IT!". And no, I'm NOT going away until you make this right. Period. 11:45 AM - Expedia corporate office called. The woman I spoke to was very nice and apologetic. She listened to me tell the story again, she says she understands the problem and she is going to work to resolve it. I don't have any details on what exactly that resolution might me, she said she will call me back in 20 minutes. She found out about the problem via Twitter. Thank you Twitter, and all of you who helped. Hopefully social media will win my wife and I our honeymoon, and hopefully Expedia will encourage their customer service teams treat their customers properly. 12:22 PM - Spoke to Fran again from Expedia corporate office. She has a flight for us tonight. She is booking it now. We will arrive at our honeymoon destination of beautiful Veligandu Island Resort only 1 day late. She cannot confirm today, but she expects that Expedia will pay for the lost honeymoon night. Thank you everyone for your help. I will reflect more on this whole situation and confirm its resolution after our flight is 100% confirmed. For now, I'm going to take a breather and go kiss my wonderful wife! 1:50 PM - Have not yet received the promised phone call. We did receive an email with a new itinerary for a flight but the booking is not for specific seats, so there is no guarantee that my wife and I will be able to sit together. With the original booking I carefully selected our seats for every segment of our trip. I decided to call into the phone number that Fran from the Expedia corporate office gave me. Its automated voice system identified itself as "Tier 3 Support". I am currently still on hold with them, I have not gotten through to a human yet. 1:55 PM - Fran from Expedia called me back. She confirmed us as booked. She called the airlines to confirm. Unfortunately, Expedia was unwilling or unable to allow us any type of seat selection. It is possible that i won't get to sit next to the woman I married less than a day ago on our 40 total hours of flight time (there and back). In addition, our seats could be the worst seats on the planes, with no reclining seat back or right next to the restroom. Despite this fact (which in my opinion is huge), the horrible inconvenience, the hours at the airport, and the negative Internet publicity that Expedia is receiving, Expedia declined to offer us any kind of upgrade or to mark us as SFU (suitable for upgrade). Since they didn't offer - I asked, and was rejected. I am grateful to finally be heading in the right direction, but not only did Expedia horribly botch this job from the very beginning, they followed that botch job with near zero customer service, followed by a verbally apologetic but otherwise half-hearted resolution. If this works out favorably for us, great. If not - I'm not done making noise, Expedia. You owe us, and I expect you to make it right. You haven't quite done that yet. Thanks - Thank you to Twitter. Thanks to all those who sympathize with us and helped us get the attention of Expedia, since three people (one of them an airline employee) using Expedia's normal channels of communication for many hours didn't help. Thanks especially to my PowerShell and Sharepoint friends, my local friends, and those connectors who encouraged me and spread my story. 5:15 PM - Love Wins - After all this, Lauren and I are exhausted. We both took a short nap, and when we woke up we talked about the last 24 hours. It was a big, amazing, story-filled 24 hours. I said that Expedia won, but Lauren said no. She pointed out how lucky we are. We are in love and married. We have wonderful family and friends. We are both hard-working successful people who love what they do. We get to go to an amazing exotic destination for our honeymoon like Veligandu in The Maldives... That's a lot of good. Expedia didn't win. This was (is) a big loss for Expedia. It is a public blemish for all to see. But Lauren and I did win, big time. Expedia may not have made things right - but things are right for us. Post in progress... I will relay any further comments (or lack of) from Expedia soon, as well as an update on confirmation of their repayment of our lost resort room rates. I'll also post a picture of us on our honeymoon as soon as I can!

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Jolicloud is a Nifty New OS for Your Netbook

- by Matthew Guay

Want to breathe new life into your netbook? Here’s a quick look at Jolicloud, a unique new Linux based OS that lets you use your netbook in a whole new way. Netbooks have been an interesting category of computers. When they were first released, most netbooks came with a stripped down Linux based operating system designed to let you easily access the internet first and foremost. Consumers wanted more from their netbooks, so full OSes such as Windows XP and Ubuntu became the standard on netbooks. Microsoft worked hard to get Windows 7 working great on netbooks, and today most netbooks run Windows 7 great. But the Linux community hasn’t stood still either, and Jolicloud is proof of that. Jolicloud is a unique OS designed to bring the best of both webapps and standard programs to your netbook. Keep reading to see if this is the perfect netbook OS for you. Getting Started Installing Jolicloud on your netbook is easy thanks to a the Jolicloud Express installer for Windows. Since many netbooks run Windows by default, this makes it easy to install Jolicloud. Plus, your Windows install is left untouched, so you can still easily access all your Windows files and programs. Download and run the roughly 700Mb installer (link below) just as a normal installer in Windows. This will first extract the needed files. Click Get started to install Jolicloud on your netbook. Enter a username, password, and nickname for your computer. Please note that the username must be all lowercase, and the nickname should not contain spaces or special characters. Now you can review the default installation settings. By default it will take up 39Gb and install on your C:\ drive in English. If you wish to change this, click Change. We chose to install it on the D: drive on this netbook, as its harddrive was already partitioned into two parts. Click Save when your settings are all correct, and then click Next in the previous window. Jolicloud will prepare for the installation. This took about 5 minutes in our test. Click Next when this is finished. Click Restart now to install and run Jolicloud. When your netbook reboots, it will initialize the Jolicloud setup. It will then automatically finish the installation. Just sit back and wait; there’s nothing for you to do right now. The installation took about 20 minutes in our test. Jolicloud will automatically reboot when the setup is finished. Once it’s rebooted, you’re ready to go! Enter the username, then the password, that you chose earlier when you were installing Jolicloud from Windows. Welcome to your Jolicloud desktop! Hardware Support We installed Jolicloud on a Samsung N150 netbook with an Atom N450 processor, 1Gb Ram, 250Gb harddrive, and WiFi b/g/n with Bluetooth. Amazingly, once Jolicloud was installed, everything was ready to use. No drivers to install, no settings to hassle with, it was all installed and set up perfectly. Power settings worked great, and closing the netbook put it to sleep just like in Windows. WiFi drivers have typically been difficult to find and install on Linux, but Jolicloud had our netbook’s wifi working immediately. To get online, simply click the Wireless icon on the top right, and select the wireless network you want to connect to. Jolicloud will let you know when it is signed on. Wired Lan networking was also seamless; simply connect your cable and you’re ready to go. The webcam and touchpad also worked perfectly directly. The only thing missing was multitouch; this touchpad has two finger scroll, pinch zoom, and other nice multitouch features in Windows, but in Julicloud it only functioned as a standard touchpad. It did have tap to click activated by default, as well as right-side scrolling, which is nice. Jolicloud also supported our video card without any extra work. The native resolution was already selected, and the only problem we had with the screen was that there was no apparent way to change the brightness. This is not a major problem, but would be nice to have. The Samsung N150 has Intel GMA3150 integrated graphics, and Jolicloud promises 1080p HD video on it. It did playback 720p H.264 video flawlessly without installing anything extra, but it stuttered on full 1080p HD (which is the exact same as this netbook’s video playback in Windows 7 – 720p works great, but it stutters on 1080p). We would be excited to see full HD on this netbook, but 720p is definitely fine for most stuff. Jolicloud supports a wide range of netbooks, and based on our experience we would expect it to work as good on any supported hardware. Check out the list of supported netbooks to see if your netbook is supported; if not, it still may work but you may have to install special drivers. Jolicloud’s performance was very similar to Windows 7 on our netbook. It boots in about 30 seconds, and apps load fairly quickly. In general, we couldn’t tell much difference in performance between Jolicloud and Windows 7, though this isn’t a problem since Windows 7 runs great on the current generation of netbooks. Using Jolicloud Ready to start putting Jolicloud to use? Your fresh Jolicloud install you can run several built-in apps, such as Firefox, a calculator, and the chat client Pidgin. It also has a media player and file viewer installed, so you can play MP3s or MPG videos, or read PDF ebooks without installing anything extra. It also has Flash player installed so you can watch videos online easily. You can also directly access all of your files from the right side of your home screen. You can even access your Windows files; in our test, the 116.9 GB Media was C: from Windows. Select it to browse and open any file you had saved in Windows. You may need to enter your password to access it. Once you’re authenticated it, you’ll see all of your Windows files and folders. Your User files (Documents, Music, Videos, etc.) will be in the Users folder. And, you can easily add files from removable media such as USB flash drives and memory cards. Jolicloud recognized a flash drive we tested with no trouble at all. Add new apps But, the best part about Jolicloud is that it makes it very easy to install new apps. Click the Get Started button on your homescreen. You’ll first need to create an account. You can then use this same account on another netbook if you wish, and your settings will automatically be synced between the two. You can either signup using your Facebook account, …or you can sign up the traditional way with your email address, name, and password. If you sign up this way, you will need to confirm your email address before your account will be finished. Now, choose your netbook model from the list, and enter a name for your computer. And that’s it! You’ll now see the Jolicloud dashboard, which will show you updates and notifications from friends who also use Jolicloud. Click the App directory to find new apps for your netbook. Here you will find a variety of webapps, such as Gmail, along with native applications, such as Skype, that you can install on your netbook. Simply click the Install button on the right to add the app to your netbook. You will be prompted to enter your system password, and then the app will install without any further input. Once an app is installed, a check mark will appear beside its name. You can remove it by clicking the Remove button, and it will uninstall seamlessly. Webapps, such as Gmail, actually run in in a Chrome-powered window that lets the webapp run full screen. This gives the webapps a native feel, but actually they’re just running the same as they would in a standard web browser. The Jolicloud Interface Most apps run maximized, and there is no way to run them smaller. This in general works good, since with small screens most apps need to run full-screen anyhow. Smaller apps, such as a calculator or the Pidgin chat client, run in a window just like they do on other operating systems. You can switch to another app that’s running by selecting it’s icon on the top left, or you can go back to the home screen by clicking the home screen. If you’re finished with an program, simply click the red X button on the top right of the window when you’re running it. Or, you can switch between programs using standard keyboard shortcuts such as Alt-tab. The default page on the home screen is the favorites page, and all of your other programs are orginized in their own sections on the left hand side. But, if you want to add one of these to your favorites page, simply right-click on it and select Add to Favorites. When you’re done for the day, you can simply close your netbook to put it to sleep. Or, if you want to shut down, just press the Quit button on the bottom right of the home screen and then select Shut Down. Booting Jolicloud When you install Jolicloud, it will set itself as the default operating system. Now, when you boot your netbook, it will show you a list of installed operating systems. You can select either Windows or Jolicloud, but if you don’t make a selection it will boot into Jolicloud after waiting 10 seconds. If you’d perfer to boot into Windows by default, you can easily change this. First, boot your netbook in to Windows. Open the start menu, right-click on the Computer button, and select Properties. Click the “Advanced system settings” link on the left side. Click the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery section. Now, select Windows as the default operating system, and click Ok. Your netbook will now boot into Windows by default, but will give you 10 seconds to choose to boot into Jolicloud when you start your computer. Or, if you decided you don’t want Jolicloud, you can easily uninstall it from within Windows. Please note that this will also remove any files you may have saved in Jolicloud, so be sure to copy them to your Windows drive before uninstalling. To uninstall Jolicloud from within Windows, open Control Panel, and select Uninstall a Program. Scroll down to select Jolicloud, and click Uninstall/Change. Click Yes to confirm that you want to uninstall Jolicloud. After a few moments, it will let you know that Jolicloud has been uninstalled. You’re netbook is now back the same as it was before you installed Jolicloud, with only Windows installed. Closing Whether you’re wanting to replace your current OS on your netbook or would simply like to try out a fresh new Linux version on your netbook, Jolicloud is a great option for you. We were very impressed by it’s solid hardware support and the ease of installing new apps in Jolicloud. Rather than simply giving us a standard OS, Jolicloud offers a unique way to use your netbook with native programs and webapps. And whether you’re an IT pro or are a new computer user, Jolicloud was easy enough to use that anyone can do it. Give it a try, and let us know what your favorite netbook OS is! Link Download Jolicloud for your netbook Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips How To Change XSplash Themes in Ubuntu 9.10Verify the Integrity of Windows Vista System FilesMonitor Multiple Logs in a Single Shell with MultiTail for LinuxHide Some or All of the GUI Bars in FirefoxAsk the Readers: Do You Use a Laptop, Desktop, or Both? 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Cannot SSH after resetting firewall on VPS

