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  • Check network connection type

    - by Jufkey
    Hello, How can I programmatically retrieve the current connection type (eg. LAN or Direct connection). InternetGetConnectedState(&ConTypeRet, 0) isn't very reliable. For instance, I'm connected to a wireless network, but ConTypeRet is 18 which is INTERNET_CONNECTION_LAN & INTERNET_RAS_INSTALLED. Isn't there anyway to make sure that ConTypeRet is either INTERNET_CONNECTION_LAN or INTERNET_CONNECTION_MODEM

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  • iPhone to host server to mySQL and back?

    - by ronbowalker
    Can someone please direct me to process for doing this? I have already done the Login verification exercise using mySQL for the dbase on my host server (thanks to kiksy). Now I am trying to move forward and "Query" from the iPhone a list of "users" that currently occupy the table (iphoneusers) in MySQL. And of course get it back to the iPhone via the php connection. Any help would be very much appreciated. ronbowalker

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  • Dropbox links in a Phonegap app (Android)

    - by genericatz
    I try to create downloadable links to files which can be downloaded directly after clicking the link. I added "dl" instead of "www" and "?dl=1" in the end of the dropbox link (dropbox api: directly download files). The direct download works perfectly in the chrome browser but if I package the app which phonegap and click on the same link whithin the resulting app the file will not be downloaded. Is this not possible whithin the adroid browser or do I have to modify some android browser preferences?

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  • Ubuntu 10.10 Ad-Hoc Setup (from Wireless Router, to Ubuntu Server/Desktop to Wireless Router)

    - by user60375
    Okay, so I know there are different approaches for this, but I will explain my story briefly before getting to the technical stuff. My fiancée and I are going through some financial issues (as I assume a lot of us are). We ended up having to move from our house and stay with some friends/family for 6 months, just to get ourselves caught up. (Medical bills, among other issues,etc). So this is where it gets fun. At our friends house, we are staying in the loft setup which is not near the cable modem and wireless router. I have a "hand-crafted" media center running XBMC, an Ubuntu 10.10 Server/Desktop (multi-purpose, very powerful and tons drive space), two working laptops, a between the two of us we have multiple wireless devices/phones. Now our friends Wireless router doesn't have any options for assigning IP addresses, but my router does. My current setup is: Friends Cable Modem -- Friend's Wireless Router -- Ubuntu 10.10 Server -- My Wireless Router (local-link from Friend's wireless (incoming) to sharing connection on ETH0 (outgoing)) -- to all devices. (Wireless Modem, Ubuntu Server that share's it's wireless incoming connection to the ethernet port my Wireless router share's with the rest of the devices). I setup my router to use default settings from my friend's router, using Google's DNS on my router (disabled DNS setup on Ubuntu Server), everything is assigned nicely and runs smooth. My Ubuntu server was given the address 10.42.43.1 (assuming standard from Network-Manager). (On the Ubuntu machine that shares to my wireless router; I have some server apps installed, but mainly just use Samba/NFS/Tangerine action. My problem/goal is that every device has no problem of accessing the internet from my router, the media-center has an assigned ip address, all services from all devices (ZeroConf, Avanhi, Bonjour, GIT, SSH, FTP, Apache2, etc) all work correctly except from my Ubuntu Server (which serves the wireless connection to ETH0 to another Wireless Router). The Ubuntu 10.10 Server/Desktop is not broadcasting anything (the Zeroconf Service Discovery 0.4 Gnome Applet shows the services from the Ubuntu server but no other computers can see them). I can access it from my Media-Center (Running Xbuntu 10.04) if I direct it to 10.42.43.1, no problem. But I cannot access Tangerine (Daapd) and the Samba shares do not show up on any computers for 10.42.43.1 (not in the WORKGROUP which Samba is setup simple and default but I can direct computers to that address and the shares will add except on a damn Windows 7 parition). Is this an issue with how I have my router setup and possible the gateway? An issue with Network-Manager? And issue with my Ubuntu Server/Desktop? I know there is a lot to that, but it's simpler than I probably have explained? Any help would be appreciated. If you need more details, I can provide them. If there is a better way of my attempting this home-network, please let me know. Thanks in advance for the help.

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  • nginx proxying websockets, must be missing something

    - by CodeMonkey
    I have a basic chat app written in node.js using express and socket.io; it works fine when connecting directly to node on port 3000 But doesn't work when I try to use nginx v1.4.2 as a proxy. I start off using the connection map map $http_upgrade $connection_upgrade { default upgrade; '' close; } Then add the locations location /socket.io/ { proxy_pass http://node; proxy_redirect off; proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Request-Id $txid; proxy_set_header X-Session-Id $uid_set+$uid_got; proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade; proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade; proxy_buffering off; proxy_read_timeout 86400; keepalive_timeout 90; proxy_cache off; access_log /var/log/nginx/webservice.access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/webservice.error.log; } location /web-service/ { proxy_pass http://node; proxy_redirect off; proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Request-Id $txid; proxy_set_header X-Session-Id $uid_set+$uid_got; proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade; proxy_set_header Connection $connection_upgrade; proxy_buffering off; proxy_read_timeout 86400; keepalive_timeout 90; access_log /var/log/nginx/webservice.access.log; error_log /var/log/nginx/webservice.error.log; rewrite /web-service/(.*) /$1 break; proxy_cache off; } These are built up using all of the tips to get it working that I could find. The error log does not show any errors. (except when I stop node to test the error logging is working) When through nginx I do see a websocket connection in the dev tools, with the status of 101; but the frames tab under the resuects is empty. The only differnece I can see in the response headers is a case difference - "upgrade" vs "Upgrade" - through nginx : Connection:upgrade Date:Fri, 08 Nov 2013 11:49:25 GMT Sec-WebSocket-Accept:LGB+iEBb8Ql9zYfqNfuuXzdzjgg= Server:nginx/1.4.2 Upgrade:websocket direct from node Connection:Upgrade Sec-WebSocket-Accept:8nwPpvg+4wKMOyQBEvxWXutd8YY= Upgrade:websocket output from node (when used through nginx) debug - served static content /socket.io.js debug - client authorized info - handshake authorized iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1 debug - setting request GET /socket.io/1/websocket/iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1 debug - set heartbeat interval for client iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1 debug - client authorized for debug - websocket writing 1:: debug - websocket writing 5:::{"name":"message","args":[{"message":"welcome to the chat"}]} debug - clearing poll timeout debug - jsonppolling writing io.j[0]("8::"); debug - set close timeout for client 7My3F4CuvZC0I4Olhybz debug - jsonppolling closed due to exceeded duration debug - clearing poll timeout debug - jsonppolling writing io.j[0]("8::"); debug - set close timeout for client AkCYl0nWNZAHeyUihyb0 debug - jsonppolling closed due to exceeded duration debug - setting request GET /socket.io/1/xhr-polling/iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1?t=1383911206158 debug - setting poll timeout debug - discarding transport debug - cleared heartbeat interval for client iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1 debug - setting request GET /socket.io/1/jsonp-polling/iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1?t=1383911216160&i=0 debug - setting poll timeout debug - discarding transport debug - clearing poll timeout debug - clearing poll timeout debug - jsonppolling writing io.j[0]("8::"); debug - set close timeout for client iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1 debug - jsonppolling closed due to exceeded duration debug - setting request GET /socket.io/1/jsonp-polling/iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1?t=1383911236429&i=0 debug - setting poll timeout debug - discarding transport debug - cleared close timeout for client iaej2VQlsbLFIhachyb1 when direct to node, the client does not start polling. The normal http stuff node outputs works fine with nginx. Clearly something I am not seeing, but I am stuck, thanks :)

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  • Ubuntu 9.10 and Squid 2.7 Transparent Proxy TCP_DENIED

    - by user38400
    Hi, We've spent the last two days trying to get squid 2.7 to work with ubuntu 9.10. The computer running ubuntu has two network interfaces: eth0 and eth1 with dhcp running on eth1. Both interfaces have static ip's, eth0 is connected to the Internet and eth1 is connected to our LAN. We have followed literally dozens of different tutorials with no success. The tutorial here was the last one we did that actually got us some sort of results: http://www.basicconfig.com/linuxnetwork/setup_ubuntu_squid_proxy_server_beginner_guide. When we try to access a site like seriouswheels.com from the LAN we get the following message on the client machine: ERROR The requested URL could not be retrieved Invalid Request error was encountered while trying to process the request: GET / HTTP/1.1 Host: www.seriouswheels.com Connection: keep-alive User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/5.0.307.11 Safari/532.9 Cache-Control: max-age=0 Accept: application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,/;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch Cookie: __utmz=88947353.1269218405.1.1.utmccn=(direct)|utmcsr=(direct)|utmcmd=(none); __qca=P0-1052556952-1269218405250; __utma=88947353.1027590811.1269218405.1269218405.1269218405.1; __qseg=Q_D Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8 Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3 Some possible problems are: Missing or unknown request method. Missing URL. Missing HTTP Identifier (HTTP/1.0). Request is too large. Content-Length missing for POST or PUT requests. Illegal character in hostname; underscores are not allowed. Your cache administrator is webmaster. Below are all the configuration files: /etc/squid/squid.conf, /etc/network/if-up.d/00-firewall, /etc/network/interfaces, /var/log/squid/access.log. Something somewhere is wrong but we cannot figure out where. Our end goal for all of this is the superimpose content onto every page that a client requests on the LAN. We've been told that squid is the way to do this but at this point in the game we are just trying to get squid setup correctly as our proxy. Thanks in advance. squid.conf acl all src all acl manager proto cache_object acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/32 acl to_localhost dst 127.0.0.0/8 acl localnet src 192.168.0.0/24 acl SSL_ports port 443 # https acl SSL_ports port 563 # snews acl SSL_ports port 873 # rsync acl Safe_ports port 80 # http acl Safe_ports port 21 # ftp acl Safe_ports port 443 # https acl Safe_ports port 70 # gopher acl Safe_ports port 210 # wais acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535 # unregistered ports acl Safe_ports port 280 # http-mgmt acl Safe_ports port 488 # gss-http acl Safe_ports port 591 # filemaker acl Safe_ports port 777 # multiling http acl Safe_ports port 631 # cups acl Safe_ports port 873 # rsync acl Safe_ports port 901 # SWAT acl purge method PURGE acl CONNECT method CONNECT http_access allow manager localhost http_access deny manager http_access allow purge localhost http_access deny purge http_access deny !Safe_ports http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports http_access allow localhost http_access allow localnet http_access deny all icp_access allow localnet icp_access deny all http_port 3128 hierarchy_stoplist cgi-bin ? cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid/cache1 1000 16 256 access_log /var/log/squid/access.log squid refresh_pattern ^ftp: 1440 20% 10080 refresh_pattern ^gopher: 1440 0% 1440 refresh_pattern -i (/cgi-bin/|\?) 0 0% 0 refresh_pattern (Release|Package(.gz)*)$ 0 20% 2880 refresh_pattern . 0 20% 4320 acl shoutcast rep_header X-HTTP09-First-Line ^ICY.[0-9] upgrade_http0.9 deny shoutcast acl apache rep_header Server ^Apache broken_vary_encoding allow apache extension_methods REPORT MERGE MKACTIVITY CHECKOUT cache_mgr webmaster cache_effective_user proxy cache_effective_group proxy hosts_file /etc/hosts coredump_dir /var/spool/squid access.log 1269243042.740 0 192.168.1.11 TCP_DENIED/400 2576 GET NONE:// - NONE/- text/html 00-firewall iptables -F iptables -t nat -F iptables -t mangle -F iptables -X echo 1 | tee /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -j MASQUERADE iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 3128 networking auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 142.104.109.179 netmask 255.255.224.0 gateway 142.104.127.254 auto eth1 iface eth1 inet static address 192.168.1.100 netmask 255.255.255.0

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  • Network authentication + roaming home directory - which technology should I look into using?

