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• How to mix HTML in Perl

  - by anon

  Hi, I need to create a 2 tables in html format. each has 5 rows. 1st Table *) 1st row has FRUITS in it, occupying all columns *) 2nd row has January(month), occupying all columns *) 3rd row has names of some 6 fruits (apple, orange, grapes,...)These names do not change. so this row has 6 columns *) 4th row has rates for each fruit ( 10,20,30..) so this has 6 columns. *) 5th row has corresponding message for each fruit showing as Available or not. 2nd table If it is available the background color for the cell should be green and if not RED. *) 1st row has VEGETABLES in it, occupying all columns *) 2nd row has February(month), occupying all columns *) 3rd row has names of some 6 vegetables (tomato, potato..)These names do not change. so this row has 6 columns *) 4th row has rates for each vegetable ( 10,20,30..) so this has 6 columns. *) 5th row has corresponding message for each vegetable showing as Available or not.If it is available the background color for the cell should be green and if not RED. All this data is read from a file having a particular format, it is price The names of fruits and vegetable do not change , it will be same for both the tables. However, it might be possible that data for a particular fruit/vegetable is not present. if it is not present the the column for that should show N/A with white background. I cannot use MIME:Lite for this. Need to use print <

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• Public class DiscoLight help

  - by luvthug

  Hi All, If some one can point me in the right direction for this code for my assigment I would really appreciate it. I have pasted the whole code that I need to complete but I need help with the following method public void changeColour(Circle aCircle) which is meant to allow to change the colour of the circle randomly, if 0 comes the light of the circle sgould change to red, 1 for green and 2 for purple. public class DiscoLight { /* instance variables */ private Circle light; // simulates a circular disco light in the Shapes window private Random randomNumberGenerator; /** * Default constructor for objects of class DiscoLight */ public DiscoLight() { super(); this.randomNumberGenerator = new Random(); } /** * Returns a randomly generated int between 0 (inclusive) * and number (exclusive). For example if number is 6, * the method will return one of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. */ public int getRandomInt(int number) { return this.randomNumberGenerator.nextInt(number); } /** * student to write code and comment here for setLight(Circle) for Q4(i) */ public void setLight(Circle aCircle) { this.light = aCircle; } /** * student to write code and comment here for getLight() for Q4(i) */ public Circle getLight() { return this.light; } /** * Sets the argument to have a diameter of 50, an xPos * of 122, a yPos of 162 and the colour GREEN. * The method then sets the receiver's instance variable * light, to the argument aCircle. */ public void addLight(Circle aCircle) { //Student to write code here, Q4(ii) this.light = aCircle; this.light.setDiameter(50); this.light.setXPos(122); this.light.setYPos(162); this.light.setColour(OUColour.GREEN); } /** * Randomly sets the colour of the instance variable * light to red, green, or purple. */ public void changeColour(Circle aCircle) { //student to write code here, Q4(iii) if (getRandomInt() == 0) { this.light.setColour(OUColour.RED); } if (this.getRandomInt().equals(1)) { this.light.setColour(OUColour.GREEN); } else if (this.getRandomInt().equals(2)) { this.light.setColour(OUColour.PURPLE); } } /** * Grows the diameter of the circle referenced by the * receiver's instance variable light, to the argument size. * The diameter is incremented in steps of 2, * the xPos and yPos are decremented in steps of 1 until the * diameter reaches the value given by size. * Between each step there is a random colour change. The message * delay(anInt) is used to slow down the graphical interface, as required. */ public void grow(int size) { //student to write code here, Q4(iv) } /** * Shrinks the diameter of the circle referenced by the * receiver's instance variable light, to the argument size. * The diameter is decremented in steps of 2, * the xPos and yPos are incremented in steps of 1 until the * diameter reaches the value given by size. * Between each step there is a random colour change. The message * delay(anInt) is used to slow down the graphical interface, as required. */ public void shrink(int size) { //student to write code here, Q4(v) } /** * Expands the diameter of the light by the amount given by * sizeIncrease (changing colour as it grows). * * The method then contracts the light until it reaches its * original size (changing colour as it shrinks). */ public void lightCycle(int sizeIncrease) { //student to write code here, Q4(vi) } /** * Prompts the user for number of growing and shrinking * cycles. Then prompts the user for the number of units * by which to increase the diameter of light. * Method then performs the requested growing and * shrinking cycles. */ public void runLight() { //student to write code here, Q4(vii) } /** * Causes execution to pause by time number of milliseconds */ private void delay(int time) { try { Thread.sleep(time); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println(e); } } }

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• text to image conversion with JSON response

  - by ruhit

  i have made an application to convert text into image and it working out fine,now i am using JSON for conversion,it also working but except only two fields.....why i dont know, my codes are given below...please help me , is there any better way? // img.html excoflare enter your text here: Font Size:          Color:               Font:                 Height:              Width:                                            img.php require_once 'JSON/JSON.php'; header('Content-type: application/json'); header ("Content-type: image/png"); $text =$_REQUEST['text']; $text=json_encode($text); $path="C:\wamp\www\image"; $height=$_REQUEST['height']; $width=$_REQUEST['width']; define("WIDTH", $width); json_encode(WIDTH); define("HEIGHT", $height); json_encode(HEIGHT); $img = imagecreate(WIDTH, HEIGHT); imagesavealpha($img, true); $trans_colour = imagecolorallocatealpha($img, 0, 0, 0, 127); imagefill($img, 0, 0, $trans_colour); $getcolor=$_REQUEST['color']; switch($getcolor) { case 'red': $red = imagecolorallocate($img, 223, 14, 91); $color=json_encode($red); break; case 'white': $white = imagecolorallocate($img, 255, 255, 255); $color=json_encode($white); break; case 'black': $black = imagecolorallocate($img, 0,0,0); $color=json_encode($black); break; case 'grey': $grey = imagecolorallocate($img, 128, 128, 128); $color=json_encode($grey); break; // default: // break; } //$background_color = imagecolorallocate ($img, 25, 25, 25); $font = $_REQUEST['font']; //$font=json_encode($font); $fontsize =$_REQUEST['size']; //$fontsize=json_encode($fontsize); imagettftext($img, $fontsize, 0, 20, 20, $color, $font, $text); //Create image imagepng($img); imagepng($img,"$path/img.png"); //destroy image ImageDestroy($img); //header ('Content-type: image/png'); ? Thanks in advance..

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• php form doesnt submit one of the fields

  - by steve

  i have bought a template that have built in contact form problem is that it submits every thing except "company" name i have spent few hours messing around with it but cant get to work it. if you can point me to some solution i would be greatful thanks in advance this is contact form <form action="php/contact.php" method="post" id="contactform"> <ol> <li> <label for="name">your name <span class="red">*</span></label> <input id="name" name="name" class="text" /> </li> <li> <label for="email">Your email <span class="red">*</span></label> <input id="email" name="email" class="text" /> </li> <li> <label for="company">Company Name</label> <input id="company" name="company" class="text" /> </li> <li> <label for="subject">Subject</label> <input id="subject" name="subject" class="text" /> </li> <li> <label for="message">Message <span class="red">*</span></label> <textarea id="message" name="message" rows="6" cols="50"></textarea> </li> <li class="buttons"> <input type="image" name="imageField" id="imageField" src="images/button.jpg" /> </li> </ol> </form> this is java script <script type="text/javascript"> // <![CDATA[ jQuery(document).ready(function(){ $('#contactform').submit(function(){ var action = $(this).attr('action'); $.post(action, { name: $('#name').val(), email: $('#email').val(), company: $('#company').val(), subject: $('#subject').val(), message: $('#message').val() }, function(data){ $('#contactform #submit').attr('disabled',''); $('.response').remove(); $('#contactform').before('<p class="response">'+data+'</p>'); $('.response').slideDown(); if(data=='Thanks for your message, will contact you soon.') $('#contactform').slideUp(); } ); return false; }); }); // ]]> </script> this is php script if(!$_POST) exit; $email = $_POST['email']; //$error[] = preg_match('/\b[A-Z0-9._%-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+.[A-Z]{2,4}\b/i', $POST['email']) ? '' : 'INVALID EMAIL ADDRESS'; if(!eregi("^[a-z0-9]+([\.-][a-z0-9]+)" ."@"."([a-z0-9]+([.-][a-z0-9]+))+"."\.[a-z]{2,}"."$",$email )){ $error.="Invalid email address entered"; $errors=1; } if($errors==1) echo $error; else{ $values = array ('name','email','message'); $required = array('name','email','message'); $your_email = "[email protected]"; $email_subject = "New Message: ".$_POST['subject']; $email_content = "new message:\n"; foreach($values as $key => $value){ if(in_array($value,$required)){ if ($key != 'subject' && $key != 'company') { if( empty($_POST[$value]) ) { echo 'Please fill in all required fields, marked with *'; exit; } } $email_content .= $value.': '.$_POST[$value]."\n"; } } if(@mail($your_email,$email_subject,$email_content)) { echo 'Thanks for your message, will contact you soon.'; } else { echo 'ERROR!'; } }

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• Updating with using custom class collection not working

  - by Risho

  I've posted this yesterday on asp forum but no one replied so perhaps I'll have better luck here. For some reason the OnUpdating method does not pull new values from the grid which is in edit mode. I've search and have come across several blogs and sites, some sugesting that an ObjectDataSource is required in order to use the "e.NewValue" construct others provide code to the contrary. I don't get any errors - the variables in the code file would contain the old values rather then new ones. I don't want to use the ODS way of manipulating the data. My delete method works but not the update one. Can you suggest what is wrong with the code? Here is what I've got: aspx file: <asp:GridView ID="gvBlack" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" OnRowUpdating="gvBlack_OnUpdating" OnRowEditing="gvBlack_RowEditing"> <Columns> <%--<asp:BoundField DataField="Ident_Black" ReadOnly="True" visible="false" />--%> <asp:TemplateField ItemStyle-Width="1px"> <EditItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="lblIdent_Black" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Ident_Black") %>' Visible="false" /> </EditItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Model" > <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="lblModel_Black" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Model_Black") %>' width="130px" /> </ItemTemplate> <EditItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="txtModel_Black" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Model_Black") %>' width="100px" /> <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="rfvModel_Black" runat="server" ControlToValidate="txtModel_Black" SetFocusOnError="true" ErrorMessage="*" ValidationGroup="CurrentMfg" ForeColor="Red" Font-Bold="true" /> </EditItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Description" > <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="lblDesc_Black" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Desc_Black") %>' width="200px" /> </ItemTemplate> <EditItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="txtDesc_Black" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Desc_Black") %>' width="170px" /> <span></span> </EditItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Qty" > <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="lblQty_Black" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Qty_Black") %>' width="35px" /> </ItemTemplate> <EditItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="txtQty_Black" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Qty_Black") %>' width="35px" /> <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="rfvQty_Black" runat="server" ControlToValidate="txtQty_Black" SetFocusOnError="true" ErrorMessage="*" ValidationGroup="CurrentMfg" ForeColor="Red" Font-Bold="true" /> </EditItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Reorder<br />Limit"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="lblBlack_Reorder_Limit" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Black_Reorder_Limit") %>' width="35px" /> </ItemTemplate> <EditItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="txtBlack_Reorder_Limit" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Black_Reorder_Limit") %>' width="35px" /> <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="rfvBlack_Reorder_Limit" runat="server" ControlToValidate="txtBlack_Reorder_Limit" SetFocusOnError="true" ErrorMessage="*" ValidationGroup="CurrentMfg" ForeColor="Red" Font-Bold="true" /> </EditItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Notes"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="lblNotes" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("Notes") %>' width="200px" /> </ItemTemplate> <EditItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="txtNotes" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Notes") %>' width="170px" /> <span></span> </EditItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> <asp:CommandField ShowEditButton="True" ShowDeleteButton="false" ValidationGroup="CurrentToner" /> </Columns> </asp:GridView> aspx.cs file: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { LoadData_TonerBlack(); } private void LoadData_TonerBlack() { dalConsumables_TonerBlack drTonerBlack = new dalConsumables_TonerBlack(); gvBlack.DataSource = drTonerBlack.GetListTonersBlack(); gvBlack.DataBind(); } protected void gvBlack_OnUpdating(object sender, GridViewUpdateEventArgs e) { //GridView gvBlack = (GridView)sender; //GridViewRow gvBlackRow = (GridViewRow)gvBlack.Rows[e.RowIndex]; int _Ident_Black = Convert.ToInt32(gvBlack.DataKeys[e.RowIndex].Values[0].ToString()); TextBox _txtModel_Black = (TextBox)gvBlack.Rows[e.RowIndex].FindControl("txtModel_Black"); TextBox _txtDesc_Black = (TextBox)gvBlack.Rows[e.RowIndex].FindControl("txtDesc_Black"); TextBox _txtQty_Black = (TextBox)gvBlack.Rows[e.RowIndex].FindControl("txtQty_Black"); TextBox _txtBlack_Reorder_Limit = (TextBox)gvBlack.Rows[e.RowIndex].FindControl("txtBlack_Reorder_Limit"); TextBox _txtNotes = (TextBox)gvBlack.Rows[e.RowIndex].FindControl("txtNotes"); string _updatedBy = Request.ServerVariables["AUTH_USER"].ToString(); dalConsumables_TonerBlack updateTonerBlack = new dalConsumables_TonerBlack(); updateTonerBlack.UpdateTonerBlack(_Ident_Black, _txtModel_Black.Text, _txtDesc_Black.Text, Convert.ToInt32(_txtQty_Black.Text), Convert.ToInt32(_txtBlack_Reorder_Limit.Text), _txtNotes.Text, _updatedBy); gvBlack.EditIndex = -1; LoadData_TonerBlack(); } protected void gvBlack_RowEditing(object sender, GridViewEditEventArgs e) { gvBlack.EditIndex = e.NewEditIndex; LoadData_TonerBlack(); } Thanks in advance! Risho

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• What's wrong with this jQuery? It isn't working as intended

  - by Doug Smith

  Using cookies, I want it to remember the colour layout of the page. (So, if they set the gallery one color and the body background another color, it will save that on refresh. But it doesn't seem to be working. jQuery: $(document).ready(function() { if (verifier == 1) { $('body').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); } if (verifier == 2) { $('#gallery').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); } if (verifier == 3) { $('body').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); $('#gallery').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); } $('#set_cookie').click(function() { var color = $('#set_cookie').val(); $.cookie('test_cookie', color); }); $('#set_page').click(function() { $('body').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); var verifier = 1; }); $('#set_gallery').click(function() { $('#gallery').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); var verifier = 2; }); $('#set_both').click(function() { $('body').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); $('#gallery').css('background', $.cookie('test_cookie')); var verifier = 3; }); }); HTML: <p>Please select a background color for either the page's background, the gallery's background, or both.</p> <select id="set_cookie"> <option value="#1d375a" selected="selected">Default</option> <option value="black">Black</option> <option value="blue">Blue</option> <option value="brown">Brown</option> <option value="darkblue">Dark Blue</option> <option value="darkgreen">Dark Green</option> <option value="darkred">Dark Red</option> <option value="fuchsia">Fuchsia</option> <option value="green">Green</option> <option value="grey">Grey</option> <option value="#d3d3d3">Light Grey</option> <option value="#32cd32">Lime Green</option> <option value="#f8b040">Macaroni</option> <option value="#ff7300">Orange</option> <option value="pink">Pink</option> <option value="purple">Purple</option> <option value="red">Red</option> <option value="#0fcce0">Turquoise</option> <option value="white">White</option> <option value="yellow">Yellow</option> </select> <input type="button" id="set_page" value="Page's Background" /><input type="button" id="set_gallery" value="Gallery's Background" /><input type="button" id="set_both" value="Both" /> </div> </div> </body> </html> Thanks so much for the help, I appreciate it. jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/hL6Ye/

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• change password code error.....