- by Thomas Buckley

I'm having trouble trying to SSH to my Debian 5 VPS with blacknight. It was working fine until I did the following: Logged into 'Parallels Infrastructure Manager' - Container - Firewall - Set to 'Normal Firewall settings'. It told me there was an error with the IPTables and offered the option again with a checkbox to 'reset' firewall settings, I selected this. I can see that that the default rules are been applied ( anything from anyone on any port and allowing anything to happen). Whenever I attempt to SSH I get the following debug info: thomas@localmachine:~/.ssh$ ssh -v thomas@hostname OpenSSH_5.8p1 Debian-7ubuntu1, OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for * debug1: Connecting to hostname [***********] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa type 1 debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.RSA-4096 debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.RSA-4096 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.8p1 Debian-7ubuntu1 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Server host key: RSA ************************************* debug1: Host 'hostname' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /home/thomas/.ssh/known_hosts:2 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: Roaming not allowed by server debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Offering RSA public key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey debug1: Trying private key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Trying private key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa debug1: No more authentication methods to try. Permission denied (publickey). I had my public/private RSA keys set up and working fine before I reset the firewall settings. I had also made the following changes to my /etc/ssh/sshd_config file on the VPS: PermitRootLogin no PasswordAuthentication no X11Forwarding no UsePAM no UseDNS no AllowUsers thomas Could it be something to do with the SSH server & client having different versions between my local machine and VPS? Any help appreciated. Output with ssh -vvv thomas@localcomputer:~/.ssh$ ssh -vvv thomas@**************** OpenSSH_5.8p1 Debian-7ubuntu1, OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011 debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config debug1: Applying options for * debug2: ssh_connect: needpriv 0 debug1: Connecting to ************ [*************] port 22. debug1: Connection established. debug3: Incorrect RSA1 identifier debug3: Could not load "/home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa" as a RSA1 public key debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----BEGIN' debug3: key_read: missing keytype debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type 'Proc-Type:' debug3: key_read: missing keytype debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type 'DEK-Info:' debug3: key_read: missing keytype debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug3: key_read: missing whitespace debug2: key_type_from_name: unknown key type '-----END' debug3: key_read: missing keytype debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa type 1 debug1: Checking blacklist file /usr/share/ssh/blacklist.RSA-4096 debug1: Checking blacklist file /etc/ssh/blacklist.RSA-4096 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1 debug1: identity file /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1 debug1: Remote protocol version 2.0, remote software version OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5 debug1: match: OpenSSH_5.1p1 Debian-5 pat OpenSSH* debug1: Enabling compatibility mode for protocol 2.0 debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.8p1 Debian-7ubuntu1 debug2: fd 3 setting O_NONBLOCK debug3: load_hostkeys: loading entries for host "*****************" from file "/home/thomas/.ssh/known_hosts" debug3: load_hostkeys: found key type RSA in file /home/thomas/.ssh/known_hosts:1 debug3: load_hostkeys: loaded 1 keys debug3: order_hostkeyalgs: prefer hostkeyalgs: [email protected],[email protected],ssh-rsa debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT sent debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEXINIT received debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: ecdh-sha2-nistp256,ecdh-sha2-nistp384,ecdh-sha2-nistp521,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: [email protected],[email protected],ssh-rsa,[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],[email protected],ecdsa-sha2-nistp256,ecdsa-sha2-nistp384,ecdsa-sha2-nistp521,ssh-dss debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr,arcfour256,arcfour128,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,arcfour,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected],zlib debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected],zlib debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha256,diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: ssh-rsa,ssh-dss debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour128,arcfour256,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,[email protected],aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour128,arcfour256,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc,[email protected],aes128-ctr,aes192-ctr,aes256-ctr debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: hmac-md5,hmac-sha1,[email protected],hmac-ripemd160,[email protected],hmac-sha1-96,hmac-md5-96 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: none,[email protected] debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: first_kex_follows 0 debug2: kex_parse_kexinit: reserved 0 debug2: mac_setup: found hmac-md5 debug1: kex: server->client aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug2: mac_setup: found hmac-md5 debug1: kex: client->server aes128-ctr hmac-md5 none debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REQUEST(1024<1024<8192) sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_GROUP debug2: dh_gen_key: priv key bits set: 127/256 debug2: bits set: 498/1024 debug1: SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_INIT sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_KEX_DH_GEX_REPLY debug1: Server host key: RSA *********************************************************** debug3: load_hostkeys: loading entries for host "*********************" from file "/home/thomas/.ssh/known_hosts" debug3: load_hostkeys: found key type RSA in file /home/thomas/.ssh/known_hosts:1 debug3: load_hostkeys: loaded 1 keys debug1: Host '****************' is known and matches the RSA host key. debug1: Found key in /home/thomas/.ssh/known_hosts:1 debug2: bits set: 516/1024 debug1: ssh_rsa_verify: signature correct debug2: kex_derive_keys debug2: set_newkeys: mode 1 debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS sent debug1: expecting SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS debug2: set_newkeys: mode 0 debug1: SSH2_MSG_NEWKEYS received debug1: Roaming not allowed by server debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_REQUEST sent debug2: service_accept: ssh-userauth debug1: SSH2_MSG_SERVICE_ACCEPT received debug2: key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa (0x7fa7028b6010) debug2: key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa ((nil)) debug2: key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa ((nil)) debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey debug3: start over, passed a different list publickey debug3: preferred gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic,publickey,keyboard-interactive,password debug3: authmethod_lookup publickey debug3: remaining preferred: keyboard-interactive,password debug3: authmethod_is_enabled publickey debug1: Next authentication method: publickey debug1: Offering RSA public key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_rsa debug3: send_pubkey_test debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey debug1: Trying private key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa debug3: no such identity: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_dsa debug1: Trying private key: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa debug3: no such identity: /home/thomas/.ssh/id_ecdsa debug2: we did not send a packet, disable method debug1: No more authentication methods to try. Permission denied (publickey). sshd_config # Package generated configuration file # See the sshd(8) manpage for details # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for Port 22 # Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to #ListenAddress :: #ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 Protocol 2 # HostKeys for protocol version 2 HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key #Privilege Separation is turned on for security UsePrivilegeSeparation yes # Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key KeyRegenerationInterval 3600 ServerKeyBits 768 # Logging SyslogFacility AUTH LogLevel INFO # Authentication: LoginGraceTime 120 PermitRootLogin no StrictModes yes RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes #AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys # Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files IgnoreRhosts yes # For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts RhostsRSAAuthentication no # similar for protocol version 2 HostbasedAuthentication no # Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication #IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes # To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED) PermitEmptyPasswords no # Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with # some PAM modules and threads) C hallengeResponseAuthentication no # Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords PasswordAuthentication no # Kerberos options #KerberosAuthentication no #KerberosGetAFSToken no #KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes #KerberosTicketCleanup yes # GSSAPI options #GSSAPIAuthentication no #GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes X11Forwarding no X11DisplayOffset 10 PrintMotd no PrintLastLog yes TCPKeepAlive yes #UseLogin no #MaxStartups 10:30:60 #Banner /etc/issue.net # Allow client to pass locale environment variables AcceptEnv LANG LC_* Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server UsePAM no UseDNS no AllowUsers thomas Thanks

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Toorcon 15 (2013)