    - by Brian
    I'm looking into software which provides a user with a single identity across multiple computers. That is, a user should have the same permissions on each computer, and the user should have access to all of his or her files (roaming home directory) on each computer. There seem to be many solutions for this general idea, but I'm trying to determine the best one for me. Here are some details along with requirements: The network of machines are Amazon EC2 instances running Ubuntu. We access the machines with SSH. Some machines on this LAN may have different uses, but I am only discussing machines for a certain use (running a multi-tenancy platform). The system will not necessarily have a constant amount of machines. We may have to permanently or temporarily alter the amount of machines running. This is the the reason why I'm looking into centralized authentication/storage. The implementation of this effect should be a secure one. We're unsure if users will have direct shell access, but their software will potentially be running (under restricted Linux user names, of course) on our systems, which is as good as direct shell access. Let's assume that their software could potentially be malicious for the sake of security. I have heard of several technologies/combinations to achieve my goal, but I'm unsure of the ramifications of each. An older ServerFault post recommended NFS & NIS, though the combination has security problems according to this old article by Symantec. The article suggests moving to NIS+, but, as it is old, this Wikipedia article has cited statements suggesting a trending away from NIS+ by Sun. The recommended replacement is another thing I have heard of... LDAP. It looks like LDAP can be used to save user information in a centralized location on a network. NFS would still need to be used to cover the 'roaming home folder' requirement, but I see references of them being used together. Since the Symantec article pointed out security problems in both NIS and NFS, is there software to replace NFS, or should I heed that article's suggestions for locking it down? I'm tending toward LDAP because another fundamental piece of our architecture, RabbitMQ, has a authentication/authorization plugin for LDAP. RabbitMQ will be accessible in a restricted manner to users on the system, so I would like to tie the security systems together if possible. Kerberos is another secure authentication protocol that I have heard of. I learned a bit about it some years ago in a cryptography class but don't remember much about it. I have seen suggestions online that it can be combined with LDAP in several ways. Is this necessary? What are the security risks of LDAP without Kerberos? I also remember Kerberos being used in another piece of software developed by Carnegie Mellon University... Andrew File System, or AFS. OpenAFS is available for use, though its setup seems a bit complicated. At my university, AFS provides both requirements... I can log in to any machine, and my "AFS folder" is always available (at least when I acquire an AFS token). Along with suggestions for which path I should look into, does anybody have any guides which were particularly helpful? As the bold text pointed out, LDAP looks to be the best choice, but I'm particularly interested in the implementation details (Keberos? NFS?) with respect to security.

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  • Xen kernel can't see 2 disks of 6 of 1TB, does it have a limitation?

    - by PartySoft
    Linux gentoo-xen 2.6.18-xen-r12 #3 SMP Tue Oct 5 09:28:53 PDT 2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5506 @ 2.13GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux I have 6 disks of 1 TB and i can't see all of them only 4, can anyone give me an ideea what can i do ? Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on rootfs 886G 4.4G 836G 1% / /dev/sda3 886G 4.4G 836G 1% / rc-svcdir 1.0M 44K 980K 5% /lib64/rc/init.d shm 7.9G 0 7.9G 0% /dev/shm /dev/sdb1 917G 200M 871G 1% /home2 /dev/sdc1 917G 200M 871G 1% /home3 /dev/sdd1 917G 200M 871G 1% /home4 The hardware is Dual xeon E5506 processors on a supermicro X8DTL mobo 4.346585] ata3.00: ATA-8, max UDMA/133, 1953525168 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) [ 4.346588] ata3.00: ata3: dev 0 multi count 16 [ 4.352861] ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133 [ 4.352867] scsi3 : ata_piix [ 4.352875] PM: Adding info for No Bus:host3 [ 4.510584] ata4.00: ATA-8, max UDMA/133, 1953525168 sectors: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32) [ 4.510587] ata4.00: ata4: dev 0 multi count 16 [ 4.516848] ata4.00: configured for UDMA/133 [ 4.516861] PM: Adding info for No Bus:target2:0:0 [ 4.516905] Vendor: ATA Model: SAMSUNG HD103SJ Rev: 1AJ1 [ 4.516910] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 [ 4.516920] PM: Adding info for scsi:2:0:0:0 [ 4.517452] SCSI device sde: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.517460] sde: Write Protect is off [ 4.517461] sde: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.517478] SCSI device sde: drive cache: write back [ 4.517514] SCSI device sde: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.517521] sde: Write Protect is off [ 4.517522] sde: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.517532] SCSI device sde: drive cache: write back [ 4.517534] sde: sde1 [ 4.524551] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sde [ 4.524855] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg4 type 0 [ 4.524874] PM: Adding info for No Bus:target3:0:0 [ 4.524928] Vendor: ATA Model: SAMSUNG HD103SJ Rev: 1AJ1 [ 4.524933] Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05 [ 4.524946] PM: Adding info for scsi:3:0:0:0 [ 4.525216] SCSI device sdf: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.525227] sdf: Write Protect is off [ 4.525228] sdf: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.525242] SCSI device sdf: drive cache: write back [ 4.525280] SCSI device sdf: 1953525168 512-byte hdwr sectors (1000205 MB) [ 4.525286] sdf: Write Protect is off [ 4.525289] sdf: Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00 [ 4.525301] SCSI device sdf: drive cache: write back [ 4.525302] sdf: sdf1 [ 4.532691] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdf [ 4.533010] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0 [ 4.977669] scsi: <fdomain> Detection failed (no card) [ 5.030479] GDT-HA: Storage RAID Controller Driver. Version: 3.05 [ 5.030635] GDT-HA: Found 0 PCI Storage RAID Controllers [ 5.372350] Fusion MPT base driver 3.04.01 [ 5.372358] Copyright (c) 1999-2005 LSI Logic Corporation [ 5.579176] Fusion MPT SPI Host driver 3.04.01 [ 5.881777] ieee1394: Initialized config rom entry `ip1394' [ 6.166745] ieee1394: sbp2: Driver forced to serialize I/O (serialize_io=1) [ 6.166748] ieee1394: sbp2: Try serialize_io=0 for better performance [ 6.428866] md: md driver 0.90.3 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27 [ 6.428872] md: bitmap version 4.39 [ 6.431518] md: raid0 personality registered for level 0 [ 6.495979] md: raid1 personality registered for level 1 [ 6.570270] raid5: automatically using best checksumming function: generic_sse [ 6.575523] generic_sse: 6608.000 MB/sec [ 6.575526] raid5: using function: generic_sse (6608.000 MB/sec) [ 6.596226] raid6: int64x1 1835 MB/s [ 6.613231] raid6: int64x2 1773 MB/s [ 6.630256] raid6: int64x4 1675 MB/s [ 6.647296] raid6: int64x8 1027 MB/s [ 6.664267] raid6: sse2x1 3578 MB/s [ 6.681268] raid6: sse2x2 4207 MB/s [ 6.698280] raid6: sse2x4 4625 MB/s [ 6.698281] raid6: using algorithm sse2x4 (4625 MB/s) [ 6.698285] md: raid6 personality registered for level 6 [ 6.698286] md: raid5 personality registered for level 5 [ 6.698288] md: raid4 personality registered for level 4 [ 6.781090] md: raid10 personality registered for level 10 [ 7.007043] Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.1.9-k4 [ 7.007046] Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation. [ 9.229465] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds [ 9.229476] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

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  • Having Hotlink Protectin problem in nginx

    - by Ayaz Malik
    Hello, i am having image hotlink protection problem in my nginx need help. i have a huge issue of my site's images being submited to social networks like stumbleupon with direct link ... xxxxx.jpg which some times get huge traffic and increases cpu usage plus bandwidth usage. what i am trying to do is block direct access to image from other refrers and hotlink protection. Here is the code from my vhost.conf server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } So for hotlink protection i added this code : location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } This is how the current nginx code for this domain looks like but didn't worked: server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } Thank you in advance :) cheers

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  • Trouble in Nginx hotlink protection

    - by Ayaz Malik
    I am trying to implement image hotlink protection problem in nginx and I need help. I have a huge issue of my site's images being submitted to social networks like StumbleUpon with a direct link like http://example.com/xxxxx.jpg Which sometimes gets huge traffic and increases CPU usage and bandwidth usage. I want to block direct access to my images from other referrers and protect them from being hotlinked. Here is the code from my vhost.conf server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } For hotlink protection I added this code location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } This is the current nginx code for this domain, but it didn't work: server { access_log off; error_log logs/vhost-error_log warn; listen 80; server_name mydomain.com www.mydomain.com; # uncomment location below to make nginx serve static files instead of Apache # NOTE this will cause issues with bandwidth accounting as files wont be logged location ~* \.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|wmv|avi|mpg|mpeg|mp4|htm|html|js|css)$ { root /home/username/public_html; expires 1d; } root /home/mydomain/public_html; } location ~* (\.jpg|\.png|\.gif|\.jpeg)$ { valid_referers blocked www.mydomain.com mydomain.com; if ($invalid_referer) { return 403; } location / { client_max_body_size 10m; client_body_buffer_size 128k; proxy_send_timeout 90; proxy_read_timeout 90; proxy_buffer_size 4k; # you can increase proxy_buffers here to suppress "an upstream response # is buffered to a temporary file" warning proxy_buffers 16 32k; proxy_busy_buffers_size 64k; proxy_temp_file_write_size 64k; proxy_connect_timeout 30s; proxy_redirect http://www.mydomain.com:81 http://www.mydomain.com; proxy_redirect http://mydomain.com:81 http://mydomain.com; proxy_pass http://ip_address/; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; expires 24h; } } How can I fix this?

