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  • Microsoft, jQuery, and Templating

    - by Stephen Walther
    About two months ago, John Resig and I met at Café Algiers in Harvard square to discuss how Microsoft can contribute to the jQuery project. Today, Scott Guthrie announced in his second-day MIX keynote that Microsoft is throwing its weight behind jQuery and making it the primary way to develop client-side Ajax applications using Microsoft technologies. What does this announcement mean? It means that Microsoft is shifting its resources to invest in jQuery. Developers on the ASP.NET team are now working full-time to contribute features to the core jQuery library. Furthermore, we are working with other teams at Microsoft to ensure that our technologies work great with jQuery. We are contributing to the open-source jQuery project in the exact same way that any other company or individual from the community can contribute to jQuery. We are writing proposals, submitting the proposals to the jQuery forums, and revising the proposals in response to community feedback. The jQuery team can decide to reject or accept any feature that we propose. Any feature that Microsoft contributes to jQuery will be platform neutral. In other words, Microsoft contributions will benefit PHP and RAILS developers just as much as they benefit ASP.NET developers. Microsoft contributions to jQuery will improve the web for everyone. Contributing Support for Templates to jQuery Core Our first proposal concerns templating. We want to contribute support for templates to jQuery so that JavaScript developers can use jQuery to easily display a set of database records. You can read our templating proposal here: http://wiki.github.com/nje/jquery/jquery-templates-proposal You can download and play with our prototype for templating here: http://github.com/nje/jquery-tmpl The following code illustrates how you can use a template to display a set of products in a bulleted list: <script type="text/javascript"> jQuery(function(){ var products = [ { name: "Product 1", price: 12.99}, { name: "Product 2", price: 9.99}, { name: "Product 3", price: 35.59} ]; $("ul").append("#template", products); }); </script> <script id="template" type="text/html"> <li>{%= name %} - {%= price %}</li> </script> <ul></ul> The template is contained in a SCRIPT element that has a TYPE=”text/html” attribute. Browsers ignore the contents of a SCRIPT element when they don’t understand the content type. Notice that the placeholder {%=...%} is used within the template to indicate where the name and price of a product should appear. The delimiters {%=…%} are used for expressions and the delimiters {%...%} are used for code. Finally, the products are rendered using the template with the call to $(“ul”).append(“#template”, products). The standard jQuery DOM manipulation methods have been modified to support templates. When the page above is rendered, you get the bulleted list displayed in the following figure. Our goal is to keep our proposal for templates as simple as possible. After support for templating has been added to jQuery, plug-in authors can take advantage of templating when building complex data-driven plug-ins such as a DataGrid plug-in. The Ajax Control Toolkit Over 100,000 developers download the Ajax Control Toolkit every month. That’s a mind-boggling number of downloads. We realize that the Ajax Control Toolkit is extremely popular among ASP.NET Web Forms developers and we want to continue to invest in the Ajax Control Toolkit. If you are adding JavaScript interactivity to an ASP.NET Web Forms application, and you don’t want to write JavaScript, then we recommend that you use the server controls in the Ajax Control Toolkit. Using the Ajax Control Toolkit does not require knowledge of JavaScript and the toolkit enables you to build applications with the concepts familiar to ASP.NET Web Forms applications developers. If, however, you are interested in creating client-side interactivity without server controls then we recommend that you use jQuery. We plan to continue to release new versions of the Ajax Control Toolkit every few months. Our goal is to continue to improve the quality of the Ajax Control Toolkit and to make it easier for the community to contribute code, bug fixes, and documentation. The ASP.NET Ajax Library We are moving the ASP.NET Ajax Library into the Ajax Control Toolkit. If you currently use ASP.NET Ajax Library client templates, client data-binding, or the client script loader then you can continue to use these features by downloading the Ajax Control Toolkit. Be aware that our focus with the Ajax Control Toolkit is server-side Ajax.  For client-side Ajax, we are shifting our focus to jQuery. For example, if you have been using ASP.NET Ajax Library client templates then we recommend that you shift to using jQuery instead. Conclusion Our plan is to focus on jQuery as the primary technology for building client-side Ajax applications moving forward. We want to adapt Microsoft technologies to work great with jQuery and we want to contribute features to jQuery that will make the web better for everyone. We are very excited to be working with the jQuery core team.

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  • Oracle Unveils Industry’s Broadest Cloud Strategy

    - by kellsey.ruppel
    Oracle Unveils Industry’s Broadest Cloud Strategy Adds Social Cloud and Showcases early customers Redwood Shores, Calif. – June 6, 2012 “Almost seven years of relentless engineering and innovation plus key strategic acquisitions. An investment of billions. We are now announcing the most comprehensive Cloud on the planet Earth,” said Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. “Most cloud vendors only have niche assets. They don’t have platforms to extend. Oracle is the only vendor that offers a complete suite of modern, socially-enabled applications, all based on a standards-based platform.” News Facts In a major strategy update today, Larry Ellison announced the industry’s broadest and most advanced Cloud strategy and introduced Oracle Cloud Social Services, a broad Enterprise Social Platform offering. Oracle Cloud delivers a broad set of industry-standards based, integrated services that provide customers with subscription-based access to Oracle Platform Services, Application Services, and Social Services, all completely managed, hosted and supported by Oracle. Offering a wide range of business applications and platform services, the Oracle Cloud is the only cloud to enable customers to avoid the data and business process fragmentation that occurs when using multiple, siloed public clouds. Oracle Cloud is powered by leading enterprise-grade infrastructure, including Oracle Exadata and Oracle Exalogic, providing customers and partners with a high-performance, reliable, and secure infrastructure for running critical business applications. Oracle Cloud enables easy self-service for both business users and developers. Business users can order, configure, extend, and monitor their applications. Developers and administrators can easily develop, deploy, monitor and manage their applications. As part of the event, Oracle also showcased several early Oracle Cloud customers and partners including system integrators and independent software vendors. Oracle Cloud Platform Services Built on a common, complete, standards-based and enterprise-grade set of infrastructure components, Oracle Cloud Platform Services enable customers to speed time to market and lower costs by quickly building, deploying and managing bespoke applications. Oracle Cloud Platform Services will include: Database Services to manage data and build database applications with the Oracle Database. Java Services to develop, deploy and manage Java applications with Oracle WebLogic. Developer Services to allow application developers to collaboratively build applications. Web Services to build Web applications rapidly using PHP, Ruby, and Python. Mobile Services to allow developers to build cross-platform native and HTML5 mobile applications for leading smartphones and tablets. Documents Services to allow project teams to collaborate and share documents through online workspaces and portals. Sites Services to allow business users to develop and maintain visually engaging .com sites Analytics Services to allow business users to quickly build and share analytic dashboards and reports through the Cloud. Oracle Cloud Application Services Oracle Cloud Application Services provides customers access to the industry’s broadest range of enterprise applications available in the cloud today, with built-in business intelligence, social and mobile capabilities. Easy to setup, configure, extend, use and administer, Oracle Cloud Application Services will include: ERP Services: A complete set of Financial Accounting, Project Management, Procurement, Sourcing, and Governance, Risk & Compliance solutions. HCM Services: A complete Human Capital Management solution including Global HR, Workforce Lifecycle Management, Compensation, Benefits, Payroll and other solutions. Talent Management Services: A complete Talent Management solution including Recruiting, Sourcing, Performance Management, and Learning. Sales and Marketing Services: A complete Sales and Marketing solution including Sales Planning, Territory Management, Leads & Opportunity Management, and Forecasting. Customer Experience Services: A complete Customer Service solution including Web Self-Service, Contact Centers, Knowledge Management, Chat, and e-mail Management. Oracle Cloud Social Services Oracle Cloud Social Services provides the most broad and complete enterprise social platform available in the cloud today.  With Oracle Cloud Social Services, enterprises can engage with their customers on a range of social media properties in a comprehensive and meaningful fashion including social marketing, commerce, service and listening. The platform also provides enterprises with a rich social networking solution for their employees to collaborate effectively inside the enterprise. Oracle’s integrated social platform will include: Oracle Social Network to enable secure enterprise collaboration and purposeful social networking for business. Oracle Social Data Services to aggregate data from social networks and enterprise data sources to enrich business applications. Oracle Social Marketing and Engagement Services to enable marketers to centrally create, publish, moderate, manage, measure and report on their social marketing campaigns. Oracle Social Intelligence Services to enable marketers to analyze social media interactions and to enable customer service and sales teams to engage with customers and prospects effectively. Supporting Resources Oracle Cloud – learn more cloud.oracle.com – sign up now Webcast – watch the replay About Oracle Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), visit www.oracle.com. TrademarksOracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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  • TFS 2010 and the missing Area & Iterations (stale data) Issue

    - by andresv
    The symptom is this: you change some area or iteration in a TFS Project, but the change is not reflected (or updated) in VS or any other TFS Client. Well, it happens that TFS now has some clever caching mechanisms that need to be updated when you make a change like this, and those changes are propagated by some scheduled jobs TFS is continuously running in the Application Tier.  So, you you get this behavior, please check (and possibly restart) the "Visual Studio Team Foundation Background Job Agent" service. In my case, this service was logging a very odd "Object Reference Not Set" into the Windows Event Log, and a simple restart fixed it. Hope this is fixed by RTM...   (we are using the RC version). And by the way, if the job agent is broken there are some other things that stops working like email notifications. Best regards, Andrés G Vettori, CTO, VMBC  

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  • Finding the problem on a partially succeeded build