- by danx

The Toorcon gang (senior staff): h1kari (founder), nfiltr8, and Geo Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Making Attacks Go Backwards Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) Toorcon 15 is the 15th annual security conference held in San Diego. I've attended about a third of them and blogged about previous conferences I attended here starting in 2003. As always, I've only summarized the talks I attended and interested me enough to write about them. Be aware that I may have misrepresented the speaker's remarks and that they are not my remarks or opinion, or those of my employer, so don't quote me or them. Those seeking further details may contact the speakers directly or use The Google. For some talks, I have a URL for further information. A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Andrew Furtak and Oleksandr Bazhaniuk Yuri Bulygin, Oleksandr ("Alex") Bazhaniuk, and (not present) Andrew Furtak Yuri and Alex talked about UEFI and Bootkits and bypassing MS Windows 8 Secure Boot, with vendor recommendations. They previously gave this talk at the BlackHat 2013 conference. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Overview UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is interface between hardware and OS. UEFI is processor and architecture independent. Malware can replace bootloader (bootx64.efi, bootmgfw.efi). Once replaced can modify kernel. Trivial to replace bootloader. Today many legacy bootkits—UEFI replaces them most of them. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot verifies everything you load, either through signatures or hashes. UEFI firmware relies on secure update (with signed update). You would think Secure Boot would rely on ROM (such as used for phones0, but you can't do that for PCs—PCs use writable memory with signatures DXE core verifies the UEFI boat loader(s) OS Loader (winload.efi, winresume.efi) verifies the OS kernel A chain of trust is established with a root key (Platform Key, PK), which is a cert belonging to the platform vendor. Key Exchange Keys (KEKs) verify an "authorized" database (db), and "forbidden" database (dbx). X.509 certs with SHA-1/SHA-256 hashes. Keys are stored in non-volatile (NV) flash-based NVRAM. Boot Services (BS) allow adding/deleting keys (can't be accessed once OS starts—which uses Run-Time (RT)). Root cert uses RSA-2048 public keys and PKCS#7 format signatures. SecureBoot — enable disable image signature checks SetupMode — update keys, self-signed keys, and secure boot variables CustomMode — allows updating keys Secure Boot policy settings are: always execute, never execute, allow execute on security violation, defer execute on security violation, deny execute on security violation, query user on security violation Attacking MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Secure Boot does NOT protect from physical access. Can disable from console. Each BIOS vendor implements Secure Boot differently. There are several platform and BIOS vendors. It becomes a "zoo" of implementations—which can be taken advantage of. Secure Boot is secure only when all vendors implement it correctly. Allow only UEFI firmware signed updates protect UEFI firmware from direct modification in flash memory protect FW update components program SPI controller securely protect secure boot policy settings in nvram protect runtime api disable compatibility support module which allows unsigned legacy Can corrupt the Platform Key (PK) EFI root certificate variable in SPI flash. If PK is not found, FW enters setup mode wich secure boot turned off. Can also exploit TPM in a similar manner. One is not supposed to be able to directly modify the PK in SPI flash from the OS though. But they found a bug that they can exploit from User Mode (undisclosed) and demoed the exploit. It loaded and ran their own bootkit. The exploit requires a reboot. Multiple vendors are vulnerable. They will disclose this exploit to vendors in the future. Recommendations: allow only signed updates protect UEFI fw in ROM protect EFI variable store in ROM Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Yoel Gluck and Angelo Prado Angelo Prado and Yoel Gluck, Salesforce.com CRIME is software that performs a "compression oracle attack." This is possible because the SSL protocol doesn't hide length, and because SSL compresses the header. CRIME requests with every possible character and measures the ciphertext length. Look for the plaintext which compresses the most and looks for the cookie one byte-at-a-time. SSL Compression uses LZ77 to reduce redundancy. Huffman coding replaces common byte sequences with shorter codes. US CERT thinks the SSL compression problem is fixed, but it isn't. They convinced CERT that it wasn't fixed and they issued a CVE. BREACH, breachattrack.com BREACH exploits the SSL response body (Accept-Encoding response, Content-Encoding). It takes advantage of the fact that the response is not compressed. BREACH uses gzip and needs fairly "stable" pages that are static for ~30 seconds. It needs attacker-supplied content (say from a web form or added to a URL parameter). BREACH listens to a session's requests and responses, then inserts extra requests and responses. Eventually, BREACH guesses a session's secret key. Can use compression to guess contents one byte at-a-time. For example, "Supersecret SupersecreX" (a wrong guess) compresses 10 bytes, and "Supersecret Supersecret" (a correct guess) compresses 11 bytes, so it can find each character by guessing every character. To start the guess, BREACH needs at least three known initial characters in the response sequence. Compression length then "leaks" information. Some roadblocks include no winners (all guesses wrong) or too many winners (multiple possibilities that compress the same). The solutions include: lookahead (guess 2 or 3 characters at-a-time instead of 1 character). Expensive rollback to last known conflict check compression ratio can brute-force first 3 "bootstrap" characters, if needed (expensive) block ciphers hide exact plain text length. Solution is to align response in advance to block size Mitigations length: use variable padding secrets: dynamic CSRF tokens per request secret: change over time separate secret to input-less servlets Future work eiter understand DEFLATE/GZIP HTTPS extensions Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Ryan Huber Ryan Huber, Risk I/O Ryan first discussed various ways to do a denial of service (DoS) attack against web services. One usual method is to find a slow web page and do several wgets. Or download large files. Apache is not well suited at handling a large number of connections, but one can put something in front of it Can use Apache alternatives, such as nginx How to identify malicious hosts short, sudden web requests user-agent is obvious (curl, python) same url requested repeatedly no web page referer (not normal) hidden links. hide a link and see if a bot gets it restricted access if not your geo IP (unless the website is global) missing common headers in request regular timing first seen IP at beginning of attack count requests per hosts (usually a very large number) Use of captcha can mitigate attacks, but you'll lose a lot of genuine users. Bouncer, goo.gl/c2vyEc and www.github.com/rawdigits/Bouncer Bouncer is software written by Ryan in netflow. Bouncer has a small, unobtrusive footprint and detects DoS attempts. It closes blacklisted sockets immediately (not nice about it, no proper close connection). Aggregator collects requests and controls your web proxies. Need NTP on the front end web servers for clean data for use by bouncer. Bouncer is also useful for a popularity storm ("Slashdotting") and scraper storms. Future features: gzip collection data, documentation, consumer library, multitask, logging destroyed connections. Takeaways: DoS mitigation is easier with a complete picture Bouncer designed to make it easier to detect and defend DoS—not a complete cure Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman, Adobe ASSET, blogs.adobe.com/asset/ Peleus and Karthik talked about response to mass-customized exploits. Attackers behave much like a business. "Mass customization" refers to concept discussed in the book Future Perfect by Stan Davis of Harvard Business School. Mass customization is differentiating a product for an individual customer, but at a mass production price. For example, the same individual with a debit card receives basically the same customized ATM experience around the world. Or designing your own PC from commodity parts. Exploit kits are another example of mass customization. The kits support multiple browsers and plugins, allows new modules. Exploit kits are cheap and customizable. Organized gangs use exploit kits. A group at Berkeley looked at 77,000 malicious websites (Grier et al., "Manufacturing Compromise: The Emergence of Exploit-as-a-Service", 2012). They found 10,000 distinct binaries among them, but derived from only a dozen or so exploit kits. Characteristics of Mass Malware: potent, resilient, relatively low cost Technical characteristics: multiple OS, multipe payloads, multiple scenarios, multiple languages, obfuscation Response time for 0-day exploits has gone down from ~40 days 5 years ago to about ~10 days now. So the drive with malware is towards mass customized exploits, to avoid detection There's plenty of evicence that exploit development has Project Manager bureaucracy. They infer from the malware edicts to: support all versions of reader support all versions of windows support all versions of flash support all browsers write large complex, difficult to main code (8750 lines of JavaScript for example Exploits have "loose coupling" of multipe versions of software (adobe), OS, and browser. This allows specific attacks against specific versions of multiple pieces of software. Also allows exploits of more obscure software/OS/browsers and obscure versions. Gave examples of exploits that exploited 2, 3, 6, or 14 separate bugs. However, these complete exploits are more likely to be buggy or fragile in themselves and easier to defeat. Future research includes normalizing malware and Javascript. Conclusion: The coming trend is that mass-malware with mass zero-day attacks will result in mass customization of attacks. x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Richard Wartell Richard Wartell The attack vector we are addressing here is: First some malware causes a buffer overflow. The malware has no program access, but input access and buffer overflow code onto stack Later the stack became non-executable. The workaround malware used was to write a bogus return address to the stack jumping to malware Later came ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) to randomize memory layout and make addresses non-deterministic. The workaround malware used was to jump t existing code segments in the program that can be used in bad ways "RoP" is Return-oriented Programming attacks. RoP attacks use your own code and write return address on stack to (existing) expoitable code found in program ("gadgets"). Pinkie Pie was paid $60K last year for a RoP attack. One solution is using anti-RoP compilers that compile source code with NO return instructions. ASLR does not randomize address space, just "gadgets". IPR/ILR ("Instruction Location Randomization") randomizes each instruction with a virtual machine. Richard's goal was to randomize a binary with no source code access. He created "STIR" (Self-Transofrming Instruction Relocation). STIR disassembles binary and operates on "basic blocks" of code. The STIR disassembler is conservative in what to disassemble. Each basic block is moved to a random location in memory. Next, STIR writes new code sections with copies of "basic blocks" of code in randomized locations. The old code is copied and rewritten with jumps to new code. the original code sections in the file is marked non-executible. STIR has better entropy than ASLR in location of code. Makes brute force attacks much harder. STIR runs on MS Windows (PEM) and Linux (ELF). It eliminated 99.96% or more "gadgets" (i.e., moved the address). Overhead usually 5-10% on MS Windows, about 1.5-4% on Linux (but some code actually runs faster!). The unique thing about STIR is it requires no source access and the modified binary fully works! Current work is to rewrite code to enforce security policies. For example, don't create a *.{exe,msi,bat} file. Or don't connect to the network after reading from the disk. Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Collin Greene Collin Greene, Facebook Collin talked about Facebook's bug bounty program. Background at FB: FB has good security frameworks, such as security teams, external audits, and cc'ing on diffs. But there's lots of "deep, dark, forgotten" parts of legacy FB code. Collin gave several examples of bountied bugs. Some bounty submissions were on software purchased from a third-party (but bounty claimers don't know and don't care). We use security questions, as does everyone else, but they are basically insecure (often easily discoverable). Collin didn't expect many bugs from the bounty program, but they ended getting 20+ good bugs in first 24 hours and good submissions continue to come in. Bug bounties bring people in with different perspectives, and are paid only for success. Bug bounty is a better use of a fixed amount of time and money versus just code review or static code analysis. The Bounty program started July 2011 and paid out $1.5 million to date. 14% of the submissions have been high priority problems that needed to be fixed immediately. The best bugs come from a small % of submitters (as with everything else)—the top paid submitters are paid 6 figures a year. Spammers like to backstab competitors. The youngest sumitter was 13. Some submitters have been hired. Bug bounties also allows to see bugs that were missed by tools or reviews, allowing improvement in the process. Bug bounties might not work for traditional software companies where the product has release cycle or is not on Internet. Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Anna Shubina Anna Shubina, Dartmouth Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (I missed the start of her talk because another track went overtime. But I have the DVD of the talk, so I'll expand later) IPsec leaves fingerprints. Using netcat, one can easily visually distinguish various crypto chaining modes just from packet timing on a chart (example, DES-CBC versus AES-CBC) One can tell a lot about VPNs just from ping roundtrips (such as what router is used) Delayed packets are not informative about a network, especially if far away from the network More needed to explore about how TCP works in real life with respect to timing Making Attacks Go Backwards Fuzzynop FuzzyNop, Mandiant This talk is not about threat attribution (finding who), product solutions, politics, or sales pitches. But who are making these malware threats? It's not a single person or group—they have diverse skill levels. There's a lot of fat-fingered fumblers out there. Always look for low-hanging fruit first: "hiding" malware in the temp, recycle, or root directories creation of unnamed scheduled tasks obvious names of files and syscalls ("ClearEventLog") uncleared event logs. Clearing event log in itself, and time of clearing, is a red flag and good first clue to look for on a suspect system Reverse engineering is hard. Disassembler use takes practice and skill. A popular tool is IDA Pro, but it takes multiple interactive iterations to get a clean disassembly. Key loggers are used a lot in targeted attacks. They are typically custom code or built in a backdoor. A big tip-off is that non-printable characters need to be printed out (such as "[Ctrl]" "[RightShift]") or time stamp printf strings. Look for these in files. Presence is not proof they are used. Absence is not proof they are not used. Java exploits. Can parse jar file with idxparser.py and decomile Java file. Java typially used to target tech companies. Backdoors are the main persistence mechanism (provided externally) for malware. Also malware typically needs command and control. Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ad-Hoc Static Code Analysis John Ashaman John Ashaman, Security Innovation Initially John tried to analyze open source files with open source static analysis tools, but these showed thousands of false positives. Also tried using grep, but tis fails to find anything even mildly complex. So next John decided to write his own tool. His approach was to first generate a call graph then analyze the graph. However, the problem is that making a call graph is really hard. For example, one problem is "evil" coding techniques, such as passing function pointer. First the tool generated an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) with the nodes created from method declarations and edges created from method use. Then the tool generated a control flow graph with the goal to find a path through the AST (a maze) from source to sink. The algorithm is to look at adjacent nodes to see if any are "scary" (a vulnerability), using heuristics for search order. The tool, called "Scat" (Static Code Analysis Tool), currently looks for C# vulnerabilities and some simple PHP. Later, he plans to add more PHP, then JSP and Java. For more information see his posts in Security Innovation blog and NRefactory on GitHub. Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Sometimes in emailing or posting TCP/IP packets to analyze problems, you may want to mask the IP address. But to do this correctly, you need to mask the checksum too, or you'll leak information about the IP. Problem reports found in stackoverflow.com, sans.org, and pastebin.org are usually not masked, but a few companies do care. If only the IP is masked, the IP may be guessed from checksum (that is, it leaks data). Other parts of packet may leak more data about the IP. TCP and IP checksums both refer to the same data, so can get more bits of information out of using both checksums than just using one checksum. Also, one can usually determine the OS from the TTL field and ports in a packet header. If we get hundreds of possible results (16x each masked nibble that is unknown), one can do other things to narrow the results, such as look at packet contents for domain or geo information. With hundreds of results, can import as CSV format into a spreadsheet. Can corelate with geo data and see where each possibility is located. Eric then demoed a real email report with a masked IP packet attached. Was able to find the exact IP address, given the geo and university of the sender. Point is if you're going to mask a packet, do it right. Eric wouldn't usually bother, but do it correctly if at all, to not create a false impression of security. Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Sergey Bratus Sergey Bratus, Dartmouth College (and Julian Bangert and Rebecca Shapiro, not present) "Reflections on Trusting Trust" refers to Ken Thompson's classic 1984 paper. "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself." There's invisible links in the chain-of-trust, such as "well-installed microcode bugs" or in the compiler, and other planted bugs. Thompson showed how a compiler can introduce and propagate bugs in unmodified source. But suppose if there's no bugs and you trust the author, can you trust the code? Hell No! There's too many factors—it's Babylonian in nature. Why not? Well, Input is not well-defined/recognized (code's assumptions about "checked" input will be violated (bug/vunerabiliy). For example, HTML is recursive, but Regex checking is not recursive. Input well-formed but so complex there's no telling what it does For example, ELF file parsing is complex and has multiple ways of parsing. Input is seen differently by different pieces of program or toolchain Any Input is a program input executes on input handlers (drives state changes & transitions) only a well-defined execution model can be trusted (regex/DFA, PDA, CFG) Input handler either is a "recognizer" for the inputs as a well-defined language (see langsec.org) or it's a "virtual machine" for inputs to drive into pwn-age ELF ABI (UNIX/Linux executible file format) case study. Problems can arise from these steps (without planting bugs): compiler linker loader ld.so/rtld relocator DWARF (debugger info) exceptions The problem is you can't really automatically analyze code (it's the "halting problem" and undecidable). Only solution is to freeze code and sign it. But you can't freeze everything! Can't freeze ASLR or loading—must have tables and metadata. Any sufficiently complex input data is the same as VM byte code Example, ELF relocation entries + dynamic symbols == a Turing Complete Machine (TM). @bxsays created a Turing machine in Linux from relocation data (not code) in an ELF file. For more information, see Rebecca "bx" Shapiro's presentation from last year's Toorcon, "Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata" @bxsays did same thing with Mach-O bytecode Or a DWARF exception handling data .eh_frame + glibc == Turning Machine X86 MMU (IDT, GDT, TSS): used address translation to create a Turning Machine. Page handler reads and writes (on page fault) memory. Uses a page table, which can be used as Turning Machine byte code. Example on Github using this TM that will fly a glider across the screen Next Sergey talked about "Parser Differentials". That having one input format, but two parsers, will create confusion and opportunity for exploitation. For example, CSRs are parsed during creation by cert requestor and again by another parser at the CA. Another example is ELF—several parsers in OS tool chain, which are all different. Can have two different Program Headers (PHDRs) because ld.so parses multiple PHDRs. The second PHDR can completely transform the executable. This is described in paper in the first issue of International Journal of PoC. Conclusions trusting computers not only about bugs! Bugs are part of a problem, but no by far all of it complex data formats means bugs no "chain of trust" in Babylon! (that is, with parser differentials) we need to squeeze complexity out of data until data stops being "code equivalent" Further information See and langsec.org. USENIX WOOT 2013 (Workshop on Offensive Technologies) for "weird machines" papers and videos.