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  • FFMPEG dropping frames while encoding JPEG sequence at color change

    - by Matt
    I'm trying to put together a slide show using imagemagick and FFMPEG. I use imagemagick to expand a single photo into 30fps video (imagemagick also handles things like putting some text captions on the frames along the way). When I go to let ffmpeg digest it into a video it clips along nicely on the color parts of the video, but when it gets to a black and white section it reports "frame= 2030 fps=102 q=32766.0 Lsize= 5203kB time=00:01:07.60 bitrate= 630.5kbits/s dup=0 drop=703" and drops every frame of video until it hits something with color. As you can imagine this results in entire photos being removed from the slideshow. Here is my latest dump... ffmpeg -y -r 30 -i "teststream/%06d.jpg" -c:v libx264 -r 30 newffmpeg.mp4 ffmpeg version git-2012-12-10-c3bb333 Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers built on Dec 10 2012 22:02:04 with gcc 4.6.1 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-libfaac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-librtmp --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-version3 libavutil 52. 12.100 / 52. 12.100 libavcodec 54. 79.101 / 54. 79.101 libavformat 54. 49.100 / 54. 49.100 libavdevice 54. 3.102 / 54. 3.102 libavfilter 3. 26.101 / 3. 26.101 libswscale 2. 1.103 / 2. 1.103 libswresample 0. 17.102 / 0. 17.102 libpostproc 52. 2.100 / 52. 2.100 Input #0, image2, from 'teststream/%06d.jpg': Duration: 00:12:02.80, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj444p, 720x480 [SAR 72:72 DAR 3:2], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc [libx264 @ 0x3450140] using SAR=1/1 [libx264 @ 0x3450140] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 FastShuffle SSE4.2 [libx264 @ 0x3450140] profile High, level 3.0 [libx264 @ 0x3450140] 264 - core 129 r2 1cffe9f - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2012 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=12 lookahead_threads=2 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00 Output #0, mp4, to 'newffmpeg.mp4': Metadata: encoder : Lavf54.49.100 Stream #0:0: Video: h264 ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuvj420p, 720x480 [SAR 1:1 DAR 3:2], q=-1--1, 15360 tbn, 30 tbc Stream mapping: Stream #0:0 - #0:0 (mjpeg - libx264) Press [q] to stop, [?] for help Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:720x480 fmt:yuvj444p to size:720x480 fmt:yuvj422p Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:720x480 fmt:yuvj422p to size:720x480 fmt:yuvj444pp=584 frame= 2030 fps=102 q=32766.0 Lsize= 5203kB time=00:01:07.60 bitrate= 630.5kbits/s dup=0 drop=703 video:5179kB audio:0kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.472425% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] frame I:9 Avg QP:20.10 size: 33933 [libx264 @ 0x3450140] frame P:636 Avg QP:24.12 size: 6737 [libx264 @ 0x3450140] frame B:1385 Avg QP:27.04 size: 514 [libx264 @ 0x3450140] consecutive B-frames: 2.5% 15.2% 13.2% 69.2% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] mb I I16..4: 8.3% 80.3% 11.5% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] mb P I16..4: 1.5% 2.5% 0.2% P16..4: 41.7% 18.0% 10.3% 0.0% 0.0% skip:25.9% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] mb B I16..4: 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% B16..8: 26.6% 0.6% 0.1% direct: 0.2% skip:72.3% L0:35.0% L1:60.3% BI: 4.7% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] 8x8 transform intra:64.1% inter:75.1% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 51.6% 78.0% 43.7% inter: 10.6% 14.9% 2.1% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] i16 v,h,dc,p: 29% 19% 6% 46% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 23% 15% 17% 5% 9% 10% 7% 8% 6% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 31% 18% 11% 5% 9% 10% 6% 6% 4% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] i8c dc,h,v,p: 46% 18% 24% 12% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] Weighted P-Frames: Y:20.1% UV:18.7% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] ref P L0: 59.2% 23.2% 13.1% 4.3% 0.2% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] ref B L0: 88.7% 8.3% 3.0% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] ref B L1: 95.0% 5.0% [libx264 @ 0x3450140] kb/s:626.88 Received signal 2: terminating. One last note: If I remove the -r 30 from the input and output it works flawlessly. I have no idea why the -r 30 is causing it to freak out.

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  • Building applications with WPF, MVVM and Prism(aka CAG)