  - by shimaTun

  I've created a code to change a password. Now it seem contain an error.before i fill the form. the page display the error message: Parse error: parse error, unexpected $end in C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs\e-Complaint(FYP)\userChangePass.php on line 222 this the code: <?php # userChangePass.php //this page allows logged in user to change their password. $page_title='Change Your Password'; //if no first_name variable exists, redirect the user if(!isset($_SESSION['nameuser'])){ header("Location: http://" .$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']. dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'])."/index.php"); ob_end_clean(); exit(); }else{ if(isset($_POST['submit'])) {//handle form. require_once('connectioncomplaint.php'); //connec to the database //check for a new password and match againts the confirmed password. if(eregi ("^[[:alnum:]]{4,20}$", stripslashes(trim($_POST['password1'])))){ if($_POST['password1'] == $_POST['password2']){ $p =escape_data($_POST['password1']); }else{ $p=FALSE; echo'<p><font color="red" size="+1"> Your password did not match the confirmed password!</font></p>'; } }else{ $p=FALSE; echo'<p><font color="red" size="+1"> Please Enter a valid password!</font></p>'; } if($p){ //if everything OK. //make the query $query="UPDATE access SET password=PASSWORD('$p') WHERE userid={$_SESSION['userid']}"; $result=@mysql_query($query);//run the query. if(mysql_affected_rows() == 1) {//if it run ok. //send an email,if desired. echo '<p><b>your password has been changed.</b></p>'; //include('templates/footer.inc');//include the HTML footer. exit(); }else{//if it did not run ok $message= '<p>Your password could not be change due to a system error.We apolpgize for any inconvenience.</p><p>' .mysql_error() .'</p>'; } mysql_close();//close the database connection. }else{//failed the validation test. echo '<p><font color="red" size="+1"> Please try again.</font></p>'; } }//end of the main Submit conditional. ?> And code for form: <h1>Change Your Password</h1> <form action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>" method="post"> <fieldset> <p><b>New Password:</b><input type="password" name="password1" size="20" maxlength="20" /> <small>Use only letters and numbers.Must be between 4 and 20 characters long.</small></p> <p><b>Confirm New Password:</b><input type="password" name="password2" size="20" maxlength="20" /></p> </fieldset> <div align="center"> <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Change My Password" /></div> </form><!--End Form-->

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• can't find what's wrong with my code :(

  - by blood

  the point of my code is for me to press f1 and it will scan 500 pixels down and 500 pixels and put them in a array (it just takes a box that is 500 by 500 of the screen). then after that when i hit end it will click on only on the color black or... what i set it to. anyway it has been doing odd stuff and i can't find why: #include <iostream> #include <windows.h> using namespace std; COLORREF rgb[499][499]; HDC hDC = GetDC(HWND_DESKTOP); POINT main_coner; BYTE rVal; BYTE gVal; BYTE bVal; int red; int green; int blue; int ff = 0; int main() { for(;;) { if(GetAsyncKeyState(VK_F1)) { cout << "started"; int a1 = 0; int a2 = 0; GetCursorPos(&main_coner); int x = main_coner.x; int y = main_coner.y; for(;;) { //cout << a1 << "___" << a2 << "\n"; rgb[a1][a2] = GetPixel(hDC, x, y); a1++; x++; if(x > main_coner.x + 499) { y++; x = main_coner.x; a1 = 0; a2++; } if(y > main_coner.y + 499) { ff = 1; break; } } cout << "done"; break; } if(ff == 1) break; } for(;;) { if(GetAsyncKeyState(VK_END)) { GetCursorPos(&main_coner); int x = main_coner.x; int y = main_coner.y; int a1 = -1; int a2 = -1; for(;;) { x++; a1++; rVal = GetRValue(rgb[a1][a2]); gVal = GetGValue(rgb[a1][a2]); bVal = GetBValue(rgb[a1][a2]); red = (int)rVal; // get the colors into __int8 green = (int)gVal; // get the colors into __int8 blue = (int)bVal; // get the colors into __int8 if(red == 0 && green == 0 && blue == 0) { SetCursorPos(main_coner.x + x, main_coner.y + y); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, 0, 0, 0, 0); Sleep(10); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP, 0, 0, 0, 0); Sleep(100); } if(x > main_coner.x + 499) { a1 = 0; a2++; } if(y > main_coner.y + 499) { Sleep(100000000000); break; } if(GetAsyncKeyState(VK_CONTROL)) { Sleep(100000); break; } } } } for(;;) { if(GetAsyncKeyState(VK_END)) { break; } } return 0; } anyone see what's wrong with my code :( (feel free to add tags)

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• A view interface for large object/array dumps

  - by user685107

  I want to embed in a page a detailed structure report of my model objects, like print_r() or var_export() produce (now I’m doing this with running var_export() on get_object_vars()). But what I actually want to see is only some properties (in most cases), but at this moment I have to use Ctrl+F and seek the variable I want, instead of just staring at it right after the page completes loading. So I’m embedding buttons to show/hide large arrays etc. but thought: ‘What if there already is the thing I do right now?’ So is there? Update: What would your ideal interface look like? First of all, dumped models fit in the first screen. All the properties can be seen at the first look at the screen (there are not many of them, around 10 per each, three models total, so it is possible). Small arrays can be shown unrolled too. Let the size of the array to count it as ‘small’ be definable. Ideally, the user can see values of the properties without doing any click, scrolling the screen or typing something. There must be some improvements to representing the values, say, if an array is empty, show array ‘My_big_array’ is empty and if a boolean variable starting with is_, has_, had_ has a false as the value, make the variable (let us take is_available for example) shown as is_NOT_available in red, and if it has true as the value, show is_available in green. Without any value shown. The same goes for defined constants. That would be ideal. I want to make focus on this kind of switches. Krumo seems useful, but since it always closes up the variable without making difference of how large it is, I cannot use it as is, but there might appear something similar on github soon :) Second update starts here: Any programmer who sees is_available = false will know what it means, no need to do more Bringing in color indication I forgot about one thing: the ‘switches’ let’s call them so, may me important or not. So I have right now some of them that will show in green or red, this is for something global, like caching, which is shown as Caching is… ON with ‘ON’ written in green, (and ‘OFF’ in red when disabled) while the words about what it is, i.e. ‘Caching is… ’ are written in black. And some which are not so important, for example I haven’t defined REVEAL_TIES is… not set with ‘not set’ written in gray, while the words describing what it is stay in black. And if it would be set the whole phrase would be in black since there is nothing important: if this small utility for showing some undercover things is working, I will see some messages after it, if it isn’t — site will be working independently of its state. Dividing switches into important ones and not with corresponding color match should improve readability, especially for those users who are not programmers and just enabled debug mode because some guy from bugzilla said do that — for them it would help to understand what is important and what is not.

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• How to deal with transport level security policy with OSB

  - by Jian Liang

  Recently, we received a use case for Oracle Service Bus (OSB) 11gPS4 to consume a Web Service which is secured by HTTP transport level security policy. The WSDL of the remote web service looks like following where the part marked in red shows the security policy: <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <definitions xmlns:wssutil="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/09/policy" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:tns="https://httpsbasicauth" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/" targetNamespace="https://httpsbasicauth" name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <wsp:UsingPolicy wssutil:Required="true"/> <wsp:Policy wssutil:Id="WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"> <wsp:ExactlyOne> <wsp:All> <ns1:TransportBinding xmlns:ns1="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/07/securitypolicy"> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:TransportToken> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:HttpsToken RequireClientCertificate="false"/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportToken> <ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Basic256/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:AlgorithmSuite> <ns1:Layout> <wsp:Policy> <ns1:Strict/> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:Layout> </wsp:Policy> </ns1:TransportBinding> <ns2:UsingAddressing xmlns:ns2="http://www.w3.org/2006/05/addressing/wsdl"/> </wsp:All> </wsp:ExactlyOne> </wsp:Policy> <types> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://proxyhttpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=1"/> </xsd:schema> <xsd:schema> <xsd:import namespace="https://httpsbasicauth" schemaLocation="http://localhost:7001/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService?xsd=2"/> </xsd:schema> </types> <message name="echoString"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoString"/> </message> <message name="echoStringResponse"> <part name="parameters" element="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </message> <portType name="HttpsBasicAuth"> <operation name="echoString"> <input message="tns:echoString"/> <output message="tns:echoStringResponse"/> </operation> </portType> <binding name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding" type="tns:HttpsBasicAuth"> <wsp:PolicyReference URI="#WSHttpBinding_IPartyServicePortType_policy"/> <soap:binding transport="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/http" style="document"/> <operation name="echoString"> <soap:operation soapAction=""/> <input> <soap:body use="literal"/> </input> <output> <soap:body use="literal"/> </output> </operation> </binding> <service name="HttpsBasicAuthService"> <port name="HttpsBasicAuthSoapPort" binding="tns:HttpsBasicAuthSoapPortBinding"> <soap:address location="https://localhost:7002/WS/HttpsBasicAuthService"/> </port> </service> </definitions> The security assertion in the WSDL (marked in red) indicates that this is the HTTP transport level security policy which requires one way SSL with default authentication (aka. basic authenticate with username/password). Normally, there are two ways to handle web service security policy with OSB 11g: Use WebLogic 9.x policy Use OWSM Since OSB doesn’t support WebLogic 9.x WSSP transport level assertion (except for WS transport), when we tried to create the business service based on the imported WSDL, OSB complained with the following message: [OSB Kernel:398133]The service is based on WSDL with Web Services Security Policies that are not natively supported by Oracle Service Bus. Please select OWSM Policies - From OWSM Policy Store option and attach equivalent OWSM security policy. For the Business Service, either you can add the necessary client policies manually by clicking Add button or you can let Oracle Service Bus automatically pick and add compatible client policies by clicking Add Compatible button. Unfortunately, when tried with OWSM, we couldn’t find http_token_policy from OWSM since OSB PS4 doesn’t support OWSM http_token_policy. It seems that we ran into an unsupported situation that no appropriate policy can be used from both WebLogic and OWSM. As this security policy requires one way SSL with basic authentication at the transport level, a possible workaround is to meet the remote service's requirement at transport level without using web service policy. We can simply use OSB to establish SSL connection and provide username/password for authentication at the transport level to the remote web service. In this case, the business service within OSB will be transparent to the web service policy. However, we still need to deal with OSB console’s complaint related to unsupported security policy because the failure of WSDL validation prohibits OSB console to move forward. With the help from OSB Product Management team, we finally came up with the following solutions: Solution 1: OSB PS5 The good news is that the http_token_policy is made available in OSB PS5. With OSB PS5, you can simply add OWSM oracle/wss_http_token_over_ssl_client_policy to the business service. The simplest solution is to upgrade to OSB PS5 where the OWSM solution is provided out of the box. But if you are not in a position where upgrading is an immediate option, you might want to consider other two workaround solutions described below. Solution 2: Modifying WSDL This solution addresses OSB console’s complaint by removing the security policy from the imported WSDL within OSB. Without the security policy, OSB console allows the business service to be created based on modified WSDL.  Please bear in mind, modifying WSDL is done only for the OSB side via OSB console, no change is required on the remote Web Service. The main steps of this solution: Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB remove security assertion (the red marked part) from the imported WSDL create a service account. In our sample, we simply take the user weblogic create the business service and check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account make sure that OSB consumes the web service via https. This solution requires modifying WSDL. It is suitable for any OSB version (10g or OSB 11g version) prior to PS5 without OWSM. However, modifying WSDL by hand is troublesome as it requires the user to remember that the original WSDL was edited.  It forces you to make the same edit each time you want to re-import the service WSDL when changes occur at the service level. This also prevents you from using UDDI to import WSDL.  Solution 3: Using original WSDL This solution keeps the WSDL intact and ignores the embedded policy by using OWSM. By design, OWSM doesn’t like WSDL with embedded security assertion. Since OWSM doesn’t provide the feature to explicitly ignore the embedded policy from a remote WSDL, in this solution, we use OWSM in a tricky way to ignore the embedded policy. Connect to OSB console import the remote WSDL into OSB create a service account create the business service in which check "Basic" for Authentication and select the created service account as the imported WSDL is intact, the OSB Kernel:398133 error is expected ignore this error message for the moment and navigate to the Policies Page of business service Select “From OWSM Policy Store” and click “Add” button, the list of policies will pop-up Here is the tricky part: select an arbitrary policy, and click “Cancel” Update and save By clicking “Cancel’ button, we didn’t add any OWSM policy to business service, but the embedded policy is ignored. Yes, this is tricky. According to Oracle OSB Product Manager, the future release of OWSM will add a button “None” which allows to ignore the embedded policy explicitly. This solution keeps the imported WSDL intact which is the big advantage over the solution 2. It is suitable for OSB 11g (version prior to PS5) domain with OWSM configured. This blog addressed the unsupported transport level web service security policy with OSB PS4. To summarize, if you are using OSB PS5 or in a position to upgrade to PS5, the recommendation is to use OWSM OOTB transport level security policy directly. With the release prior to 11g PS5, you can consider the solution 2 or 3 depending on if OWSM is configured.

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• Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

  - by andrewbrust

  Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back.  The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy.  His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice  thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher.  But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes:   1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7.  That’s plain silly.  You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device.  Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly.  Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens.  If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers.  Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly.  It was DOA, and you know it.   2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product.  But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts.  Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration.  Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true).   3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names.  One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities.  Can we merge these please?  My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already.   4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up.  You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet.  You can do better.  In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers.   5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology.  So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard?  You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand.  Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs?  Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery?  And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up.  Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units?  No.  Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers?  You bet.  And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please.   6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product.  And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish.  Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded.  WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung.  Product cycles are slow.  Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking.  You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home!  That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised.  Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center.  The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality.  You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably.   7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products.  They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers.  They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server.  But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them.  They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform.  This is a travesty.  Please fix it.  Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies.  Problem solved.  Markets expanded.   8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners.  I help run one, so I appreciate that.  But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine).  Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices.  At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings.  That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One.  And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it.  Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it.  Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2.  I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now.   9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well.  And this goes right along with making your own hardware.  When you build it, they will come.  And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better.   10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking.  With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something.  But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger.  Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh?   11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know.  But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one.  You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design.  You know that appeals to consumers.  But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try.  Bull dinky.  Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery.  You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed.  You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start.  Now run with that.  Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up.  For good.   12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world.  That would appear to be the result of groupthink.  You must do better.  And there’s lots of people willing to advise you.  This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs.  Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too.  Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped.  Talk to high-end gear consumers.  Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too.   Signing Off I hope this was of value to you.  As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help.  But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft.  Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head.  I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help.  If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

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• Monitoring SQL Server Agent job run times