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Configure Forms based authentication in SharePoint 2010

- by sreejukg

Configuring form authentication is a straight forward task in SharePoint. Mostly public facing websites built on SharePoint requires form based authentication. Recently, one of the WCM implementation where I was included in the project team required registration system. Any internet user can register to the site and the site offering them some membership specific functionalities once the user logged in. Since the registration open for all, I don’t want to store all those users in Active Directory. I have decided to use Forms based authentication for those users. This is a typical scenario of form authentication in SharePoint implementation. To implement form authentication you require the following A data store where you are storing the users – technically this can be active directory, SQL server database, LDAP etc. Form authentication will redirect the user to the login page, if the request is not authenticated. In the login page, there will be controls that validate the user inputs against the configured data store. In this article, I am going to use SQL server database with ASP.Net membership API’s to configure form based authentication in SharePoint 2010. This article assumes that you have SQL membership database available. I already configured the membership and roles database using aspnet_regsql command. If you want to know how to configure membership database using aspnet_regsql command, read the below blog post. http://weblogs.asp.net/sreejukg/archive/2011/06/16/usage-of-aspnet-regsql-exe-in-asp-net-4.aspx The snapshot of the database after implementing membership and role manager is as follows. I have used the database name “aspnetdb_claim”. Make sure you have created the database and make sure your database contains tables and stored procedures for membership. Create a web application with claims based authentication. This article assumes you already created a web application using claims based authentication. If you want to enable forms based authentication in SharePoint 2010, you must enable claims based authentication. Read this post for creating a web application using claims based authentication. http://weblogs.asp.net/sreejukg/archive/2011/06/15/create-a-web-application-in-sharepoint-2010-using-claims-based-authentication.aspx You make sure, you have selected enable form authentication, and then selected Membership provider and Role manager name. To make sure you are done with the configuration, navigate to central administration website, from central administration, navigate to the Web Applications page, select the web application and click on icon, you will see the authentication providers for the current web application. Go to the section Claims authentication types, and make sure you have enabled forms based authentication. As mentioned in the snapshot, I have named the membership provider as SPFormAuthMembership and role manager as SPFormAuthRoleManager. You can choose your own names as you need. Modify the configuration files(Web.Config) to enable form authentication There are three applications that needs to be configured to support form authentication. The following are those applications. Central Administration If you want to assign permissions to web application using the credentials from form authentication, you need to update Central Administration configuration. If you do not want to access form authentication credentials from Central Administration, just leave this step. STS service application Security Token service is the service application that issues security token when users are logging in. You need to modify the configuration of STS application to make sure users are able to login. To find the STS application, follow the following steps Go to the IIS Manager Expand the sites Node, you will see SharePoint Web Services Expand SharePoint Web Services, you can see SecurityTokenServiceApplication Right click SecuritytokenServiceApplication and click explore, it will open the corresponding file system. By default, the path for STS is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\WebServices\SecurityToken You need to modify the configuration file available in the mentioned location. The web application that needs to be enabled with form authentication. You need to modify the configuration of your web application to make sure your web application identifies users from the form authentication. Based on the above, I am going to modify the web configuration. At end of each step, I have mentioned the expected output. I recommend you to go step by step and after each step, make sure the configuration changes are working as expected. If you do everything all together, and test your application at the end, you may face difficulties in troubleshooting the configuration errors. Modifications for Central Administration Web.Config Open the web.config for the Central administration in a text editor. I always prefer Visual Studio, for editing web.config. In most cases, the path of the web.config for the central administration website is as follows C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\<port number> Make sure you keep a backup copy of the web.config, before editing it. Let me summarize what we are going to do with Central Administration web.config. First I am going to add a connection string that points to the form authentication database, that I created as mentioned in previous steps. Then I need to add a membership provider and a role manager with the corresponding connectionstring. Then I need to update the peoplepickerwildcards section to make sure the users are appearing in search results. By default there is no connection string available in the web.config of Central Administration. Add a connection string just after the configsections element. The below is the connection string I have used all over the article. <add name="FormAuthConnString" connectionString="Initial Catalog=yourdatabasename;data source=databaseservername;Integrated Security=SSPI;" /> Once you added the connection string, the web.config look similar to Now add membership provider to the code. In web.config for CA, there will be <membership> tag, search for it. You will find membership and role manager under the <system.web> element. Under the membership providers section add the below code… <add name="SPFormAuthMembership" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" applicationName="FormAuthApplication" connectionStringName="FormAuthConnString" /> After adding memberhip element, see the snapshot of the web.config. Now you need to add role manager element to the web.config. Insider providers element under rolemanager, add the below code. <add name="SPFormAuthRoleManager" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" applicationName="FormAuthApplication" connectionStringName="FormAuthConnString" /> After adding, your role manager will look similar to the following. As a last step, you need to update the people picker wildcard element in web.config, so that the users from your membership provider are available for browsing in Central Administration. Search for PeoplePickerWildcards in the web.config, add the following inside the <PeoplePickerWildcards> tag. <add key="SPFormAuthMembership" value="%" /> After adding this element, your web.config will look like After completing these steps, you can browse the users available in the SQL server database from central administration website. Go to the site collection administrator’s page from central administration. Select the site collection you have created for form authentication. Click on the people picker icon, choose Forms Auth and click on the search icon, you will see the users listed from the SQL server database. Once you complete these steps, make sure the users are available for browsing from central administration website. If you are unable to find the users, there must be some errors in the configuration, check windows event logs to find related errors and fix them. Change the web.config for STS application Open the web.config for STS application in text editor. By default, STS web.config does not have system.Web or connectionstrings section. Just after the System.Webserver element, add the following code. <connectionStrings> <add name="FormAuthConnString" connectionString="Initial Catalog=aspnetdb_claim;data source=sp2010_db;Integrated Security=SSPI;" /> </connectionStrings> <system.web> <roleManager enabled="true" cacheRolesInCookie="false" cookieName=".ASPXROLES" cookieTimeout="30" cookiePath="/" cookieRequireSSL="false" cookieSlidingExpiration="true" cookieProtection="All" createPersistentCookie="false" maxCachedResults="25"> <providers> <add name="SPFormAuthRoleManager" type="System.Web.Security.SqlRoleProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" applicationName="FormAuthApplication" connectionStringName="FormAuthConnString" /> </providers> </roleManager> <membership userIsOnlineTimeWindow="15" hashAlgorithmType=""> <providers> <add name="SPFormAuthMembership" type="System.Web.Security.SqlMembershipProvider, System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a" applicationName="FormAuthApplication" connectionStringName="FormAuthConnString" /> </providers> </membership> </system.web> See the snapshot of the web.config after adding the required elements. After adding this, you should be able to login using the credentials from SQL server. Try assigning a user as primary/secondary administrator for your site collection from Central Administration and login to your site using form authentication. If you made everything correct, you should be able to login. This means you have successfully completed configuration of STS Configuration of Web Application for Form Authentication As a last step, you need to modify the web.config of the form authentication web application. Once you have done this, you should be able to grant permissions to users stored in the membership database. Open the Web.config of the web application you created for form authentication. You can find the web.config for the application under the path C:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\<port number> Basically you need to add connection string, membership provider, role manager and update the people picker wild card configuration. Add the connection string (same as the one you added to the web.config in Central Administration). See the screenshot after the connection string has added. Search for <membership> in the web.config, you will find this inside system.web element. There will be other providers already available there. You add your form authentication membership provider (similar to the one added to Central Administration web.config) to the provider element under membership. Find the snapshot of membership configuration as follows. Search for <roleManager> element in web.config, add the new provider name under providers section of the roleManager element. See the snapshot of web.config after new provider added. Now you need to configure the peoplepickerwildcard configuration in web.config. As I specified earlier, this is to make sure, you can locate the users by entering a part of their username. Add the following line under the <PeoplePickerWildcards> element in web.config. See the screenshot of the peoplePickerWildcards element after the element has been added. Now you have completed all the setup for form authentication. Navigate to the web application. From the site actions -> site settings -> go to peope and groups Click on new -> add users, it will popup the people picker dialog. Click on the icon, select Form Auth, enter a username in the search textbox, and click on search icon. See the screenshot of admin search when I tried searching the users If it displays the user, it means you are done with the configuration. If you add users to the form authentication database, the users will be able to access SharePoint portal as normal.

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Why does Mac OS X Software Update not work when machine uses Active Directory?