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Now that I have the Build failing because of a genuine bug and not just because of a test framework failure, lets see if we can trace through to finding why the first test in our new application failed. Lets look at the build and see if we can see why there is a red cross on it. First, lets open that build list. On Team Explorer Expand your Team Project Collection | Team Project and then Builds. Double click the offending build. Figure: Opening the Build list is a key way to see what the current state of your software is.   Figure: A test is failing, but we can now view the Test Results to find the problem      Figure: You can quite clearly see that the test has failed with “The device is not ready”. To me the “The Device is not ready” smacks of a System.IO exception, but it passed on my local computer, so why not on the build server? Its a FaultException so it is most likely coming from the Service and not the client, so lets take a look at the client method that the test is calling: bool IProfileService.SaveDefaultProjectFile(string strComputerName) { ProjectFile file = new ProjectFile() { ProjectFileName = strComputerName + "_" + System.DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddhhmmsss") + ".xml", ConnectionString = "persist security info=False; pooling=False; data source=(local); application name=SSW.SQLDeploy.vshost.exe; integrated security=SSPI; initial catalog=SSWSQLDeployNorthwindSample", DateCreated = System.DateTime.Now, DateUpdated = System.DateTime.Now, FolderPath = @"C:\Program Files\SSW SQL Deploy\SampleData\", IsComplete=false, Version = "1.3", NewDatabase = true, TimeOut = 5, TurnOnMSDE = false, Mode="AutomaticMode" }; string strFolderPath = "D:\\"; //LocalSettings.ProjectFileBasePath; string strFileName = strFolderPath + file.ProjectFileName; try { using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(strFileName, FileMode.Create)) { DataContractSerializer serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(ProjectFile)); using (XmlDictionaryWriter writer = XmlDictionaryWriter.CreateTextWriter(fs)) { serializer.WriteObject(writer, file); } } } catch (Exception ex) { //TODO: Log the exception throw ex; return false; } return true; } Figure: You can see on lines 9 and 18 that there are calls being made to specific folders and disks. What is wrong with this code? What assumptions mistakes could the developer have made to make this look OK: That every install would be to “C:\Program Files\SSW SQL Deploy” That every computer would have a “D:\\” That checking in code at 6pm because the had to go home was a good idea. lets solve each of these problems: We are in a web service… lets store data within the web root. So we can call “Server.MapPath(“~/App_Data/SSW SQL Deploy\SampleData”) instead. Never reference an explicit path. If you need some storage for your application use IsolatedStorage. Shelve your code instead. What else could have been done? Code review before check-in – The developer should have shelved their code and asked another dev to look at it. Use Defensive programming – Make sure that any code that has the possibility of failing has checks. Any more options? Let me know and I will add them. What do we do? The correct things to do is to add a Bug to the backlog, but as this is probably going to be fixed in sprint, I will add it directly to the sprint backlog. Right click on the failing test Select “Create Work Item | Bug” Figure: Create an associated bug to add to the backlog. Set the values for the Bug making sure that it goes into the right sprint and Area. Make your steps to reproduce as explicit as possible, but “See test” is valid under these circumstances.   Figure: Add it to the correct Area and set the Iteration to the Area name or the Sprint if you think it will be fixed in Sprint and make sure you bring it up at the next Scrum Meeting. Note: make sure you leave the “Assigned To” field blank as in Scrum team members sign up for work, you do not give it to them. The developer who broke the test will most likely either sign up for the bug, or say that they are stuck and need help. Note: Visual Studio has taken care of associating the failing test with the Bug. Save… Technorati Tags: WCF,MSTest,MSBuild,Team Build 2010,Team Test 2010,Team Build,Team Test

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  • Does code-generation increase the code quality?

    - by platzhirsch
    Arguing for code-generation I am looking for some reasons, if howsoever, code generation increases the code quality, respectively is in favor for quality insurance. To clarify what I mean with code-generation I can talk only about a project of mine: We use XML files to describe different relationships, in fact our database schema. These XML files are used to generate our ORM framework and HTML forms which can be used to add, delete and modify entities. To my mind, it increases the quality, as the human error is reduced. If someone was implemented wrong, it is broken in the model. This is good, because the error might appear a lot faster, as more generated code is broken, too.

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  • Alternatives to Firefox 3.5/POW on ubuntu natty to use SSJS

    - by Juan Sebastian Totero
    I have to install FFX 3.5 on my 11.04 machine. It's needed because I'm helping a friend of mine in a project involving Server-Side Javascript, and he is using POW webserver, actually avaliable for Linux only as a Firefox AddOn. (I know it's a dumb thing) The addon is compatible only with FFX 3.5 and older, but I cant' find any official package of Firefox 3.5 for linux. So the questions are two: Where can i find a package of Firefox 3.5 for linux? Is there any alternative SSJS webserver out there? IT's main use will be displaying ssjs files in the browser (possibly on-the-fly, that means I have not to create a webserver in SSJS, like in the case of nodejs)

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  • 9 New BizTalk Wencasts in the Light & Easy Series

    - by Alan Smith
    During the MVP summit in February I managed to catch up with a few of the BizTalk MVPs who had recorded new webcasts for the “BizTalk Light & Easy” series. The 9 new webcasts are online now at CloudCasts. ·         BizTalk 2010 and Windows Azure – Paul Somers ·         BizTalk and AppFabric Cache Part 1 – Mike Stephenson ·         BizTalk and AppFabric Cache Part 2 – Mike Stephenson ·         Integration to SharePoint 2010 Part 1 – Mick Badran ·         Integration to SharePoint 2010 Part 2 – Mick Badran ·         Better BizTalk Testing by Taking Advantage of the CAT Logging Framework – Mike Stephenson ·         Calling Business Rules from a .NET Application – Alan Smith ·         Tracking Rules Execution in a .NET Application – Alan Smith ·         Publishing a Business Rules Policy as a Service – Alan Smith The link is here. Big thanks to Paul, Mike and Mick for putting the time in. “BizTalk Light & Easy” is an ongoing project, if you are feeling creative and would like to contribute feel free to contact me via this blog. I can email you some tips on webcasting and the best formats to use.

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  • .NETTER Code Starter Pack v1.0.beta Released

    - by Mohammad Ashraful Alam
    .NETTER Code Starter Pack contains a gallery of Visual Studio 2010 solutions leveraging latest and new technologies released by Microsoft. Each Visual Studio solution included here is focused to provide a very simple starting point for cutting edge development technologies and framework, using well known Northwind database. The current release of this project includes starter samples for the following technologies: ASP.NET Dynamic Data QuickStart (TBD) Azure Service Platform Windows Azure Hello World Windows Azure Storage Simple CRUD Database Scripts Entity Framework 4.0 (TBD) SharePoint 2010 Visual Web Part Linq QuickStart Silverlight Business App Hello World WCF RIA Services QuickStart Utility Framework MEF Moq QuickStart T-4 QuickStart Unity QuickStart WCF WCF Data Services QuickStart WCF Hello World WorkFlow Foundation Web API Facebook Toolkit QuickStart Download link: http://codebox.codeplex.com/releases/view/57382 Technorati Tags: release,new release,asp.net,mef,unity,sharepoint,wcf

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  • What You Said: What’s on Your Geeky Christmas List

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Earlier this week we asked you to share what’s on your geeky Christmas list; you responded and we’re back to share your longed for tech goodies. The most requested item was this year’s hot introduction to the project board market: the Raspberry Pi. Dave writes: A Rapsberry Pi to tinker with, especially to see if I can get it up and running with OpenElec/Raspbmc and a torrent client for a low power media centre/htpc We just finished setting up a batch of new 512MB Raspberry Pi systems running the newest release of Rasbmbc and can’t recommend it enough–new refinements in Raspbmc and the extra 256MB of RAM really improve the media center experience. All John wants is a real keyboard so he can escape the torture of using a touch screen: How to Factory Reset Your Android Phone or Tablet When It Won’t Boot Our Geek Trivia App for Windows 8 is Now Available Everywhere How To Boot Your Android Phone or Tablet Into Safe Mode

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  • Algorithmia Source Code released on CodePlex

    - by FransBouma
    Following the release of our BCL Extensions Library on CodePlex, we have now released the source-code of Algorithmia on CodePlex! Algorithmia is an algorithm and data-structures library for .NET 3.5 or higher and is one of the pillars LLBLGen Pro v3's designer is built on. The library contains many data-structures and algorithms, and the source-code is well documented and commented, often with links to official descriptions and papers of the algorithms and data-structures implemented. The source-code is shared using Mercurial on CodePlex and is licensed under the friendly BSD2 license. User documentation is not available at the moment but will be added soon. One of the main design goals of Algorithmia was to create a library which contains implementations of well-known algorithms which weren't already implemented in .NET itself. This way, more developers out there can enjoy the results of many years of what the field of Computer Science research has delivered. Some algorithms and datastructures are known in .NET but are re-implemented because the implementation in .NET isn't efficient for many situations or lacks features. An example is the linked list in .NET: it doesn't have an O(1) concat operation, as every node refers to the containing LinkedList object it's stored in. This is bad for algorithms which rely on O(1) concat operations, like the Fibonacci heap implementation in Algorithmia. Algorithmia therefore contains a linked list with an O(1) concat feature. The following functionality is available in Algorithmia: Command, Command management. This system is usable to build a fully undo/redo aware system by building your object graph using command-aware classes. The Command pattern is implemented using a system which allows transparent undo-redo and command grouping so you can use it to make a class undo/redo aware and set properties, use its contents without using commands at all. The Commands namespace is the namespace to start. Classes you'd want to look at are CommandifiedMember, CommandifiedList and KeyedCommandifiedList. See the CommandQueueTests in the test project for examples. Graphs, Graph algorithms. Algorithmia contains a sophisticated graph class hierarchy and algorithms implemented onto them: non-directed and directed graphs, as well as a subgraph view class, which can be used to create a view onto an existing graph class which can be self-maintaining. Algorithms include transitive closure, topological sorting and others. A feature rich depth-first search (DFS) crawler is available so DFS based algorithms can be implemented quickly. All graph classes are undo/redo aware, as they can be set to be 'commandified'. When a graph is 'commandified' it will do its housekeeping through commands, which makes it fully undo-redo aware, so you can remove, add and manipulate the graph and undo/redo the activity automatically without any extra code. If you define the properties of the class you set as the vertex type using CommandifiedMember, you can manipulate the properties of vertices and the graph contents with full undo/redo functionality without any extra code. Heaps. Heaps are data-structures which have the largest or smallest item stored in them always as the 'root'. Extracting the root from the heap makes the heap determine the next in line to be the 'maximum' or 'minimum' (max-heap vs. min-heap, all heaps in Algorithmia can do both). Algorithmia contains various heaps, among them an implementation of the Fibonacci heap, one of the most efficient heap datastructures known today, especially when you want to merge different instances into one. Priority queues. Priority queues are specializations of heaps. Algorithmia contains a couple of them. Sorting. What's an algorithm library without sort algorithms? Algorithmia implements a couple of sort algorithms which sort the data in-place. This aspect is important in situations where you want to sort the elements in a buffer/list/ICollection in-place, so all data stays in the data-structure it already is stored in. PropertyBag. It re-implements Tony Allowatt's original idea in .NET 3.5 specific syntax, which is to have a generic property bag and to be able to build an object in code at runtime which can be bound to a property grid for editing. This is handy for when you have data / settings stored in XML or other format, and want to create an editable form of it without creating many editors. IEditableObject/IDataErrorInfo implementations. It contains default implementations for IEditableObject and IDataErrorInfo (EditableObjectDataContainer for IEditableObject and ErrorContainer for IDataErrorInfo), which make it very easy to implement these interfaces (just a few lines of code) without having to worry about bookkeeping during databinding. They work seamlessly with CommandifiedMember as well, so your undo/redo aware code can use them out of the box. EventThrottler. It contains an event throttler, which can be used to filter out duplicate events in an event stream coming into an observer from an event. This can greatly enhance performance in your UI without needing to do anything other than hooking it up so it's placed between the event source and your real handler. If your UI is flooded with events from data-structures observed by your UI or a middle tier, you can use this class to filter out duplicates to avoid redundant updates to UI elements or to avoid having observers choke on many redundant events. Small, handy stuff. A MultiValueDictionary, which can store multiple unique values per key, instead of one with the default Dictionary, and is also merge-aware so you can merge two into one. A Pair class, to quickly group two elements together. Multiple interfaces for helping with building a de-coupled, observer based system, and some utility extension methods for the defined data-structures. We regularly update the library with new code. If you have ideas for new algorithms or want to share your contribution, feel free to discuss it on the project's Discussions page or send us a pull request. Enjoy!