  - by okeofs

  Introduction A few months back, I was asked how long a particular nightly process took to run. It was a super question and the one thing that struck me was that there were a plethora of factors affecting the processing time. This said, I developed a query to ascertain process run times, the average nightly run times and applied some KPI’s to the end query. The end goal being to enable me to quickly detect anomalies and processes that are running beyond their normal times. As many of you are aware, most of the necessary data for this type of query, lies within the MSDB database. The core portion of the query is shown below.select sj.name,sh.run_date, sh.run_duration, case when len(sh.run_duration) = 6 then convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration) when len(sh.run_duration) = 5 then '0' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration) when len(sh.run_duration) = 4 then '00' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration) when len(sh.run_duration) = 3 then '000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration) when len(sh.run_duration) = 2 then '0000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration) when len(sh.run_duration) = 1 then '00000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration) end as tt from dbo.sysjobs sj with (nolock) inner join dbo.sysjobHistory sh with (nolock) on sj.job_id = sh.job_id where sj.name = 'My Agent Job' and [sh.Message] like '%The job%') Run_date and run_duration are obvious fields. The field ‘Name’ is the name of the job that we wish to follow. The only major challenge was that the format of the run duration which was not as ‘user friendly’ as I would have liked. As an example, the run duration 1 hour 10 minutes and 3 seconds would be displayed as 11003; whereas I wanted it to display this in a more user friendly manner as 01:10:03. In order to achieve this effect, we need to add leading zeros to the run_duration based upon the case logic shown above. At this point what we need to do add colons between the hours and minutes and one between the minutes and seconds. To achieve this I nested the query shown above (in purple) within a ‘super’ query. Thus the run time ([Run Time]) is constructed concatenating a series of substrings (See below in Blue). select run_date,substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),1,2) + ':' +substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),3,2) + ':' +substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),5,2) as [run_time] from (select sj.name,sh.run_date, sh.run_duration,case when len(sh.run_duration) = 6 then convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 5 then '0' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 4 then '00' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 3 then '000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 2 then '0000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 1 then '00000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)end as ttfrom dbo.sysjobs sj with (nolock)inner join dbo.sysjobHistory sh with (nolock) on sj.job_id = sh.job_id where sj.name = 'My Agent Job'and [sh.Message] like '%The job%') a Now that I had each nightly run time in hours, minutes and seconds (01:10:03), I decided that it would very productive to calculate a rolling run time average. To do this, I decided to do the calculations in base units of seconds. This said, I encapsulated the query shown above into a further ‘super’ query (see the code in RED below). This encapsulation is shown below. The astute reader will note that I used implied casting from integer to string, which is not the best method to use however it works. This said and if I were constructing the query again I would definitely do an explicit convert. To Recap: I now have a key field of ‘1’, each and every applicable run date and the total number of SECONDS that the process ran for each run date, all of this data within the #rawdata1 temporary table. Select 1 as keyy,run_date,(substring(b.run_time,1,2)*3600) + (substring(b.run_time,4,2)*60) + (substring(b.run_time,7,2)) as run_time_in_Seconds,run_time into #rawdata1 from ( select run_date,substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),1,2) + ':' + substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),3,2) + ':' +substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),5,2) as [run_time] from (select sj.name,sh.run_date, sh.run_duration, case when len(sh.run_duration) = 6 then convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 5 then '0' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 4 then '00' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration)    = 3 then '000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration)    = 2 then '0000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)when len(sh.run_duration) = 1 then '00000' + convert(varchar(8),sh.run_duration)end as ttfrom dbo.sysjobs sj with (nolock)inner join dbo.sysjobHistory sh with (nolock)on sj.job_id = sh.job_id where sj.name = 'My Agent Job'and [sh.Message] like '%The job%') a )b   Calculating the average run time We now select each run time in seconds from #rawdata1 and place the values into another temporary table called #rawdata2. Once again we create a ‘key’, a hardwired ‘1’. select 1 as Keyy, run_time_in_Seconds into #rawdata2 from #rawdata1The purpose of doing so is to make the average time AVG() available to the query immediately without having to do adverse grouping. Applying KPI Logic At this point, we shall apply some logic to determine whether processing times are within the norms. We do this by applying colour names. Obviously, this example is a super one for SSRS and traffic light icons.select rd1.run_date, rd1.run_time, rd1.run_time_in_Seconds ,Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds) as Average_run_time_in_seconds,casewhenConvert(decimal(10,1),rd1.run_time_in_Seconds)/Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)<= 1.2 then 'Green' when Convert(decimal(10,1),rd1.run_time_in_Seconds)/Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)< 1.4 then 'Yellow' else 'Red'end as [color], Calculating the Average Run Time in Hours Minutes and Seconds and the end of the query. casewhen len(convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)/(3600))) = 1 then '0' + convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)/(3600))else convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)/(3600))end + ':' + case when len(convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%(3600)/60)) = 1 then '0' + convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%(3600)/60)else convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%(3600)/60)end + ':' + case when len(convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%60)) = 1 then '0' + convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%60)else convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%60)end as [Average Run Time HH:MM:SS] from #rawdata2 rd2 innerjoin #rawdata1 rd1on rd1.keyy = rd2.keyygroup by run_date,rd1.run_time ,rd1.run_time_in_Seconds order by run_date descThe complete code example use msdbgo/*drop table #rawdata1drop table #rawdata2go*/select 1 as keyy,run_date,(substring(b.run_time,1,2)*3600) + (substring(b.run_time,4,2)*60) + (substring(b.run_time,7,2)) as run_time_in_Seconds,run_time into #rawdata1 from (select run_date,substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),1,2) + ':' +substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),3,2) + ':' +substring(convert(varchar(20),tt),5,2) as [run_time] from (select name,run_date, run_duration, casewhenlen(run_duration) = 6 then convert(varchar(8),run_duration)whenlen(run_duration) = 5 then '0' + convert(varchar(8),run_duration)whenlen(run_duration) = 4 then '00' + convert(varchar(8),run_duration)whenlen(run_duration) = 3 then '000' + convert(varchar(8),run_duration)whenlen(run_duration) = 2 then '0000' + convert(varchar(8),run_duration)whenlen(run_duration) = 1 then '00000' + convert(varchar(8),run_duration)end as ttfrom dbo.sysjobs sj with (nolock)innerjoin dbo.sysjobHistory sh with (nolock) on sj.job_id = sh.job_id where name = 'My Agent Job'and [Message] like '%The job%') a ) bselect 1 as Keyy, run_time_in_Seconds into #rawdata2 from #rawdata1select rd1.run_date, rd1.run_time, rd1.run_time_in_Seconds ,Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds) as Average_run_time_in_seconds,casewhenConvert(decimal(10,1),rd1.run_time_in_Seconds)/Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)<= 1.2 then 'Green' when Convert(decimal(10,1),rd1.run_time_in_Seconds)/Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)< 1.4 then 'Yellow' else 'Red'end as [color],Case when len(convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)/(3600))) = 1 then '0' + convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)/(3600))else convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)/(3600))end + ':' + case when len(convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%(3600)/60)) = 1 then '0' + convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%(3600)/60)else convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%(3600)/60)end + ':' + case when len(convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%60)) = 1 then '0' + convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%60)else convert(varchar(2),Avg(rd2.run_time_in_Seconds)%60)end as [Average Run Time HH:MM:SS] from #rawdata2 rd2 innerjoin #rawdata1 rd1on rd1.keyy = rd2.keyygroup by run_date,rd1.run_time ,rd1.run_time_in_Seconds order by run_date desc  

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• Tools of the Trade

  - by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

  I got pretty excited a couple of days ago when my new laptop arrived. “The new phone books are here!  The new phone books are here!  I’m a somebody!” - Steve Martin in The Jerk It is a Dell Precision M4500 with an Intel i7 Core 2.8 GHZ running 64-bit Windows 7 with a 15.6” widescreen, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD.  For some of you high fliers, this may be nothing to write home about, but compared to the 32–bit Windows XP laptop with 2 GB of RAM and a regular hard disk that I’m coming from, it’s a really nice step forward.  I won’t even bore you with the details of the desktop PC I was first given when I started here 5 1/2 years ago.  Let’s just say that things have improved.  One really nice thing is that while we are definitely running a lean and mean department in terms of staffing, my boss believes in supporting that lean staff with good tools in order to stay lean instead of having to spend even more money on additional employees.  Of course, that only goes so far, and at some point you have to add more people in order to get more work done, which is why we are bringing on-board a new employee and a new contract developer next week.  But that’s a different story for a different time. But the main topic for this post is to highlight the variety of tools that I use in my job and that you might find useful, too.  This is easy to do right now because the process of building up my new laptop from scratch has forced me to assemble a list of software that had to be installed and configured.  Keep in mind as you look through this list that I play many roles in our company.  My official title is Software Engineering Manager, but in addition to managing the team, I am also an active ASP.NET and SQL developer, the Database Administrator, and 50% of the SAN Administrator team.  So, without further ado, here are the tools and some comments about why I use them: Tool Purpose Virtual Clone Drive Easily mount an ISO image as a DVD Drive.  This is particularly handy when you are downloading disk images from Microsoft for your tools. SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition We are migrating all of our active systems to SQL 2008 R2.  Developer Edition has all the features of Enterprise Edition, but intended for development use. SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition (BIDS ONLY) The migration to SSRS 2008 R2 is just getting started, and in the meantime, maintenance work still has to be done on the reports on our SQL 2005 server.  For some reason, you can’t use BIDS from 2008 to write reports for a 2005 server.  There is some different format and when you open 2005 reports in 2008 BIDS, it forces you to upgrade, and they can no longer be uploaded to a 2005 server.  Hopefully Microsoft will fix this soon in some manner similar to Visual Studio now allows you to pick which version of the .NET Framework you are coding against. Visual Studio 2010 Premium All of our application development is in ASP.NET, and we might as well use the tool designed for it. I’ve used a version of Visual Studio going all the way back to VB 6.0 and Visual Interdev. Vault Professional Client Several years ago we replaced Visual Source Safe with SourceGear Vault (then Fortress, and now Vault Pro), and I love it.  It is very reliable with low overhead - perfect for a small to medium size development team.  And being a small ISV, their support is exceptional. Red-Gate Developer Bundle with the SQL Source Control update for Vault I first used, and fell in love with, SQL Prompt shortly before Red-Gate bought it, and then Red-Gate’s first release made me love it even more.  SQL Refactor (which has since been rolled into the latest version of SQL Prompt) has saved me many hours and migraine’s trying to understand somebody else’s code when their indenting was nonexistant, or worse, irrational.  SQL Compare has been awesome for troubleshooting potential schema issues between different instances of system databases.  SQL Data Compare helped us identify the cause behind a bug which appeared in PROD but could not be reproduced in a nearly (but not quite exactly) identical copy in UAT.  And the newest tool we are embracing: SQL Source Control.  I blogged about it here (and here, and here) last December.  This is really going to help us keep each developer’s copy of the database in sync with one another. Fiddler Helps you watch the whole traffic stream on web visits.  Haven’t used it a lot, but it did help me track down some odd 404 errors we were finding in our own application logs.  Has some other JavaScript troubleshooting capabilities, but some of its usefulness has been supplanted by the Developer Tools option in IE8. Funduc Search & Replace Find any string anywhere in a mound of source code really, really fast.  Does RegEx searches, if you understand that foreign language.  Has really helped with some refactoring work to pinpoint, for example, everywhere a particular stored procedure is referenced, whether in .NET code or other SQL procedures (which we have in script files).  Provides in-context preview of the search results.  Fantastic tool, and a bargain price. SciTE SciTE is a Scintilla based Text Editor and it is a fantastic, light-weight tool for quickly reviewing (or writing) program code, SQL scripts, and extract files.  It has language-specific syntax highlighting.  I used it to write several batch and CMD programs a year ago, and to examine data extract files for exchanging information with other systems.  Extremely handy are the options to View End of Line and View Whitespace.  Ever receive a file that is supposed to use CRLF as an end-of-line marker, but really only has CRs?  SciTE will quickly make that visible. Infragistics Controls We do a lot of ASP.NET development, and frequently use the WebGrid, WebTab, and date picker controls.  We will likely be implementing the Hierarchical Data Grid soon.  Infragistics has control suites for WebForms, WinForms, Silverlight, and coming soon MVC/JQuery. WinZip - WITH Command-Line add-in The classic compression program with a great command-line interface that allows me to build those CMD (and soon PowerShell) programs for automated compression jobs.  Our versioned Build packages are zip files. XML Notepad Haven’t used this a lot myself, but one of my team really likes it for examining large XML files. LINQPad Again, haven’t used this one a lot, but it was recommended to me for learning and practicing my LINQ skills which will come in handy as we implement Entity Framework. SQL Sentry Plan Explorer SQL Server Show Plan on steroids.  Great for helping you focus on the parts of a large query that are of most importance.  Also great for just compressing the graphical plan into more readable layout. Araxis Merge A great DIFF and Merge tool.  SourceGear provides a great tool called DiffMerge that we use all the time, but occasionally, I like the cross-edit capabilities of Araxis Merge.  For a while, we also produced DIFF reports in HTML that showed all the changes that occurred between two releases.  This was most important when we were putting out very small, but very important hot fixes on a very politically hot system.  The reports produced by Araxis Merge gave the Director of IS assurance that we were not accidentally introducing ripples throughout the system with our releases. Idera SQL Admin Toolset A great collection of tools including a password checker to help analyze your SQL Server for weak user passwords, a Backup Status tool to quickly scan a large list of servers and databases to identify any that are overdue for backups.  Particularly helpful for highlighting new databases that have been deployed without getting included in your backup processing.  I also like Space Analyzer to keep an eye on disk space consumed by database files. Idera SQL Job Manager This free tool provides a nice calendar view of SQL Server Job Schedules, but to a degree, you also get what you pay for.  We will be purchasing SQL Sentry Event Manager later this year as an even better job schedule reviewer/manager.  But in the meantime, this at least gives me a good view on potential resource conflicts across multiple instances of SQL Server. DBFViewer 2000 I inherited a couple of FoxPro databases that I have to keep an eye on occasionally and have not yet been able to migrate them to SQL Server. Balsamiq Mockups We are still in evaluation-mode on this tool, but I really like it as a quick UI mockup tool that does not require Visual Studio, so someone other than a programmer can do UI design.  The interface looks hand-drawn which definitely has some psychological benefits when communicating to users, too. FeedDemon I have to stay on top of my WAY TOO MANY blog subscriptions somehow.  I may read blogs on a couple of different computers, and FeedDemon’s integration with Google Reader allows me to keep them all in sync.  I don’t particularly like the Google Reader interface, or the fact that it always wanted to mark articles as read just because I scrolled past them.  FeedDemon solves this problem for me, and provides a multi-tabbed interface which is good because fairly frequently one blog will link to something else I want to read, and I can end up with a half-dozen open tabs all from one article. Synergy+ In my office, I run four monitors across two computers all with one mouse and keyboard.  Synergy is the magic software that makes this work. TweetDeck I’m not the most active Tweeter in the world, but when I want to check-in with the Twitterverse, this really helps.  I have found the #sqlhelp and #PoshHelp hash tags particularly useful, and I also have columns setup to make it easy to monitor #sqlpass, #PASSProfDev, and short term events like #sqlsat68.   Whew!  That’s a lot.  No wonder it took me a couple of days to get everything setup the way I wanted it.  Oh, that and actually getting some work accomplished at the same time.  Anyway, I know that is a huge dump of info, and most people never make it here to the end, so for those who did, let me say, CONGRATULATIONS, you made it! I hope you’ll find a new tool or two to make your work life a little easier.