- by Lyndsey Ferguson

My company's IT department is mostly a Windows run operation and in order to become more secure, they are altering the way that the Macintosh computers login to our internal network so that they use Active Directory like their Windows counterparts. I have been given Administrative permission on my Mac and I am able to do most of what I used to be able to do in terms of authentication of software installations. However, there is a problem: the "Software Update" feature doesn't work. What happens is that when I try to get the Mac to perform its Software Updates from the Apple menu, the normal window appears listing what has to be updated; I am able to select what to update and click the "Update" button, but then nothing happens. It doesn't ask for authentication like it used to, the computer doesn't perform any download or installation (it does sometimes ask me to agree to license agreements for iTunes). I can download the updates individually and install them without any issues, but the auto-update fails. I'd rather use the Software Update menu item like I used to: it is much more convenient. Any suggestions on how I can fix this? EDIT Nov 19th, 2009, 10:09 EST: I have posted this question to the Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard support forum. EDIT Nov 19th, 2009, 12:39 EST:Yes, the Terminal command "sudo softwareupdate --install --all" does work flawlessly. I want to avoid that as my co-workers are generally not comfortable on the Mac. I also tried Chealion's suggestion to delete "~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist" and "/Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate.plist", Software Update still fails. However, I did get diagnostic messages in the Console (below). I've deleted the MS Office Package Receipts and examined the suhelperd (Software Update Helper Daemon?); it appears that suhelperd is crashing and that explains why it doesn't work. I've submitted a bug report to Apple (radar://7408619). Here are the Console diagnostic messages: 11/19/09 12:36:44 PM com.apple.suhelperd[66829] terminate called after throwing an instance of 'NSException' 11/19/09 12:36:47 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.suhelperd[66829]) Job appears to have crashed: Abort trap 11/19/09 12:36:48 PM com.apple.ReportCrash.Root[66830] 2009-11-19 12:36:48.275 ReportCrash[66830:2703] Saved crash report for suhelperd[66829] version ??? (???) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/suhelperd_2009-11-19-123648_localhost.crash 11/19/09 12:36:54 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.suhelperd) Throttling respawn: Will start in 1 seconds 11/19/09 12:36:55 PM com.apple.suhelperd[66836] terminate called after throwing an instance of 'NSException' 11/19/09 12:36:55 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.suhelperd[66836]) Job appears to have crashed: Abort trap 11/19/09 12:36:56 PM com.apple.ReportCrash.Root[66830] 2009-11-19 12:36:56.017 ReportCrash[66830:2f03] Saved crash report for suhelperd[66836] version ??? (???) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/suhelperd_2009-11-19-123655_localhost.crash 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_automator.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_automator_workflow.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_autoupdate.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_clipart.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_core.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_dock.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_entourage.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_entourage_help_std.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_equationeditor.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_errorreporting.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_excel.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_excel_help_std.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_fonts.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_graph.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_helpviewer.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_launch.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_ooxml.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_orgchart.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_powerpoint.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_powerpoint_help_std.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_brazilian.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_danish.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_dutch.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_english.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_finnish.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_french.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_german.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_italian.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_japanese.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_norwegian.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_portuguese.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_spanish.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_proofing_swedish.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_required.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_silverlight.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_sounds.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_word.pkg 11/19/09 12:36:58 PM Software Update[66826] PackageKit: *** Missing bundle identifier: /Library/Receipts/Office2008_en_word_help_std.pkg 11/19/09 12:37:26 PM com.apple.suhelperd[66839] terminate called after throwing an instance of 'NSException' 11/19/09 12:37:26 PM com.apple.launchd[1] (com.apple.suhelperd[66839]) Job appears to have crashed: Abort trap 11/19/09 12:37:26 PM com.apple.ReportCrash.Root[66830] 2009-11-19 12:37:26.929 ReportCrash[66830:2b07] Saved crash report for suhelperd[66839] version ??? (???) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/suhelperd_2009-11-19-123726_localhost.crash And here is the suhelperd crash report: Process: suhelperd [66839] Path: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/SoftwareUpdate.framework/Versions/A/Resources/suhelperd Identifier: suhelperd Version: ??? (???) Code Type: X86-64 (Native) Parent Process: launchd [1] Date/Time: 2009-11-19 12:37:26.473 -0500 OS Version: Mac OS X 10.6.2 (10C540) Report Version: 6 Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT) Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000 Crashed Thread: 0 Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread Application Specific Information: abort() called *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSRangeException', reason: '*** -[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:]: index (0) beyond bounds (0)' *** Call stack at first throw: ( 0 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff859a9444 __exceptionPreprocess + 180 1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff8787e0f3 objc_exception_throw + 45 2 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff859a9267 +[NSException raise:format:arguments:] + 103 3 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff859a91f4 +[NSException raise:format:] + 148 4 Foundation 0x00007fff855da080 _NSArrayRaiseBoundException + 122 5 Foundation 0x00007fff8553cb81 -[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:] + 75 6 Admin 0x00007fff8107920e +[User(UserPrivate) _userWithInfo:attributes:] + 71 7 Admin 0x00007fff81080d6b +[User findUserByID:searchParent:] + 404 8 suhelperd 0x0000000100001274 0x0 + 4294972020 9 suhelperd 0x0000000100002240 0x0 + 4294976064 10 suhelperd 0x00000001000053b1 0x0 + 4294988721 11 suhelperd 0x00000001000044b3 0x0 + 4294984883 12 suhelperd 0x0000000100004154 0x0 + 4294984020 13 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83eb60d8 mach_msg_server + 357 14 suhelperd 0x00000001000036eb 0x0 + 4294981355 15 suhelperd 0x0000000100002a1f 0x0 + 4294978079 16 suhelperd 0x0000000100001080 0x0 + 4294971520 ) Thread 0 Crashed: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e86fe6 __kill + 10 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83f27e32 abort + 83 2 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00007fff873cf5d2 __tcf_0 + 0 3 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff87881d29 _objc_terminate + 100 4 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00007fff873cdae1 __cxxabiv1::__terminate(void (*)()) + 11 5 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00007fff873cdb16 __cxxabiv1::__unexpected(void (*)()) + 0 6 libstdc++.6.dylib 0x00007fff873cdbfc __gxx_exception_cleanup(_Unwind_Reason_Code, _Unwind_Exception*) + 0 7 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff8787e192 object_getIvar + 0 8 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff859a9267 +[NSException raise:format:arguments:] + 103 9 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff859a91f4 +[NSException raise:format:] + 148 10 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff855da080 _NSArrayRaiseBoundException + 122 11 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff8553cb81 -[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:] + 75 12 com.apple.framework.Admin 0x00007fff8107920e +[User(UserPrivate) _userWithInfo:attributes:] + 71 13 com.apple.framework.Admin 0x00007fff81080d6b +[User findUserByID:searchParent:] + 404 14 suhelperd 0x0000000100001274 0x100000000 + 4724 15 suhelperd 0x0000000100002240 0x100000000 + 8768 16 suhelperd 0x00000001000053b1 0x100000000 + 21425 17 suhelperd 0x00000001000044b3 0x100000000 + 17587 18 suhelperd 0x0000000100004154 0x100000000 + 16724 19 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83eb60d8 mach_msg_server + 357 20 suhelperd 0x00000001000036eb 0x100000000 + 14059 21 suhelperd 0x0000000100002a1f 0x100000000 + 10783 22 suhelperd 0x0000000100001080 0x100000000 + 4224 Thread 1: Dispatch queue: com.apple.libdispatch-manager 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e51bba kevent + 10 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e53a85 _dispatch_mgr_invoke + 154 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e5375c _dispatch_queue_invoke + 185 3 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e53286 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 244 4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e52bb8 _pthread_wqthread + 353 5 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e52a55 start_wqthread + 13 Thread 2: 0 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e529da __workq_kernreturn + 10 1 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e52dec _pthread_wqthread + 917 2 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff83e52a55 start_wqthread + 13 Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (64-bit): rax: 0x0000000000000000 rbx: 0x00007fff707d7298 rcx: 0x00007fff5fbff868 rdx: 0x0000000000000000 rdi: 0x0000000000010517 rsi: 0x0000000000000006 rbp: 0x00007fff5fbff880 rsp: 0x00007fff5fbff868 r8: 0x00007fff707da9e0 r9: 0x0000000000000063 r10: 0x00007fff83e83026 r11: 0x0000000000000202 r12: 0x00007fff85a2dca1 r13: 0x0000000000000000 r14: 0x00007fff70bea228 r15: 0x00007fff5fbffb10 rip: 0x00007fff83e86fe6 rfl: 0x0000000000000202 cr2: 0x00007fff70e3afd0

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Node.js Adventure - Host Node.js on Windows Azure Worker Role