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  • Taglist: Failed to generate tags for macvim [migrated]

    - by Mohit Jain
    When ever I am trying to open a file in my rails project using macVim. I am geting an error Taglist: Failed to generate tags for ....... But it works perfectly in terminal vim. Why its happening? I am a new bie and just installed everything using this dotvim repo. I installed ctags using these commands that I got from this git $ ctags -R --exclude=.git --exclude=log * ctags: illegal option -- R usage: ctags [-BFadtuwvx] [-f tagsfile] file ... #you need to get new ctags, i recommend homebrew but anything will work $ brew install ctags #alias ctags if you used homebrew $ alias ctags="`brew --prefix`/bin/ctags" #try again! ctags -R --exclude=.git --exclude=log * which ctags on terminal returning, same if i do from vim or gvim using ! (bang): /usr/bin/ctags Can anyone help me?

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  • Fix: WCF - The type provided as the Service attribute value in the ServiceHost directive could not

    - by Ken Cox [MVP]
    I wanted to expose some raw data to users in my current ASP.NET 3.5 web site project. I created a subdirectory called ‘datafeeds’ and added a WCF Data Service. I wired the dataservice up to the Entity Framework class and, on running the ItemDataService.svc file, was greeted with: The type  <> provided as the Service attribute value in the ServiceHost directive could not be found So why couldn’t it find the class? It was right there in the… oops! Instead of putting the ItemDataService.vb...(read more)

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  • ASP.NET Frameworks and Raw Throughput Performance

    - by Rick Strahl
    A few days ago I had a curious thought: With all these different technologies that the ASP.NET stack has to offer, what's the most efficient technology overall to return data for a server request? When I started this it was mere curiosity rather than a real practical need or result. Different tools are used for different problems and so performance differences are to be expected. But still I was curious to see how the various technologies performed relative to each just for raw throughput of the request getting to the endpoint and back out to the client with as little processing in the actual endpoint logic as possible (aka Hello World!). I want to clarify that this is merely an informal test for my own curiosity and I'm sharing the results and process here because I thought it was interesting. It's been a long while since I've done any sort of perf testing on ASP.NET, mainly because I've not had extremely heavy load requirements and because overall ASP.NET performs very well even for fairly high loads so that often it's not that critical to test load performance. This post is not meant to make a point  or even come to a conclusion which tech is better, but just to act as a reference to help understand some of the differences in perf and give a starting point to play around with this yourself. I've included the code for this simple project, so you can play with it and maybe add a few additional tests for different things if you like. Source Code on GitHub I looked at this data for these technologies: ASP.NET Web API ASP.NET MVC WebForms ASP.NET WebPages ASMX AJAX Services  (couldn't get AJAX/JSON to run on IIS8 ) WCF Rest Raw ASP.NET HttpHandlers It's quite a mixed bag, of course and the technologies target different types of development. What started out as mere curiosity turned into a bit of a head scratcher as the results were sometimes surprising. What I describe here is more to satisfy my curiosity more than anything and I thought it interesting enough to discuss on the blog :-) First test: Raw Throughput The first thing I did is test raw throughput for the various technologies. This is the least practical test of course since you're unlikely to ever create the equivalent of a 'Hello World' request in a real life application. The idea here is to measure how much time a 'NOP' request takes to return data to the client. So for this request I create the simplest Hello World request that I could come up for each tech. Http Handler The first is the lowest level approach which is an HTTP handler. public class Handler : IHttpHandler { public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain"; context.Response.Write("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString()); } public bool IsReusable { get { return true; } } } WebForms Next I added a couple of ASPX pages - one using CodeBehind and one using only a markup page. The CodeBehind page simple does this in CodeBehind without any markup in the ASPX page: public partial class HelloWorld_CodeBehind : System.Web.UI.Page { protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { Response.Write("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString() ); Response.End(); } } while the Markup page only contains some static output via an expression:<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeBehind="HelloWorld_Markup.aspx.cs" Inherits="AspNetFrameworksPerformance.HelloWorld_Markup" %> Hello World. Time is <%= DateTime.Now %> ASP.NET WebPages WebPages is the freestanding Razor implementation of ASP.NET. Here's the simple HelloWorld.cshtml page:Hello World @DateTime.Now WCF REST WCF REST was the token REST implementation for ASP.NET before WebAPI and the inbetween step from ASP.NET AJAX. I'd like to forget that this technology was ever considered for production use, but I'll include it here. Here's an OperationContract class: [ServiceContract(Namespace = "")] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] public class WcfService { [OperationContract] [WebGet] public Stream HelloWorld() { var data = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes("Hello World" + DateTime.Now.ToString()); var ms = new MemoryStream(data); // Add your operation implementation here return ms; } } WCF REST can return arbitrary results by returning a Stream object and a content type. The code above turns the string result into a stream and returns that back to the client. ASP.NET AJAX (ASMX Services) I also wanted to test ASP.NET AJAX services because prior to WebAPI this is probably still the most widely used AJAX technology for the ASP.NET stack today. Unfortunately I was completely unable to get this running on my Windows 8 machine. Visual Studio 2012  removed adding of ASP.NET AJAX services, and when I tried to manually add the service and configure the script handler references it simply did not work - I always got a SOAP response for GET and POST operations. No matter what I tried I always ended up getting XML results even when explicitly adding the ScriptHandler. So, I didn't test this (but the code is there - you might be able to test this on a Windows 7 box). ASP.NET MVC Next up is probably the most popular ASP.NET technology at the moment: MVC. Here's the small controller: public class MvcPerformanceController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } public ActionResult HelloWorldCode() { return new ContentResult() { Content = "Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString() }; } } ASP.NET WebAPI Next up is WebAPI which looks kind of similar to MVC. Except here I have to use a StringContent result to return the response: public class WebApiPerformanceController : ApiController { [HttpGet] public HttpResponseMessage HelloWorldCode() { return new HttpResponseMessage() { Content = new StringContent("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString(), Encoding.UTF8, "text/plain") }; } } Testing Take a minute to think about each of the technologies… and take a guess which you think is most efficient in raw throughput. The fastest should be pretty obvious, but the others - maybe not so much. The testing I did is pretty informal since it was mainly to satisfy my curiosity - here's how I did this: I used Apache Bench (ab.exe) from a full Apache HTTP installation to run and log the test results of hitting the server. ab.exe is a small executable that lets you hit a URL repeatedly and provides counter information about the number of requests, requests per second etc. ab.exe and the batch file are located in the \LoadTests folder of the project. An ab.exe command line  looks like this: ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorld which hits the specified URL 100,000 times with a load factor of 20 concurrent requests. This results in output like this:   It's a great way to get a quick and dirty performance summary. Run it a few times to make sure there's not a large amount of varience. You might also want to do an IISRESET to clear the Web Server. Just make sure you do a short test run to warm up the server first - otherwise your first run is likely to be skewed downwards. ab.exe also allows you to specify headers and provide POST data and many other things if you want to get a little more fancy. Here all tests are GET requests to keep it simple. I ran each test: 100,000 iterations Load factor of 20 concurrent connections IISReset before starting A short warm up run for API and MVC to make sure startup cost is mitigated Here is the batch file I used for the test: IISRESET REM make sure you add REM C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\bin REM to your path so ab.exe can be found REM Warm up ab.exe -n100 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/MvcPerformance/HelloWorldJsonab.exe -n100 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorldJson ab.exe -n100 -c20 http://localhost/AspNetPerf/WcfService.svc/HelloWorld ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/handler.ashx > handler.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/HelloWorld_CodeBehind.aspx > AspxCodeBehind.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/HelloWorld_Markup.aspx > AspxMarkup.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/AspNetPerf/WcfService.svc/HelloWorld > Wcf.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/MvcPerformance/HelloWorldCode > Mvc.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorld > WebApi.txt I ran each of these tests 3 times and took the average score for Requests/second, with the machine otherwise idle. I did see a bit of variance when running many tests but the values used here are the medians. Part of this has to do with the fact I ran the tests on my local machine - result would probably more consistent running the load test on a separate machine hitting across the network. I ran these tests locally on my laptop which is a Dell XPS with quad core Sandibridge I7-2720QM @ 2.20ghz and a fast SSD drive on Windows 8. CPU load during tests ran to about 70% max across all 4 cores (IOW, it wasn't overloading the machine). Ideally you can try running these tests on a separate machine hitting the local machine. If I remember correctly IIS 7 and 8 on client OSs don't throttle so the performance here should be Results Ok, let's cut straight to the chase. Below are the results from the tests… It's not surprising that the handler was fastest. But it was a bit surprising to me that the next fastest was WebForms and especially Web Forms with markup over a CodeBehind page. WebPages also fared fairly well. MVC and WebAPI are a little slower and the slowest by far is WCF REST (which again I find surprising). As mentioned at the start the raw throughput tests are not overly practical as they don't test scripting performance for the HTML generation engines or serialization performances of the data engines. All it really does is give you an idea of the raw throughput for the technology from time of request to reaching the endpoint and returning minimal text data back to the client which indicates full round trip performance. But it's still interesting to see that Web Forms performs better in throughput than either MVC, WebAPI or WebPages. It'd be interesting to try this with a few pages that actually have some parsing logic on it, but that's beyond the scope of this throughput test. But what's also amazing about this test is the sheer amount of traffic that a laptop computer is handling. Even the slowest tech managed 5700 requests a second, which is one hell of a lot of requests if you extrapolate that out over a 24 hour period. Remember these are not static pages, but dynamic requests that are being served. Another test - JSON Data Service Results The second test I used a JSON result from several of the technologies. I didn't bother running WebForms and WebPages through this test since that doesn't make a ton of sense to return data from the them (OTOH, returning text from the APIs didn't make a ton of sense either :-) In these tests I have a small Person class that gets serialized and then returned to the client. The Person class looks like this: public class Person { public Person() { Id = 10; Name = "Rick"; Entered = DateTime.Now; } public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public DateTime Entered { get; set; } } Here are the updated handler classes that use Person: Handler public class Handler : IHttpHandler { public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) { var action = context.Request.QueryString["action"]; if (action == "json") JsonRequest(context); else TextRequest(context); } public void TextRequest(HttpContext context) { context.Response.ContentType = "text/plain"; context.Response.Write("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString()); } public void JsonRequest(HttpContext context) { var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new Person(), Formatting.None); context.Response.ContentType = "application/json"; context.Response.Write(json); } public bool IsReusable { get { return true; } } } This code adds a little logic to check for a action query string and route the request to an optional JSON result method. To generate JSON, I'm using the same JSON.NET serializer (JsonConvert.SerializeObject) used in Web API to create the JSON response. WCF REST   [ServiceContract(Namespace = "")] [AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Allowed)] public class WcfService { [OperationContract] [WebGet] public Stream HelloWorld() { var data = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes("Hello World " + DateTime.Now.ToString()); var ms = new MemoryStream(data); // Add your operation implementation here return ms; } [OperationContract] [WebGet(ResponseFormat=WebMessageFormat.Json,BodyStyle=WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedRequest)] public Person HelloWorldJson() { // Add your operation implementation here return new Person(); } } For WCF REST all I have to do is add a method with the Person result type.   ASP.NET MVC public class MvcPerformanceController : Controller { // // GET: /MvcPerformance/ public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } public ActionResult HelloWorldCode() { return new ContentResult() { Content = "Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString() }; } public JsonResult HelloWorldJson() { return Json(new Person(), JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet); } } For MVC all I have to do for a JSON response is return a JSON result. ASP.NET internally uses JavaScriptSerializer. ASP.NET WebAPI public class WebApiPerformanceController : ApiController { [HttpGet] public HttpResponseMessage HelloWorldCode() { return new HttpResponseMessage() { Content = new StringContent("Hello World. Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString(), Encoding.UTF8, "text/plain") }; } [HttpGet] public Person HelloWorldJson() { return new Person(); } [HttpGet] public HttpResponseMessage HelloWorldJson2() { var response = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK); response.Content = new ObjectContent<Person>(new Person(), GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter); return response; } } Testing and Results To run these data requests I used the following ab.exe commands:REM JSON RESPONSES ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/Handler.ashx?action=json > HandlerJson.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/MvcPerformance/HelloWorldJson > MvcJson.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorldJson > WebApiJson.txt ab.exe -n100000 -c20 http://localhost/AspNetPerf/WcfService.svc/HelloWorldJson > WcfJson.txt The results from this test run are a bit interesting in that the WebAPI test improved performance significantly over returning plain string content. Here are the results:   The performance for each technology drops a little bit except for WebAPI which is up quite a bit! From this test it appears that WebAPI is actually significantly better performing returning a JSON response, rather than a plain string response. Snag with Apache Benchmark and 'Length Failures' I ran into a little snag with Apache Benchmark, which was reporting failures for my Web API requests when serializing. As the graph shows performance improved significantly from with JSON results from 5580 to 6530 or so which is a 15% improvement (while all others slowed down by 3-8%). However, I was skeptical at first because the WebAPI test reports showed a bunch of errors on about 10% of the requests. Check out this report: Notice the Failed Request count. What the hey? Is WebAPI failing on roughly 10% of requests when sending JSON? Turns out: No it's not! But it took some sleuthing to figure out why it reports these failures. At first I thought that Web API was failing, and so to make sure I re-ran the test with Fiddler attached and runiisning the ab.exe test by using the -X switch: ab.exe -n100 -c10 -X localhost:8888 http://localhost/aspnetperf/api/HelloWorldJson which showed that indeed all requests where returning proper HTTP 200 results with full content. However ab.exe was reporting the errors. After some closer inspection it turned out that the dates varying in size altered the response length in dynamic output. For example: these two results: {"Id":10,"Name":"Rick","Entered":"2012-09-04T10:57:24.841926-10:00"} {"Id":10,"Name":"Rick","Entered":"2012-09-04T10:57:24.8519262-10:00"} are different in length for the number which results in 68 and 69 bytes respectively. The same URL produces different result lengths which is what ab.exe reports. I didn't notice at first bit the same is happening when running the ASHX handler with JSON.NET result since it uses the same serializer that varies the milliseconds. Moral: You can typically ignore Length failures in Apache Benchmark and when in doubt check the actual output with Fiddler. Note that the other failure values are accurate though. Another interesting Side Note: Perf drops over Time As I was running these tests repeatedly I was finding that performance steadily dropped from a startup peak to a 10-15% lower stable level. IOW, with Web API I'd start out with around 6500 req/sec and in subsequent runs it keeps dropping until it would stabalize somewhere around 5900 req/sec occasionally jumping lower. For these tests this is why I did the IIS RESET and warm up for individual tests. This is a little puzzling. Looking at Process Monitor while the test are running memory very quickly levels out as do handles and threads, on the first test run. Subsequent runs everything stays stable, but the performance starts going downwards. This applies to all the technologies - Handlers, Web Forms, MVC, Web API - curious to see if others test this and see similar results. Doing an IISRESET then resets everything and performance starts off at peak again… Summary As I stated at the outset, these were informal to satiate my curiosity not to prove that any technology is better or even faster than another. While there clearly are differences in performance the differences (other than WCF REST which was by far the slowest and the raw handler which was by far the highest) are relatively minor, so there is no need to feel that any one technology is a runaway standout in raw performance. Choosing a technology is about more than pure performance but also about the adequateness for the job and the easy of implementation. The strengths of each technology will make for any minor performance difference we see in these tests. However, to me it's important to get an occasional reality check and compare where new technologies are heading. Often times old stuff that's been optimized and designed for a time of less horse power can utterly blow the doors off newer tech and simple checks like this let you compare. Luckily we're seeing that much of the new stuff performs well even in V1.0 which is great. To me it was very interesting to see Web API perform relatively badly with plain string content, which originally led me to think that Web API might not be properly optimized just yet. For those that caught my Tweets late last week regarding WebAPI's slow responses was with String content which is in fact considerably slower. Luckily where it counts with serialized JSON and XML WebAPI actually performs better. But I do wonder what would make generic string content slower than serialized code? This stresses another point: Don't take a single test as the final gospel and don't extrapolate out from a single set of tests. Certainly Twitter can make you feel like a fool when you post something immediate that hasn't been fleshed out a little more <blush>. Egg on my face. As a result I ended up screwing around with this for a few hours today to compare different scenarios. Well worth the time… I hope you found this useful, if not for the results, maybe for the process of quickly testing a few requests for performance and charting out a comparison. Now onwards with more serious stuff… Resources Source Code on GitHub Apache HTTP Server Project (ab.exe is part of the binary distribution)© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET  Web Api   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • Brad, are you alive?