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• quick look at: dm_db_index_physical_stats

  - by fatherjack

  A quick look at the key data from this dmv that can help a DBA keep databases performing well and systems online as the users need them. When the dynamic management views relating to index statistics became available in SQL Server 2005 there was much hype about how they can help a DBA keep their servers running in better health than ever before. This particular view gives an insight into the physical health of the indexes present in a database. Whether they are use or unused, complete or missing some columns is irrelevant, this is simply the physical stats of all indexes; disabled indexes are ignored however. In it’s simplest form this dmv can be executed as:   The results from executing this contain a record for every index in every database but some of the columns will be NULL. The first parameter is there so that you can specify which database you want to gather index details on, rather than scan every database. Simply specifying DB_ID() in place of the first NULL achieves this. In order to avoid the NULLS, or more accurately, in order to choose when to have the NULLS you need to specify a value for the last parameter. It takes one of 4 values – DEFAULT, ‘SAMPLED’, ‘LIMITED’ or ‘DETAILED’. If you execute the dmv with each of these values you can see some interesting details in the times taken to complete each step. DECLARE @Start DATETIME DECLARE @First DATETIME DECLARE @Second DATETIME DECLARE @Third DATETIME DECLARE @Finish DATETIME SET @Start = GETDATE() SELECT * FROM [sys].[dm_db_index_physical_stats](DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL, DEFAULT) AS ddips SET @First = GETDATE() SELECT * FROM [sys].[dm_db_index_physical_stats](DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL, 'SAMPLED') AS ddips SET @Second = GETDATE() SELECT * FROM [sys].[dm_db_index_physical_stats](DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL, 'LIMITED') AS ddips SET @Third = GETDATE() SELECT * FROM [sys].[dm_db_index_physical_stats](DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL, 'DETAILED') AS ddips SET @Finish = GETDATE() SELECT DATEDIFF(ms, @Start, @First) AS [DEFAULT] , DATEDIFF(ms, @First, @Second) AS [SAMPLED] , DATEDIFF(ms, @Second, @Third) AS [LIMITED] , DATEDIFF(ms, @Third, @Finish) AS [DETAILED] Running this code will give you 4 result sets; DEFAULT will have 12 columns full of data and then NULLS in the remainder. SAMPLED will have 21 columns full of data. LIMITED will have 12 columns of data and the NULLS in the remainder. DETAILED will have 21 columns full of data. So, from this we can deduce that the DEFAULT value (the same one that is also applied when you query the view using a NULL parameter) is the same as using LIMITED. Viewing the final result set has some details that are worth noting: Running queries against this view takes significantly longer when using the SAMPLED and DETAILED values in the last parameter. The duration of the query is directly related to the size of the database you are working in so be careful running this on big databases unless you have tried it on a test server first. Let’s look at the data we get back with the DEFAULT value first of all and then progress to the extra information later. We know that the first parameter that we supply has to be a database id and for the purposes of this blog we will be providing that value with the DB_ID function. We could just as easily put a fixed value in there or a function such as DB_ID (‘AnyDatabaseName’). The first columns we get back are database_id and object_id. These are pretty explanatory and we can wrap those in some code to make things a little easier to read: SELECT DB_NAME([ddips].[database_id]) AS [DatabaseName] , OBJECT_NAME([ddips].[object_id]) AS [TableName] … FROM [sys].[dm_db_index_physical_stats](DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL) AS ddips  gives us   SELECT DB_NAME([ddips].[database_id]) AS [DatabaseName] , OBJECT_NAME([ddips].[object_id]) AS [TableName], [i].[name] AS [IndexName] , ….. FROM [sys].[dm_db_index_physical_stats](DB_ID(), NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL) AS ddips INNER JOIN [sys].[indexes] AS i ON [ddips].[index_id] = [i].[index_id] AND [ddips].[object_id] = [i].[object_id]     These handily tie in with the next parameters in the query on the dmv. If you specify an object_id and an index_id in these then you get results limited to either the table or the specific index. Once again we can place a  function in here to make it easier to work with a specific table. eg. SELECT * FROM [sys].[dm_db_index_physical_stats] (DB_ID(), OBJECT_ID(‘AdventureWorks2008.Person.Address’) , 1, NULL, NULL) AS ddips   Note: Despite me showing that functions can be placed directly in the parameters for this dmv, best practice recommends that functions are not used directly in the function as it is possible that they will fail to return a valid object ID. To be certain of not passing invalid values to this function, and therefore setting an automated process off on the wrong path, declare variables for the OBJECT_IDs and once they have been validated, use them in the function: DECLARE @db_id SMALLINT; DECLARE @object_id INT; SET @db_id = DB_ID(N’AdventureWorks_2008′); SET @object_id = OBJECT_ID(N’AdventureWorks_2008.Person.Address’); IF @db_id IS NULL BEGINPRINT N’Invalid database’; ENDELSE IF @object_id IS NULL BEGINPRINT N’Invalid object’; ENDELSE BEGINSELECT * FROM sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats (@db_id, @object_id, NULL, NULL , ‘LIMITED’); END; GO In cases where the results of querying this dmv don’t have any effect on other processes (i.e. simply viewing the results in the SSMS results area)  then it will be noticed when the results are not consistent with the expected results and in the case of this blog this is the method I have used. So, now we can relate the values in these columns to something that we recognise in the database lets see what those other values in the dmv are all about. The next columns are: We’ll skip partition_number, index_type_desc, alloc_unit_type_desc, index_depth and index_level  as this is a quick look at the dmv and they are pretty self explanatory. The final columns revealed by querying this view in the DEFAULT mode are avg_fragmentation_in_percent. This is the amount that the index is logically fragmented. It will show NULL when the dmv is queried in SAMPLED mode. fragment_count. The number of pieces that the index is broken into. It will show NULL when the dmv is queried in SAMPLED mode. avg_fragment_size_in_pages. The average size, in pages, of a single fragment in the leaf level of the IN_ROW_DATA allocation unit. It will show NULL when the dmv is queried in SAMPLED mode. page_count. Total number of index or data pages in use. OK, so what does this give us? Well, there is an obvious correlation between fragment_count, page_count and avg_fragment_size-in_pages. We see that an index that takes up 27 pages and is in 3 fragments has an average fragment size of 9 pages (27/3=9). This means that for this index there are 3 separate places on the hard disk that SQL Server needs to locate and access to gather the data when it is requested by a DML query. If this index was bigger than 72KB then having it’s data in 3 pieces might not be too big an issue as each piece would have a significant piece of data to read and the speed of access would not be too poor. If the number of fragments increases then obviously the amount of data in each piece decreases and that means the amount of work for the disks to do in order to retrieve the data to satisfy the query increases and this would start to decrease performance. This information can be useful to keep in mind when considering the value in the avg_fragmentation_in_percent column. This is arrived at by an internal algorithm that gives a value to the logical fragmentation of the index taking into account the multiple files, type of allocation unit and the previously mentioned characteristics if index size (page_count) and fragment_count. Seeing an index with a high avg_fragmentation_in_percent value will be a call to action for a DBA that is investigating performance issues. It is possible that tables will have indexes that suffer from rapid increases in fragmentation as part of normal daily business and that regular defragmentation work will be needed to keep it in good order. In other cases indexes will rarely become fragmented and therefore not need rebuilding from one end of the year to another. Keeping this in mind DBAs need to use an ‘intelligent’ process that assesses key characteristics of an index and decides on the best, if any, defragmentation method to apply should be used. There is a simple example of this in the sample code found in the Books OnLine content for this dmv, in example D. There are also a couple of very popular solutions created by SQL Server MVPs Michelle Ufford and Ola Hallengren which I would wholly recommend that you review for much further detail on how to care for your SQL Server indexes. Right, let’s get back on track then. Querying the dmv with the fifth parameter value as ‘DETAILED’ takes longer because it goes through the index and refreshes all data from every level of the index. As this blog is only a quick look a we are going to skate right past ghost_record_count and version_ghost_record_count and discuss avg_page_space_used_in_percent, record_count, min_record_size_in_bytes, max_record_size_in_bytes and avg_record_size_in_bytes. We can see from the details below that there is a correlation between the columns marked. Column 1 (Page_Count) is the number of 8KB pages used by the index, column 2 is how full each page is (how much of the 8KB has actual data written on it), column 3 is how many records are recorded in the index and column 4 is the average size of each record. This approximates to: ((Col1*8) * 1024*(Col2/100))/Col3 = Col4*. avg_page_space_used_in_percent is an important column to review as this indicates how much of the disk that has been given over to the storage of the index actually has data on it. This value is affected by the value given for the FILL_FACTOR parameter when creating an index. avg_record_size_in_bytes is important as you can use it to get an idea of how many records are in each page and therefore in each fragment, thus reinforcing how important it is to keep fragmentation under control. min_record_size_in_bytes and max_record_size_in_bytes are exactly as their names set them out to be. A detail of the smallest and largest records in the index. Purely offered as a guide to the DBA to better understand the storage practices taking place. So, keeping an eye on avg_fragmentation_in_percent will ensure that your indexes are helping data access processes take place as efficiently as possible. Where fragmentation recurs frequently then potentially the DBA should consider; the fill_factor of the index in order to leave space at the leaf level so that new records can be inserted without causing fragmentation so rapidly. the columns used in the index should be analysed to avoid new records needing to be inserted in the middle of the index but rather always be added to the end. * – it’s approximate as there are many factors associated with things like the type of data and other database settings that affect this slightly.  Another great resource for working with SQL Server DMVs is Performance Tuning with SQL Server Dynamic Management Views by Louis Davidson and Tim Ford – a free ebook or paperback from Simple Talk. Disclaimer – Jonathan is a Friend of Red Gate and as such, whenever they are discussed, will have a generally positive disposition towards Red Gate tools. Other tools are often available and you should always try others before you come back and buy the Red Gate ones. All code in this blog is provided “as is” and no guarantee, warranty or accuracy is applicable or inferred, run the code on a test server and be sure to understand it before you run it on a server that means a lot to you or your manager.

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• Calculix Data Visualiser using QT