    - by skjagini
    In this article I am going to walk through an application using WPF and Prism (aka composite application guidance, CAG) which simulates engaging a taxi (cab).  The rules are simple, the app would have3 screens A login screen to authenticate the user An information screen. A screen to engage the cab and roam around and calculating the total fare Metered Rate of Fare The meter is required to be engaged when a cab is occupied by anyone $3.00 upon entry $0.35 for each additional unit The unit fare is: one-fifth of a mile, when the cab is traveling at 6 miles an hour or more; or 60 seconds when not in motion or traveling at less than 12 miles per hour. Night surcharge of $.50 after 8:00 PM & before 6:00 AM Peak hour Weekday Surcharge of $1.00 Monday - Friday after 4:00 PM & before 8:00 PM New York State Tax Surcharge of $.50 per ride. Example: Friday (2010-10-08) 5:30pm Start at Lexington Ave & E 57th St End at Irving Pl & E 15th St Start = $3.00 Travels 2 miles at less than 6 mph for 15 minutes = $3.50 Travels at more than 12 mph for 5 minutes = $1.75 Peak hour Weekday Surcharge = $1.00 (ride started at 5:30 pm) New York State Tax Surcharge = $0.50 Before we dive into the app, I would like to give brief description about the framework.  If you want to jump on to the source code, scroll all the way to the end of the post. MVVM MVVM pattern is in no way related to the usage of PRISM in your application and should be considered if you are using WPF irrespective of PRISM or not. Lets say you are not familiar with MVVM, your typical UI would involve adding some UI controls like text boxes, a button, double clicking on the button,  generating event handler, calling a method from business layer and updating the user interface, it works most of the time for developing small scale applications. The problem with this approach is that there is some amount of code specific to business logic wrapped in UI specific code which is hard to unit test it, mock it and MVVM helps to solve the exact problem. MVVM stands for Model(M) – View(V) – ViewModel(VM),  based on the interactions with in the three parties it should be called VVMM,  MVVM sounds more like MVC (Model-View-Controller) so the name. Why it should be called VVMM: View – View Model - Model WPF allows to create user interfaces using XAML and MVVM takes it to the next level by allowing complete separation of user interface and business logic. In WPF each view will have a property, DataContext when set to an instance of a class (which happens to be your view model) provides the data the view is interested in, i.e., view interacts with view model and at the same time view model interacts with view through DataContext. Sujith, if view and view model are interacting directly with each other how does MVVM is helping me separation of concerns? Well, the catch is DataContext is of type Object, since it is of type object view doesn’t know exact type of view model allowing views and views models to be loosely coupled. View models aggregate data from models (data access layer, services, etc) and make it available for views through properties, methods etc, i.e., View Models interact with Models. PRISM Prism is provided by Microsoft Patterns and Practices team and it can be downloaded from codeplex for source code,  samples and documentation on msdn.  The name composite implies, to compose user interface from different modules (views) without direct dependencies on each other, again allowing  loosely coupled development. Well Sujith, I can already do that with user controls, why shall I learn another framework?  That’s correct, you can decouple using user controls, but you still have to manage some amount of coupling, like how to do you communicate between the controls, how do you subscribe/unsubscribe, loading/unloading views dynamically. Prism is not a replacement for user controls, provides the following features which greatly help in designing the composite applications. Dependency Injection (DI)/ Inversion of Control (IoC) Modules Regions Event Aggregator  Commands Simply put, MVVM helps building a single view and Prism helps building an application using the views There are other open source alternatives to Prism, like MVVMLight, Cinch, take a look at them as well. Lets dig into the source code.  1. Solution The solution is made of the following projects Framework: Holds the common functionality in building applications using WPF and Prism TaxiClient: Start up project, boot strapping and app styling TaxiCommon: Helps with the business logic TaxiModules: Holds the meat of the application with views and view models TaxiTests: To test the application 2. DI / IoC Dependency Injection (DI) as the name implies refers to injecting dependencies and Inversion of Control (IoC) means the calling code has no direct control on the dependencies, opposite of normal way of programming where dependencies are passed by caller, i.e inversion; aside from some differences in terminology the concept is same in both the cases. The idea behind DI/IoC pattern is to reduce the amount of direct coupling between different components of the application, the higher the dependency the more tightly coupled the application resulting in code which is hard to modify, unit test and mock.  Initializing Dependency Injection through BootStrapper TaxiClient is the starting project of the solution and App (App.xaml)  is the starting class that gets called when you run the application. From the App’s OnStartup method we will invoke BootStrapper.   namespace TaxiClient { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for App.xaml /// </summary> public partial class App : Application { protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e) { base.OnStartup(e);   (new BootStrapper()).Run(); } } } BootStrapper is your contact point for initializing the application including dependency injection, creating Shell and other frameworks. We are going to use Unity for DI and there are lot of open source DI frameworks like Spring.Net, StructureMap etc with different feature set  and you can choose a framework based on your preferences. Note that Prism comes with in built support for Unity, for example we are deriving from UnityBootStrapper in our case and for any other DI framework you have to extend the Prism appropriately   namespace TaxiClient { public class BootStrapper: UnityBootstrapper { protected override IModuleCatalog CreateModuleCatalog() { return new ConfigurationModuleCatalog(); } protected override DependencyObject CreateShell() { Framework.FrameworkBootStrapper.Run(Container, Application.Current.Dispatcher);   Shell shell = new Shell(); shell.ResizeMode = ResizeMode.NoResize; shell.Show();   return shell; } } } Lets take a look into  FrameworkBootStrapper to check out how to register with unity container. namespace Framework { public class FrameworkBootStrapper { public static void Run(IUnityContainer container, Dispatcher dispatcher) { UIDispatcher uiDispatcher = new UIDispatcher(dispatcher); container.RegisterInstance<IDispatcherService>(uiDispatcher);   container.RegisterType<IInjectSingleViewService, InjectSingleViewService>( new ContainerControlledLifetimeManager());   . . . } } } In the above code we are registering two components with unity container. You shall observe that we are following two different approaches, RegisterInstance and RegisterType.  With RegisterInstance we are registering an existing instance and the same instance will be returned for every request made for IDispatcherService   and with RegisterType we are requesting unity container to create an instance for us when required, i.e., when I request for an instance for IInjectSingleViewService, unity will create/return an instance of InjectSingleViewService class and with RegisterType we can configure the life time of the instance being created. With ContaienrControllerLifetimeManager, the unity container caches the instance and reuses for any subsequent requests, without recreating a new instance. Lets take a look into FareViewModel.cs and it’s constructor. The constructor takes one parameter IEventAggregator and if you try to find all references in your solution for IEventAggregator, you will not find a single location where an instance of EventAggregator is passed directly to the constructor. The compiler still finds an instance and works fine because Prism is already configured when used with Unity container to return an instance of EventAggregator when requested for IEventAggregator and in this particular case it is called constructor injection. public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public FareViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); PropertyChanged += OnPropertyChanged; } ... 3. Shell Shells are very similar in operation to Master Pages in asp.net or MDI in Windows Forms. And shells contain regions which display the views, you can have as many regions as you wish in a given view. You can also nest regions. i.e, one region can load a view which in itself may contain other regions. We have to create a shell at the start of the application and are doing it by overriding CreateShell method from BootStrapper From the following Shell.xaml you shall notice that we have two content controls with Region names as ‘MenuRegion’ and ‘MainRegion’.  The idea here is that you can inject any user controls into the regions dynamically, i.e., a Menu User Control for MenuRegion and based on the user action you can load appropriate view into MainRegion.    <Window x:Class="TaxiClient.Shell" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Regions="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Regions;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism" Title="Taxi" Height="370" Width="800"> <Grid Margin="2"> <ContentControl Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MenuRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" />   <ContentControl Grid.Row="1" Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MainRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" /> <!--<Border Grid.ColumnSpan="2" BorderThickness="2" CornerRadius="3" BorderBrush="LightBlue" />-->   </Grid> </Window> 4. Modules Prism provides the ability to build composite applications and modules play an important role in it. For example if you are building a Mortgage Loan Processor application with 3 components, i.e. customer’s credit history,  existing mortgages, new home/loan information; and consider that the customer’s credit history component involves gathering data about his/her address, background information, job details etc. The idea here using Prism modules is to separate the implementation of these 3 components into their own visual studio projects allowing to build components with no dependency on each other and independently. If we need to add another component to the application, the component can be developed by in house team or some other team in the organization by starting with a new Visual Studio project and adding to the solution at the run time with very little knowledge about the application. Prism modules are defined by implementing the IModule interface and each visual studio project to be considered as a module should implement the IModule interface.  From the BootStrapper.cs you shall observe that we are overriding the method by returning a ConfiguratingModuleCatalog which returns the modules that are registered for the application using the app.config file  and you can also add module using code. Lets take a look into configuration file.   <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name="modules" type="Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Modularity.ModulesConfigurationSection, Microsoft.Practices.Prism"/> </configSections> <modules> <module assemblyFile="TaxiModules.dll" moduleType="TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer, TaxiModules" moduleName="TaxiModules"/> </modules> </configuration> Here we are adding TaxiModules project to our solution and TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer implements IModule interface   5. Module Mapper With Prism modules you can dynamically add or remove modules from the regions, apart from that Prism also provides API to control adding/removing the views from a region within the same module. Taxi Information Screen: Engage the Taxi Screen: The sample application has two screens, ‘Taxi Information’ and ‘Engage the Taxi’ and they both reside in same module, TaxiModules. ‘Engage the Taxi’ is again made of two user controls, FareView on the left and TotalView on the right. We have created a Shell with two regions, MenuRegion and MainRegion with menu loaded into MenuRegion. We can create a wrapper user control called EngageTheTaxi made of FareView and TotalView and load either TaxiInfo or EngageTheTaxi into MainRegion based on the user action. Though it will work it tightly binds the user controls and for every combination of user controls, we need to create a dummy wrapper control to contain them. Instead we can apply the principles we learned so far from Shell/regions and introduce another template (LeftAndRightRegionView.xaml) made of two regions Region1 (left) and Region2 (right) and load  FareView and TotalView dynamically.  To help with loading of the views dynamically I have introduce an helper an interface, IInjectSingleViewService,  idea suggested by Mike Taulty, a must read blog for .Net developers. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel;   namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation {   public interface IInjectSingleViewService : INotifyPropertyChanged { IEnumerable<CommandViewDefinition> Commands { get; } IEnumerable<ModuleViewDefinition> Modules { get; }   void RegisterViewForRegion(string commandName, string viewName, string regionName, Type viewType); void ClearViewFromRegion(string viewName, string regionName); void RegisterModule(string moduleName, IList<ModuleMapper> moduleMappers); } } The Interface declares three methods to work with views: RegisterViewForRegion: Registers a view with a particular region. You can register multiple views and their regions under one command.  When this particular command is invoked all the views registered under it will be loaded into their regions. ClearViewFromRegion: To unload a specific view from a region. RegisterModule: The idea is when a command is invoked you can load the UI with set of controls in their default position and based on the user interaction, you can load different contols in to different regions on the fly.  And it is supported ModuleViewDefinition and ModuleMappers as shown below. namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation { public class ModuleViewDefinition { public string ModuleName { get; set; } public IList<ModuleMapper> ModuleMappers; public ICommand Command { get; set; } }   public class ModuleMapper { public string ViewName { get; set; } public string RegionName { get; set; } public Type ViewType { get; set; } } } 6. Event Aggregator Prism event aggregator enables messaging between components as in Observable pattern, Notifier notifies the Observer which receives notification it is interested in. When it comes to Observable pattern, Observer has to unsubscribes for notifications when it no longer interested in notifications, which allows the Notifier to remove the Observer’s reference from it’s local cache. Though .Net has managed garbage collection it cannot remove inactive the instances referenced by an active instance resulting in memory leak, keeping the Observers in memory as long as Notifier stays in memory.  Developers have to be very careful to unsubscribe when necessary and it often gets overlooked, to overcome these problems Prism Event Aggregator uses weak references to cache the reference (Observer in this case)  and releases the reference (memory) once the instance goes out of scope. Using event aggregator is very simple, declare a generic type of CompositePresenationEvent by inheriting from it. using Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Events; using TaxiCommon.BAO;   namespace TaxiCommon.CompositeEvents { public class TaxiOnMoveEvent:CompositePresentationEvent<TaxiOnMove> { } }   TaxiOnMove.cs includes the properties which we want to exchange between the parties, FareView and TotalView. using System;   namespace TaxiCommon.BAO { public class TaxiOnMove { public TimeSpan MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get; set; } public double MilesAtSixMPH { get; set; } } }   Lets take a look into FareViewodel (Notifier) and how it raises the event.  Here we are raising the event by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() and publishing it with the payload private void OnAddMinutes(object obj) { TaxiOnMove payload = new TaxiOnMove(); if(MilesAtSixMPH != null) payload.MilesAtSixMPH = MilesAtSixMPH.Value; if(MinutesAtTweleveMPH != null) payload.MinutesAtTweleveMPH = new TimeSpan(0,0,MinutesAtTweleveMPH.Value,0);   _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Publish(payload); ResetMinutesAndMiles(); } And TotalViewModel(Observer) subscribes to notifications by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { .... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; ... }   private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   ... private void OnTaxiMove(TaxiOnMove taxiOnMove) { OnMoveFare fare = new OnMoveFare(taxiOnMove); Fares.Add(fare); SetTotalFare(new []{fare}); }   .... 7. MVVM through example In this section we are going to look into MVVM implementation through example.  I have all the modules declared in a single project, TaxiModules, again it is not necessary to have them into one project. Once the user logs into the application, will be greeted with the ‘Engage the Taxi’ screen which is made of two user controls, FareView.xaml and TotalView.Xaml. As you can see from the solution explorer, each of them have their own code behind files and  ViewModel classes, FareViewMode.cs, TotalViewModel.cs Lets take a look in to the FareView and how it interacts with FareViewModel using MVVM implementation. FareView.xaml acts as a view and FareViewMode.cs is it’s view model. The FareView code behind class   namespace TaxiModules.Views { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for FareView.xaml /// </summary> public partial class FareView : UserControl { public FareView(FareViewModel viewModel) { InitializeComponent(); this.Loaded += (s, e) => { this.DataContext = viewModel; }; } } } The FareView is bound to FareViewModel through the data context  and you shall observe that DataContext is of type Object, i.e. the FareView doesn’t really know the type of ViewModel (FareViewModel). This helps separation of View and ViewModel as View and ViewModel are independent of each other, you can bind FareView to FareViewModel2 as well and the application compiles just fine. Lets take a look into FareView xaml file  <UserControl x:Class="TaxiModules.Views.FareView" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Windows.Controls;assembly=WPFToolkit" xmlns:Commands="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Commands;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism"> <Grid Margin="10" > ....   <Border Style="{DynamicResource innerBorder}" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.RowSpan="11" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Panel.ZIndex="1"/>   <Label Grid.Row="0" Content="Engage the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="1" Content="Select the State"/> <ComboBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" ItemsSource="{Binding States}" Height="auto"> <ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}"/> </DataTemplate> </ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <ComboBox.SelectedItem> <Binding Path="SelectedState" Mode="TwoWay"/> </ComboBox.SelectedItem> </ComboBox> <Label Grid.Row="2" Content="Select the Date of Entry"/> <Toolkit:DatePicker Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" SelectedDate="{Binding DateOfEntry, ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}" /> <Label Grid.Row="3" Content="Enter time 24hr format"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding TimeOfEntry, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="4" Grid.Column="1" Content="Start the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding StartMeterCommand}" />   <Label Grid.Row="5" Content="Run the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="6" Content="Number of Miles &lt;@6mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="6" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MilesAtSixMPH, TargetNullValue='', ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}"/> <Label Grid.Row="7" Content="Number of Minutes @12mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="7" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MinutesAtTweleveMPH, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="8" Grid.Column="1" Content="Add Minutes and Miles " Commands:Click.Command="{Binding AddMinutesCommand}"/> <Label Grid.Row="9" Content="Other Operations" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Button Grid.Row="10" Grid.Column="1" Content="Reset the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding ResetCommand}"/>   </Grid> </UserControl> The highlighted code from the above code shows data binding, for example ComboBox which displays list of states has it’s ItemsSource bound to States property, with DataTemplate bound to Name and SelectedItem  to SelectedState. You might be wondering what are all these properties and how it is able to bind to them.  The answer lies in data context, i.e., when you bound a control, WPF looks for data context on the root object (Grid in this case) and if it can’t find data context it will look into root’s root, i.e. FareView UserControl and it is bound to FareViewModel.  Each of those properties have be declared on the ViewModel for the View to bind correctly. To put simply, View is bound to ViewModel through data context of type object and every control that is bound on the View actually binds to the public property on the ViewModel. Lets look into the ViewModel code (the following code is not an exact copy of FareViewMode.cs, pasted relevant code for this section)   namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { public List<USState> States { get { return USStates.StateList; } }   public USState SelectedState { get { return _selectedState; } set { _selectedState = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_selectedStatePropertyName); } }   public DateTime? DateOfEntry { get { return _dateOfEntry; } set { _dateOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_dateOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public TimeSpan? TimeOfEntry { get { return _timeOfEntry; } set { _timeOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_timeOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public double? MilesAtSixMPH { get { return _milesAtSixMPH; } set { _milesAtSixMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_distanceAtSixMPHPropertyName); } }   public int? MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get { return _minutesAtTweleveMPH; } set { _minutesAtTweleveMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_minutesAtTweleveMPHPropertyName); } }   public ICommand StartMeterCommand { get { if(_startMeterCommand == null) { _startMeterCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnStartMeter, CanStartMeter); } return _startMeterCommand; } }   public ICommand AddMinutesCommand { get { if(_addMinutesCommand == null) { _addMinutesCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnAddMinutes, CanAddMinutes); } return _addMinutesCommand; } }   public ICommand ResetCommand { get { if(_resetCommand == null) { _resetCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnResetCommand); } return _resetCommand; } }   } private void OnStartMeter(object obj) { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Publish( new TaxiStarted() { EngagedOn = DateOfEntry.Value.Date + TimeOfEntry.Value, EngagedState = SelectedState.Value });   _isMeterStarted = true; OnPropertyChanged(this,null); } And views communicate user actions like button clicks, tree view item selections, etc using commands. When user clicks on ‘Start the Meter’ button it invokes the method StartMeterCommand, which calls the method OnStartMeter which publishes the event to TotalViewModel using event aggregator  and TaxiStartedEvent. namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator;   InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); SubscribeToEvents(); }   public decimal? TotalFare { get { return _totalFare; } set { _totalFare = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_totalFarePropertyName); } } .... private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   private void OnTaxiStarted(TaxiStarted taxiStarted) { Fares.Add(new EntryFare()); Fares.Add(new StateTaxFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new NightSurchargeFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new PeakHourWeekdayFare(taxiStarted));   SetTotalFare(Fares); }   private void SetTotalFare(IEnumerable<IFare> fares) { TotalFare = (_totalFare ?? 0) + TaxiFareHelper.GetTotalFare(fares); } ....   } }   TotalViewModel subscribes to events, TaxiStartedEvent and rest. When TaxiStartedEvent gets invoked it calls the OnTaxiStarted method which sets the total fare which includes entry fee, state tax, nightly surcharge, peak hour weekday fare.   Note that TotalViewModel derives from ObservableBase which implements the method RaisePropertyChanged which we are invoking in Set of TotalFare property, i.e, once we update the TotalFare property it raises an the event that  allows the TotalFare text box to fetch the new value through the data context. ViewModel is communicating with View through data context and it has no knowledge about View, helping in loose coupling of ViewModel and View.   I have attached the source code (.Net 4.0, Prism 4.0, VS 2010) , download and play with it and don’t forget to leave your comments.  