    So you might have been wondering, given that it's been oh... 4 years since my last blog post if I was still alive. The answer is yes.  In fact I've been posting over on the MDOP blog. I've been on a bit of a journey after my time in VB/SQL/ASP.NET land.  I hired a team here in Redmond that helped to drive the global MSDN and TechNet sites and bring alot to of the great content to folks around the world.  After that project and set of sites were up and running I switched gears...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • How to Enable Desktop Notifications for Gmail in Chrome

    - by Jason Fitzpatrick
    Last year Google rolled out desktop notifications for Google Calendar, now you can get Gmail and Gchat notifications on your desktop too. Read on as we walk you through configuring them both. Chrome’s desktop notifications are clean, easy to read, and really handy for keeping an eye on what’s going on inside Gmail without keeping the browser focused on it. Setting it up is easy, grab your copy of Chrome to follow along. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally How To Colorize Black and White Vintage Photographs in Photoshop How To Get SSH Command-Line Access to Windows 7 Using Cygwin The How-To Geek Video Guide to Using Windows 7 Speech Recognition How To Create Your Own Custom ASCII Art from Any Image How To Process Camera Raw Without Paying for Adobe Photoshop What is the Internet? From the Today Show January 1994 [Historical Video] Take Screenshots and Edit Them in Chrome and Iron Using Aviary Screen Capture Run Android 3.0 on a Hacked Nook Google Art Project Takes You Inside World Famous Museums Emerald Waves and Moody Skies Wallpaper Change Your MAC Address to Avoid Free Internet Restrictions

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  • Clean up after Visual Studio

    - by psheriff
    As programmer’s we know that if we create a temporary file during the running of our application we need to make sure it is removed when the application or process is complete. We do this, but why can’t Microsoft do it? Visual Studio leaves tons of temporary files all over your hard drive. This is why, over time, your computer loses hard disk space. This blog post will show you some of the most common places where these files are left and which ones you can safely delete..NET Left OversVisual Studio is a great development environment for creating applications quickly. However, it will leave a lot of miscellaneous files all over your hard drive. There are a few locations on your hard drive that you should be checking to see if there are left-over folders or files that you can delete. I have attempted to gather as much data as I can about the various versions of .NET and operating systems. Of course, your mileage may vary on the folders and files I list here. In fact, this problem is so prevalent that PDSA has created a Computer Cleaner specifically for the Visual Studio developer.  Instructions for downloading our PDSA Developer Utilities (of which Computer Cleaner is one) are at the end of this blog entry.Each version of Visual Studio will create “temporary” files in different folders. The problem is that the files created are not always “temporary”. Most of the time these files do not get cleaned up like they should. Let’s look at some of the folders that you should periodically review and delete files within these folders.Temporary ASP.NET FilesAs you create and run ASP.NET applications from Visual Studio temporary files are placed into the <sysdrive>:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework[64]\<vernum>\Temporary ASP.NET Files folder. The folders and files under this folder can be removed with no harm to your development computer. Do not remove the "Temporary ASP.NET Files" folder itself, just the folders underneath this folder. If you use IIS for ASP.NET development, you may need to run the iisreset.exe utility from the command prompt prior to deleting any files/folder under this folder. IIS will sometimes keep files in use in this folder and iisreset will release the locks so the files/folders can be deleted.Website CacheThis folder is similar to the ASP.NET Temporary Files folder in that it contains files from ASP.NET applications run from Visual Studio. This folder is located in each users local settings folder. The location will be a little different on each operating system. For example on Windows Vista/Windows 7, the folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache. If you are running Windows XP this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\ Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\WebsiteCache. Check these locations periodically and delete all files and folders under this directory.Visual Studio BackupThis backup folder is used by Visual Studio to store temporary files while you develop in Visual Studio. This folder never gets cleaned out, so you should periodically delete all files and folders under this directory. On Windows XP, this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\My Documents\Visual Studio 200[5|8]\Backup Files. On Windows Vista/Windows 7 this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Users\<UserName>\Documents\Visual Studio 200[5|8]\.Assembly CacheNo, this is not the global assembly cache (GAC). It appears that this cache is only created when doing WPF or Silverlight development with Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Studio 2010. This folder is located in <sysdrive>:\ Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\assembly\dl3 on Windows Vista/Windows 7. On Windows XP this folder is located at <sysdrive>:\ Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Local Settings\Application Data\assembly. If you have not done any WPF or Silverlight development, you may not find this particular folder on your machine.Project AssembliesThis is yet another folder where Visual Studio stores temporary files. You will find a folder for each project you have opened and worked on. This folder is located at <sysdrive>:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Visual Studio\[8|9].0\ProjectAssemblies on Windows XP. On Microsoft Vista/Windows 7 you will find this folder at <sysdrive>:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Visual Studio\[8|9].0\ProjectAssemblies.Remember not all of these folders will appear on your particular machine. Which ones do show up will depend on what version of Visual Studio you are using, whether or not you are doing desktop or web development, and the operating system you are using.SummaryTaking the time to periodically clean up after Visual Studio will aid in keeping your computer running quickly and increase the space on your hard drive. Another place to make sure you are cleaning up is your TEMP folder. Check your OS settings for the location of your particular TEMP folder and be sure to delete any files in here that are not in use. I routinely clean up the files and folders described in this blog post and I find that I actually eliminate errors in Visual Studio and I increase my hard disk space.NEW! PDSA has just published a “pre-release” of our PDSA Developer Utilities at http://www.pdsa.com/DeveloperUtilities that contains a Computer Cleaner utility which will clean up the above-mentioned folders, as well as a lot of other miscellaneous folders that get Visual Studio build-up. You can download a free trial at http://www.pdsa.com/DeveloperUtilities. If you wish to purchase our utilities through the month of November, 2011 you can use the RSVP code: DUNOV11 to get them for only $39. This is $40 off the regular price.NOTE: You can download this article and many samples like the one shown in this blog entry at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Select “Tips and Tricks”, then “Developer Machine Clean Up” from the drop down list.Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **We frequently offer a FREE gift for readers of my blog. Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for your FREE gift!