  - by Ann

  I am doing a project on CalculiX data visualizor,using Qt.I 've to draw the structure and after giving force the displacement should be shawn as variation in color.I chose HSV coloring,but while executing I got an error message:"QColor::from Hsv:HSV parameters out of range".The code is: DataViz1::DataViz1(QWidget *parent) : QWidget(parent), ui(new Ui::DataViz1) { DArea = new QGLScreen(this); DArea-setGeometry(QRect(10,10,700,600)); //TODO This values are feeded by user dfile="/home/41407/color.txt";//input file with displacement mfile="/home/41407/mesh21.txt";//input file nodeId="*NODE"; elId="*ELEMENT"; DataId="displ"; parseMfile(); parseDfile(); DArea->Nodes=Nodes; DArea->Elements=Elements; DArea->Data=Data; DArea->fillColorArray(); //printf("Colr is %d",DArea->pickColor(-11.02,0));fflush(stdout); ui->setupUi(this); } DataViz1::~DataViz1() { delete ui; } void DataViz1::parseMfile() { QFile file(mfile); if (!file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly | QIODevice::Text)) return; int node_end=0; QTextStream in(&file); in.skipWhiteSpace(); while (!in.atEnd()) { QString line = in.readLine(); if(line.startsWith(nodeId))//Node block in Mfile { while(1) { line = in.readLine(); if(line.startsWith(elId)) { break; } Nodes< while(1) { line = in.readLine(); Elements<<line; //printf("Element is %s\n",line.toLocal8Bit().constData());fflush(stdout); if(in.atEnd()) break; } } } } void DataViz1::parseDfile() { QFile file(dfile); if (!file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly | QIODevice::Text)) return; int node_end=0; QTextStream in(&file); in.skipWhiteSpace(); while (!in.atEnd()) { QString line = in.readLine(); if(line.startsWith(DataId)) { continue; } line = in.readLine(); Data< } /......................................................................../ include "qglscreen.h" include GLfloat LightAmbient[]= { 0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5f, 1.0f }; GLfloat LightDiffuse[]= { 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f }; GLfloat LightPosition[]= { 0.0f, 0.0f, 2.0f, 1.0f }; QGLScreen::QGLScreen(QWidget *parent):QGLWidget(QGLFormat(QGL::SampleBuffers), parent) { clearColor = Qt::black; xRot = 0; yRot = 0; zRot = 0; ifdef QT_OPENGL_ES_2 program = 0; endif //TODO user input ElType="HE8"; DType="SolidFrame"; axis="X"; } QGLScreen::~QGLScreen() { } QSize QGLScreen::minimumSizeHint() const { return QSize(50, 50); } QSize QGLScreen::sizeHint() const { return QSize(200, 200); } void QGLScreen::setClearColor(const QColor &color) { clearColor = color; updateGL(); } void QGLScreen::initializeGL() { xRot=0; yRot=0; zRot=0; scaling = 1.0; /* select clearing (background) color */ glClearColor (0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); // glViewport(0,0,10,10); glOrtho(-10.0, +10.0, -10.0, +10.0, -10.0,+10.0); glEnable (GL_LINE_SMOOTH); glHint (GL_LINE_SMOOTH_HINT, GL_DONT_CARE); } void QGLScreen::wheel1() { scaling1 += .0025; count2++; update(); } void QGLScreen::wheel2() { if(count2-14) { scaling1 -= .0025; count2--; update(); } } void QGLScreen::drawModel(int x1,int y1,int x2,int y2) { makeCurrent(); QStringList Cnode,Celement; for (int i = 0; i < Elements.size(); ++i) { Celement=Elements.at(i).split(","); // printf("Element is %s",Celement.at(0).toLocal8Bit().constData());fflush(stdout); //printf("Node at el is %s\n",(findNode(Celement.at(1).toInt())).at(1).toLocal8Bit().constData()); fflush(stdout); if(ElType=="HE8") { //First four nodes float ENX1=(findNode(Celement.at(1).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENX2=(findNode(Celement.at(2).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENX3=(findNode(Celement.at(3).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENX4=(findNode(Celement.at(4).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENY1=(findNode(Celement.at(1).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENY2=(findNode(Celement.at(2).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENY3=(findNode(Celement.at(3).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENY4=(findNode(Celement.at(4).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENZ1=(findNode(Celement.at(1).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); float ENZ2=(findNode(Celement.at(2).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); float ENZ3=(findNode(Celement.at(3).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); float ENZ4=(findNode(Celement.at(4).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); //Second four Nodes float ENX5=(findNode(Celement.at(5).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENX6=(findNode(Celement.at(6).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENX7=(findNode(Celement.at(7).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENX8=(findNode(Celement.at(8).toInt())).at(1).toDouble(); float ENY5=(findNode(Celement.at(5).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENY6=(findNode(Celement.at(6).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENY7=(findNode(Celement.at(7).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENY8=(findNode(Celement.at(8).toInt())).at(2).toDouble(); float ENZ5=(findNode(Celement.at(5).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); float ENZ6=(findNode(Celement.at(6).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); float ENZ7=(findNode(Celement.at(7).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); float ENZ8=(findNode(Celement.at(8).toInt())).at(3).toDouble(); //Identify Colors GLfloat ENC[8][3]; for(int k=1;k<8;k++) { int hsv=pickColor(findData(Celement.at(k).toInt()).toDouble(),0); //printf("hsv is %d=",hsv);fflush(stdout); getRGB(hsv); //printf("%d*%d*%d\n",red,green,blue); //ENC[k]={red,green,blue}; ENC[k][0]=red; ENC[k][1]=green; ENC[k][2]=blue; } //Plot the first four direct loop if(DType=="WireFrame"){ glBegin(GL_LINE_LOOP); glColor3f(255,0,0); glVertex3f(ENX1,ENY1,ENZ1); glColor3f(255,0,0); glVertex3f(ENX2,ENY2,ENZ2); glColor3f(255,0,0); glVertex3f(ENX3,ENY3,ENZ3); glColor3f(255,0,0); glVertex3f(ENX4,ENY4,ENZ4); glEnd(); //Plot the second four direct loop glBegin(GL_LINE_LOOP); glColor3f(0,0,255); glVertex3f(ENX5,ENY5,ENZ5); glColor3f(0,0,255); glVertex3f(ENX6,ENY6,ENZ6); glColor3f(0,0,255); glVertex3f(ENX7,ENY7,ENZ7); glColor3f(0,0,255); glVertex3f(ENX8,ENY8,ENZ8); glEnd(); //Plot the interconnections glBegin(GL_LINE); glColor3f(150,150,150); glVertex3f(ENX1,ENY1,ENZ1); glVertex3f(ENX5,ENY5,ENZ5); glEnd(); glBegin(GL_LINE); glColor3f(150,150,150); glVertex3f(ENX2,ENY2,ENZ2); glVertex3f(ENX6,ENY6,ENZ6); glEnd(); glBegin(GL_LINE); glColor3f(150,150,150); glVertex3f(ENX3,ENY3,ENZ3); glVertex3f(ENX7,ENY7,ENZ7); glEnd(); glBegin(GL_LINE); glColor3f(150,150,150); glVertex3f(ENX4,ENY4,ENZ4); glVertex3f(ENX8,ENY8,ENZ8); glEnd(); } if(DType=="SolidFrame") { glBegin(GL_QUADS); glColor3fv(ENC[1]); glVertex3f(ENX1,ENY1,ENZ1); glColor3fv(ENC[2]); glVertex3f(ENX2,ENY2,ENZ2); glColor3fv(ENC[3]); glVertex3f(ENX3,ENY3,ENZ3); glColor3fv(ENC[4]); glVertex3f(ENX4,ENY4,ENZ4); glEnd(); //break; glBegin(GL_QUADS); glColor3fv(ENC[5]); glVertex3f(ENX5,ENY5,ENZ5); glColor3fv(ENC[6]); glVertex3f(ENX6,ENY6,ENZ6); glColor3fv(ENC[7]); glVertex3f(ENX7,ENY7,ENZ7); glColor3fv(ENC[8]); glVertex3f(ENX8,ENY8,ENZ8); glEnd(); glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP); glColor3fv(ENC[1]); glVertex3f(ENX1,ENY1,ENZ1); glColor3fv(ENC[5]); glVertex3f(ENX5,ENY5,ENZ5); glColor3fv(ENC[2]); glVertex3f(ENX2,ENY2,ENZ2); glColor3fv(ENC[6]); glVertex3f(ENX6,ENY6,ENZ6); glEnd(); glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP); glColor3fv(ENC[3]); glVertex3f(ENX3,ENY3,ENZ3); glColor3fv(ENC[7]); glVertex3f(ENX7,ENY7,ENZ7); glColor3fv(ENC[4]); glVertex3f(ENX4,ENY4,ENZ4); glColor3fv(ENC[8]); glVertex3f(ENX8,ENY8,ENZ8); glEnd(); glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP); glColor3fv(ENC[2]); glVertex3f(ENX2,ENY2,ENZ2); glColor3fv(ENC[6]); glVertex3f(ENX6,ENY6,ENZ6); glColor3fv(ENC[3]); glVertex3f(ENX3,ENY3,ENZ3); glColor3fv(ENC[7]); glVertex3f(ENX7,ENY7,ENZ7); glEnd(); glBegin(GL_QUAD_STRIP); glColor3fv(ENC[1]); glVertex3f(ENX1,ENY1,ENZ1); glColor3fv(ENC[5]); glVertex3f(ENX5,ENY5,ENZ5); glColor3fv(ENC[4]); glVertex3f(ENX4,ENY4,ENZ4); glColor3fv(ENC[8]); glVertex3f(ENX8,ENY8,ENZ8); glEnd(); } } } } QStringList QGLScreen::findNode(int element) { QStringList Temp; for (int i = 0; i < Nodes.size(); ++i) { Temp=Nodes.at(i).split(","); if(Temp.at(0).toInt()==element) { break; } } return Temp; } QString QGLScreen::findData(int Node) { QString Temp; QRegExp sep("\s+"); for (int i = 0; i < Data.size(); ++i) { if((Data.at(i).split("\t")).at(0).section(sep,1,1).toInt()==Node) { if(axis=="X") { Temp=Data.at(i).split("\t").at(0).section(sep,2,2); } if(axis=="Y") { Temp=Data.at(i).split("\t").at(0).section(sep,3,3); } if(axis=="Z") { Temp=Data.at(i).split("\t").at(0).section(sep,4,4); } break; } } return Temp; } void QGLScreen::fillColorArray() { QString Temp1,Temp2,Temp3; double d1s=0,d2s=0,d3s=0,d1l=0,d2l=0,d3l=0,diff=0; QRegExp sep("\\s+"); for (int i = 0; i < Data.size(); ++i) { Temp1=(Data.at(i).split("\t")).at(0).section(sep,2,2); if(d1s>Temp1.toDouble()) { d1s=Temp1.toDouble(); } if(d1l<Temp1.toDouble()) { d1l=Temp1.toDouble(); } Temp2=(Data.at(i).split("\t")).at(0).section(sep,3,3); if(d2s>Temp2.toDouble()) { d2s=Temp2.toDouble(); } if(d2l<Temp2.toDouble()) { d2l=Temp2.toDouble(); } Temp3=(Data.at(i).split("\t")).at(0).section(sep,4,4); if(d3s>Temp3.toDouble()) { d3s=Temp3.toDouble(); } if(d3l<Temp3.toDouble()) { d3l=Temp3.toDouble(); } // printf("data is %s",Temp.toLocal8Bit().constData());fflush(stdout); } color[0][0]=d1l; for(int i=1;i<360;i++) { //printf("Large is%f small is %f",d1l,d1s); diff=d1l-d1s; if(d1l==0&&d1s<0) color[0][i]=color[0][i-1]-diff/360; else if(d1l>0&&d1s==0) color[0][i]=color[0][i-1]+diff/360; else if(d1l>0&&d1s<0) color[0][i]=color[0][i-1]-diff/360; diff=d2l-d2s; if(d2l==0&&d2s<0) color[1][i]=color[1][i-1]-diff/360; else if(d2l>0&&d2s==0) color[1][i]=color[1][i-1]+diff/360; else if(d2l>0&&d2s<0) color[1][i]=color[1][i-1]-diff/360; diff=d3l-d3s; if(d3l==0&&d3s<0) color[2][i]=color[2][i-1]-diff/360; else if(d3l>0&&d3s==0) color[2][i]=color[2][i-1]+diff/360; else if(d3l>0&&d3s<0) color[2][i]=color[2][i-1]-diff/360; } //for(int i=0;i<360;i++) printf("%d %f %f %f\n",i,color[0][i],color[1][i],color[2][i]); } int QGLScreen::pickColor(double data,int Did) { int i,pos; if(axis=="X")Did=0; if(axis=="Y")Did=1; if(axis=="Z")Did=2; //printf("%f data is",data);fflush(stdout); for(int i=0;i<360;i++) { if(color[Did][i]<data && data>color[Did][i+1]) { //printf("Orginal dat is %f Data found is %f and pos %d\n",data,color[Did][i],i);fflush(stdout); pos=i; break; } } return pos; } void QGLScreen::getRGB(int hsv) { QColor c; c.setHsv(hsv,255,255,255); QColor r=QColor::fromHsv(hsv,255,255); red=r.red(); green=r.green(); blue=r.blue(); } void QGLScreen::paintGL() { glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT | GL_DEPTH_BUFFER_BIT); glPushAttrib(GL_ALL_ATTRIB_BITS); glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glPushMatrix(); glLoadIdentity(); GLfloat x = 3.0 * GLfloat(width()) / height(); glOrtho(-x, +x, -3.0, +3.0, 4.0, 15.0); glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); glPushMatrix(); glLoadIdentity(); glTranslatef(0.0, 0.0, -10.0); glScalef(scaling, scaling, scaling); glRotatef(xRot, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0); glRotatef(yRot, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0); glRotatef(zRot, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0); drawModel(0,0,1,1); /* don't wait! * start processing buffered OpenGL routines */ glFlush (); } /void QGLScreen::zoom1() { scaling+=.05; update(); }/ void QGLScreen::resizeGL(int width, int height) { int side = qMin(width, height); glViewport((width - side) / 2, (height - side) / 2, side, side); #if !defined(QT_OPENGL_ES_2) glMatrixMode(GL_PROJECTION); glLoadIdentity(); #ifndef QT_OPENGL_ES glOrtho(-0.5, +0.5, +0.5, -0.5, 4.0, 15.0); #else glOrthof(-0.5, +0.5, +0.5, -0.5, 4.0, 15.0); #endif glMatrixMode(GL_MODELVIEW); #endif } void QGLScreen::mousePressEvent(QMouseEvent *event) { lastPos = event-pos(); } void QGLScreen::mouseMoveEvent(QMouseEvent *event) { GLfloat dx = GLfloat(event->x() - lastPos.x()) / width(); GLfloat dy = GLfloat(event->y() - lastPos.y()) / height(); if (event->buttons() & Qt::LeftButton) { xRot+= 180 * dy; yRot += 180 * dx; update(); } else if (event->buttons() & Qt::RightButton) { xRot += 180 * dy; yRot += 180 * dx; update(); } lastPos = event->pos(); } void QGLScreen::mouseReleaseEvent(QMouseEvent * /* event */) { emit clicked(); }