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  • Interesting articles and blogs on SPARC T4

    - by mv
    Interesting articles and blogs on SPARC T4 processor   I have consolidated all the interesting information I could get on SPARC T4 processor and its hardware cryptographic capabilities.  Hope its useful. 1. Advantages of SPARC T4 processor  Most important points in this T4 announcement are : "The SPARC T4 processor was designed from the ground up for high speed security and has a cryptographic stream processing unit (SPU) integrated directly into each processor core. These accelerators support 16 industry standard security ciphers and enable high speed encryption at rates 3 to 5 times that of competing processors. By integrating encryption capabilities directly inside the instruction pipeline, the SPARC T4 processor eliminates the performance and cost barriers typically associated with secure computing and makes it possible to deliver high security levels without impacting the user experience." Data Sheet has more details on these  : "New on-chip Encryption Instruction Accelerators with direct non-privileged support for 16 industry-standard cryptographic algorithms plus random number generation in each of the eight cores: AES, Camellia, CRC32c, DES, 3DES, DH, DSA, ECC, Kasumi, MD5, RSA, SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512" I ran "isainfo -v" command on Solaris 11 Sparc T4-1 system. It shows the new instructions as expected  : $ isainfo -v 64-bit sparcv9 applications crc32c cbcond pause mont mpmul sha512 sha256 sha1 md5 camellia kasumi des aes ima hpc vis3 fmaf asi_blk_init vis2 vis popc 32-bit sparc applications crc32c cbcond pause mont mpmul sha512 sha256 sha1 md5 camellia kasumi des aes ima hpc vis3 fmaf asi_blk_init vis2 vis popc v8plus div32 mul32  2.  Dan Anderson's Blog have some interesting points about how these can be used : "New T4 crypto instructions include: aes_kexpand0, aes_kexpand1, aes_kexpand2,         aes_eround01, aes_eround23, aes_eround01_l, aes_eround_23_l, aes_dround01, aes_dround23, aes_dround01_l, aes_dround_23_l.       Having SPARC T4 hardware crypto instructions is all well and good, but how do we access it ?      The software is available with Solaris 11 and is used automatically if you are running Solaris a SPARC T4.  It is used internally in the kernel through kernel crypto modules.  It is available in user space through the PKCS#11 library." 3.   Dans' Blog on Where's the Crypto Libraries? Although this was written in 2009 but still is very useful  "Here's a brief tour of the major crypto libraries shown in the digraph:   The libpkcs11 library contains the PKCS#11 API (C_\*() functions, such as C_Initialize()). That in turn calls library pkcs11_softtoken or pkcs11_kernel, for userland or kernel crypto providers. The latter is used mostly for hardware-assisted cryptography (such as n2cp for Niagara2 SPARC processors), as that is performed more efficiently in kernel space with the "kCF" module (Kernel Crypto Framework). Additionally, for Solaris 10, strong crypto algorithms were split off in separate libraries, pkcs11_softtoken_extra libcryptoutil contains low-level utility functions to help implement cryptography. libsoftcrypto (OpenSolaris and Solaris Nevada only) implements several symmetric-key crypto algorithms in software, such as AES, RC4, and DES3, and the bignum library (used for RSA). libmd implements MD5, SHA, and SHA2 message digest algorithms" 4. Difference in T3 and T4 Diagram in this blog is good and self explanatory. Jeff's blog also highlights the differences  "The T4 servers have improved crypto acceleration, described at https://blogs.oracle.com/DanX/entry/sparc_t4_openssl_engine. It is "just built in" so administrators no longer have to assign crypto accelerator units to domains - it "just happens". Every physical or virtual CPU on a SPARC-T4 has full access to hardware based crypto acceleration at all times. .... For completeness sake, it's worth noting that the T4 adds more crypto algorithms, and accelerates Camelia, CRC32c, and more SHA-x." 5. About performance counters In this blog, performance counters are explained : "Note that unlike T3 and before, T4 crypto doesn't require kernel modules like ncp or n2cp, there is no visibility of crypto hardware with kstats or cryptoadm. T4 does provide hardware counters for crypto operations.  You can see these using cpustat: cpustat -c pic0=Instr_FGU_crypto 5 You can check the general crypto support of the hardware and OS with the command "isainfo -v". Since T4 crypto's implementation now allows direct userland access, there are no "crypto units" visible to cryptoadm.  " For more details refer Martin's blog as well. 6. How to turn off  SPARC T4 or Intel AES-NI crypto acceleration  I found this interesting blog from Darren about how to turn off  SPARC T4 or Intel AES-NI crypto acceleration. "One of the new Solaris 11 features of the linker/loader is the ability to have a single ELF object that has multiple different implementations of the same functions that are selected at runtime based on the capabilities of the machine.   The alternate to this is having the application coded to call getisax(2) system call and make the choice itself.  We use this functionality of the linker/loader when we build the userland libraries for the Solaris Cryptographic Framework (specifically libmd.so and libsoftcrypto.so) The Solaris linker/loader allows control of a lot of its functionality via environment variables, we can use that to control the version of the cryptographic functions we run.  To do this we simply export the LD_HWCAP environment variable with values that tell ld.so.1 to not select the HWCAP section matching certain features even if isainfo says they are present.  This will work for consumers of the Solaris Cryptographic Framework that use the Solaris PKCS#11 libraries or use libmd.so interfaces directly.  For SPARC T4 : export LD_HWCAP="-aes -des -md5 -sha256 -sha512 -mont -mpul" .. For Intel systems with AES-NI support: export LD_HWCAP="-aes"" Note that LD_HWCAP is explained in  http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23823_01/html/816-5165/ld.so.1-1.html "LD_HWCAP, LD_HWCAP_32, and LD_HWCAP_64 -  Identifies an alternative hardware capabilities value... A “-” prefix results in the capabilities that follow being removed from the alternative capabilities." 7. Whitepaper on SPARC T4 Servers—Optimized for End-to-End Data Center Computing This Whitepaper on SPARC T4 Servers—Optimized for End-to-End Data Center Computing explains more details.  It has DTrace scripts which may come in handy : "To ensure the hardware-assisted cryptographic acceleration is configured to use and working with the security scenarios, it is recommended to use the following Solaris DTrace script. #!/usr/sbin/dtrace -s pid$1:libsoftcrypto:yf*:entry, pid$target:libsoftcrypto:rsa*:entry, pid$1:libmd:yf*:entry { @[probefunc] = count(); } tick-1sec { printa(@ops); trunc(@ops); }" Note that I have slightly modified the D Script to have RSA "libsoftcrypto:rsa*:entry" as well as per recommendations from Chi-Chang Lin. 8. References http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/features/sparc-t4-announcement-494846.html http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc-enterprise/t-series/sparc-t4-1-ds-487858.pdf https://blogs.oracle.com/DanX/entry/sparc_t4_openssl_engine https://blogs.oracle.com/DanX/entry/where_s_the_crypto_libraries https://blogs.oracle.com/darren/entry/howto_turn_off_sparc_t4 http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23823_01/html/816-5165/ld.so.1-1.html   https://blogs.oracle.com/hardware/entry/unleash_the_power_of_cryptography https://blogs.oracle.com/cmt/entry/t4_crypto_cheat_sheet https://blogs.oracle.com/martinm/entry/t4_performance_counters_explained  https://blogs.oracle.com/jsavit/entry/no_mau_required_on_a http://www.oracle.com/us/products/servers-storage/servers/sparc-enterprise/t-series/sparc-t4-business-wp-524472.pdf

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  • Validating a linked item&rsquo;s data template in Sitecore