- by Shaun

In my previous post I demonstrated about how to develop and deploy a Node.js application on Windows Azure Web Site (a.k.a. WAWS). WAWS is a new feature in Windows Azure platform. Since it’s low-cost, and it provides IIS and IISNode components so that we can host our Node.js application though Git, FTP and WebMatrix without any configuration and component installation. But sometimes we need to use the Windows Azure Cloud Service (a.k.a. WACS) and host our Node.js on worker role. Below are some benefits of using worker role. - WAWS leverages IIS and IISNode to host Node.js application, which runs in x86 WOW mode. It reduces the performance comparing with x64 in some cases. - WACS worker role does not need IIS, hence there’s no restriction of IIS, such as 8000 concurrent requests limitation. - WACS provides more flexibility and controls to the developers. For example, we can RDP to the virtual machines of our worker role instances. - WACS provides the service configuration features which can be changed when the role is running. - WACS provides more scaling capability than WAWS. In WAWS we can have at most 3 reserved instances per web site while in WACS we can have up to 20 instances in a subscription. - Since when using WACS worker role we starts the node by ourselves in a process, we can control the input, output and error stream. We can also control the version of Node.js. Run Node.js in Worker Role Node.js can be started by just having its execution file. This means in Windows Azure, we can have a worker role with the “node.exe” and the Node.js source files, then start it in Run method of the worker role entry class. Let’s create a new windows azure project in Visual Studio and add a new worker role. Since we need our worker role execute the “node.exe” with our application code we need to add the “node.exe” into our project. Right click on the worker role project and add an existing item. By default the Node.js will be installed in the “Program Files\nodejs” folder so we can navigate there and add the “node.exe”. Then we need to create the entry code of Node.js. In WAWS the entry file must be named “server.js”, which is because it’s hosted by IIS and IISNode and IISNode only accept “server.js”. But here as we control everything we can choose any files as the entry code. For example, I created a new JavaScript file named “index.js” in project root. Since we created a C# Windows Azure project we cannot create a JavaScript file from the context menu “Add new item”. We have to create a text file, and then rename it to JavaScript extension. After we added these two files we should set their “Copy to Output Directory” property to “Copy Always”, or “Copy if Newer”. Otherwise they will not be involved in the package when deployed. Let’s paste a very simple Node.js code in the “index.js” as below. As you can see I created a web server listening at port 12345. 1: var http = require("http"); 2: var port = 12345; 3: 4: http.createServer(function (req, res) { 5: res.writeHead(200, { "Content-Type": "text/plain" }); 6: res.end("Hello World\n"); 7: }).listen(port); 8: 9: console.log("Server running at port %d", port); Then we need to start “node.exe” with this file when our worker role was started. This can be done in its Run method. I found the Node.js and entry JavaScript file name, and then create a new process to run it. Our worker role will wait for the process to be exited. If everything is OK once our web server was opened the process will be there listening for incoming requests, and should not be terminated. The code in worker role would be like this. 1: public override void Run() 2: { 3: // This is a sample worker implementation. Replace with your logic. 4: Trace.WriteLine("NodejsHost entry point called", "Information"); 5: 6: // retrieve the node.exe and entry node.js source code file name. 7: var node = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(@"%RoleRoot%\approot\node.exe"); 8: var js = "index.js"; 9: 10: // prepare the process starting of node.exe 11: var info = new ProcessStartInfo(node, js) 12: { 13: CreateNoWindow = false, 14: ErrorDialog = true, 15: WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal, 16: UseShellExecute = false, 17: WorkingDirectory = Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(@"%RoleRoot%\approot") 18: }; 19: Trace.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} {1}", node, js), "Information"); 20: 21: // start the node.exe with entry code and wait for exit 22: var process = Process.Start(info); 23: process.WaitForExit(); 24: } Then we can run it locally. In the computer emulator UI the worker role started and it executed the Node.js, then Node.js windows appeared. Open the browser to verify the website hosted by our worker role. Next let’s deploy it to azure. But we need some additional steps. First, we need to create an input endpoint. By default there’s no endpoint defined in a worker role. So we will open the role property window in Visual Studio, create a new input TCP endpoint to the port we want our website to use. In this case I will use 80. Even though we created a web server we should add a TCP endpoint of the worker role, since Node.js always listen on TCP instead of HTTP. And then changed the “index.js”, let our web server listen on 80. 1: var http = require("http"); 2: var port = 80; 3: 4: http.createServer(function (req, res) { 5: res.writeHead(200, { "Content-Type": "text/plain" }); 6: res.end("Hello World\n"); 7: }).listen(port); 8: 9: console.log("Server running at port %d", port); Then publish it to Windows Azure. And then in browser we can see our Node.js website was running on WACS worker role. We may encounter an error if we tried to run our Node.js website on 80 port at local emulator. This is because the compute emulator registered 80 and map the 80 endpoint to 81. But our Node.js cannot detect this operation. So when it tried to listen on 80 it will failed since 80 have been used. Use NPM Modules When we are using WAWS to host Node.js, we can simply install modules we need, and then just publish or upload all files to WAWS. But if we are using WACS worker role, we have to do some extra steps to make the modules work. Assuming that we plan to use “express” in our application. Firstly of all we should download and install this module through NPM command. But after the install finished, they are just in the disk but not included in the worker role project. If we deploy the worker role right now the module will not be packaged and uploaded to azure. Hence we need to add them to the project. On solution explorer window click the “Show all files” button, select the “node_modules” folder and in the context menu select “Include In Project”. But that not enough. We also need to make all files in this module to “Copy always” or “Copy if newer”, so that they can be uploaded to azure with the “node.exe” and “index.js”. This is painful step since there might be many files in a module. So I created a small tool which can update a C# project file, make its all items as “Copy always”. The code is very simple. 1: static void Main(string[] args) 2: { 3: if (args.Length < 1) 4: { 5: Console.WriteLine("Usage: copyallalways [project file]"); 6: return; 7: } 8: 9: var proj = args[0]; 10: File.Copy(proj, string.Format("{0}.bak", proj)); 11: 12: var xml = new XmlDocument(); 13: xml.Load(proj); 14: var nsManager = new XmlNamespaceManager(xml.NameTable); 15: nsManager.AddNamespace("pf", "http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003"); 16: 17: // add the output setting to copy always 18: var contentNodes = xml.SelectNodes("//pf:Project/pf:ItemGroup/pf:Content", nsManager); 19: UpdateNodes(contentNodes, xml, nsManager); 20: var noneNodes = xml.SelectNodes("//pf:Project/pf:ItemGroup/pf:None", nsManager); 21: UpdateNodes(noneNodes, xml, nsManager); 22: xml.Save(proj); 23: 24: // remove the namespace attributes 25: var content = xml.InnerXml.Replace("<CopyToOutputDirectory xmlns=\"\">", "<CopyToOutputDirectory>"); 26: xml.LoadXml(content); 27: xml.Save(proj); 28: } 29: 30: static void UpdateNodes(XmlNodeList nodes, XmlDocument xml, XmlNamespaceManager nsManager) 31: { 32: foreach (XmlNode node in nodes) 33: { 34: var copyToOutputDirectoryNode = node.SelectSingleNode("pf:CopyToOutputDirectory", nsManager); 35: if (copyToOutputDirectoryNode == null) 36: { 37: var n = xml.CreateNode(XmlNodeType.Element, "CopyToOutputDirectory", null); 38: n.InnerText = "Always"; 39: node.AppendChild(n); 40: } 41: else 42: { 43: if (string.Compare(copyToOutputDirectoryNode.InnerText, "Always", true) != 0) 44: { 45: copyToOutputDirectoryNode.InnerText = "Always"; 46: } 47: } 48: } 49: } Please be careful when use this tool. I created only for demo so do not use it directly in a production environment. Unload the worker role project, execute this tool with the worker role project file name as the command line argument, it will set all items as “Copy always”. Then reload this worker role project. Now let’s change the “index.js” to use express. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var app = express(); 3: 4: var port = 80; 5: 6: app.configure(function () { 7: }); 8: 9: app.get("/", function (req, res) { 10: res.send("Hello Node.js!"); 11: }); 12: 13: app.get("/User/:id", function (req, res) { 14: var id = req.params.id; 15: res.json({ 16: "id": id, 17: "name": "user " + id, 18: "company": "IGT" 19: }); 20: }); 21: 22: app.listen(port); Finally let’s publish it and have a look in browser. Use Windows Azure SQL Database We can use Windows Azure SQL Database (a.k.a. WACD) from Node.js as well on worker role hosting. Since we can control the version of Node.js, here we can use x64 version of “node-sqlserver” now. This is better than if we host Node.js on WAWS since it only support x86. Just install the “node-sqlserver” module from NPM, copy the “sqlserver.node” from “Build\Release” folder to “Lib” folder. Include them in worker role project and run my tool to make them to “Copy always”. Finally update the “index.js” to use WASD. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var sql = require("node-sqlserver"); 3: 4: var connectionString = "Driver={SQL Server Native Client 10.0};Server=tcp:{SERVER NAME}.database.windows.net,1433;Database={DATABASE NAME};Uid={LOGIN}@{SERVER NAME};Pwd={PASSWORD};Encrypt=yes;Connection Timeout=30;"; 5: var port = 80; 6: 7: var app = express(); 8: 9: app.configure(function () { 10: app.use(express.bodyParser()); 11: }); 12: 13: app.get("/", function (req, res) { 14: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 15: if (err) { 16: console.log(err); 17: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 18: } 19: else { 20: conn.queryRaw("SELECT * FROM [Resource]", function (err, results) { 21: if (err) { 22: console.log(err); 23: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 24: } 25: else { 26: res.json(results); 27: } 28: }); 29: } 30: }); 31: }); 32: 33: app.get("/text/:key/:culture", function (req, res) { 34: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 35: if (err) { 36: console.log(err); 37: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 38: } 39: else { 40: var key = req.params.key; 41: var culture = req.params.culture; 42: var command = "SELECT * FROM [Resource] WHERE [Key] = '" + key + "' AND [Culture] = '" + culture + "'"; 43: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 44: if (err) { 45: console.log(err); 46: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 47: } 48: else { 49: res.json(results); 50: } 51: }); 52: } 53: }); 54: }); 55: 56: app.get("/sproc/:key/:culture", function (req, res) { 57: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 58: if (err) { 59: console.log(err); 60: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 61: } 62: else { 63: var key = req.params.key; 64: var culture = req.params.culture; 65: var command = "EXEC GetItem '" + key + "', '" + culture + "'"; 66: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 67: if (err) { 68: console.log(err); 69: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 70: } 71: else { 72: res.json(results); 73: } 74: }); 75: } 76: }); 77: }); 78: 79: app.post("/new", function (req, res) { 80: var key = req.body.key; 81: var culture = req.body.culture; 82: var val = req.body.val; 83: 84: sql.open(connectionString, function (err, conn) { 85: if (err) { 86: console.log(err); 87: res.send(500, "Cannot open connection."); 88: } 89: else { 90: var command = "INSERT INTO [Resource] VALUES ('" + key + "', '" + culture + "', N'" + val + "')"; 91: conn.queryRaw(command, function (err, results) { 92: if (err) { 93: console.log(err); 94: res.send(500, "Cannot retrieve records."); 95: } 96: else { 97: res.send(200, "Inserted Successful"); 98: } 99: }); 100: } 101: }); 102: }); 103: 104: app.listen(port); Publish to azure and now we can see our Node.js is working with WASD through x64 version “node-sqlserver”. Summary In this post I demonstrated how to host our Node.js in Windows Azure Cloud Service worker role. By using worker role we can control the version of Node.js, as well as the entry code. And it’s possible to do some pre jobs before the Node.js application started. It also removed the IIS and IISNode limitation. I personally recommended to use worker role as our Node.js hosting. But there are some problem if you use the approach I mentioned here. The first one is, we need to set all JavaScript files and module files as “Copy always” or “Copy if newer” manually. The second one is, in this way we cannot retrieve the cloud service configuration information. For example, we defined the endpoint in worker role property but we also specified the listening port in Node.js hardcoded. It should be changed that our Node.js can retrieve the endpoint. But I can tell you it won’t be working here. In the next post I will describe another way to execute the “node.exe” and Node.js application, so that we can get the cloud service configuration in Node.js. I will also demonstrate how to use Windows Azure Storage from Node.js by using the Windows Azure Node.js SDK. Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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Shrinking Windows Size to 0 on Cisco ASA

- by Brent

Having an issue with any large file transfer that crosses our Cisco ASA unit come to an eventual pause. Setup Test1: Server A, FileZilla Client <- 1GBPS - Cisco ASA <- 1 GBPS - Server B, FileZilla Server TCP Window size on large transfers will drop to 0 after around 30 seconds of a large file transfer. RDP session then becomes unresponsive for a minute or two and then is sporadic. After a minute or two, the FTP transfer resumes, but at 1-2 MB/s. When the FTP transfer is over, the responsiveness of the RDP session returns to normal. Test2: Server C in same network as Server B, FileZilla Client <- local network - Server B, FileZilla Server File will transfer at 30+ MB/s. Details ASA: 5520 running 8.3(1) with ASDM 6.3(1) Windows: Server 2003 R2 SP2 with latest patches Server: VMs running on HP C3000 blade chasis FileZilla: 3.3.5.1, latest stable build Transfer: 20 GB SQL .BAK file Protocol: Active FTP over tcp/20, tcp/21 Switches: Cisco Small Business 2048 Gigabit running latest 2.0.0.8 VMware: 4.1 HP: Flex-10 3.15, latest version Notes All servers are VMs. Thoughts Pretty sure the ASA is at fault since a transfer between VMs on the same network will not show a shrinking Window size. Our ASA is pretty vanilla. No major changes made to any of the settings. It has a bunch of NAT and ACLs. Wireshark Sample No. Time Source Destination Protocol Info 234905 73.916986 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131981791 Win=65535 Len=0 234906 73.917220 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234907 73.917224 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234908 73.917231 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131984551 Win=64155 Len=0 234909 73.917463 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234910 73.917467 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234911 73.917469 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234912 73.917476 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131988691 Win=60015 Len=0 234913 73.917706 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234914 73.917710 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234915 73.917715 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131991451 Win=57255 Len=0 234916 73.917949 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234917 73.917953 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234918 73.917958 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131994211 Win=54495 Len=0 234919 73.918193 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234920 73.918197 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234921 73.918202 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131996971 Win=51735 Len=0 234922 73.918435 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234923 73.918440 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234924 73.918445 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=131999731 Win=48975 Len=0 234925 73.918679 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234926 73.918684 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234927 73.918689 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132002491 Win=46215 Len=0 234928 73.918922 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234929 73.918927 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234930 73.918932 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132005251 Win=43455 Len=0 234931 73.919165 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234932 73.919169 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234933 73.919174 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132008011 Win=40695 Len=0 234934 73.919408 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234935 73.919413 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234936 73.919418 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132010771 Win=37935 Len=0 234937 73.919652 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234938 73.919656 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234939 73.919661 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132013531 Win=35175 Len=0 234940 73.919895 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234941 73.919899 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234942 73.919904 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132016291 Win=32415 Len=0 234943 73.920138 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234944 73.920142 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234945 73.920147 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132019051 Win=29655 Len=0 234946 73.920381 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234947 73.920386 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234948 73.920391 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132021811 Win=26895 Len=0 234949 73.920625 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234950 73.920629 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234951 73.920632 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234952 73.920638 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132025951 Win=22755 Len=0 234953 73.920868 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234954 73.920871 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234955 73.920876 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132028711 Win=19995 Len=0 234956 73.921111 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234957 73.921115 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234958 73.921120 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132031471 Win=17235 Len=0 234959 73.921356 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234960 73.921362 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234961 73.921370 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132034231 Win=14475 Len=0 234962 73.921598 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234963 73.921606 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234964 73.921613 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132036991 Win=11715 Len=0 234965 73.921841 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234966 73.921848 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234967 73.921855 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132039751 Win=8955 Len=0 234968 73.922085 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234969 73.922092 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234970 73.922099 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132042511 Win=6195 Len=0 234971 73.922328 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234972 73.922335 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234973 73.922342 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132045271 Win=3435 Len=0 234974 73.922571 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234975 73.922579 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 1380 bytes 234976 73.922586 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048031 Win=675 Len=0 234981 75.866453 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 FTP-DATA FTP Data: 675 bytes 234985 76.020168 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234989 76.771633 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234990 76.771648 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0 234997 78.279701 2.2.2.2 1.1.1.1 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbe] ivecon-port ftp-data [ACK] Seq=132048706 Ack=1 Win=65535 Len=1 234998 78.279714 1.1.1.1 2.2.2.2 TCP [TCP ZeroWindowProbeAck] [TCP ZeroWindow] ftp-data ivecon-port [ACK] Seq=1 Ack=132048706 Win=0 Len=0

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Win7 Bluescreen: IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL | athrxusb.sys