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• What's New in ASP.NET 4

  - by Navaneeth

  The .NET Framework version 4 includes enhancements for ASP.NET 4 in targeted areas. Visual Studio 2010 and Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express also include enhancements and new features for improved Web development. This document provides an overview of many of the new features that are included in the upcoming release. This topic contains the following sections: ASP.NET Core Services ASP.NET Web Forms ASP.NET MVC Dynamic Data ASP.NET Chart Control Visual Web Developer Enhancements Web Application Deployment with Visual Studio 2010 Enhancements to ASP.NET Multi-Targeting ASP.NET Core Services ASP.NET 4 introduces many features that improve core ASP.NET services such as output caching and session state storage. Extensible Output Caching Since the time that ASP.NET 1.0 was released, output caching has enabled developers to store the generated output of pages, controls, and HTTP responses in memory. On subsequent Web requests, ASP.NET can serve content more quickly by retrieving the generated output from memory instead of regenerating the output from scratch. However, this approach has a limitation — generated content always has to be stored in memory. On servers that experience heavy traffic, the memory requirements for output caching can compete with memory requirements for other parts of a Web application. ASP.NET 4 adds extensibility to output caching that enables you to configure one or more custom output-cache providers. Output-cache providers can use any storage mechanism to persist HTML content. These storage options can include local or remote disks, cloud storage, and distributed cache engines. Output-cache provider extensibility in ASP.NET 4 lets you design more aggressive and more intelligent output-caching strategies for Web sites. For example, you can create an output-cache provider that caches the "Top 10" pages of a site in memory, while caching pages that get lower traffic on disk. Alternatively, you can cache every vary-by combination for a rendered page, but use a distributed cache so that the memory consumption is offloaded from front-end Web servers. You create a custom output-cache provider as a class that derives from the OutputCacheProvider type. You can then configure the provider in the Web.config file by using the new providers subsection of the outputCache element For more information and for examples that show how to configure the output cache, see outputCache Element for caching (ASP.NET Settings Schema). For more information about the classes that support caching, see the documentation for the OutputCache and OutputCacheProvider classes. By default, in ASP.NET 4, all HTTP responses, rendered pages, and controls use the in-memory output cache. The defaultProvider attribute for ASP.NET is AspNetInternalProvider. You can change the default output-cache provider used for a Web application by specifying a different provider name for defaultProvider attribute. In addition, you can select different output-cache providers for individual control and for individual requests and programmatically specify which provider to use. For more information, see the HttpApplication.GetOutputCacheProviderName(HttpContext) method. The easiest way to choose a different output-cache provider for different Web user controls is to do so declaratively by using the new providerName attribute in a page or control directive, as shown in the following example: <%@ OutputCache Duration="60" VaryByParam="None" providerName="DiskCache" %> Preloading Web Applications Some Web applications must load large amounts of data or must perform expensive initialization processing before serving the first request. In earlier versions of ASP.NET, for these situations you had to devise custom approaches to "wake up" an ASP.NET application and then run initialization code during the Application_Load method in the Global.asax file. To address this scenario, a new application preload manager (autostart feature) is available when ASP.NET 4 runs on IIS 7.5 on Windows Server 2008 R2. The preload feature provides a controlled approach for starting up an application pool, initializing an ASP.NET application, and then accepting HTTP requests. It lets you perform expensive application initialization prior to processing the first HTTP request. For example, you can use the application preload manager to initialize an application and then signal a load-balancer that the application was initialized and ready to accept HTTP traffic. To use the application preload manager, an IIS administrator sets an application pool in IIS 7.5 to be automatically started by using the following configuration in the applicationHost.config file: <applicationPools> <add name="MyApplicationPool" startMode="AlwaysRunning" /> </applicationPools> Because a single application pool can contain multiple applications, you specify individual applications to be automatically started by using the following configuration in the applicationHost.config file: <sites> <site name="MySite" id="1"> <application path="/" serviceAutoStartEnabled="true" serviceAutoStartProvider="PrewarmMyCache" > <!-- Additional content --> </application> </site> </sites> <!-- Additional content --> <serviceAutoStartProviders> <add name="PrewarmMyCache" type="MyNamespace.CustomInitialization, MyLibrary" /> </serviceAutoStartProviders> When an IIS 7.5 server is cold-started or when an individual application pool is recycled, IIS 7.5 uses the information in the applicationHost.config file to determine which Web applications have to be automatically started. For each application that is marked for preload, IIS7.5 sends a request to ASP.NET 4 to start the application in a state during which the application temporarily does not accept HTTP requests. When it is in this state, ASP.NET instantiates the type defined by the serviceAutoStartProvider attribute (as shown in the previous example) and calls into its public entry point. You create a managed preload type that has the required entry point by implementing the IProcessHostPreloadClient interface, as shown in the following example: public class CustomInitialization : System.Web.Hosting.IProcessHostPreloadClient { public void Preload(string[] parameters) { // Perform initialization. } } After your initialization code runs in the Preload method and after the method returns, the ASP.NET application is ready to process requests. Permanently Redirecting a Page Content in Web applications is often moved over the lifetime of the application. This can lead to links to be out of date, such as the links that are returned by search engines. In ASP.NET, developers have traditionally handled requests to old URLs by using the Redirect method to forward a request to the new URL. However, the Redirect method issues an HTTP 302 (Found) response (which is used for a temporary redirect). This results in an extra HTTP round trip. ASP.NET 4 adds a RedirectPermanent helper method that makes it easy to issue HTTP 301 (Moved Permanently) responses, as in the following example: RedirectPermanent("/newpath/foroldcontent.aspx"); Search engines and other user agents that recognize permanent redirects will store the new URL that is associated with the content, which eliminates the unnecessary round trip made by the browser for temporary redirects. Session State Compression By default, ASP.NET provides two options for storing session state across a Web farm. The first option is a session state provider that invokes an out-of-process session state server. The second option is a session state provider that stores data in a Microsoft SQL Server database. Because both options store state information outside a Web application's worker process, session state has to be serialized before it is sent to remote storage. If a large amount of data is saved in session state, the size of the serialized data can become very large. ASP.NET 4 introduces a new compression option for both kinds of out-of-process session state providers. By using this option, applications that have spare CPU cycles on Web servers can achieve substantial reductions in the size of serialized session state data. You can set this option using the new compressionEnabled attribute of the sessionState element in the configuration file. When the compressionEnabled configuration option is set to true, ASP.NET compresses (and decompresses) serialized session state by using the .NET Framework GZipStreamclass. The following example shows how to set this attribute. <sessionState mode="SqlServer" sqlConnectionString="data source=dbserver;Initial Catalog=aspnetstate" allowCustomSqlDatabase="true" compressionEnabled="true" /> ASP.NET Web Forms Web Forms has been a core feature in ASP.NET since the release of ASP.NET 1.0. Many enhancements have been in this area for ASP.NET 4, such as the following: The ability to set meta tags. More control over view state. Support for recently introduced browsers and devices. Easier ways to work with browser capabilities. Support for using ASP.NET routing with Web Forms. More control over generated IDs. The ability to persist selected rows in data controls. More control over rendered HTML in the FormView and ListView controls. Filtering support for data source controls. Enhanced support for Web standards and accessibility Setting Meta Tags with the Page.MetaKeywords and Page.MetaDescription Properties Two properties have been added to the Page class: MetaKeywords and MetaDescription. These two properties represent corresponding meta tags in the HTML rendered for a page, as shown in the following example: <head id="Head1" runat="server"> <title>Untitled Page</title> <meta name="keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2' /> <meta name="description" content="Description of my page" /> </head> These two properties work like the Title property does, and they can be set in the @ Page directive. For more information, see Page.MetaKeywords and Page.MetaDescription. Enabling View State for Individual Controls A new property has been added to the Control class: ViewStateMode. You can use this property to disable view state for all controls on a page except those for which you explicitly enable view state. View state data is included in a page's HTML and increases the amount of time it takes to send a page to the client and post it back. Storing more view state than is necessary can cause significant decrease in performance. In earlier versions of ASP.NET, you could reduce the impact of view state on a page's performance by disabling view state for specific controls. But sometimes it is easier to enable view state for a few controls that need it instead of disabling it for many that do not need it. For more information, see Control.ViewStateMode. Support for Recently Introduced Browsers and Devices ASP.NET includes a feature that is named browser capabilities that lets you determine the capabilities of the browser that a user is using. Browser capabilities are represented by the HttpBrowserCapabilities object which is stored in the HttpRequest.Browser property. Information about a particular browser's capabilities is defined by a browser definition file. In ASP.NET 4, these browser definition files have been updated to contain information about recently introduced browsers and devices such as Google Chrome, Research in Motion BlackBerry smart phones, and Apple iPhone. Existing browser definition files have also been updated. For more information, see How to: Upgrade an ASP.NET Web Application to ASP.NET 4 and ASP.NET Web Server Controls and Browser Capabilities. The browser definition files that are included with ASP.NET 4 are shown in the following list: •blackberry.browser •chrome.browser •Default.browser •firefox.browser •gateway.browser •generic.browser •ie.browser •iemobile.browser •iphone.browser •opera.browser •safari.browser A New Way to Define Browser Capabilities ASP.NET 4 includes a new feature referred to as browser capabilities providers. As the name suggests, this lets you build a provider that in turn lets you write custom code to determine browser capabilities. In ASP.NET version 3.5 Service Pack 1, you define browser capabilities in an XML file. This file resides in a machine-level folder or an application-level folder. Most developers do not need to customize these files, but for those who do, the provider approach can be easier than dealing with complex XML syntax. The provider approach makes it possible to simplify the process by implementing a common browser definition syntax, or a database that contains up-to-date browser definitions, or even a Web service for such a database. For more information about the new browser capabilities provider, see the What's New for ASP.NET 4 White Paper. Routing in ASP.NET 4 ASP.NET 4 adds built-in support for routing with Web Forms. Routing is a feature that was introduced with ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 and lets you configure an application to use URLs that are meaningful to users and to search engines because they do not have to specify physical file names. This can make your site more user-friendly and your site content more discoverable by search engines. For example, the URL for a page that displays product categories in your application might look like the following example: http://website/products.aspx?categoryid=12 By using routing, you can use the following URL to render the same information: http://website/products/software The second URL lets the user know what to expect and can result in significantly improved rankings in search engine results. the new features include the following: The PageRouteHandler class is a simple HTTP handler that you use when you define routes. You no longer have to write a custom route handler. The HttpRequest.RequestContext and Page.RouteData properties make it easier to access information that is passed in URL parameters. The RouteUrl expression provides a simple way to create a routed URL in markup. The RouteValue expression provides a simple way to extract URL parameter values in markup. The RouteParameter class makes it easier to pass URL parameter values to a query for a data source control (similar to FormParameter). You no longer have to change the Web.config file to enable routing. For more information about routing, see the following topics: ASP.NET Routing Walkthrough: Using ASP.NET Routing in a Web Forms Application How to: Define Routes for Web Forms Applications How to: Construct URLs from Routes How to: Access URL Parameters in a Routed Page Setting Client IDs The new ClientIDMode property makes it easier to write client script that references HTML elements rendered for server controls. Increasing use of Microsoft Ajax makes the need to do this more common. For example, you may have a data control that renders a long list of products with prices and you want to use client script to make a Web service call and update individual prices in the list as they change without refreshing the entire page. Typically you get a reference to an HTML element in client script by using the document.GetElementById method. You pass to this method the value of the id attribute of the HTML element you want to reference. In the case of elements that are rendered for ASP.NET server controls earlier versions of ASP.NET could make this difficult or impossible. You were not always able to predict what id values ASP.NET would generate, or ASP.NET could generate very long id values. The problem was especially difficult for data controls that would generate multiple rows for a single instance of the control in your markup. ASP.NET 4 adds two new algorithms for generating id attributes. These algorithms can generate id attributes that are easier to work with in client script because they are more predictable and that are easier to work with because they are simpler. For more information about how to use the new algorithms, see the following topics: ASP.NET Web Server Control Identification Walkthrough: Making Data-Bound Controls Easier to Access from JavaScript Walkthrough: Making Controls Located in Web User Controls Easier to Access from JavaScript How to: Access Controls from JavaScript by ID Persisting Row Selection in Data Controls The GridView and ListView controls enable users to select a row. In previous versions of ASP.NET, row selection was based on the row index on the page. For example, if you select the third item on page 1 and then move to page 2, the third item on page 2 is selected. In most cases, is more desirable not to select any rows on page 2. ASP.NET 4 supports Persisted Selection, a new feature that was initially supported only in Dynamic Data projects in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. When this feature is enabled, the selected item is based on the row data key. This means that if you select the third row on page 1 and move to page 2, nothing is selected on page 2. When you move back to page 1, the third row is still selected. This is a much more natural behavior than the behavior in earlier versions of ASP.NET. Persisted selection is now supported for the GridView and ListView controls in all projects. You can enable this feature in the GridView control, for example, by setting the EnablePersistedSelection property, as shown in the following example: <asp:GridView id="GridView2" runat="server" PersistedSelection="true"> </asp:GridView> FormView Control Enhancements The FormView control is enhanced to make it easier to style the content of the control with CSS. In previous versions of ASP.NET, the FormView control rendered it contents using an item template. This made styling more difficult in the markup because unexpected table row and table cell tags were rendered by the control. The FormView control supports RenderOuterTable, a property in ASP.NET 4. When this property is set to false, as show in the following example, the table tags are not rendered. This makes it easier to apply CSS style to the contents of the control. <asp:FormView ID="FormView1" runat="server" RenderTable="false"> For more information, see FormView Web Server Control Overview. ListView Control Enhancements The ListView control, which was introduced in ASP.NET 3.5, has all the functionality of the GridView control while giving you complete control over the output. This control has been made easier to use in ASP.NET 4. The earlier version of the control required that you specify a layout template that contained a server control with a known ID. The following markup shows a typical example of how to use the ListView control in ASP.NET 3.5. <asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server"> <LayoutTemplate> <asp:PlaceHolder ID="ItemPlaceHolder" runat="server"></asp:PlaceHolder> </LayoutTemplate> <ItemTemplate> <% Eval("LastName")%> </ItemTemplate> </asp:ListView> In ASP.NET 4, the ListView control does not require a layout template. The markup shown in the previous example can be replaced with the following markup: <asp:ListView ID="ListView1" runat="server"> <ItemTemplate> <% Eval("LastName")%> </ItemTemplate> </asp:ListView> For more information, see ListView Web Server Control Overview. Filtering Data with the QueryExtender Control A very common task for developers who create data-driven Web pages is to filter data. This traditionally has been performed by building Where clauses in data source controls. This approach can be complicated, and in some cases the Where syntax does not let you take advantage of the full functionality of the underlying database. To make filtering easier, a new QueryExtender control has been added in ASP.NET 4. This control can be added to EntityDataSource or LinqDataSource controls in order to filter the data returned by these controls. Because the QueryExtender control relies on LINQ, but you do not to need to know how to write LINQ queries to use the query extender. The QueryExtender control supports a variety of filter options. The following lists QueryExtender filter options. Term Definition SearchExpression Searches a field or fields for string values and compares them to a specified string value. RangeExpression Searches a field or fields for values in a range specified by a pair of values. PropertyExpression Compares a specified value to a property value in a field. If the expression evaluates to true, the data that is being examined is returned. OrderByExpression Sorts data by a specified column and sort direction. CustomExpression Calls a function that defines custom filter in the page. For more information, see QueryExtenderQueryExtender Web Server Control Overview. Enhanced Support for Web Standards and Accessibility Earlier versions of ASP.NET controls sometimes render markup that does not conform to HTML, XHTML, or accessibility standards. ASP.NET 4 eliminates most of these exceptions. For details about how the HTML that is rendered by each control meets accessibility standards, see ASP.NET Controls and Accessibility. CSS for Controls that Can be Disabled In ASP.NET 3.5, when a control is disabled (see WebControl.Enabled), a disabled attribute is added to the rendered HTML element. For example, the following markup creates a Label control that is disabled: <asp:Label id="Label1" runat="server"   Text="Test" Enabled="false" /> In ASP.NET 3.5, the previous control settings generate the following HTML: <span id="Label1" disabled="disabled">Test</span> In HTML 4.01, the disabled attribute is not considered valid on span elements. It is valid only on input elements because it specifies that they cannot be accessed. On display-only elements such as span elements, browsers typically support rendering for a disabled appearance, but a Web page that relies on this non-standard behavior is not robust according to accessibility standards. For display-only elements, you should use CSS to indicate a disabled visual appearance. Therefore, by default ASP.NET 4 generates the following HTML for the control settings shown previously: <span id="Label1" class="aspNetDisabled">Test</span> You can change the value of the class attribute that is rendered by default when a control is disabled by setting the DisabledCssClass property. CSS for Validation Controls In ASP.NET 3.5, validation controls render a default color of red as an inline style. For example, the following markup creates a RequiredFieldValidator control: <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="RequiredFieldValidator1" runat="server"   ErrorMessage="Required Field" ControlToValidate="RadioButtonList1" /> ASP.NET 3.5 renders the following HTML for the validator control: <span id="RequiredFieldValidator1"   style="color:Red;visibility:hidden;">RequiredFieldValidator</span> By default, ASP.NET 4 does not render an inline style to set the color to red. An inline style is used only to hide or show the validator, as shown in the following example: <span id="RequiredFieldValidator1"   style"visibility:hidden;">RequiredFieldValidator</span> Therefore, ASP.NET 4 does not automatically show error messages in red. For information about how to use CSS to specify a visual style for a validation control, see Validating User Input in ASP.NET Web Pages. CSS for the Hidden Fields Div Element ASP.NET uses hidden fields to store state information such as view state and control state. These hidden fields are contained by a div element. In ASP.NET 3.5, this div element does not have a class attribute or an id attribute. Therefore, CSS rules that affect all div elements could unintentionally cause this div to be visible. To avoid this problem, ASP.NET 4 renders the div element for hidden fields with a CSS class that you can use to differentiate the hidden fields div from others. The new classvalue is shown in the following example: <div class="aspNetHidden"> CSS for the Table, Image, and ImageButton Controls By default, in ASP.NET 3.5, some controls set the border attribute of rendered HTML to zero (0). The following example shows HTML that is generated by the Table control in ASP.NET 3.5: <table id="Table2" border="0"> The Image control and the ImageButton control also do this. Because this is not necessary and provides visual formatting information that should be provided by using CSS, the attribute is not generated in ASP.NET 4. CSS for the UpdatePanel and UpdateProgress Controls In ASP.NET 3.5, the UpdatePanel and UpdateProgress controls do not support expando attributes. This makes it impossible to set a CSS class on the HTMLelements that they render. In ASP.NET 4 these controls have been changed to accept expando attributes, as shown in the following example: <asp:UpdatePanel runat="server" class="myStyle"> </asp:UpdatePanel> The following HTML is rendered for this markup: <div id="ctl00_MainContent_UpdatePanel1" class="expandoclass"> </div> Eliminating Unnecessary Outer Tables In ASP.NET 3.5, the HTML that is rendered for the following controls is wrapped in a table element whose purpose is to apply inline styles to the entire control: FormView Login PasswordRecovery ChangePassword If you use templates to customize the appearance of these controls, you can specify CSS styles in the markup that you provide in the templates. In that case, no extra outer table is required. In ASP.NET 4, you can prevent the table from being rendered by setting the new RenderOuterTable property to false. Layout Templates for Wizard Controls In ASP.NET 3.5, the Wizard and CreateUserWizard controls generate an HTML table element that is used for visual formatting. In ASP.NET 4 you can use a LayoutTemplate element to specify the layout. If you do this, the HTML table element is not generated. In the template, you create placeholder controls to indicate where items should be dynamically inserted into the control. (This is similar to how the template model for the ListView control works.) For more information, see the Wizard.LayoutTemplate property. New HTML Formatting Options for the CheckBoxList and RadioButtonList Controls ASP.NET 3.5 uses HTML table elements to format the output for the CheckBoxList and RadioButtonList controls. To provide an alternative that does not use tables for visual formatting, ASP.NET 4 adds two new options to the RepeatLayout enumeration: UnorderedList. This option causes the HTML output to be formatted by using ul and li elements instead of a table. OrderedList. This option causes the HTML output to be formatted by using ol and li elements instead of a table. For examples of HTML that is rendered for the new options, see the RepeatLayout enumeration. Header and Footer Elements for the Table Control In ASP.NET 3.5, the Table control can be configured to render thead and tfoot elements by setting the TableSection property of the TableHeaderRow class and the TableFooterRow class. In ASP.NET 4 these properties are set to the appropriate values by default. CSS and ARIA Support for the Menu Control In ASP.NET 3.5, the Menu control uses HTML table elements for visual formatting, and in some configurations it is not keyboard-accessible. ASP.NET 4 addresses these problems and improves accessibility in the following ways: The generated HTML is structured as an unordered list (ul and li elements). CSS is used for visual formatting. The menu behaves in accordance with ARIA standards for keyboard access. You can use arrow keys to navigate menu items. (For information about ARIA, see Accessibility in Visual Studio and ASP.NET.) ARIA role and property attributes are added to the generated HTML. (Attributes are added by using JavaScript instead of included in the HTML, to avoid generating HTML that would cause markup validation errors.) Styles for the Menu control are rendered in a style block at the top of the page, instead of inline with the rendered HTML elements. If you want to use a separate CSS file so that you can modify the menu styles, you can set the Menu control's new IncludeStyleBlock property to false, in which case the style block is not generated. Valid XHTML for the HtmlForm Control In ASP.NET 3.5, the HtmlForm control (which is created implicitly by the <form runat="server"> tag) renders an HTML form element that has both name and id attributes. The name attribute is deprecated in XHTML 1.1. Therefore, this control does not render the name attribute in ASP.NET 4. Maintaining Backward Compatibility in Control Rendering An existing ASP.NET Web site might have code in it that assumes that controls are rendering HTML the way they do in ASP.NET 3.5. To avoid causing backward compatibility problems when you upgrade the site to ASP.NET 4, you can have ASP.NET continue to generate HTML the way it does in ASP.NET 3.5 after you upgrade the site. To do so, you can set the controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion attribute of the pages element to "3.5" in the Web.config file of an ASP.NET 4 Web site, as shown in the following example: <system.web>   <pages controlRenderingCompatibilityVersion="3.5"/> </system.web> If this setting is omitted, the default value is the same as the version of ASP.NET that the Web site targets. (For information about multi-targeting in ASP.NET, see .NET Framework Multi-Targeting for ASP.NET Web Projects.) ASP.NET MVC ASP.NET MVC helps Web developers build compelling standards-based Web sites that are easy to maintain because it decreases the dependency among application layers by using the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. MVC provides complete control over the page markup. It also improves testability by inherently supporting Test Driven Development (TDD). Web sites created using ASP.NET MVC have a modular architecture. This allows members of a team to work independently on the various modules and can be used to improve collaboration. For example, developers can work on the model and controller layers (data and logic), while the designer work on the view (presentation). For tutorials, walkthroughs, conceptual content, code samples, and a complete API reference, see ASP.NET MVC 2. Dynamic Data Dynamic Data was introduced in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 release in mid-2008. This feature provides many enhancements for creating data-driven applications, such as the following: A RAD experience for quickly building a data-driven Web site. Automatic validation that is based on constraints defined in the data model. The ability to easily change the markup that is generated for fields in the GridView and DetailsView controls by using field templates that are part of your Dynamic Data project. For ASP.NET 4, Dynamic Data has been enhanced to give developers even more power for quickly building data-driven Web sites. For more information, see ASP.NET Dynamic Data Content Map. Enabling Dynamic Data for Individual Data-Bound Controls in Existing Web Applications You can use Dynamic Data features in existing ASP.NET Web applications that do not use scaffolding by enabling Dynamic Data for individual data-bound controls. Dynamic Data provides the presentation and data layer support for rendering these controls. When you enable Dynamic Data for data-bound controls, you get the following benefits: Setting default values for data fields. Dynamic Data enables you to provide default values at run time for fields in a data control. Interacting with the database without creating and registering a data model. Automatically validating the data that is entered by the user without writing any code. For more information, see Walkthrough: Enabling Dynamic Data in ASP.NET Data-Bound Controls. New Field Templates for URLs and E-mail Addresses ASP.NET 4 introduces two new built-in field templates, EmailAddress.ascx and Url.ascx. These templates are used for fields that are marked as EmailAddress or Url using the DataTypeAttribute attribute. For EmailAddress objects, the field is displayed as a hyperlink that is created by using the mailto: protocol. When users click the link, it opens the user's e-mail client and creates a skeleton message. Objects typed as Url are displayed as ordinary hyperlinks. The following example shows how to mark fields. [DataType(DataType.EmailAddress)] public object HomeEmail { get; set; } [DataType(DataType.Url)] public object Website { get; set; } Creating Links with the DynamicHyperLink Control Dynamic Data uses the new routing feature that was added in the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 to control the URLs that users see when they access the Web site. The new DynamicHyperLink control makes it easy to build links to pages in a Dynamic Data site. For information, see How to: Create Table Action Links in Dynamic Data Support for Inheritance in the Data Model Both the ADO.NET Entity Framework and LINQ to SQL support inheritance in their data models. An example of this might be a database that has an InsurancePolicy table. It might also contain CarPolicy and HousePolicy tables that have the same fields as InsurancePolicy and then add more fields. Dynamic Data has been modified to understand inherited objects in the data model and to support scaffolding for the inherited tables. For more information, see Walkthrough: Mapping Table-per-Hierarchy Inheritance in Dynamic Data. Support for Many-to-Many Relationships (Entity Framework Only) The Entity Framework has rich support for many-to-many relationships between tables, which is implemented by exposing the relationship as a collection on an Entity object. New field templates (ManyToMany.ascx and ManyToMany_Edit.ascx) have been added to provide support for displaying and editing data that is involved in many-to-many relationships. For more information, see Working with Many-to-Many Data Relationships in Dynamic Data. New Attributes to Control Display and Support Enumerations The DisplayAttribute has been added to give you additional control over how fields are displayed. The DisplayNameAttribute attribute in earlier versions of Dynamic Data enabled you to change the name that is used as a caption for a field. The new DisplayAttribute class lets you specify more options for displaying a field, such as the order in which a field is displayed and whether a field will be used as a filter. The attribute also provides independent control of the name that is used for the labels in a GridView control, the name that is used in a DetailsView control, the help text for the field, and the watermark used for the field (if the field accepts text input). The EnumDataTypeAttribute class has been added to let you map fields to enumerations. When you apply this attribute to a field, you specify an enumeration type. Dynamic Data uses the new Enumeration.ascx field template to create UI for displaying and editing enumeration values. The template maps the values from the database to the names in the enumeration. Enhanced Support for Filters Dynamic Data 1.0 had built-in filters for Boolean columns and foreign-key columns. The filters did not let you specify the order in which they were displayed. The new DisplayAttribute attribute addresses this by giving you control over whether a column appears as a filter and in what order it will be displayed. An additional enhancement is that filtering support has been rewritten to use the new QueryExtender feature of Web Forms. This lets you create filters without requiring knowledge of the data source control that the filters will be used with. Along with these extensions, filters have also been turned into template controls, which lets you add new ones. Finally, the DisplayAttribute class mentioned earlier allows the default filter to be overridden, in the same way that UIHint allows the default field template for a column to be overridden. For more information, see Walkthrough: Filtering Rows in Tables That Have a Parent-Child Relationship and QueryableFilterRepeater. ASP.NET Chart Control The ASP.NET chart server control enables you to create ASP.NET pages applications that have simple, intuitive charts for complex statistical or financial analysis. The chart control supports the following features: Data series, chart areas, axes, legends, labels, titles, and more. Data binding. Data manipulation, such as copying, splitting, merging, alignment, grouping, sorting, searching, and filtering. Statistical formulas and financial formulas. Advanced chart appearance, such as 3-D, anti-aliasing, lighting, and perspective. Events and customizations. Interactivity and Microsoft Ajax. Support for the Ajax Content Delivery Network (CDN), which provides an optimized way for you to add Microsoft Ajax Library and jQuery scripts to your Web applications. For more information, see Chart Web Server Control Overview. Visual Web Developer Enhancements The following sections provide information about enhancements and new features in Visual Studio 2010 and Visual Web Developer Express. The Web page designer in Visual Studio 2010 has been enhanced for better CSS compatibility, includes additional support for HTML and ASP.NET markup snippets, and features a redesigned version of IntelliSense for JScript. Improved CSS Compatibility The Visual Web Developer designer in Visual Studio 2010 has been updated to improve CSS 2.1 standards compliance. The designer better preserves HTML source code and is more robust than in previous versions of Visual Studio. HTML and JScript Snippets In the HTML editor, IntelliSense auto-completes tag names. The IntelliSense Snippets feature auto-completes whole tags and more. In Visual Studio 2010, IntelliSense snippets are supported for JScript, alongside C# and Visual Basic, which were supported in earlier versions of Visual Studio. Visual Studio 2010 includes over 200 snippets that help you auto-complete common ASP.NET and HTML tags, including required attributes (such as runat="server") and common attributes specific to a tag (such as ID, DataSourceID, ControlToValidate, and Text). You can download additional snippets, or you can write your own snippets that encapsulate the blocks of markup that you or your team use for common tasks. For more information on HTML snippets, see Walkthrough: Using HTML Snippets. JScript IntelliSense Enhancements In Visual 2010, JScript IntelliSense has been redesigned to provide an even richer editing experience. IntelliSense now recognizes objects that have been dynamically generated by methods such as registerNamespace and by similar techniques used by other JavaScript frameworks. Performance has been improved to analyze large libraries of script and to display IntelliSense with little or no processing delay. Compatibility has been significantly increased to support almost all third-party libraries and to support diverse coding styles. Documentation comments are now parsed as you type and are immediately leveraged by IntelliSense. Web Application Deployment with Visual Studio 2010 For Web application projects, Visual Studio now provides tools that work with the IIS Web Deployment Tool (Web Deploy) to automate many processes that had to be done manually in earlier versions of ASP.NET. For example, the following tasks can now be automated: Creating an IIS application on the destination computer and configuring IIS settings. Copying files to the destination computer. Changing Web.config settings that must be different in the destination environment. Propagating changes to data or data structures in SQL Server databases that are used by the Web application. For more information about Web application deployment, see ASP.NET Deployment Content Map. Enhancements to ASP.NET Multi-Targeting ASP.NET 4 adds new features to the multi-targeting feature to make it easier to work with projects that target earlier versions of the .NET Framework. Multi-targeting was introduced in ASP.NET 3.5 to enable you to use the latest version of Visual Studio without having to upgrade existing Web sites or Web services to the latest version of the .NET Framework. In Visual Studio 2008, when you work with a project targeted for an earlier version of the .NET Framework, most features of the development environment adapt to the targeted version. However, IntelliSense displays language features that are available in the current version, and property windows display properties available in the current version. In Visual Studio 2010, only language features and properties available in the targeted version of the .NET Framework are shown. For more information about multi-targeting, see the following topics: .NET Framework Multi-Targeting for ASP.NET Web Projects ASP.NET Side-by-Side Execution Overview How to: Host Web Applications That Use Different Versions of the .NET Framework on the Same Server How to: Deploy Web Site Projects Targeted for Earlier Versions of the .NET Framework