    - by Kyle Burns
    I’ve been doing quite a bit of work in Sitecore recently and last week I encountered a situation that it appears many others have hit.  I was working with a field that had been configured originally as a grouped droplink, but now needed to be updated to support additional levels of hierarchy in the folder structure.  If you’ve done any work in Sitecore that statement makes sense, but if not it may seem a bit cryptic.  Sitecore offers a number of different field types and a subset of these field types focus on providing links either to other items on the content tree or to content that is not stored in Sitecore.  In the case of the grouped droplink, the field is configured with a “root” folder and each direct descendant of this folder is considered to be a header for a grouping of other items and displayed in a dropdown.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so consider the following piece of a content tree: If I configure a grouped droplink field to use the “Current” folder as its datasource, the control that gets to my content author looks like this: This presents a nicely organized display and limits the user to selecting only the direct grandchildren of the folder root.  It also presents the limitation that struck as we were thinking through the content architecture and how it would hold up over time – the authors cannot further organize content under the root folder because of the structure required for the dropdown to work.  Over time, not allowing the hierarchy to go any deeper would prevent out authors from being able to organize their content in a way that it would be found when needed, so the grouped droplink data type was not going to fit the bill. I needed to look for an alternative data type that allowed for selection of a single item and limited my choices to descendants of a specific node on the content tree.  After looking at the options available for links in Sitecore and considering them against each other, one option stood out as nearly perfect – the droptree.  This field type stores its data identically to the droplink and allows for the selection of zero or one items under a specific node in the content tree.  By changing my data template to use droptree instead of grouped droplink, the author is now presented with the following when selecting a linked item: Sounds great, but a did say almost perfect – there’s still one flaw.  The code intended to display the linked item is expecting the selection to use a specific data template (or more precisely it makes certain assumptions about the fields that will be present), but the droptree does nothing to prevent the author from selecting a folder (since folders are items too) instead of one of the items contained within a folder.  I looked to see if anyone had already solved this problem.  I found many people discussing the problem, but the closest that I found to a solution was the statement “the best thing would probably be to create a custom validator” with no further discussion in regards to what this validator might look like.  I needed to create my own validator to ensure that the user had not selected a folder.  Since so many people had the same issue, I decided to make the validator as reusable as possible and share it here. The validator that I created inherits from StandardValidator.  In order to make the validator more intuitive to developers that are familiar with the TreeList controls in Sitecore, I chose to implement the following parameters: ExcludeTemplatesForSelection – serves as a “deny list”.  If the data template of the selected item is in this list it will not validate IncludeTemplatesForSelection – this can either be empty to indicate that any template not contained in the exclusion list is acceptable or it can contain the list of acceptable templates Now that I’ve explained the parameters and the purpose of the validator, I’ll let the code do the rest of the talking: 1: /// <summary> 2: /// Validates that a link field value meets template requirements 3: /// specified using the following parameters: 4: /// - ExcludeTemplatesForSelection: If present, the item being 5: /// based on an excluded template will cause validation to fail. 6: /// - IncludeTemplatesForSelection: If present, the item not being 7: /// based on an included template will cause validation to fail 8: /// 9: /// ExcludeTemplatesForSelection trumps IncludeTemplatesForSelection 10: /// if the same value appears in both lists. Lists are comma seperated 11: /// </summary> 12: [Serializable] 13: public class LinkItemTemplateValidator : StandardValidator 14: { 15: public LinkItemTemplateValidator() 16: { 17: } 18:   19: /// <summary> 20: /// Serialization constructor is required by the runtime 21: /// </summary> 22: /// <param name="info"></param> 23: /// <param name="context"></param> 24: public LinkItemTemplateValidator(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) : base(info, context) { } 25:   26: /// <summary> 27: /// Returns whether the linked item meets the template 28: /// constraints specified in the parameters 29: /// </summary> 30: /// <returns> 31: /// The result of the evaluation. 32: /// </returns> 33: protected override ValidatorResult Evaluate() 34: { 35: if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(ControlValidationValue)) 36: { 37: return ValidatorResult.Valid; // let "required" validation handle 38: } 39:   40: var excludeString = Parameters["ExcludeTemplatesForSelection"]; 41: var includeString = Parameters["IncludeTemplatesForSelection"]; 42: if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(excludeString) && string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(includeString)) 43: { 44: return ValidatorResult.Valid; // "allow anything" if no params 45: } 46:   47: Guid linkedItemGuid; 48: if (!Guid.TryParse(ControlValidationValue, out linkedItemGuid)) 49: { 50: return ValidatorResult.Valid; // probably put validator on wrong field 51: } 52:   53: var item = GetItem(); 54: var linkedItem = item.Database.GetItem(new ID(linkedItemGuid)); 55:   56: if (linkedItem == null) 57: { 58: return ValidatorResult.Valid; // this validator isn't for broken links 59: } 60:   61: var exclusionList = (excludeString ?? string.Empty).Split(','); 62: var inclusionList = (includeString ?? string.Empty).Split(','); 63:   64: if ((inclusionList.Length == 0 || inclusionList.Contains(linkedItem.TemplateName)) 65: && !exclusionList.Contains(linkedItem.TemplateName)) 66: { 67: return ValidatorResult.Valid; 68: } 69:   70: Text = GetText("The field \"{0}\" specifies an item which is based on template \"{1}\". This template is not valid for selection", GetFieldDisplayName(), linkedItem.TemplateName); 71:   72: return GetFailedResult(ValidatorResult.FatalError); 73: } 74:   75: protected override ValidatorResult GetMaxValidatorResult() 76: { 77: return ValidatorResult.FatalError; 78: } 79:   80: public override string Name 81: { 82: get { return @"LinkItemTemplateValidator"; } 83: } 84: }   In this blog entry, I have shared some code that I found useful in solving a problem that seemed fairly common.  Hopefully the next person that is looking for this answer finds it useful as well.

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  • Converting linear colors to SRGB shows banding in FFmpeg

    - by user1863947
    When I convert an EXR file sequence with x264 using FFmpeg and convert the colorspace from linear to SRGB (with gamma 0.45454545) I get some heavy banding issues (most visible on a dark gradient). Here is the ffmpeg command I use: C:/ffmpeg.exe -y -i C:/seq_v001.%04d.exr -vf lutrgb=r=gammaval(0.45454545):g=gammaval(0.45454545):b=gammaval(0.45454545) -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -preset slow -crf 18 -r 25 C:/out.mov Here is the output: ffmpeg version N-47062-g26c531c Copyright (c) 2000-2012 the FFmpeg developers built on Nov 25 2012 12:25:21 with gcc 4.7.2 (GCC) configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-pthreads --enable-runtime-cpudetect --enable-avisynth --enable-bzlib --enable-frei0r --enable-libass --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libnut --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libutvideo --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid --enable-zlib libavutil 52. 9.100 / 52. 9.100 libavcodec 54. 77.100 / 54. 77.100 libavformat 54. 37.100 / 54. 37.100 libavdevice 54. 3.100 / 54. 3.100 libavfilter 3. 23.102 / 3. 23.102 libswscale 2. 1.102 / 2. 1.102 libswresample 0. 17.101 / 0. 17.101 libpostproc 52. 2.100 / 52. 2.100 Input #0, image2, from 'C:/seq_v001.%04d.exr': Duration: 00:00:09.60, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A Stream #0:0: Video: exr, rgb48le, 960x540 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] using SAR=1/1 [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 FastShuffle SSE4.2 [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] profile High, level 3.1 [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] 264 - core 128 r2216 198a7ea - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2012 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=5 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=umh subme=8 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=18 lookahead_threads=3 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=2 b_bias=0 direct=3 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=50 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=18.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00 Output #0, mov, to 'C:/out.mov': Metadata: encoder : Lavf54.37.100 Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 960x540 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=-1--1, 12800 tbn, 25 tbc Stream mapping: Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (exr -> libx264) Press [q] to stop, [?] for help [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 16 fps=0.0 q=0.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:00.00 bitrate= 0.0kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 34 fps= 33 q=0.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:00.00 bitrate= 0.0kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 52 fps= 34 q=0.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:00.00 bitrate= 0.0kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 68 fps= 34 q=0.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:00.00 bitrate= 0.0kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 85 fps= 33 q=23.0 size= 47kB time=00:00:00.44 bitrate= 867.5kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 104 fps= 34 q=23.0 size= 94kB time=00:00:01.20 bitrate= 640.3kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 121 fps= 34 q=23.0 size= 133kB time=00:00:01.88 bitrate= 577.8kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 139 fps= 34 q=23.0 size= 172kB time=00:00:02.60 bitrate= 543.4kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 157 fps= 34 q=23.0 size= 213kB time=00:00:03.32 bitrate= 525.6kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 175 fps= 34 q=23.0 size= 254kB time=00:00:04.04 bitrate= 516.0kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 193 fps= 35 q=23.0 size= 287kB time=00:00:04.76 bitrate= 494.6kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 211 fps= 35 q=23.0 size= 332kB time=00:00:05.48 bitrate= 496.4kbits/s Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa660] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaaa0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffaf00] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb340] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffb7a0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffbbe0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffc040] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff8c40] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff90c0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9520] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9960] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dff9dc0] Found more than one compression attribute [exr @ 000000000dffa200] Found more than one compression attribute frame= 228 fps= 34 q=23.0 size= 421kB time=00:00:06.16 bitrate= 559.8kbits/s frame= 240 fps= 32 q=-1.0 Lsize= 708kB time=00:00:09.52 bitrate= 609.3kbits/s video:705kB audio:0kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.505636% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] frame I:2 Avg QP:15.07 size: 18186 [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] frame P:73 Avg QP:16.51 size: 3719 [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] frame B:165 Avg QP:18.38 size: 2502 [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] consecutive B-frames: 2.5% 3.3% 42.5% 51.7% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] mb I I16..4: 46.2% 33.3% 20.4% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] mb P I16..4: 6.8% 2.0% 0.6% P16..4: 29.4% 10.5% 4.6% 0.0% 0.0% skip:46.1% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] mb B I16..4: 1.8% 0.7% 0.2% B16..8: 40.9% 6.5% 0.3% direct: 1.2% skip:48.5% L0:52.0% L1:47.5% BI: 0.5% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] 8x8 transform intra:24.7% inter:81.3% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] direct mvs spatial:93.3% temporal:6.7% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 10.7% 31.4% 24.9% inter: 2.3% 9.0% 2.9% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] i16 v,h,dc,p: 83% 11% 6% 1% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 9% 9% 52% 6% 4% 4% 5% 5% 5% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 22% 11% 44% 5% 4% 3% 3% 4% 3% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] i8c dc,h,v,p: 69% 15% 15% 2% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.0% UV:0.0% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] ref P L0: 48.9% 0.1% 16.8% 17.0% 11.3% 5.8% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] ref B L0: 57.7% 21.9% 13.9% 6.4% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] ref B L1: 82.4% 17.6% [libx264 @ 0000000004d11540] kb/s:600.61 For me it looks like it converts the video first and afterwards applies the gamma correction on 8-bit clipped video. Does someone have an idea?

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  • Using Node.js as an accelerator for WCF REST services