- by wretrOvian

Hi I'd left my system on last night, and found the bluescreen in the morning. This has been happening occasionally, over the past few days. Details: ================================================== Dump File : 022710-18236-01.dmp Crash Time : 2/27/2010 8:46:44 AM Bug Check String : DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Bug Check Code : 0x000000d1 Parameter 1 : 00000000`00001001 Parameter 2 : 00000000`00000002 Parameter 3 : 00000000`00000000 Parameter 4 : fffff880`06b5c0e1 Caused By Driver : athrxusb.sys Caused By Address : athrxusb.sys+760e1 File Description : Product Name : Company : File Version : Processor : x64 Computer Name : Full Path : C:\Windows\minidump\022710-18236-01.dmp Processors Count : 2 Major Version : 15 Minor Version : 7600 ================================================== HiJackThis ("[...]" indicates removed text; full log posted to pastebin): Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2 Scan saved at 8:49:15 AM, on 2/27/2010 Platform: Unknown Windows (WinNT 6.01.3504) MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.7600.16385) Boot mode: Normal Running processes: C:\Windows\DAODx.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\ASUS\EPU\EPU.exe C:\Program Files\ASUS\TurboV\TurboV.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\PowerISO\PWRISOVM.EXE C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenOffice.org 3\program\soffice.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenOffice.org 3\program\soffice.bin D:\Downloads\HijackThis.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\[...] [...] O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [HDAudDeck] C:\Program Files (x86)\VIA\VIAudioi\VDeck\VDeck.exe -r O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [StartCCC] "C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI Technologies\ATI.ACE\Core-Static\CLIStart.exe" MSRun O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TurboV] "C:\Program Files\ASUS\TurboV\TurboV.exe" O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [PWRISOVM.EXE] C:\Program Files (x86)\PowerISO\PWRISOVM.EXE O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [googletalk] C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Talk\googletalk.exe /autostart O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AdobeCS4ServiceManager] "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CS4ServiceManager\CS4ServiceManager.exe" -launchedbylogin O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [uTorrent] "C:\Program Files (x86)\uTorrent\uTorrent.exe" O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'LOCAL SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'LOCAL SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'NETWORK SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'NETWORK SERVICE') O4 - Startup: OpenOffice.org 3.1.lnk = C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenOffice.org 3\program\quickstart.exe O13 - Gopher Prefix: O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\Alg.exe,-112 (ALG) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\alg.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: AMD External Events Utility - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\atiesrxx.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: ASUS System Control Service (AsSysCtrlService) - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files (x86)\ASUS\AsSysCtrlService\1.00.02\AsSysCtrlService.exe O23 - Service: DeviceVM Meta Data Export Service (DvmMDES) - DeviceVM - C:\ASUS.SYS\config\DVMExportService.exe O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\efssvc.dll,-100 (EFS) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: ESET HTTP Server (EhttpSrv) - ESET - C:\Program Files\ESET\ESET NOD32 Antivirus\EHttpSrv.exe O23 - Service: ESET Service (ekrn) - ESET - C:\Program Files\ESET\ESET NOD32 Antivirus\x86\ekrn.exe O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\fxsresm.dll,-118 (Fax) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\fxssvc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: FLEXnet Licensing Service - Acresso Software Inc. - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Macrovision Shared\FLEXnet Publisher\FNPLicensingService.exe O23 - Service: FLEXnet Licensing Service 64 - Acresso Software Inc. - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Macrovision Shared\FLEXnet Publisher\FNPLicensingService64.exe O23 - Service: InstallDriver Table Manager (IDriverT) - Macrovision Corporation - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\InstallShield\Driver\11\Intel 32\IDriverT.exe O23 - Service: @keyiso.dll,-100 (KeyIso) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @comres.dll,-2797 (MSDTC) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\msdtc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\System32\netlogon.dll,-102 (Netlogon) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\psbase.dll,-300 (ProtectedStorage) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: Protexis Licensing V2 (PSI_SVC_2) - Protexis Inc. - c:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Protexis\License Service\PsiService_2.exe O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\Locator.exe,-2 (RpcLocator) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\locator.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\samsrv.dll,-1 (SamSs) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\snmptrap.exe,-3 (SNMPTRAP) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\snmptrap.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\spoolsv.exe,-1 (Spooler) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\spoolsv.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\sppsvc.exe,-101 (sppsvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\sppsvc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: Steam Client Service - Valve Corporation - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Steam\SteamService.exe O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\ui0detect.exe,-101 (UI0Detect) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\UI0Detect.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\vaultsvc.dll,-1003 (VaultSvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\vds.exe,-100 (vds) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\vds.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\vssvc.exe,-102 (VSS) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\vssvc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\wbengine.exe,-104 (wbengine) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\wbengine.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%Systemroot%\system32\wbem\wmiapsrv.exe,-110 (wmiApSrv) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\wbem\WmiApSrv.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%PROGRAMFILES%\Windows Media Player\wmpnetwk.exe,-101 (WMPNetworkSvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmpnetwk.exe (file missing) -- End of file - 6800 bytes CPU-Z ("[...]" indicates removed text; see full log posted to pastebin): CPU-Z TXT Report ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Binaries ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CPU-Z version 1.53.1 Processors ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Number of processors 1 Number of threads 2 APICs ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Processor 0 -- Core 0 -- Thread 0 0 -- Core 1 -- Thread 0 1 Processors Information ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Processor 1 ID = 0 Number of cores 2 (max 2) Number of threads 2 (max 2) Name AMD Phenom II X2 550 Codename Callisto Specification AMD Phenom(tm) II X2 550 Processor Package Socket AM3 (938) CPUID F.4.2 Extended CPUID 10.4 Brand ID 29 Core Stepping RB-C2 Technology 45 nm Core Speed 3110.7 MHz Multiplier x FSB 15.5 x 200.7 MHz HT Link speed 2006.9 MHz Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, x86-64, AMD-V L1 Data cache 2 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size L1 Instruction cache 2 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size L2 cache 2 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size L3 cache 6 MBytes, 48-way set associative, 64-byte line size FID/VID Control yes Min FID 4.0x P-State FID 0xF - VID 0x10 P-State FID 0x8 - VID 0x18 P-State FID 0x3 - VID 0x20 P-State FID 0x100 - VID 0x2C Package Type 0x1 Model 50 String 1 0x7 String 2 0x6 Page 0x0 TDP Limit 79 Watts TDC Limit 66 Amps Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 0 Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 1 Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 2 Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 3 Attached device PCI device at bus 0, device 24, function 4 Thread dumps ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CPU Thread 0 APIC ID 0 Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 0, Thread ID 0 Type 0200400Ah Max CPUID level 00000005h Max CPUID ext. level 8000001Bh Cache descriptor Level 1, I, 64 KB, 1 thread(s) Cache descriptor Level 1, D, 64 KB, 1 thread(s) Cache descriptor Level 2, U, 512 KB, 1 thread(s) Cache descriptor Level 3, U, 6 MB, 2 thread(s) CPUID 0x00000000 0x00000005 0x68747541 0x444D4163 0x69746E65 0x00000001 0x00100F42 0x00020800 0x00802009 0x178BFBFF 0x00000002 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000003 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000004 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000005 0x00000040 0x00000040 0x00000003 0x00000000 [...] CPU Thread 1 APIC ID 1 Topology Processor ID 0, Core ID 1, Thread ID 0 Type 0200400Ah Max CPUID level 00000005h Max CPUID ext. level 8000001Bh Cache descriptor Level 1, I, 64 KB, 1 thread(s) Cache descriptor Level 1, D, 64 KB, 1 thread(s) Cache descriptor Level 2, U, 512 KB, 1 thread(s) Cache descriptor Level 3, U, 6 MB, 2 thread(s) CPUID 0x00000000 0x00000005 0x68747541 0x444D4163 0x69746E65 0x00000001 0x00100F42 0x01020800 0x00802009 0x178BFBFF 0x00000002 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000003 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000004 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x00000005 0x00000040 0x00000040 0x00000003 0x00000000 [...] Chipset ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Northbridge AMD 790GX rev. 00 Southbridge ATI SB750 rev. 00 Memory Type DDR3 Memory Size 4096 MBytes Channels Dual, (Unganged) Memory Frequency 669.0 MHz (3:10) CAS# latency (CL) 9.0 RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 9 RAS# Precharge (tRP) 9 Cycle Time (tRAS) 24 Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 33 Command Rate (CR) 1T Uncore Frequency 2006.9 MHz Memory SPD ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DIMM # 1 SMBus address 0x50 Memory type DDR3 Module format UDIMM Manufacturer (ID) G.Skill (7F7F7F7FCD000000) Size 2048 MBytes Max bandwidth PC3-10700 (667 MHz) Part number F3-10600CL9-2GBNT Number of banks 8 Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts EPP no XMP no JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency JEDEC #1 6.0-6-6-17-23 @ 457 MHz JEDEC #2 7.0-7-7-20-27 @ 533 MHz JEDEC #3 8.0-8-8-22-31 @ 609 MHz JEDEC #4 9.0-9-9-25-34 @ 685 MHz DIMM # 2 SMBus address 0x51 Memory type DDR3 Module format UDIMM Manufacturer (ID) G.Skill (7F7F7F7FCD000000) Size 2048 MBytes Max bandwidth PC3-10700 (667 MHz) Part number F3-10600CL9-2GBNT Number of banks 8 Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts EPP no XMP no JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency JEDEC #1 6.0-6-6-17-23 @ 457 MHz JEDEC #2 7.0-7-7-20-27 @ 533 MHz JEDEC #3 8.0-8-8-22-31 @ 609 MHz JEDEC #4 9.0-9-9-25-34 @ 685 MHz DIMM # 1 SPD registers [...] DIMM # 2 SPD registers [...] Monitoring ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mainboard Model M4A78T-E (0x000001F7 - 0x00A955E4) LPCIO ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LPCIO Vendor ITE LPCIO Model IT8720 LPCIO Vendor ID 0x90 LPCIO Chip ID 0x8720 LPCIO Revision ID 0x2 Config Mode I/O address 0x2E Config Mode LDN 0x4 Config Mode registers [...] Register space LPC, base address = 0x0290 Hardware Monitors ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hardware monitor ITE IT87 Voltage 1 1.62 Volts [0x65] (VIN1) Voltage 2 1.15 Volts [0x48] (CPU VCORE) Voltage 3 5.03 Volts [0xBB] (+5V) Voltage 8 3.34 Volts [0xD1] (VBAT) Temperature 0 39°C (102°F) [0x27] (TMPIN0) Temperature 1 43°C (109°F) [0x2B] (TMPIN1) Fan 0 3096 RPM [0xDA] (FANIN0) Register space LPC, base address = 0x0290 [...] Hardware monitor AMD SB6xx/7xx Voltage 0 1.37 Volts [0x1D2] (CPU VCore) Voltage 1 3.50 Volts [0x27B] (CPU IO) Voltage 2 12.68 Volts [0x282] (+12V) Hardware monitor AMD Phenom II X2 550 Power 0 89.10 W (Processor) Temperature 0 35°C (94°F) [0x115] (Core #0) Temperature 1 35°C (94°F) [0x115] (Core #1)

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Silverlight Tree View with Multiple Levels