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• Getting a Database into Source Control

  - by Grant Fritchey

  For any number of reasons, from simple auditing, to change tracking, to automated deployment, to integration with application development processes, you’re going to want to place your database into source control. Using Red Gate SQL Source Control this process is extremely simple. SQL Source Control works within your SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) interface.  This means you can work with your databases in any way that you’re used to working with them. If you prefer scripts to using the GUI, not a problem. If you prefer using the GUI to having to learn T-SQL, again, that’s fine. After installing SQL Source Control, this is what you’ll see when you open SSMS:   SQL Source Control is now a direct piece of the SSMS environment. The key point initially is that I currently don’t have a database selected. You can even see that in the SQL Source Control window where it shows, in red, “No database selected – select a database in Object Explorer.” If I expand my Databases list in the Object Explorer, you’ll be able to immediately see which databases have been integrated with source control and which have not. There are visible differences between the databases as you can see here:   To add a database to source control, I first have to select it. For this example, I’m going to add the AdventureWorks2012 database to an instance of the SVN source control software (I’m using uberSVN). When I click on the AdventureWorks2012 database, the SQL Source Control screen changes:   I’m going to need to click on the “Link database to source control” text which will open up a window for connecting this database to the source control system of my choice.  You can pick from the default source control systems on the left, or define one of your own. I also have to provide the connection string for the location within the source control system where I’ll be storing my database code. I set these up in advance. You’ll need two. One for the main set of scripts and one for special scripts called Migrations that deal with different kinds of changes between versions of the code. Migrations help you solve problems like having to create or modify data in columns as part of a structural change. I’ll talk more about them another day. Finally, I have to determine if this is an isolated environment that I’m going to be the only one use, a dedicated database. Or, if I’m sharing the database in a shared environment with other developers, a shared database.  The main difference is, under a dedicated database, I will need to regularly get any changes that other developers have made from source control and integrate it into my database. While, under a shared database, all changes for all developers are made at the same time, which means you could commit other peoples work without proper testing. It all depends on the type of environment you work within. But, when it’s all set, it will look like this: SQL Source Control will compare the results between the empty folders in source control and the database, AdventureWorks2012. You’ll get a report showing exactly the list of differences and you can choose which ones will get checked into source control. Each of the database objects is scripted individually. You’ll be able to modify them later in the same way. Here’s the list of differences for my new database:   You can select/deselect all the objects or each object individually. You also get a report showing the differences between what’s in the database and what’s in source control. If there was already a database in source control, you’d only see changes to database objects rather than every single object. You can see that the database objects can be sorted by name, by type, or other choices. I’m going to add a comment such as “Initial creation of database in source control.” And then click on the Commit button which will put all the objects in my database into the source control system. That’s all it takes to get the objects into source control initially. Now is when things can get fun with breaking changes to code, automated deployments, unit testing and all the rest.

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• New Release Overview Part 2

  - by brian.harrison

  To continue our discussion of the next release of WCI, lets take a look at a few other new features that have been developed and tested. Password Management With customer implementations starting to go more external, we were finding that these customers wanted to use the native users within the portal because the customer did not want to provide an LDAP server that is externally facing. However, the portal does not provide anything close to the same level of password policy that a standard LDAP environment would provide. With that being the case, we made the decision to provide the same kind of password policies directly within WCI that a standard LDAP environment would have. Password Expiration - In how many days will a password expire which will force the user to change their password? Also, in how many days prior to expiration with the user be notified that their password is about the expire? Password Rotation - How many of your previous passwords will you not be able to use when changing your password? Password Policies - What are the requirements for the password that is being created by the user? Number of Characters Numbers Required Symbols Required Capitalization Required Easily Configurable - Configuration is handled through the Portal Settings utility within Administration. All options are available on the main page of the utility. In addition to the configuration options that were mention above, there has also been a complete rewrite of the Change Password screen to provide better information to the user when they are changing their password. The Change Password will now provide a red light/green light listing of all the policies the user must meet for the changed password to be successful. As the user is typing the password, the red lights will change to green lights as the policies as met. In addition, text will show next to the password text box stating what policy has not been met yet. NOTE: The password policy functionality is not held within the User Editor page within Administration. We did not want to remove the option for Administrators to change a user's password on the fly in the case of a password reset situation. Miscellaneous Features In addition to the Password Management feature, there are a few other features that are related to WCI that should be mentioned. Consolidated Installer - Instead of having up to 12 or 13 different installers, one for each of the main products and separate services, we are going to only provide two installers. One that will be used for Collaboration and its respective images. The second will contain WCI and all of the relevant services required for a WCI architecture as well as the IDK, .NET App Accelerator, SharePoint Console as well as all Content Web Services and Identity Services. Updated Documentation - Most of us are aware that the documentation hasn't been properly kept up to date with the last couple of releases. We are doing everything that we can to remedy this with the next release by consolidating and reviewing everything that is available. We are making sure to fill in the gaps that are already there, add in all documentation for the functionality as well as clearing anything that is no longer valid based on the newly released version. I hope that you enjoyed reading through this new release information. Next time we will start to talk about the new functionality that will be available within the next release of Collaboration. If there is anything in particular that you would like to get more detail about, then please don't hesitate to send me a comment.

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• Anatomy of a serialization killer

  - by Brian Donahue

  As I had mentioned last month, I have been working on a project to create an easy-to-use managed debugger. It's still an internal tool that we use at Red Gate as part of product support to analyze application errors on customer's computers, and as such, should be easy to use and not require installation. Since the project has got rather large and important, I had decided to use SmartAssembly to protect all of my hard work. This was trivial for the most part, but the loading and saving of results was broken by SA after using the obfuscation, rendering the loading and saving of XML results basically useless, although the merging and error reporting was an absolute godsend and definitely worth the price of admission. (Well, I get my Red Gate licenses for free, but you know what I mean!)My initial reaction was to simply exclude the serializable results class and all of its' members from obfuscation, and that was just dandy, but a few weeks on I decided to look into exactly why serialization had broken and change the code to work with SA so I could write any new code to be compatible with SmartAssembly and save me some additional testing and changes to the SA project.In simple terms, SA does all that it can to prevent serialization problems, for instance, it will not obfuscate public members of a DLL and it will exclude any types with the Serializable attribute from obfuscation. This prevents public members and properties from being made private and having the name changed. If the serialization is done inside the executable, however, public members have the access changed to private and are renamed. That was my first problem, because my types were in the executable assembly and implemented ISerializable, but did not have the Serializable attribute set on them!public class RedFlagResults : ISerializable        {        }The second problem caused by the pruning feature. Although RedFlagResults had public members, they were not truly properties, and used the GetObjectData() method of ISerializable to serialize the members. For that reason, SA could not exclude these members from pruning and further broke the serialization. public class RedFlagResults : ISerializable        {                public List<RedFlag.Exception> Exceptions;                 #region ISerializable Members                 public void GetObjectData(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context)                {                                info.AddValue("Exceptions", Exceptions);                }                 #endregionSo to fix this, it was necessary to make Exceptions a proper property by implementing get and set on it. Also, I added the Serializable attribute so that I don't have to exclude the class from obfuscation in the SA project any more. The DoNotPrune attribute means I do not need to exclude the class from pruning.[Serializable, SmartAssembly.Attributes.DoNotPrune]        public class RedFlagResults        {                public List<RedFlag.Exception> Exceptions {get;set;}        }Similarly, the Exception class gets the Serializable and DoNotPrune attributes applied so all of its' properties are excluded from obfuscation.Now my project has some protection from prying eyes by scrambling up the code so it's harder to reverse-engineer, without breaking anything. SmartAssembly has also provided the benefit of merging so that the end-user doesn't need to extract all of the DLL files needed by RedFlag into a directory, and can be run directly from the .zip archive. When an error occurs (hey, I'm only human!), an exception report can be sent to me so I can see what went wrong without having to, er, debug the debugger.