    - by Elton Stoneman
    Node.js is a server-side JavaScript platform "for easily building fast, scalable network applications". It's built on Google's V8 JavaScript engine and uses an (almost) entirely async event-driven processing model, running in a single thread. If you're new to Node and your reaction is "why would I want to run JavaScript on the server side?", this is the headline answer: in 150 lines of JavaScript you can build a Node.js app which works as an accelerator for WCF REST services*. It can double your messages-per-second throughput, halve your CPU workload and use one-fifth of the memory footprint, compared to the WCF services direct.   Well, it can if: 1) your WCF services are first-class HTTP citizens, honouring client cache ETag headers in request and response; 2) your services do a reasonable amount of work to build a response; 3) your data is read more often than it's written. In one of my projects I have a set of REST services in WCF which deal with data that only gets updated weekly, but which can be read hundreds of times an hour. The services issue ETags and will return a 304 if the client sends a request with the current ETag, which means in the most common scenario the client uses its local cached copy. But when the weekly update happens, then all the client caches are invalidated and they all need the same new data. Then the service will get hundreds of requests with old ETags, and they go through the full service stack to build the same response for each, taking up threads and processing time. Part of that processing means going off to a database on a separate cloud, which introduces more latency and downtime potential.   We can use ASP.NET output caching with WCF to solve the repeated processing problem, but the server will still be thread-bound on incoming requests, and to get the current ETags reliably needs a database call per request. The accelerator solves that by running as a proxy - all client calls come into the proxy, and the proxy routes calls to the underlying REST service. We could use Node as a straight passthrough proxy and expect some benefit, as the server would be less thread-bound, but we would still have one WCF and one database call per proxy call. But add some smart caching logic to the proxy, and share ETags between Node and WCF (so the proxy doesn't even need to call the servcie to get the current ETag), and the underlying service will only be invoked when data has changed, and then only once - all subsequent client requests will be served from the proxy cache.   I've built this as a sample up on GitHub: NodeWcfAccelerator on sixeyed.codegallery. Here's how the architecture looks:     The code is very simple. The Node proxy runs on port 8010 and all client requests target the proxy. If the client request has an ETag header then the proxy looks up the ETag in the tag cache to see if it is current - the sample uses memcached to share ETags between .NET and Node. If the ETag from the client matches the current server tag, the proxy sends a 304 response with an empty body to the client, telling it to use its own cached version of the data. If the ETag from the client is stale, the proxy looks for a local cached version of the response, checking for a file named after the current ETag. If that file exists, its contents are returned to the client as the body in a 200 response, which includes the current ETag in the header. If the proxy does not have a local cached file for the service response, it calls the service, and writes the WCF response to the local cache file, and to the body of a 200 response for the client. So the WCF service is only troubled if both client and proxy have stale (or no) caches.   The only (vaguely) clever bit in the sample is using the ETag cache, so the proxy can serve cached requests without any communication with the underlying service, which it does completely generically, so the proxy has no notion of what it is serving or what the services it proxies are doing. The relative path from the URL is used as the lookup key, so there's no shared key-generation logic between .NET and Node, and when WCF stores a tag it also stores the "read" URL against the ETag so it can be used for a reverse lookup, e.g:   Key Value /WcfSampleService/PersonService.svc/rest/fetch/3 "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6" "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6" /WcfSampleService/PersonService.svc/rest/fetch/3    In Node we read the cache using the incoming URL path as the key and we know that "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6" is the current ETag; we look for a local cached response in /caches/28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6.body (and the corresponding .header file which contains the original service response headers, so the proxy response is exactly the same as the underlying service). When the data is updated, we need to invalidate the ETag cache – which is why we need the reverse lookup in the cache. In the WCF update service, we don't need to know the URL of the related read service - we fetch the entity from the database, do a reverse lookup on the tag cache using the old ETag to get the read URL, update the new ETag against the URL, store the new reverse lookup and delete the old one.   Running Apache Bench against the two endpoints gives the headline performance comparison. Making 1000 requests with concurrency of 100, and not sending any ETag headers in the requests, with the Node proxy I get 102 requests handled per second, average response time of 975 milliseconds with 90% of responses served within 850 milliseconds; going direct to WCF with the same parameters, I get 53 requests handled per second, mean response time of 1853 milliseconds, with 90% of response served within 3260 milliseconds. Informally monitoring server usage during the tests, Node maxed at 20% CPU and 20Mb memory; IIS maxed at 60% CPU and 100Mb memory.   Note that the sample WCF service does a database read and sleeps for 250 milliseconds to simulate a moderate processing load, so this is *not* a baseline Node-vs-WCF comparison, but for similar scenarios where the  service call is expensive but applicable to numerous clients for a long timespan, the performance boost from the accelerator is considerable.     * - actually, the accelerator will work nicely for any HTTP request, where the URL (path + querystring) uniquely identifies a resource. In the sample, there is an assumption that the ETag is a GUID wrapped in double-quotes (e.g. "28cd4796-76b8-451b-adfd-75cb50a50fa6") – which is the default for WCF services. I use that assumption to name the cache files uniquely, but it is a trivial change to adapt to other ETag formats.

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  • PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

    - by Simon Cooper
    Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day!

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  • A star algorithm implementation problems

    - by bryan226
    I’m having some trouble implementing the A* algorithm in a 2D tile based game. The problem is basically that the algorithm gets stuck when something gets in its direct way (e.g. walls) Note that it only allows Horizontal and Vertical movement. Here's a picture as it works fine across the map without something in its direct way: (Green tile = destination, Blue = In closed list, Green = in open list) This is what happens if I try to walk 'around' a wall: I calculate costs with the F = G + H formula: G = 1 Cost per Step H = 10 Cost per Step //Count how many tiles are between current-tile & destination-tile The functions: short c_astar::GuessH(short Startx,short Starty,short Destinationx,short Destinationy) { hgeVector Start, Destination; Start.x = Startx; Start.y = Starty; Destination.x = Destinationx; Destination.y = Destinationy; short a = 0; short b = 0; if(Start.x > Destination.x) a = Start.x - Destination.x; else a = Destination.x - Start.x; if(Start.y > Destination.y) b = Start.y - Destination.y; else b = Destination.y - Start.y; return (a+b)*10; } short c_astar::GuessG(short Startx,short Starty,short Currentx,short Currenty) { hgeVector Start, Destination; Start.x = Startx; Start.y = Starty; Destination.x = Currentx; Destination.y = Currenty; short a = 0; short b = 0; if(Start.x > Destination.x) a = Start.x - Destination.x; else a = Destination.x - Start.x; if(Start.y > Destination.y) b = Start.y - Destination.y; else b = Destination.y - Start.y; return (a+b); } At the end of the loop I check which tile is the cheapest to go according to its F value: Then some quick checks are done for each tile (UP,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT): //...CX are holding the F value of the TILE specified // Info: C0 = Center (Current) // C1 = UP // C2 = DOWN // C3 = LEFT // C4 = RIGHT //Quick checks if(((C1 < C2) && (C1 < C3) && (C1 < C4))) { Current.y -= 1; bSimilar = false; if(DEBUG) hge->System_Log("C1 < ALL"); } //.. same for C2,C3 & C4 If there are multiple tiles with the same F value: It’s actually a switch for DOWNLEFT,UPRIGHT.. etc. Here’s one of it: case UPRIGHT: { //UP Temporary = Current; Temporary.y -= 1; bTileStatus[0] = IsTileWalkable(Temporary.x,Temporary.y); if(bTileStatus[0]) { //Proceed normal we are OK & walkable Tilex.Tile = map.at(Temporary.y).at(Temporary.x); //Search in lists if(SearchInClosedList(Tilex.Tile.ID,C0)) bFoundInClosedList[0] = true; if(SearchInOpenList(Tilex.Tile.ID,C0)) bFoundInOpenList[0] = true; //RIGHT Temporary = Current; Temporary.x += 1; bTileStatus[1] = IsTileWalkable(Temporary.x,Temporary.y); if(bTileStatus[1]) { //Proceed normal we are OK & walkable Tilex.Tile = map.at(Temporary.y).at(Temporary.x); //Search in lists if(SearchInClosedList(Tilex.Tile.ID,C0)) bFoundInClosedList[1] = true; if(SearchInOpenList(Tilex.Tile.ID,C0)) bFoundInOpenList[1] = true; //************************************************* // Purpose: ClosedList behavior //************************************************* if(bFoundInClosedList[0] && !bFoundInClosedList[1]) { //UP found in ClosedList. Go RIGHT return RIGHT; } if(!bFoundInClosedList[0] && bFoundInClosedList[1]) { //RIGHT found in ClosedList. Go UP return UP; } if(bFoundInClosedList[0] && bFoundInClosedList[1]) { //Both found in ClosedList. Random value switch(hge->Random_Int(8,9)) { case 8: return UP; break; case 9: return RIGHT; break; } } //************************************************* // Purpose: OpenList behavior //************************************************* if(bFoundInOpenList[0] && !bFoundInOpenList[1]) { //UP found in OpenList. Go RIGHT return RIGHT; } if(!bFoundInOpenList[0] && bFoundInOpenList[1]) { //RIGHT found in OpenList. Go UP return UP; } if(bFoundInOpenList[0] && bFoundInOpenList[1]) { //Both found in OpenList. Random value switch(hge->Random_Int(8,9)) { case 8: return UP; break; case 9: return RIGHT; break; } } } else if(!bTileStatus[1]) { //RIGHT is not walkable OR out of range //Choose UP return UP; } } else if(!bTileStatus[0]) { //UP is not walkable OR out of range //Fast check RIGHT Temporary = Current; Temporary.x += 1; bTileStatus[1] = IsTileWalkable(Temporary.x,Temporary.y); if(bTileStatus[1]) { return RIGHT; } else return FAILED; //Failed, no valid path found! } } break; A log for the second picture: (Cut down to ten passes, because it’s just repeating itself) ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 1 | C1: 211 | C2: 191 | C3: 211 | C4: 191 DOWN + RIGHT SIMILAR Going DOWN ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 2 | C1: 200 | C2: 182 | C3: 202 | C4: 182 DOWN + RIGHT SIMILAR Going DOWN ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 3 | C1: 191 | C2: 193 | C3: 193 | C4: 173 C4 < ALL Tile(12.000000,6.000000) not walkable. MAX_F_VALUE set. ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 4 | C1: 182 | C2: 184 | C3: 182 | C4: 999 UP + LEFT SIMILAR Going UP Tile(12.000000,5.000000) not walkable. MAX_F_VALUE set. ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 5 | C1: 191 | C2: 173 | C3: 191 | C4: 999 C2 < ALL Tile(12.000000,6.000000) not walkable. MAX_F_VALUE set. ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 6 | C1: 182 | C2: 184 | C3: 182 | C4: 999 UP + LEFT SIMILAR Going UP Tile(12.000000,5.000000) not walkable. MAX_F_VALUE set. ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 7 | C1: 191 | C2: 173 | C3: 191 | C4: 999 C2 < ALL Tile(12.000000,6.000000) not walkable. MAX_F_VALUE set. ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 8 | C1: 182 | C2: 184 | C3: 182 | C4: 999 UP + LEFT SIMILAR Going LEFT ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 9 | C1: 191 | C2: 193 | C3: 193 | C4: 173 C4 < ALL Tile(12.000000,6.000000) not walkable. MAX_F_VALUE set. ----------------------------------------------------- PASS: 10 | C1: 182 | C2: 184 | C3: 182 | C4: 999 UP + LEFT SIMILAR Going LEFT ----------------------------------------------------- Its always going after the cheapest F value, which seems to be wrong. If someone could point me to the right direction I'd be thankful. Regards, bryan226

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  • PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

    - by Simon Cooper
    Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day!

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  • PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

    - by simonc
    Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day! Cross posted from Simple Talk.