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  • The Top Ten Security Top Ten Lists

    - by Troy Kitch
    As a marketer, we're always putting together the top 3, or 5 best, or an assortment of top ten lists. So instead of going that route, I've put together my top ten security top ten lists. These are not only for security practitioners, but also for the average Joe/Jane; because who isn't concerned about security these days? Now, there might not be ten for each one of these lists, but the title works best that way. Starting with my number ten (in no particular order): 10. Top 10 Most Influential Security-Related Movies Amrit Williams pulls together a great collection of security-related movies. He asks for comments on which one made you want to get into the business. I would have to say that my most influential movie(s), that made me want to get into the business of "stopping the bad guys" would have to be the James Bond series. I grew up on James Bond movies: thwarting the bad guy and saving the world. I recall being both ecstatic and worried when Silicon Valley-themed "A View to A Kill" hit theaters: "An investigation of a horse-racing scam leads 007 to a mad industrialist who plans to create a worldwide microchip monopoly by destroying California's Silicon Valley." Yikes! 9. Top Ten Security Careers From movies that got you into the career, here’s a top 10 list of security-related careers. It starts with number then, Information Security Analyst and ends with number one, Malware Analyst. They point out the significant growth in security careers and indicate that "according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the field is expected to experience growth rates of 22% between 2010-2020. If you are interested in getting into the field, Oracle has many great opportunities all around the world.  8. Top 125 Network Security Tools A bit outside of the range of 10, the top 125 Network Security Tools is an important list because it includes a prioritized list of key security tools practitioners are using in the hacking community, regardless of whether they are vendor supplied or open source. The exhaustive list provides ratings, reviews, searching, and sorting. 7. Top 10 Security Practices I have to give a shout out to my alma mater, Cal Poly, SLO: Go Mustangs! They have compiled their list of top 10 practices for students and faculty to follow. Educational institutions are a common target of web based attacks and miscellaneous errors according to the 2014 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report.    6. (ISC)2 Top 10 Safe and Secure Online Tips for Parents This list is arguably the most important list on my list. The tips were "gathered from (ISC)2 member volunteers who participate in the organization’s Safe and Secure Online program, a worldwide initiative that brings top cyber security experts into schools to teach children ages 11-14 how to protect themselves in a cyber-connected world…If you are a parent, educator or organization that would like the Safe and Secure Online presentation delivered at your local school, or would like more information about the program, please visit here.” 5. Top Ten Data Breaches of the Past 12 Months This type of list is always changing, so it's nice to have a current one here from Techrader.com. They've compiled and commented on the top breaches. It is likely that most readers here were effected in some way or another. 4. Top Ten Security Comic Books Although mostly physical security controls, I threw this one in for fun. My vote for #1 (not on the list) would be Professor X. The guy can breach confidentiality, integrity, and availability just by messing with your thoughts. 3. The IOUG Data Security Survey's Top 10+ Threats to Organizations The Independent Oracle Users Group annual survey on enterprise data security, Leaders Vs. Laggards, highlights what Oracle Database users deem as the top 12 threats to their organization. You can find a nice graph on page 9; Figure 7: Greatest Threats to Data Security. 2. The Ten Most Common Database Security Vulnerabilities Though I don't necessarily agree with all of the vulnerabilities in this order...I like a list that focuses on where two-thirds of your sensitive and regulated data resides (Source: IDC).  1. OWASP Top Ten Project The Online Web Application Security Project puts together their annual list of the 10 most critical web application security risks that organizations should be including in their overall security, business risk and compliance plans. In particular, SQL injection risks continues to rear its ugly head each year. Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall can help prevent SQL injection attacks and monitor database and system activity as a detective security control. Did I miss any?

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  • Resources to learn XNA for a professional c# developer

    - by Team-JoKi
    I'm a .net consultant (mainly c#) for my job, but for a while now, I've been interested in making a game in XNA (as a hobby project). I've had a "beginner" course in XNA when I was still a student, but I've lost most of the information (plus, it was VERY beginner, not enough to get you really started). So my question, which resources would be useful for me to learn XNA (books, blogs, websites, tutorials, resource websites - like textures, audio files, etc..)? I know this is a very open question, but I'm thankful for any information.

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  • ASP.NET Web API - Screencast series Part 3: Delete and Update

    - by Jon Galloway
    We're continuing a six part series on ASP.NET Web API that accompanies the getting started screencast series. This is an introductory screencast series that walks through from File / New Project to some more advanced scenarios like Custom Validation and Authorization. The screencast videos are all short (3-5 minutes) and the sample code for the series is both available for download and browsable online. I did the screencasts, but the samples were written by the ASP.NET Web API team. In Part 1 we looked at what ASP.NET Web API is, why you'd care, did the File / New Project thing, and did some basic HTTP testing using browser F12 developer tools. In Part 2 we started to build up a sample that returns data from a repository in JSON format via GET methods. In Part 3, we'll start to modify data on the server using DELETE and POST methods. So far we've been looking at GET requests, and the difference between standard browsing in a web browser and navigating an HTTP API isn't quite as clear. Delete is where the difference becomes more obvious. With a "traditional" web page, to delete something'd probably have a form that POSTs a request back to a controller that needs to know that it's really supposed to be deleting something even though POST was really designed to create things, so it does the work and then returns some HTML back to the client that says whether or not the delete succeeded. There's a good amount of plumbing involved in communicating between client and server. That gets a lot easier when we just work with the standard HTTP DELETE verb. Here's how the server side code works: public Comment DeleteComment(int id) { Comment comment; if (!repository.TryGet(id, out comment)) throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.NotFound); repository.Delete(id); return comment; } If you look back at the GET /api/comments code in Part 2, you'll see that they start the exact same because the use cases are kind of similar - we're looking up an item by id and either displaying it or deleting it. So the only difference is that this method deletes the comment once it finds it. We don't need to do anything special to handle cases where the id isn't found, as the same HTTP 404 handling works fine here, too. Pretty much all "traditional" browsing uses just two HTTP verbs: GET and POST, so you might not be all that used to DELETE requests and think they're hard. Not so! Here's the jQuery method that calls the /api/comments with the DELETE verb: $(function() { $("a.delete").live('click', function () { var id = $(this).data('comment-id'); $.ajax({ url: "/api/comments/" + id, type: 'DELETE', cache: false, statusCode: { 200: function(data) { viewModel.comments.remove( function(comment) { return comment.ID == data.ID; } ); } } }); return false; }); }); So in order to use the DELETE verb instead of GET, we're just using $.ajax() and setting the type to DELETE. Not hard. But what's that statusCode business? Well, an HTTP status code of 200 is an OK response. Unless our Web API method sets another status (such as by throwing the Not Found exception we saw earlier), the default response status code is HTTP 200 - OK. That makes the jQuery code pretty simple - it calls the Delete action, and if it gets back an HTTP 200, the server-side delete was successful so the comment can be deleted. Adding a new comment uses the POST verb. It starts out looking like an MVC controller action, using model binding to get the new comment from JSON data into a c# model object to add to repository, but there are some interesting differences. public HttpResponseMessage<Comment> PostComment(Comment comment) { comment = repository.Add(comment); var response = new HttpResponseMessage<Comment>(comment, HttpStatusCode.Created); response.Headers.Location = new Uri(Request.RequestUri, "/api/comments/" + comment.ID.ToString()); return response; } First off, the POST method is returning an HttpResponseMessage<Comment>. In the GET methods earlier, we were just returning a JSON payload with an HTTP 200 OK, so we could just return the  model object and Web API would wrap it up in an HttpResponseMessage with that HTTP 200 for us (much as ASP.NET MVC controller actions can return strings, and they'll be automatically wrapped in a ContentResult). When we're creating a new comment, though, we want to follow standard REST practices and return the URL that points to the newly created comment in the Location header, and we can do that by explicitly creating that HttpResposeMessage and then setting the header information. And here's a key point - by using HTTP standard status codes and headers, our response payload doesn't need to explain any context - the client can see from the status code that the POST succeeded, the location header tells it where to get it, and all it needs in the JSON payload is the actual content. Note: This is a simplified sample. Among other things, you'll need to consider security and authorization in your Web API's, and especially in methods that allow creating or deleting data. We'll look at authorization in Part 6. As for security, you'll want to consider things like mass assignment if binding directly to model objects, etc. In Part 4, we'll extend on our simple querying methods form Part 2, adding in support for paging and querying.

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  • Donald Farmer comes to SQLBits

    What do medieval archaeology, fish farming, Southwestern University of Chongqing and Microsoft Business Intelligence have in common? If you know, you should tell Donald Farmer, because he has been deeply involved in all of them at various times. Donald has worked in the Microsoft Business Intelligence team for 8 years covering many subject areas: data integration, information quality, metadata intelligence, master data management, OLAP, predictive analytics and self-service BI. He is a well-known speaker at Microsoft and other industry events, and the author of several books and articles.   Great news from SQLBits! We can now confirm that Donald Farmer has agreed to do a pre-conference training day and the key note for our SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2 day. As Program Manager for Project Gemini, no-one is better placed to tell you what is going to be in R2 and what is not! More information about the Pre-conference Training Day and SQL 2008 and R2 Friday will be released soon.

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  • Happy 1st Birthday to GlassFish and Java EE

    - by pieter.humphrey
    Java EE and GlassFish are officially one year old!  As with all newborns, time moves fast and it seems like just yesterday it was shiny and new.     Feel free to post any birthday wishes on the blog comments, or even better, tell us a story about your experience with Java EE6 and GlassFish in the last year and we'll work with you to get it posted on the stories blog. http://blogs.sun.com/stories/ As all parents know, it takes a village to raise a child, and we want you as part of the village!  Get involved in the project at http://glassfish.java.net .     Technorati Tags: java,java ee,development,glassfish del.icio.us Tags: java,java ee,development,glassfish

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  • How would you advocate not using a shared spreadsheet to track bugs / issues ?

    - by Sylvain Defresne
    In our company, the developers want to use a proper bug tracking tool to manager issues in our application. The management however insists on using a shared spreadsheet (formeerly a shared excel file, now a spreadsheet on a web base solution allowing concurrent access). Their argument is that the spreadsheet allow them to have a more highlevel view of the state of the project as they can see how many bugs are open with a quick glance. This also allow them to see who is working on each bug, and get estimation of the time required to close them all (as developer are required to fill time estimation of the bug they are working on). As you can understand, this is not really practical to use for the developers (bug tracking software were invented for a reason). So how can I advocate bug tracking software to ease the work of the developer ? As a bonus, which software would you recommend that would allow the management to be able to get their feedbacks (number of bugs opens, who is working on them, time estimation) with a high level view ?

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  • Eclipse Indigo is here

    - by alexismp
    The yearly Eclipse update is here, and it's called Indigo. As with every release this is the synchronized release of a large number of projects : 62 this year. Some of the new features include Maven Integration (via M2E, a new project with this release), support for Hudson (via Mylyn), as well as the integration of EclipseLink 2.3 (which does multitenancy and more, see release page, blog). Support for Java 7 is expected for the September update release. The "Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers" bundle is 210 MB. Support for GlassFish is available today as well! The GlassFish plugin now offers the ability to deploy to remote running GlassFish instances and supports version 3.0.x and 3.1.x (including recent promoted builds). That GlassFish plugin for Indigo also works for the earlier Helios release. The update to Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (OEPE) will come with the Indigo September (3.7.1) update. Here is some coverage for this major release: PressRelease, DZone, InfoQ.