- by psheriff

There are many examples of the Silverlight Tree View that you will find on the web, however, most of them only show you how to go to two levels. What if you have more than two levels? This is where understanding exactly how the Hierarchical Data Templates works is vital. In this blog post, I am going to break down how these templates work so you can really understand what is going on underneath the hood. To start, let’s look at the typical two-level Silverlight Tree View that has been hard coded with the values shown below: <sdk:TreeView> <sdk:TreeViewItem Header="Managers"> <TextBlock Text="Michael" /> <TextBlock Text="Paul" /> </sdk:TreeViewItem> <sdk:TreeViewItem Header="Supervisors"> <TextBlock Text="John" /> <TextBlock Text="Tim" /> <TextBlock Text="David" /> </sdk:TreeViewItem></sdk:TreeView> Figure 1 shows you how this tree view looks when you run the Silverlight application. Figure 1: A hard-coded, two level Tree View. Next, let’s create three classes to mimic the hard-coded Tree View shown above. First, you need an Employee class and an EmployeeType class. The Employee class simply has one property called Name. The constructor is created to accept a “name” argument that you can use to set the Name property when you create an Employee object. public class Employee{ public Employee(string name) { Name = name; } public string Name { get; set; }} Finally you create an EmployeeType class. This class has one property called EmpType and contains a generic List<> collection of Employee objects. The property that holds the collection is called Employees. public class EmployeeType{ public EmployeeType(string empType) { EmpType = empType; Employees = new List<Employee>(); } public string EmpType { get; set; } public List<Employee> Employees { get; set; }} Finally we have a collection class called EmployeeTypes created using the generic List<> class. It is in the constructor for this class where you will build the collection of EmployeeTypes and fill it with Employee objects: public class EmployeeTypes : List<EmployeeType>{ public EmployeeTypes() { EmployeeType type; type = new EmployeeType("Manager"); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Michael")); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Paul")); this.Add(type); type = new EmployeeType("Project Managers"); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Tim")); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("John")); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("David")); this.Add(type); }} You now have a data hierarchy in memory (Figure 2) which is what the Tree View control expects to receive as its data source. Figure 2: A hierachial data structure of Employee Types containing a collection of Employee objects. To connect up this hierarchy of data to your Tree View you create an instance of the EmployeeTypes class in XAML as shown in line 13 of Figure 3. The key assigned to this object is “empTypes”. This key is used as the source of data to the entire Tree View by setting the ItemsSource property as shown in Figure 3, Callout #1. Figure 3: You need to start from the bottom up when laying out your templates for a Tree View. The ItemsSource property of the Tree View control is used as the data source in the Hierarchical Data Template with the key of employeeTypeTemplate. In this case there is only one Hierarchical Data Template, so any data you wish to display within that template comes from the collection of Employee Types. The TextBlock control in line 20 uses the EmpType property of the EmployeeType class. You specify the name of the Hierarchical Data Template to use in the ItemTemplate property of the Tree View (Callout #2). For the second (and last) level of the Tree View control you use a normal <DataTemplate> with the name of employeeTemplate (line 14). The Hierarchical Data Template in lines 17-21 sets its ItemTemplate property to the key name of employeeTemplate (Line 19 connects to Line 14). The source of the data for the <DataTemplate> needs to be a property of the EmployeeTypes collection used in the Hierarchical Data Template. In this case that is the Employees property. In the Employees property there is a “Name” property of the Employee class that is used to display the employee name in the second level of the Tree View (Line 15). What is important here is that your lowest level in your Tree View is expressed in a <DataTemplate> and should be listed first in your Resources section. The next level up in your Tree View should be a <HierarchicalDataTemplate> which has its ItemTemplate property set to the key name of the <DataTemplate> and the ItemsSource property set to the data you wish to display in the <DataTemplate>. The Tree View control should have its ItemsSource property set to the data you wish to display in the <HierarchicalDataTemplate> and its ItemTemplate property set to the key name of the <HierarchicalDataTemplate> object. It is in this way that you get the Tree View to display all levels of your hierarchical data structure. Three Levels in a Tree View Now let’s expand upon this concept and use three levels in our Tree View (Figure 4). This Tree View shows that you now have EmployeeTypes at the top of the tree, followed by a small set of employees that themselves manage employees. This means that the EmployeeType class has a collection of Employee objects. Each Employee class has a collection of Employee objects as well. Figure 4: When using 3 levels in your TreeView you will have 2 Hierarchical Data Templates and 1 Data Template. The EmployeeType class has not changed at all from our previous example. However, the Employee class now has one additional property as shown below: public class Employee{ public Employee(string name) { Name = name; ManagedEmployees = new List<Employee>(); } public string Name { get; set; } public List<Employee> ManagedEmployees { get; set; }} The next thing that changes in our code is the EmployeeTypes class. The constructor now needs additional code to create a list of managed employees. Below is the new code. public class EmployeeTypes : List<EmployeeType>{ public EmployeeTypes() { EmployeeType type; Employee emp; Employee managed; type = new EmployeeType("Manager"); emp = new Employee("Michael"); managed = new Employee("John"); emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed); managed = new Employee("Tim"); emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed); type.Employees.Add(emp); emp = new Employee("Paul"); managed = new Employee("Michael"); emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed); managed = new Employee("Sara"); emp.ManagedEmployees.Add(managed); type.Employees.Add(emp); this.Add(type); type = new EmployeeType("Project Managers"); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("Tim")); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("John")); type.Employees.Add(new Employee("David")); this.Add(type); }} Now that you have all of the data built in your classes, you are now ready to hook up this three-level structure to your Tree View. Figure 5 shows the complete XAML needed to hook up your three-level Tree View. You can see in the XAML that there are now two Hierarchical Data Templates and one Data Template. Again you list the Data Template first since that is the lowest level in your Tree View. The next Hierarchical Data Template listed is the next level up from the lowest level, and finally you have a Hierarchical Data Template for the first level in your tree. You need to work your way from the bottom up when creating your Tree View hierarchy. XAML is processed from the top down, so if you attempt to reference a XAML key name that is below where you are referencing it from, you will get a runtime error. Figure 5: For three levels in a Tree View you will need two Hierarchical Data Templates and one Data Template. Each Hierarchical Data Template uses the previous template as its ItemTemplate. The ItemsSource of each Hierarchical Data Template is used to feed the data to the previous template. This is probably the most confusing part about working with the Tree View control. You are expecting the content of the current Hierarchical Data Template to use the properties set in the ItemsSource property of that template. But you need to look to the template lower down in the XAML to see the source of the data as shown in Figure 6. Figure 6: The properties you use within the Content of a template come from the ItemsSource of the next template in the resources section. Summary Understanding how to put together your hierarchy in a Tree View is simple once you understand that you need to work from the bottom up. Start with the bottom node in your Tree View and determine what that will look like and where the data will come from. You then build the next Hierarchical Data Template to feed the data to the previous template you created. You keep doing this for each level in your Tree View until you get to the last level. The data for that last Hierarchical Data Template comes from the ItemsSource in the Tree View itself. NOTE: You can download the sample code for this article by visiting my website at http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Select “Tips & Tricks”, then select “Silverlight TreeView with Multiple Levels” from the drop down list.

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SQL Server 08 Express error when connecting to localhost - "Timeout expired". Works with ::1 or 127

- by Adam A

EDIT New info: Navigating to localhost:1434 in Chrome gives me an "ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE", while other ports give me an "Oops! This link appears to be broken". So it seems to binding ok there? So here's my setup so far: I've configured Windows Firewall to allow TCP on 1433 and UDP on 1434. I've set up SQL Server to use any IP on Port 1433 (using the SQL Server Configuration Manager). My hosts file contains the default entries ("127.0.0.1 localhost" and "::1 localhost"). I sometimes have a debug session of Visual Web Developer running a webserver, but it's on a specific port (localhost:5XXXX). What I've tried: I CAN ping localhost in a cmd prompt. I CAN connect to the database through SSMS if I specify 127.0.0.1 or ::1 as the server name. I CAN'T connect to the database through SSMS (or ADO.NET) if I specify localhost as the server name. I've tried both Windows and SQL Authentication The error I get is the standard Can't connect to localhost. Additional Information -- Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding. (Microsoft Sql Server) Other considerations: Stopping the Visual Web Developer web server from the taskbar doesn't affect the sql problem. The SQL error log says that it's listening on some piped name url at start up (I don't see how this would affect localhost but not 127.0.0.1 though). I could probably just use 127.0.0.1 everywhere, but it scares me that localhost isn't working and I'd like to figure out why. I'm not much of a networking or sql server guy so I'm stuck. If you want me to try anything to help diagnose just put it in a comment and I'll give it a go. Netstat results: Setting SDK environment relative to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1 Targeting Windows Server 2008 x86 DEBUG C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1netstat -ano | findstr 1434 UDP 0.0.0.0:1434 *:* 6868 UDP [::]:1434 *:* 6868 C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1netstat -ano | findstr 1433 TCP 0.0.0.0:1433 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING 2268 TCP 127.0.0.1:1433 127.0.0.1:50758 ESTABLISHED 2268 TCP 127.0.0.1:50758 127.0.0.1:1433 ESTABLISHED 5008 TCP [::]:1433 [::]:0 LISTENING 2268 TCP [::1]:1433 [::1]:51202 ESTABLISHED 2268 TCP [::1]:1433 [::1]:51616 ESTABLISHED 2268 TCP [::1]:51202 [::1]:1433 ESTABLISHED 5008 TCP [::1]:51616 [::1]:1433 ESTABLISHED 5008 C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1 SQL Server Log File: In case it helps 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP1) - 10.0.2531.0 (Intel X86) Mar 29 2009 10:27:29 Copyright (c) 1988-2008 Microsoft Corporation Express Edition on Windows NT 6.0 (Build 6002: Service Pack 2) 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server (c) 2005 Microsoft Corporation. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server All rights reserved. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server Server process ID is 2268. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server System Manufacturer: 'Dell Inc.', System Model: 'Inspiron 1545'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.01 Server Authentication mode is MIXED. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server Logging SQL Server messages in file 'c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server This instance of SQL Server last reported using a process ID of 7396 at 1/30/2010 12:57:38 PM (local) 1/30/2010 5:57:38 PM (UTC). This is an informational message only; no user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server Registry startup parameters: -d c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\master.mdf -e c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Log\ERRORLOG -l c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\mastlog.ldf 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server SQL Server is starting at normal priority base (=7). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.02 Server Detected 2 CPUs. This is an informational message; no user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.08 Server Using dynamic lock allocation. Initial allocation of 2500 Lock blocks and 5000 Lock Owner blocks per node. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.17 Server Node configuration: node 0: CPU mask: 0x00000003 Active CPU mask: 0x00000003. This message provides a description of the NUMA configuration for this computer. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.30 spid7s Starting up database 'master'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.41 spid7s Recovery is writing a checkpoint in database 'master' (1). This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.67 spid7s FILESTREAM: effective level = 0, configured level = 0, file system access share name = 'SQLEXPRESS'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.92 spid7s SQL Trace ID 1 was started by login "sa". 2010-01-30 12:58:59.94 spid7s Starting up database 'mssqlsystemresource'. 2010-01-30 12:58:59.95 spid7s The resource database build version is 10.00.2531. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.82 spid7s Server name is 'DELL\SQLEXPRESS'. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.83 Server A self-generated certificate was successfully loaded for encryption. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.84 Server Server is listening on [ 'any' 1433]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.84 Server Server is listening on [ 'any' 1433]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.84 spid10s Starting up database 'model'. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.85 Server Server local connection provider is ready to accept connection on [ \\.\pipe\SQLLocal\SQLEXPRESS ]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.86 Server Server local connection provider is ready to accept connection on [ \\.\pipe\MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS\sql\query ]. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.86 Server Dedicated administrator connection support was not started because it is disabled on this edition of SQL Server. If you want to use a dedicated administrator connection, restart SQL Server using the trace flag 7806. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.87 Server The SQL Server Network Interface library could not register the Service Principal Name (SPN) for the SQL Server service. Error: 0x54b, state: 3. Failure to register an SPN may cause integrated authentication to fall back to NTLM instead of Kerberos. This is an informational message. Further action is only required if Kerberos authentication is required by authentication policies. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.87 spid7s Informational: No full-text supported languages found. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.87 Server SQL Server is now ready for client connections. This is an informational message; no user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:00.91 spid7s Starting up database 'msdb'. 2010-01-30 12:59:01.21 spid10s Clearing tempdb database. 2010-01-30 12:59:02.78 spid10s Starting up database 'tempdb'. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.30 spid13s The Service Broker protocol transport is disabled or not configured. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.30 spid13s The Database Mirroring protocol transport is disabled or not configured. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.31 spid7s Recovery is complete. This is an informational message only. No user action is required. 2010-01-30 12:59:03.31 spid13s Service Broker manager has started.

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