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  • Projected Results

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Monica Mehta Yasser Mahmud has seen a revolution in project management over the past decade. During that time, the former Primavera product strategist (who joined Oracle when his company was acquired in 2008) has not only observed a transformation in the way IT systems support corporate projects but the role project portfolio management (PPM) plays in the enterprise. “15 years ago project management was the domain of project management office (PMO),” Mahmud recalls of earlier days. “But over the course of the past decade, we've seen it transform into a mission critical enterprise discipline, that has made Primavera indispensable in the board room. Now, as a senior manager, a board member, or a C-level executive you have direct and complete visibility into what’s kind of going on in the organization—at a level of detail that you're going to consume that information.” Now serving as Oracle’s vice president of product strategy and industry marketing, Mahmud shares his thoughts on how Oracle’s Primavera solutions have evolved and how best-in-class project portfolio management systems can help businesses stay competitive. Profit: What do you feel are the market dynamics that are changing project management today? Mahmud: First, the data explosion. We're generating data at twice the rate at which we can actually store it. The same concept applies for project-intensive organizations. A lot of data is gathered, but what are we really doing with it? Are we turning data into insight? Are we using that insight and turning it into foresight with analytics tools? This is a key driver that will separate the very good companies—the very competitive companies—from those that are not as competitive. Another trend is centered on the explosion of mobile computing. By the year 2013, an estimated 35 percent of the world’s workforce is going to be mobile. That’s one billion people. So the question is not if you're going to go mobile, it’s how fast you are going to go mobile. What kind of impact does that have on how the workforce participates in projects? What worked ten to fifteen years ago is not going to work today. It requires a real rethink around the interfaces and how data is actually presented. Profit: What is the role of project management in this new landscape? Mahmud: We recently conducted a PPM study with the Economist Intelligence Unit centered to determine how important project management is considered within organizations. Our target was primarily CFOs, CIOs, and senior managers and we discovered that while 95 percent of participants believed it critical to their business, only six percent were confident that projects were delivered on time and on budget. That’s a huge gap. Most organizations are looking for efficiency, especially in these volatile financial times. But senior management can’t keep track of every project in a large organization. As a result, executives are attempting to inventory the work being conducted under their watch. What is often needed is a very high-level assessment conducted at the board level to say, “Here are the 50 initiatives that we have underway. How do they line up with our strategic drivers?” This line of questioning can provide early warning that work and strategy are out of alignment; finding the gap between what the business needs to do and the actual performance scorecard. That’s low-hanging fruit for any executive looking to increase efficiency and save money. But it can only be obtained through proper assessment of existing projects—and you need a project system of record to get that done. Over the next decade or so, project management is going to transform into holistic work management. Business leaders will want make sure key projects align with corporate strategy, but also the ability to drill down into daily activity and smaller projects to make sure they line up as well. Keeping employees from working on tasks—even for a few hours—that don’t line up with corporate goals will, in many ways, become a competitive differentiator. Profit: How do all of these market challenges and shifting trends impact Oracle’s Primavera solutions and meeting customers’ needs? Mahmud: For Primavera, it’s a transformation from being a project management application to a PPM system in the enterprise. Also making that system a mission-critical application by connecting to other key applications within the ecosystem, such as the enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain, and CRM systems. Analytics have also become a huge component. Business analytics have made Oracle’s Primavera applications pertinent in the boardroom. Now, as a senior manager, a board member, a CXO, CIO, or CEO, you have direct visibility into what’s going on in the organization at a level that you're able to consume that information. In addition, all of this information pairs up really well with your financials and other data. Certainly, when you're an Oracle shop, you have that visibility that you didn’t have before from a project execution perspective. Profit: What new strategies and tools are being implemented to create a more efficient workplace for users? Mahmud: We believe very strongly that just because you call something an enterprise project portfolio management system doesn’t make it so—you have to get people to want to participate in the system. This can’t be mandated down from the top. It simply doesn’t work that way. A truly adoptable solution is one that makes it super easy for all types users to participate, by providing them interfaces where they live. Keeping that in mind, a major area of development has been alternative user interfaces. This is increasingly resulting in the creation of lighter weight, targeted interfaces such as iOS applications, and smartphones interfaces such as for iPhone and Android platform. Profit: How does this translate into the development of Oracle’s Primavera solutions? Mahmud: Let me give you a few examples. We recently announced the launch of our Primavera P6 Team Member application, which is a native iOS application for the iPhone. This interface makes it easier for team members to do their jobs quickly and effectively. Similarly, we introduced the Primavera analytics application, which can be consumed via mobile devices, and when married with Oracle Spatial capabilities, users can get a geographical view of what’s going on and which projects are occurring in various locations around the world. Lastly, we introduced advanced email integration that allows project team members to status work via E-mail. This functionality leverages the fact that users are in E-mail system throughout the day and allows them to status their work without the need to launch the Primavera application. It comes back to a mantra: provide as many alternative user interfaces as possible, so you can give people the ability to work, to participate, to raise issues, to create projects, in the places where they live. Do it in such a way that it’s non-intrusive, do it in such a way that it’s easy and intuitive and they can get it done in a short amount of time. If you do that, workers can get back to doing what they're actually getting paid for.

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  • Passing a parameter so that it cannot be changed – C#

    - by nmarun
    I read this requirement of not allowing a user to change the value of a property passed as a parameter to a method. In C++, as far as I could recall (it’s been over 10 yrs, so I had to refresh memory), you can pass ‘const’ to a function parameter and this ensures that the parameter cannot be changed inside the scope of the function. There’s no such direct way of doing this in C#, but that does not mean it cannot be done!! Ok, so this ‘not-so-direct’ technique depends on the type of the parameter – a simple property or a collection. Parameter as a simple property: This is quite easy (and you might have guessed it already). Bulent Ozkir clearly explains how this can be done here. Parameter as a collection property: Obviously the above does not work if the parameter is a collection of some type. Let’s dig-in. Suppose I need to create a collection of type KeyTitle as defined below. 1: public class KeyTitle 2: { 3: public int Key { get; set; } 4: public string Title { get; set; } 5: } My class is declared as below: 1: public class Class1 2: { 3: public Class1() 4: { 5: MyKeyTitleList = new List<KeyTitle>(); 6: } 7: 8: public List<KeyTitle> MyKeyTitleList { get; set; } 9: public ReadOnlyCollection<KeyTitle> ReadonlyKeyTitleCollection 10: { 11: // .AsReadOnly creates a ReadOnlyCollection<> type 12: get { return MyKeyTitleList.AsReadOnly(); } 13: } 14: } See the .AsReadOnly() method used in the second property? As MSDN says it: “Returns a read-only IList<T> wrapper for the current collection.” Knowing this, I can implement my code as: 1: public static void Main() 2: { 3: Class1 class1 = new Class1(); 4: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 1, Title = "abc" }); 5: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 2, Title = "def" }); 6: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 3, Title = "ghi" }); 7: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 4, Title = "jkl" }); 8:  9: TryToModifyCollection(class1.MyKeyTitleList.AsReadOnly()); 10:  11: Console.ReadLine(); 12: } 13:  14: private static void TryToModifyCollection(ReadOnlyCollection<KeyTitle> readOnlyCollection) 15: { 16: // can only read 17: for (int i = 0; i < readOnlyCollection.Count; i++) 18: { 19: Console.WriteLine("{0} - {1}", readOnlyCollection[i].Key, readOnlyCollection[i].Title); 20: } 21: // Add() - not allowed 22: // even the indexer does not have a setter 23: } The output is as expected: The below image shows two things. In the first line, I’ve tried to access an element in my read-only collection through an indexer. It shows that the ReadOnlyCollection<> does not have a setter on the indexer. The second line tells that there’s no ‘Add()’ method for this type of collection. The capture below shows there’s no ‘Remove()’ method either, there-by eliminating all ways of modifying a collection. Mission accomplished… right? Now, even if you have a collection of different type, all you need to do is to somehow cast (used loosely) it to a List<> and then do a .AsReadOnly() to get a ReadOnlyCollection of your custom collection type. As an example, if you have an IDictionary<int, string>, you can create a List<T> of this type with a wrapper class (KeyTitle in our case). 1: public IDictionary<int, string> MyDictionary { get; set; } 2:  3: public ReadOnlyCollection<KeyTitle> ReadonlyDictionary 4: { 5: get 6: { 7: return (from item in MyDictionary 8: select new KeyTitle 9: { 10: Key = item.Key, 11: Title = item.Value, 12: }).ToList().AsReadOnly(); 13: } 14: } Cool huh? Just one thing you need to know about the .AsReadOnly() method is that the only way to modify your ReadOnlyCollection<> is to modify the original collection. So doing: 1: public static void Main() 2: { 3: Class1 class1 = new Class1(); 4: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 1, Title = "abc" }); 5: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 2, Title = "def" }); 6: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 3, Title = "ghi" }); 7: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 4, Title = "jkl" }); 8: TryToModifyCollection(class1.MyKeyTitleList.AsReadOnly()); 9:  10: Console.WriteLine(); 11:  12: class1.MyKeyTitleList.Add(new KeyTitle { Key = 5, Title = "mno" }); 13: class1.MyKeyTitleList[2] = new KeyTitle{Key = 3, Title = "GHI"}; 14: TryToModifyCollection(class1.MyKeyTitleList.AsReadOnly()); 15:  16: Console.ReadLine(); 17: } Gives me the output of: See that the second element’s Title is changed to upper-case and the fifth element also gets displayed even though we’re still looping through the same ReadOnlyCollection<KeyTitle>. Verdict: Now you know of a way to implement ‘Method(const param1)’ in your code!

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  • Zantaz's EAS exchange archive product doesn't integrate with Outlook in Windows 7

    - by Chris Farmer
    I work at a place that uses Exchange with Outlook for mail, and they also use a product from Zantaz called "EAS" which does server-side archiving of old messages. One of the artifacts of this archival is that email attachments are missing from the archived messages when viewed in Outlook. EAS has a client tool that plugs into Outlook that enables easy retrieval of those archived messages and their attachments, but it doesn't seem to work when installed on Windows 7. I have no direct evidence of this, other than that it simply doesn't work on my Windows 7 machine, and some of our network support staff seem to corroborate this. The symptom is that Outlook seems to know nothing of the existence of this EAS app. The EAS app also has a system tray icon which is there and offers some minimal functionality, but the real goodness is the Outlook integration, which I sorely miss. So, my question is this: does anyone here know whether it's possible to coerce this EAS product into working correctly in Windows 7?

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  • DB2 insert performance - How to measure

    - by svrist
    [From stackoverflow] Im trying to find a way to speedup my inserts to a DB2 9.7.1 (ubuntu linux) Im watching vmstat and trying to gather some statistics via the db2 get snapshot commands but im not able to figure out which numbers im looking for to be able to see where the trouble is. I've read lits of stuff like http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/35692526/question-multiple-row-in.aspx, and http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/tips/dm-0403wilkins/ and tricks like ALTER TABLE lalala APPEND ON works somewhat (the difference between a dd if=/dev/zero and insert is still a factor 10) but I would like to be able to find the counters or other performance indicators that actually show why it makes sense to use those tricks. For example: What is the metric called that shows me that it is buffer pages allocation (FSCR stuff) that is the problem Where do I see that the insert time is hampered by clustered indexes? I find db2top very useful but im still searching for more direct view of "this is your bottleneck" methods

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  • Disable work offline in Internet Explorer 8

    - by Roberto Liffredo
    I am using Windows 7, and IE8. Every time I have GMail open in IE8, and I resume from sleep, I get the question about working offline - even if at that momoent the wireless connection is available. This is particularly sad, because all browsing is stopped until I dismiss that dialog, that may be hidden below other windows. As I am not using offline browsing at all, is it possible to disable the functionality altogether, so that I no longer get the question? A bit like in Firefox, where I simply get the error message with page unavailable. I have googled a bit, but no luck so far. Even a direct modification of the registry would be fine, for me.

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