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  • Help with Collision Resolution?

    - by Milo
    I'm trying to learn about physics by trying to make a simplified GTA 2 clone. My only problem is collision resolution. Everything else works great. I have a rigid body class and from there cars and a wheel class: class RigidBody extends Entity { //linear private Vector2D velocity = new Vector2D(); private Vector2D forces = new Vector2D(); private OBB2D predictionRect = new OBB2D(new Vector2D(), 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f); private float mass; private Vector2D deltaVec = new Vector2D(); private Vector2D v = new Vector2D(); //angular private float angularVelocity; private float torque; private float inertia; //graphical private Vector2D halfSize = new Vector2D(); private Bitmap image; private Matrix mat = new Matrix(); private float[] Vector2Ds = new float[2]; private Vector2D tangent = new Vector2D(); private static Vector2D worldRelVec = new Vector2D(); private static Vector2D relWorldVec = new Vector2D(); private static Vector2D pointVelVec = new Vector2D(); public RigidBody() { //set these defaults so we don't get divide by zeros mass = 1.0f; inertia = 1.0f; setLayer(LAYER_OBJECTS); } protected void rectChanged() { if(getWorld() != null) { getWorld().updateDynamic(this); } } //intialize out parameters public void initialize(Vector2D halfSize, float mass, Bitmap bitmap) { //store physical parameters this.halfSize = halfSize; this.mass = mass; image = bitmap; inertia = (1.0f / 20.0f) * (halfSize.x * halfSize.x) * (halfSize.y * halfSize.y) * mass; RectF rect = new RectF(); float scalar = 10.0f; rect.left = (int)-halfSize.x * scalar; rect.top = (int)-halfSize.y * scalar; rect.right = rect.left + (int)(halfSize.x * 2.0f * scalar); rect.bottom = rect.top + (int)(halfSize.y * 2.0f * scalar); setRect(rect); predictionRect.set(rect); } public void setLocation(Vector2D position, float angle) { getRect().set(position, getWidth(), getHeight(), angle); rectChanged(); } public void setPredictionLocation(Vector2D position, float angle) { getPredictionRect().set(position, getWidth(), getHeight(), angle); } public void setPredictionCenter(Vector2D center) { getPredictionRect().moveTo(center); } public void setPredictionAngle(float angle) { predictionRect.setAngle(angle); } public Vector2D getPosition() { return getRect().getCenter(); } public OBB2D getPredictionRect() { return predictionRect; } @Override public void update(float timeStep) { doUpdate(false,timeStep); } public void doUpdate(boolean prediction, float timeStep) { //integrate physics //linear Vector2D acceleration = Vector2D.scalarDivide(forces, mass); if(prediction) { Vector2D velocity = Vector2D.add(this.velocity, Vector2D.scalarMultiply(acceleration, timeStep)); Vector2D c = getRect().getCenter(); c = Vector2D.add(getRect().getCenter(), Vector2D.scalarMultiply(velocity , timeStep)); setPredictionCenter(c); //forces = new Vector2D(0,0); //clear forces } else { velocity.x += (acceleration.x * timeStep); velocity.y += (acceleration.y * timeStep); //velocity = Vector2D.add(velocity, Vector2D.scalarMultiply(acceleration, timeStep)); Vector2D c = getRect().getCenter(); v.x = getRect().getCenter().getX() + (velocity.x * timeStep); v.y = getRect().getCenter().getY() + (velocity.y * timeStep); deltaVec.x = v.x - c.x; deltaVec.y = v.y - c.y; deltaVec.normalize(); setCenter(v.x, v.y); forces.x = 0; //clear forces forces.y = 0; } //angular float angAcc = torque / inertia; if(prediction) { float angularVelocity = this.angularVelocity + angAcc * timeStep; setPredictionAngle(getAngle() + angularVelocity * timeStep); //torque = 0; //clear torque } else { angularVelocity += angAcc * timeStep; setAngle(getAngle() + angularVelocity * timeStep); torque = 0; //clear torque } } public void updatePrediction(float timeStep) { doUpdate(true, timeStep); } //take a relative Vector2D and make it a world Vector2D public Vector2D relativeToWorld(Vector2D relative) { mat.reset(); Vector2Ds[0] = relative.x; Vector2Ds[1] = relative.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vector2Ds); relWorldVec.x = Vector2Ds[0]; relWorldVec.y = Vector2Ds[1]; return new Vector2D(Vector2Ds[0], Vector2Ds[1]); } //take a world Vector2D and make it a relative Vector2D public Vector2D worldToRelative(Vector2D world) { mat.reset(); Vector2Ds[0] = world.x; Vector2Ds[1] = world.y; mat.postRotate(JMath.radToDeg(-getAngle())); mat.mapVectors(Vector2Ds); return new Vector2D(Vector2Ds[0], Vector2Ds[1]); } //velocity of a point on body public Vector2D pointVelocity(Vector2D worldOffset) { tangent.x = -worldOffset.y; tangent.y = worldOffset.x; return Vector2D.add( Vector2D.scalarMultiply(tangent, angularVelocity) , velocity); } public void applyForce(Vector2D worldForce, Vector2D worldOffset) { //add linear force forces.x += worldForce.x; forces.y += worldForce.y; //add associated torque torque += Vector2D.cross(worldOffset, worldForce); } @Override public void draw( GraphicsContext c) { c.drawRotatedScaledBitmap(image, getPosition().x, getPosition().y, getWidth(), getHeight(), getAngle()); } public Vector2D getVelocity() { return velocity; } public void setVelocity(Vector2D velocity) { this.velocity = velocity; } public Vector2D getDeltaVec() { return deltaVec; } } Vehicle public class Wheel { private Vector2D forwardVec; private Vector2D sideVec; private float wheelTorque; private float wheelSpeed; private float wheelInertia; private float wheelRadius; private Vector2D position = new Vector2D(); public Wheel(Vector2D position, float radius) { this.position = position; setSteeringAngle(0); wheelSpeed = 0; wheelRadius = radius; wheelInertia = (radius * radius) * 1.1f; } public void setSteeringAngle(float newAngle) { Matrix mat = new Matrix(); float []vecArray = new float[4]; //forward Vector vecArray[0] = 0; vecArray[1] = 1; //side Vector vecArray[2] = -1; vecArray[3] = 0; mat.postRotate(newAngle / (float)Math.PI * 180.0f); mat.mapVectors(vecArray); forwardVec = new Vector2D(vecArray[0], vecArray[1]); sideVec = new Vector2D(vecArray[2], vecArray[3]); } public void addTransmissionTorque(float newValue) { wheelTorque += newValue; } public float getWheelSpeed() { return wheelSpeed; } public Vector2D getAnchorPoint() { return position; } public Vector2D calculateForce(Vector2D relativeGroundSpeed, float timeStep, boolean prediction) { //calculate speed of tire patch at ground Vector2D patchSpeed = Vector2D.scalarMultiply(Vector2D.scalarMultiply( Vector2D.negative(forwardVec), wheelSpeed), wheelRadius); //get velocity difference between ground and patch Vector2D velDifference = Vector2D.add(relativeGroundSpeed , patchSpeed); //project ground speed onto side axis Float forwardMag = new Float(0.0f); Vector2D sideVel = velDifference.project(sideVec); Vector2D forwardVel = velDifference.project(forwardVec, forwardMag); //calculate super fake friction forces //calculate response force Vector2D responseForce = Vector2D.scalarMultiply(Vector2D.negative(sideVel), 2.0f); responseForce = Vector2D.subtract(responseForce, forwardVel); float topSpeed = 500.0f; //calculate torque on wheel wheelTorque += forwardMag * wheelRadius; //integrate total torque into wheel wheelSpeed += wheelTorque / wheelInertia * timeStep; //top speed limit (kind of a hack) if(wheelSpeed > topSpeed) { wheelSpeed = topSpeed; } //clear our transmission torque accumulator wheelTorque = 0; //return force acting on body return responseForce; } public void setTransmissionTorque(float newValue) { wheelTorque = newValue; } public float getTransmissionTourque() { return wheelTorque; } public void setWheelSpeed(float speed) { wheelSpeed = speed; } } //our vehicle object public class Vehicle extends RigidBody { private Wheel [] wheels = new Wheel[4]; private boolean throttled = false; public void initialize(Vector2D halfSize, float mass, Bitmap bitmap) { //front wheels wheels[0] = new Wheel(new Vector2D(halfSize.x, halfSize.y), 0.45f); wheels[1] = new Wheel(new Vector2D(-halfSize.x, halfSize.y), 0.45f); //rear wheels wheels[2] = new Wheel(new Vector2D(halfSize.x, -halfSize.y), 0.75f); wheels[3] = new Wheel(new Vector2D(-halfSize.x, -halfSize.y), 0.75f); super.initialize(halfSize, mass, bitmap); } public void setSteering(float steering) { float steeringLock = 0.13f; //apply steering angle to front