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• SQL Server source control from Visual Studio

  - by David Atkinson

  Developers have long since had to context switch between two IDEs, Visual Studio for application code development and SQL Server Management Studio for database development. While this is accepted, especially given the richness of the database development feature set in SSMS, loading a separate tool can seem a little overkill. This is where SQL Connect comes in. This is an add-in to Visual Studio that provides a connected development experience for the SQL Server developer. Connected database development involves modifying a development sandbox database, as opposed to offline development, where SQL text files are modified independently of the database. One of the main complaints of Data Dude (VS DBPro) is that it enforces the offline approach. This gripe is what SQL Connect addresses. If you don't already use SQL Source Control, you can get up and running with SQL Connect by adding a new project to your Visual Studio solution as follows: Then choose your existing development database and you're ready to go. If you already use SQL Source Control, you will need to link SQL Connect to your existing database scripts folder repository, so SQL Connect and SQL Source Control can be used collaboratively (note that SQL Source Control v.3.0.9.18 or later is required). Locate the repository (this can be found in the Setup tab in SQL Source Control). .and create a working folder for it (here I'm using TortoiseSVN). Back in Visual Studio, locate the SQL Connect panel (in the View menu if it hasn't auto loaded) and select Import SQL Source Control project Locate your working folder and click Import. This creates a Red Gate database project under your solution: From here you can modify your development database, and manage your changes in source control. To associate your development database with the project, right click on the project node, select Properties, set the database and Save. Now you're ready to make some changes. Locate the object you'd like to modify in the Solution Explorer, and double click it to invoke a query window or table designer. You also have the option to edit the creation SQL directly using Edit SQL File in Project. Keeping the development database and Visual Studio project in sync is as easy as clicking on a button. One you've made your change, you can use whichever mechanism you choose to commit to source control. Here I'm using the free open-source AnkhSVN to integrate Subversion with Visual Studio. Maintaining your database in a Visual Studio solution means that you can commit database changes and application code changes in the same changeset. This is desirable if you have continuous integration set up as you want to ensure that all files related to a change are committed atomically, so you avoid an interim "broken build". More discussion on SQL Connect and its benefits can be found in the following article on Simple Talk: No More Disconnected SQL Development in Visual Studio The SQL Connect project team is currently assessing the backlog for the next development effort, and they'd appreciate your feature suggestions, as well as your votes on their suggestions site: http://redgate.uservoice.com/forums/140800-sql-connect-for-visual-studio- A 28-day free trial of SQL Connect is available from the Red Gate website. Technorati Tags: SQL Server

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• Database – Beginning with Cloud Database As A Service

  - by Pinal Dave

  I love my weekend projects. Everybody does different activities in their weekend – like traveling, reading or just nothing. Every weekend I try to do something creative and different in the database world. The goal is I learn something new and if I enjoy my learning experience I share with the world. This weekend, I decided to explore Cloud Database As A Service – Morpheus. In my career I have managed many databases in the cloud and I have good experience in managing them. I should highlight that today’s applications use multiple databases from SQL for transactions and analytics, NoSQL for documents, In-Memory for caching to Indexing for search.  Provisioning and deploying these databases often require extensive expertise and time.  Often these databases are also not deployed on the same infrastructure and can create unnecessary latency between the application layer and the databases.  Not to mention the different quality of service based on the infrastructure and the service provider where they are deployed. Moreover, there are additional problems that I have experienced with traditional database setup when hosted in the cloud: Database provisioning & orchestration Slow speed due to hardware issues Poor Monitoring Tools High network latency Now if you have a great software and expert network engineer, you can continuously work on above problems and overcome them. However, not every organization have the luxury to have top notch experts in the field. Now above issues are related to infrastructure, but there are a few more problems which are related to software/application as well. Here are the top three things which can be problems if you do not have application expert: Replication and Clustering Simple provisioning of the hard drive space Automatic Sharding Well, Morpheus looks like a product build by experts who have faced similar situation in the past. The product pretty much addresses all the pain points of developers and database administrators. What is different about Morpheus is that it offers a variety of databases from MySQL, MongoDB, ElasticSearch to Reddis as a service.  Thus users can pick and chose any combination of these databases.  All of them can be provisioned in a matter of minutes with a simple and intuitive point and click user interface.  The Morpheus cloud is built on Solid State Drives (SSD) and is designed for high-speed database transactions.  In addition it offers a direct link to Amazon Web Services to minimize latency between the application layer and the databases. Here are the few steps on how one can get started with Morpheus. Follow along with me.  First go to http://www.gomorpheus.com and register for a new and free account. Step 1: Signup It is very simple to signup for Morpheus. Step 2: Select your database   I use MySQL for my daily routine, so I have selected MySQL. Upon clicking on the big red button to add Instance, it prompted a dialogue of creating a new instance.   Step 3: Create User Now we just have to create a user in our portal which we will use to connect to a database hosted at Morpheus. Click on your database instance and it will bring you to User Screen. Over here you will notice once again a big red button to create a new user. I created a user with my first name.   Step 4: Configure your MySQL client I used MySQL workbench and connected to MySQL instance, which I had created with an IP address and user.   That’s it! You are connecting to MySQL instance. Now you can create your objects just like you would create on your local box. You will have all the features of the Morpheus when you are working with your database. Dashboard While working with Morpheus, I was most impressed with its dashboard. In future blog posts, I will write more about this feature.  Also with Morpheus you use the same process for provisioning and connecting with other databases: MongoDB, ElasticSearch and Reddis. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: MySQL, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• C# Item system design approach, should I use abstract classes, interfaces or virutals?

  - by vexe

  I'm working on a Resident Evil 1/2/3/0/Remake type of game. Currently I've done a big part of the inventory system (here's a link if you wanna see my inventory, pretty outdated, added a lot of features and made a lot of enhancements) Now I'm thinking about how to approach the items system, If you've played any Resident Evil game or any of its likes you should be familiar with what I'm trying to achieve. Here's a very simple category I made for the items: So you have different items, with different operations you could perform on them, there are usable items that you could use, like for example herbs and first aid kits that 'using' them would affect your health, keys to unlock doors, and equipable items that you could 'equip' like weapons. Also, you can 'combine' two items together to get new one, like for example mixing a green and red herb would give you a new type of herb, or combining a lighter with a paper, would give you a burnt paper, or ammo with a gun, would reload the gun or something. etc. You know the usual RE drill. Not all items are 'transformable', in that, for example: lighter + paper = burnt paper (it's the paper that 'transforms' to burnt paper and not the lighter, the lighter is not transformable it will remain as it is) green herb + red herb = newHerb1 (both herbs will vanish and transform to this new type of herb) ammo + gun = reload gun (ammo state will remain as it is, it won't change but it will just decrease, nothing will happen to the gun it just gets reloaded) Also a key note to remember is that you can't just combine items randomly, each item has a 'mating' item(s). So to sum up, different items, and different operations on them. The question is, how to approach this, design-wise? I've been learning about interfaces, but it just doesn't quite get into my head, I mean, why not just use classes with the good old inheritance? I know the technical details of interfaces and that the cool thing about them is that they don't require an inheritance chain, but I just can't see how to use them properly, that is, if they were the right thing to use here. So should I go with just classes and inheritance? just like in the tree I showed you? or should I think more about how to use interfaces? (IUsable, IEquipable, ITransformable) - why not just use classes UsableItem, Equipable item, TransformableItem? I want something that won't give me headaches in the long run, something resilient/flexible to future changes. I'm OK using classes, but I smell something better here. The way I'm thinking is to possibly use both inheritance and interfaces, so that you have a branch like this: item - equipable - weapon. but then again, the weapon has methods like 'reload' 'examine' 'equip' some of them 'combine' so I'm thinking to make weapon implement ICombinable?... not all items get used the same way, using herbs will increase your health, using a key will open a door, so IUsable maybe? Should I use a big database (XML for example) for all the items, items names, mates, nRowsReq, nColsReq, etc? Thanks so much for your answers in advanced, note that demo 3 is coming after I'm done with items :D

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• Monitor System Resources from the Windows 7 Taskbar

  - by Asian Angel

  The problem with most system monitoring apps is that they get covered up with all of your open windows, but you can solve that problem by adding monitoring apps to the Taskbar. Setting Up & Using SuperbarMonitor All of the individual monitors and the .dll files necessary to run them come in a single zip file for your convenience. Simply unzip the contents, add them to an appropriate “Program Files Folder”, and create shortcuts for the monitors that you would like to use on your system. For our example we created shortcuts for all five monitors and set the shortcuts up in their own “Start Menu Folder”. You can see what the five monitors (Battery, CPU, Disk, Memory, & Volume) look like when running…they are visual in appearance without text to clutter up the looks. The monitors use colors (red, green, & yellow) to indicate the amount of resources being used for a particular category. Note: Our system is desktop-based but the “Battery Monitor” was shown for the purposes of demonstration…thus the red color seen here. Hovering the mouse over the “Battery, CPU, Disk, & Memory Monitors” on our system displayed a small blank thumbnail. Note: The “Battery Monitor” may or may not display more when used on your laptop. Going one step further and hovering the mouse over the thumbnails displayed a small blank window. There really is nothing that you will need to worry with outside of watching the color for each individual monitor. Nice and simple! The one monitor with extra features on the thumbnail was the “Volume Monitor”. You can turn the volume down, up, on, or off from here…definitely useful if you have been wanting to hide the “Volume Icon” in the “System Tray”. You can also pin the monitors to your “Taskbar” if desired. Keep in mind that if you do close any of the monitors they will “temporarily” disappear from the “Taskbar” until the next time they are started. Note: If you want the monitors to start with your system each time you will need to add the appropriate shortcuts to the “Startup Sub-menu” in your “Start Menu”. Conclusion If you have been wanting a nice visual way to monitor your system’s resources then SuperbarMonitor is definitely worth trying out. Links Download SuperbarMonitor Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Monitor CPU, Memory, and Disk IO In Windows 7 with Taskbar MetersUse Windows Vista Reliability Monitor to Troubleshoot CrashesTaskbar Eliminator Does What the Name Implies: Hides Your Windows TaskbarBring Misplaced Off-Screen Windows Back to Your Desktop (Keyboard Trick)How To Fix System Tray Tooltips Not Displaying in Windows XP TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites

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• Free tools versus paid tools.

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  We live in a strange world. Information should be free. Tools should be free. Software should be free (and I mean free as in free beer, not as in free speech). Of course, since I make my living (and pay my mortgage) by writing software I tend to disagree. Or rather: I want to get paid for the things I do in the daytime. Next to that I also spend time on projects I feel are valuable for the community, which I do for free. The reason I can do that is because I get paid enough in the daytime to afford that time. It gives me a good feeling, I help others and it’s fun to do. But the baseline is: I get paid to write software. I am sure this goes for a lot of other developers. We get paid for what we do during the daytime and spend our free time giving back. So why does everyone always make a fuzz when a company suddenly starts to charge for software? To me, this seems like a very reasonable decision. Companies need money: they have staff to pay, buildings to rent, coffee to buy, etc. All of this doesn’t come free so it makes sense that they charge their customers for the things they produce. I know there’s a very big Open Source market out there, where companies give away (parts of) their software and get revenue out of the services they provide. But this doesn’t work if your product doesn’t need services. If you build a great tool that is very easy to use, and you give it away for free you won’t get any money by selling services that no user of your tool really needs. So what do you do? You charge money for your tool. It’s either that or stop developing the tool and turn to other, more profitable projects. Like it or not, that’s simple economics at work. You have something other people want, so you charge them for it. This week it was announced that what I believe is the most used tool for .net developers (besides Visual Studio of course),namely Red Gates .net reflector, will stop being a free tool. They will charge you $35 for the next version. Suddenly twitter was on fire and everyone was mad about it. But why? The tool is downloaded by so many developers that it must be valuable to them. I know of no serious .net developer who hasn’t got it on his or her machine. So apparently the tool gives them something they need. So why do they expect it to be free? There are developers out there maintaining and extending the tool, building new and better versions of it. And the price? $35 doesn’t seem much. If I think of the time the tool saved me the 35 dollars were earned back in a day. If by spending this amount of money I can rely on great software that helps me do my job better and faster, I have no problems by spending it. I know that there is a great team behind it, (the Red Gate tools are a must have when developing SQL systems, for instance), and I do believe they are in their right to charge this. So.. there you have it. This is of course, my opinion. You may think otherwise. Please let me know in the comments what you think! Tags van Technorati: redgate,reflector,opensource

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• Drawing transparent glyphs on the HTML canvas

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  The HTML canvas has a set of methods, createImageData and putImageData, that look like they will enable you to draw transparent shapes pixel by pixel. The data structures that you manipulate with these methods are pseudo-arrays of pixels, with four bytes per pixel. One byte for red, one for green, one for blue and one for alpha. This alpha byte makes one believe that you are going to be able to manage transparency, but that’s a lie. Here is a little script that attempts to overlay a simple generated pattern on top of a uniform background: var wrong = document.getElementById("wrong").getContext("2d"); wrong.fillStyle = "#ffd42a"; wrong.fillRect(0, 0, 64, 64); var overlay = wrong.createImageData(32, 32), data = overlay.data; fill(data); wrong.putImageData(overlay, 16, 16); .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; } where the fill method is setting the pixels in the lower-left half of the overlay to opaque red, and the rest to transparent black. And here’s how it renders: As you can see, the transparency byte was completely ignored. Or was it? in fact, what happens is more subtle. What happens is that the pixels from the image data, including their alpha byte, replaced the existing pixels of the canvas. So the alpha byte is not lost, it’s just that it wasn’t used by putImageData to combine the new pixels with the existing ones. This is in fact a clue to how to write a putImageData that works: we can first dump that image data into an intermediary canvas, and then compose that temporary canvas onto our main canvas. The method that we can use for this composition is drawImage, which works not only with image objects, but also with canvas objects. var right = document.getElementById("right").getContext("2d"); right.fillStyle = "#ffd42a"; right.fillRect(0, 0, 64, 64); var overlay = wrong.createImageData(32, 32), data = overlay.data; fill(data); var overlayCanvas = document.createElement("canvas"); overlayCanvas.width = overlayCanvas.height = 32; overlayCanvas.getContext("2d").putImageData(overlay, 0, 0); right.drawImage(overlayCanvas, 16, 16); And there is is, a version of putImageData that works like it should always have:

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