wheels wheels[0].setSteeringAngle(steering * steeringLock); wheels[1].setSteeringAngle(steering * steeringLock); } public void setThrottle(float throttle, boolean allWheel) { float torque = 85.0f; throttled = true; //apply transmission torque to back wheels if (allWheel) { wheels[0].addTransmissionTorque(throttle * torque); wheels[1].addTransmissionTorque(throttle * torque); } wheels[2].addTransmissionTorque(throttle * torque); wheels[3].addTransmissionTorque(throttle * torque); } public void setBrakes(float brakes) { float brakeTorque = 15.0f; //apply brake torque opposing wheel vel for (Wheel wheel : wheels) { float wheelVel = wheel.getWheelSpeed(); wheel.addTransmissionTorque(-wheelVel * brakeTorque * brakes); } } public void doUpdate(float timeStep, boolean prediction) { for (Wheel wheel : wheels) { float wheelVel = wheel.getWheelSpeed(); //apply negative force to naturally slow down car if(!throttled && !prediction) wheel.addTransmissionTorque(-wheelVel * 0.11f); Vector2D worldWheelOffset = relativeToWorld(wheel.getAnchorPoint()); Vector2D worldGroundVel = pointVelocity(worldWheelOffset); Vector2D relativeGroundSpeed = worldToRelative(worldGroundVel); Vector2D relativeResponseForce = wheel.calculateForce(relativeGroundSpeed, timeStep,prediction); Vector2D worldResponseForce = relativeToWorld(relativeResponseForce); applyForce(worldResponseForce, worldWheelOffset); } //no throttling yet this frame throttled = false; if(prediction) { super.updatePrediction(timeStep); } else { super.update(timeStep); } } @Override public void update(float timeStep) { doUpdate(timeStep,false); } public void updatePrediction(float timeStep) { doUpdate(timeStep,true); } public void inverseThrottle() { float scalar = 0.2f; for(Wheel wheel : wheels) { wheel.setTransmissionTorque(-wheel.getTransmissionTourque() * scalar); wheel.setWheelSpeed(-wheel.getWheelSpeed() * 0.1f); } } } And my big hack collision resolution: private void update() { camera.setPosition((vehicle.getPosition().x * camera.getScale()) - ((getWidth() ) / 2.0f), (vehicle.getPosition().y * camera.getScale()) - ((getHeight() ) / 2.0f)); //camera.move(input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueX() * 15.0f, input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueY() * 15.0f); if(input.isPressed(ControlButton.BUTTON_GAS)) { vehicle.setThrottle(1.0f, false); } if(input.isPressed(ControlButton.BUTTON_STEAL_CAR)) { vehicle.setThrottle(-1.0f, false); } if(input.isPressed(ControlButton.BUTTON_BRAKE)) { vehicle.setBrakes(1.0f); } vehicle.setSteering(input.getAnalogStick().getStickValueX()); //vehicle.update(16.6666666f / 1000.0f); boolean colided = false; vehicle.updatePrediction(16.66666f / 1000.0f); List<Entity> buildings = world.queryStaticSolid(vehicle,vehicle.getPredictionRect()); if(buildings.size() > 0) { colided = true; } if(!colided) { vehicle.update(16.66f / 1000.0f); } else { Vector2D delta = vehicle.getDeltaVec(); vehicle.setVelocity(Vector2D.negative(vehicle.getVelocity().multiply(0.2f)). add(delta.multiply(-1.0f))); vehicle.inverseThrottle(); } } Here is OBB public class OBB2D { // Corners of the box, where 0 is the lower left. private Vector2D corner[] = new Vector2D[4]; private Vector2D center = new Vector2D(); private Vector2D extents = new Vector2D(); private RectF boundingRect = new RectF(); private float angle; //Two edges of the box extended away from corner[0]. private Vector2D axis[] = new Vector2D[2]; private double origin[] = new double[2]; public OBB2D(Vector2D center, float w, float h, float angle) { set(center,w,h,angle); } public OBB2D(float left, float top, float width, float height) { set(new Vector2D(left + (width / 2), top + (height / 2)),width,height,0.0f); } public void set(Vector2D center,float w, float h,float angle) { Vector2D X = new Vector2D( (float)Math.cos(angle), (float)Math.sin(angle)); Vector2D Y = new Vector2D((float)-Math.sin(angle), (float)Math.cos(angle)); X = X.multiply( w / 2); Y = Y.multiply( h / 2); corner[0] = center.subtract(X).subtract(Y); corner[1] = center.add(X).subtract(Y); corner[2] = center.add(X).add(Y); corner[3] = center.subtract(X).add(Y); computeAxes(); extents.x = w / 2; extents.y = h / 2; computeDimensions(center,angle); } private void computeDimensions(Vector2D center,float angle) { this.center.x = center.x; this.center.y = center.y; this.angle = angle; boundingRect.left = Math.min(Math.min(corner[0].x, corner[3].x), Math.min(corner[1].x, corner[2].x)); boundingRect.top = Math.min(Math.min(corner[0].y, corner[1].y),Math.min(corner[2].y, corner[3].y)); boundingRect.right = Math.max(Math.max(corner[1].x, corner[2].x), Math.max(corner[0].x, corner[3].x)); boundingRect.bottom = Math.max(Math.max(corner[2].y, corner[3].y),Math.max(corner[0].y, corner[1].y)); } public void set(RectF rect) { set(new Vector2D(rect.centerX(),rect.centerY()),rect.width(),rect.height(),0.0f); } // Returns true if other overlaps one dimension of this. private boolean overlaps1Way(OBB2D other) { for (int a = 0; a < axis.length; ++a) { double t = other.corner[0].dot(axis[a]); // Find the extent of box 2 on axis a double tMin = t; double tMax = t; for (int c = 1; c < corner.length; ++c) { t = other.corner[c].dot(axis[a]); if (t < tMin) { tMin = t; } else if (t > tMax) { tMax = t; } } // We have to subtract off the origin // See if [tMin, tMax] intersects [0, 1] if ((tMin > 1 + origin[a]) || (tMax < origin[a])) { // There was no intersection along this dimension; // the boxes cannot possibly overlap. return false; } } // There was no dimension along which there is no intersection. // Therefore the boxes overlap. return true; } //Updates the axes after the corners move. Assumes the //corners actually form a rectangle. private void computeAxes() { axis[0] = corner[1].subtract(corner[0]); axis[1] = corner[3].subtract(corner[0]); // Make the length of each axis 1/edge length so we know any // dot product must be less than 1 to fall within the edge. for (int a = 0; a < axis.length; ++a) { axis[a] = axis[a].divide((axis[a].length() * axis[a].length())); origin[a] = corner[0].dot(axis[a]); } } public void moveTo(Vector2D center) { Vector2D centroid = (corner[0].add(corner[1]).add(corner[2]).add(corner[3])).divide(4.0f); Vector2D translation = center.subtract(centroid); for (int c = 0; c < 4; ++c) { corner[c] = corner[c].add(translation); } computeAxes(); computeDimensions(center,angle); } // Returns true if the intersection of the boxes is non-empty. public boolean overlaps(OBB2D other) { if(right() < other.left()) { return false; } if(bottom() < other.top()) { return false; } if(left() > other.right()) { return false; } if(top() > other.bottom()) { return false; } if(other.getAngle() == 0.0f && getAngle() == 0.0f) { return true; } return overlaps1Way(other) && other.overlaps1Way(this); } public Vector2D getCenter() { return center; } public float getWidth() { return extents.x * 2; } public float getHeight() { return extents.y * 2; } public void setAngle(float angle) { set(center,getWidth(),getHeight(),angle); } public float getAngle() { return angle; } public void setSize(float w,float h) { set(center,w,h,angle); } public float left() { return boundingRect.left; } public float right() { return boundingRect.right; } public float bottom() { return boundingRect.bottom; } public float top() { return boundingRect.top; } public RectF getBoundingRect() { return boundingRect; } public boolean overlaps(float left, float top, float right, float bottom) { if(right() < left) { return false; } if(bottom() < top) { return false; } if(left() > right) { return false; } if(top() > bottom) { return false; } return true; } }; What I do is when I predict a hit on the car, I force it back. It does not work that well and seems like a bad idea. What could I do to have more proper collision resolution. Such that if I hit a wall I will never get stuck in it and if I hit the side of a wall I can steer my way out of it. Thanks I found this nice ppt. It talks about pulling objects apart and calculating new velocities. How could I calc new velocities in my case? http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CC8QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoitweb.uncc.edu%2F~tbarnes2%2FGameDesignFall05%2FSlides%2FCh4.2-CollDet.ppt&ei=x4ucULy5M6-N0QGRy4D4Cg&usg=AFQjCNG7FVDXWRdLv8_-T5qnFyYld53cTQ&cad=rja

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  • Syncing Data with a Server using Silverlight and HTTP Polling Duplex

    - by dwahlin
    Many applications have the need to stay in-sync with data provided by a service. Although web applications typically rely on standard polling techniques to check if data has changed, Silverlight provides several interesting options for keeping an application in-sync that rely on server “push” technologies. A few years back I wrote several blog posts covering different “push” technologies available in Silverlight that rely on sockets or HTTP Polling Duplex. We recently had a project that looked like it could benefit from pushing data from a server to one or more clients so I thought I’d revisit the subject and provide some updates to the original code posted. If you’ve worked with AJAX before in Web applications then you know that until browsers fully support web sockets or other duplex (bi-directional communication) technologies that it’s difficult to keep applications in-sync with a server without relying on polling. The problem with polling is that you have to check for changes on the server on a timed-basis which can often be wasteful and take up unnecessary resources. With server “push” technologies, data can be pushed from the server to the client as it changes. Once the data is received, the client can update the user interface as appropriate. Using “push” technologies allows the client to listen for changes from the data but stay 100% focused on client activities as opposed to worrying about polling and asking the server if anything has changed. Silverlight provides several options for pushing data from a server to a client including sockets, TCP bindings and HTTP Polling Duplex.  Each has its own strengths and weaknesses as far as performance and setup work with HTTP Polling Duplex arguably being the easiest to setup and get going.  In this article I’ll demonstrate how HTTP Polling Duplex can be used in Silverlight 4 applications to push data and show how you can create a WCF server that provides an HTTP Polling Duplex binding that a Silverlight client can consume.   What is HTTP Polling Duplex? Technologies that allow data to be pushed from a server to a client rely on duplex functionality. Duplex (or bi-directional) communication allows data to be passed in both directions.  A client can call a service and the server can call the client. HTTP Polling Duplex (as its name implies) allows a server to communicate with a client without forcing the client to constantly poll the server. It has the benefit of being able to run on port 80 making setup a breeze compared to the other options which require specific ports to be used and cross-domain policy files to be exposed on port 943 (as with sockets and TCP bindings). Having said that, if you’re looking for the best speed possible then sockets and TCP bindings are the way to go. But, they’re not the only game in town when it comes to duplex communication. The first time I heard about HTTP Polling Duplex (initially available in Silverlight 2) I wasn’t exactly sure how it was any better than standard polling used in AJAX applications. I read the Silverlight SDK, looked at various resources and generally found the following definition unhelpful as far as understanding the actual benefits that HTTP Polling Duplex provided: "The Silverlight client periodically polls the service on the network layer, and checks for any new messages that the service wants to send on the callback channel. The service queues all messages sent on the client callback channel and delivers them to the client when the client polls the service." Although the previous definition explained the overall process, it sounded as if standard polling was used. Fortunately, Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie provided me with a more clear definition several years back that explains the benefits provided by HTTP Polling Duplex quite well (used with his permission): "The [HTTP Polling Duplex] duplex support does use polling in the background to implement notifications – although the way it does it is different than manual polling. It initiates a network request, and then the request is effectively “put to sleep” waiting for the server to respond (it doesn’t come back immediately). The server then keeps the connection open but not active until it has something to send back (or the connection times out after 90 seconds – at which point the duplex client will connect again and wait). This way you are avoiding hitting the server repeatedly – but still get an immediate response when there is data to send." After hearing Scott’s definition the light bulb went on and it all made sense. A client makes a request to a server to check for changes, but instead of the request returning immediately, it parks itself on the server and waits for data. It’s kind of like waiting to pick up a pizza at the store. Instead of calling the store over and over to check the status, you sit in the store and wait until the pizza (the request data) is ready. Once it’s ready you take it back home (to the client). This technique provides a lot of efficiency gains over standard polling techniques even though it does use some polling of its own as a request is initially made from a client to a server. So how do you implement HTTP Polling Duplex in your Silverlight applications? Let’s take a look at the process by starting with the server. Creating an HTTP Polling Duplex WCF Service Creating a WCF service that exposes an HTTP Polling Duplex binding is straightforward as far as coding goes. Add some one way operations into an interface, create a client callback interface and you’re ready to go. The most challenging part comes into play when configuring the service to properly support the necessary binding and that’s more of a cut and paste operation once you know the configuration code to use. To create an HTTP Polling Duplex service you’ll need to expose server-side and client-side interfaces and reference the System.ServiceModel.PollingDuplex assembly (located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Silverlight\v4.0\Libraries\Server on my machine) in the server project. For the demo application I upgraded a basketball simulation service to support the latest polling duplex assemblies. The service simulates a simple basketball game using a Game class and pushes information about the game such as score, fouls, shots and more to the client as the game changes over time. Before jumping too far into the game push service, it’s important to discuss two interfaces used by the service to communicate in a bi-directional manner. The first is called IGameStreamService and defines the methods/operations that the client can call on the server (see Listing 1). The second is IGameStreamClient which defines the callback methods that a server can use to communicate with a client (see Listing 2).   [ServiceContract(Namespace = "Silverlight", CallbackContract = typeof(IGameStreamClient))] public interface IGameStreamService { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void GetTeamData(); } Listing 1. The IGameStreamService interface defines server operations that can be called on the server.   [ServiceContract] public interface IGameStreamClient { [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true)] void ReceiveTeamData(List<Team> teamData); [OperationContract(IsOneWay = true, AsyncPattern=true)] IAsyncResult BeginReceiveGameData(GameData gameData, AsyncCallback callback, object state); void EndReceiveGameData(IAsyncResult result); } Listing 2. The IGameStreamClient interfaces defines client operations that a server can call.   The IGameStreamService interface is decorated with the standard ServiceContract attribute but also contains a value for the CallbackContract property.  This property is used to define the interface that the client will expose (IGameStreamClient in this example) and use to receive data pushed from the service. Notice that each OperationContract attribute in both interfaces sets the IsOneWay property to true. This means that the operation can be called and passed data as appropriate, however, no data will be passed back. Instead, data will be pushed back to the client as it’s available.  Looking through the IGameStreamService interface you can see that the client can request team data whereas the IGameStreamClient interface allows team and game data to be received by the client. One interesting point about the IGameStreamClient interface is the inclusion of the AsyncPattern property on the BeginReceiveGameData operation. I initially created this operation as a standard one way operation and it worked most of the time. However, as I disconnected clients and reconnected new ones game data wasn’t being passed properly. After researching the problem more I realized that because the service could take up to 7 seconds to return game data, things were getting hung up. By setting the AsyncPattern property to true on the BeginReceivedGameData operation and providing a corresponding EndReceiveGameData operation I was able to get around this problem and get everything running properly. I’ll provide more details on the implementation of these two methods later in this post. Once the interfaces were created I moved on to the game service class. The first order of business was to create a class that implemented the IGameStreamService interface. Since the service can be used by multiple clients wanting game data I added the ServiceBehavior attribute to the class definition so that I could set its InstanceContextMode to InstanceContextMode.Single (in effect creating a Singleton service object). Listing 3 shows the game service class as well as its fields and constructor.   [ServiceBehavior(ConcurrencyMode = ConcurrencyMode.Multiple, InstanceContextMode = InstanceContextMode.Single)] public class GameStreamService : IGameStreamService { object _Key = new object(); Game _Game = null; Timer _Timer = null; Random _Random = null; Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient> _ClientCallbacks = new Dictionary<string, IGameStreamClient>(); static AsyncCallback _ReceiveGameDataCompleted = new AsyncCallback(ReceiveGameDataCompleted); public GameStreamService() { _Game = new Game(); _Timer = new Timer { Enabled = false, Interval = 2000, AutoReset = true }; _Timer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(_Timer_Elapsed); _Timer.Start(); _Random = new Random(); }} Listing 3. The GameStreamService implements the IGameStreamService interface which defines a callback contract that allows the service class to push data back to the client. By implementing the IGameStreamService interface, GameStreamService must supply a GetTeamData() method which is responsible for supplying information about the teams that are playing as well as individual players.  GetTeamData() also acts as a client subscription method that tracks clients wanting to receive game data.  Listing 4 shows the GetTeamData() method. public void GetTeamData() { //Get client callback channel var context = OperationContext.Current; var sessionID = context.SessionId; var currClient = context.GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>(); context.Channel.Faulted += Disconnect; context.Channel.Closed += Disconnect; IGameStreamClient client; if (!_ClientCallbacks.TryGetValue(sessionID, out client)) { lock (_Key) { _ClientCallbacks[sessionID] = currClient; } } currClient.ReceiveTeamData(_Game.GetTeamData()); //Start timer which when fired sends updated score information to client if (!_Timer.Enabled) { _Timer.Enabled = true; } } Listing 4. The GetTeamData() method subscribes a given client to the game service and returns. The key the line of code in the GetTeamData() method is the call to GetCallbackChannel<IGameStreamClient>().  This method is responsible for accessing the calling client’s callback channel. The callback channel is defined by the IGameStreamClient interface shown earlier in Listing 2 and used by the server to communicate with the client. Before passing team data back to the client, GetTeamData() grabs the client’s session ID and checks if it already exists in the _ClientCallbacks dictionary object used to track clients wanting callbacks from the server. If the client doesn’t exist it adds it into the collection. It then pushes team data from the Game class back to the client by calling ReceiveTeamData().  Since the service simulates a basketball game, a timer is then started if it’s not already enabled which is then used to randomly send data to the client. When the timer fires, game data is pushed down to the client. Listing 5 shows the _Timer_Elapsed() method that is called when the timer fires as well as the SendGameData() method used to send data to the client. void _Timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { int interval = _Random.Next(3000, 7000); lock (_Key) { _Timer.Interval = interval; _Timer.Enabled = false; } SendGameData(_Game.GetGameData()); } private void SendGameData(GameData gameData) { var cbs = _ClientCallbacks.Where(cb => ((IContextChannel)cb.Value).State == CommunicationState.Opened); for (int i = 0; i < cbs.Count(); i++) { var cb = cbs.ElementAt(i).Value; try { cb.BeginReceiveGameData(gameData, _ReceiveGameDataCompleted, cb); } catch (TimeoutException texp) { //Log timeout error } catch (CommunicationException cexp) { //Log communication error } } lock (_Key) _Timer.Enabled = true; } private static void ReceiveGameDataCompleted(IAsyncResult result) { try { ((IGameStreamClient)(result.AsyncState)).EndReceiveGameData(result); } catch (CommunicationException) { // empty } catch (TimeoutException) { // empty } } LIsting 5. _Timer_Elapsed is used to simulate time in a basketball game. When _Timer_Elapsed() fires the SendGameData() method is called which iterates through the clients wanting to be notified of changes. As each client is identified, their respective BeginReceiveGameData() method is called which ultimately pushes game data down to the client. Recall that this method was defined in the client callback interface named IGameStreamClient shown earlier in Listing 2. Notice that BeginReceiveGameData() accepts _ReceiveGameDataCompleted as its second parameter (an AsyncCallback delegate defined in the service class) and passes the client callback as the third parameter. The initial version of the sample application had a standard ReceiveGameData() method in the client callback interface. However, sometimes the client callbacks would work properly and sometimes they wouldn’t which was a little baffling at first glance. After some investigation I realized that I needed to implement an asynchronous pattern for client callbacks to work properly since 3 – 7 second delays are occurring as a result of the timer. Once I added the BeginReceiveGameData() and ReceiveGameDataCompleted() methods everything worked properly since each call was handled in an asynchronous manner. The final task that had to be completed to get the server working properly with HTTP Polling Duplex was adding configuration code into web.config. In the interest of brevity I won’t post all of the code here since the sample application includes everything you need. However, Listing 6 shows the key configuration code to handle creating a custom binding named pollingDuplexBinding and associate it with the service’s endpoint.   <bindings> <customBinding> <binding name="pollingDuplexBinding"> <binaryMessageEncoding /> <pollingDuplex maxPendingSessions="2147483647" maxPendingMessagesPerSession="2147483647" inactivityTimeout="02:00:00" serverPollTimeout="00:05:00"/> <httpTransport /> </binding> </customBinding> </bindings> <services> <service name="GameService.GameStreamService" behaviorConfiguration="GameStreamServiceBehavior"> <endpoint address="" binding="customBinding" bindingConfiguration="pollingDuplexBinding" contract="GameService.IGameStreamService"/> <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange" /> </service> </services>   Listing 6. Configuring an HTTP Polling Duplex binding in web.config and associating an endpoint with it. Calling the Service and Receiving “Pushed” Data Calling the service and handling data that is pushed from the server is a simple and straightforward process in Silverlight. Since the service is configured with a MEX endpoint and exposes a WSDL file, you can right-click on the Silverlight project and select the standard Add Service Reference item. After the web service proxy is created you may notice that the ServiceReferences.ClientConfig file only contains an empty configuration element instead of the normal configuration elements created when creating a standard WCF proxy. You can certainly update the file if you want to read from it at runtime but for the sample application I fed the service URI directly to the service proxy as shown next: var address = new EndpointAddress("http://localhost.:5661/GameStreamService.svc"); var binding = new PollingDuplexHttpBinding(); _Proxy = new GameStreamServiceClient(binding, address); _Proxy.ReceiveTeamDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveTeamDataReceived; _Proxy.ReceiveGameDataReceived += _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived; _Proxy.GetTeamDataAsync(); This code creates the proxy and passes the endpoint address and binding to use to its constructor. It then wires the different receive events to callback methods and calls GetTeamDataAsync().  Calling GetTeamDataAsync() causes the server to store the client in the server-side dictionary collection mentioned earlier so that it can receive data that is pushed.  As the server-side timer fires and game data is pushed to the client, the user interface is updated as shown in Listing 7. Listing 8 shows the _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method responsible for handling the data and calling UpdateGameData() to process it.   Listing 7. The Silverlight interface. Game data is pushed from the server to the client using HTTP Polling Duplex. void _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived(object sender, ReceiveGameDataReceivedEventArgs e) { UpdateGameData(e.gameData); } private void UpdateGameData(GameData gameData) { //Update Score this.tbTeam1Score.Text = gameData.Team1Score.ToString(); this.tbTeam2Score.Text = gameData.Team2Score.ToString(); //Update ball visibility if (gameData.Action != ActionsEnum.Foul) { if (tbTeam1.Text == gameData.TeamOnOffense) { AnimateBall(this.BB1, this.BB2); } else //Team 2 { AnimateBall(this.BB2, this.BB1); } } if (this.lbActions.Items.Count > 9) this.lbActions.Items.Clear(); this.lbActions.Items.Add(gameData.LastAction); if (this.lbActions.Visibility == Visibility.Collapsed) this.lbActions.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; } private void AnimateBall(Image onBall, Image offBall) { this.FadeIn.Stop(); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeInAnimation, onBall); Storyboard.SetTarget(this.FadeOutAnimation, offBall); this.FadeIn.Begin(); } Listing 8. As the server pushes game data, the client’s _Proxy_ReceiveGameDataReceived() method is called to process the data. In a real-life application I’d go with a ViewModel class to handle retrieving team data, setup data bindings and handle data that is pushed from the server. However, for the sample application I wanted to focus on HTTP Polling Duplex and keep things as simple as possible.   Summary Silverlight supports three options when duplex communication is required in an application including TCP bindins, sockets and HTTP Polling Duplex. In this post you’ve seen how HTTP Polling Duplex interfaces can be created and implemented on the server as well as how they can be consumed by a Silverlight client. HTTP Polling Duplex provides a nice way to “push” data from a server while still allowing the data to flow over port 80 or another port of your choice.   Sample Application Download

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