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• Creating a Reverse Proxy with URL Rewrite for IIS

  - by OWScott

  There are times when you need to reverse proxy through a server. The most common example is when you have an internal web server that isn’t exposed to the internet, and you have a public web server accessible to the internet. If you want to serve up traffic from the internal web server, you can do this through the public web server by creating a tunnel (aka reverse proxy). Essentially, you can front the internal web server with a friendly URL, even hiding custom ports. For example, consider an internal web server with a URL of http://10.10.0.50:8111. You can make that available through a public URL like http://tools.mysite.com/ as seen in the following image. The URL can be made public or it can be used for your internal staff and have it password protected and/or locked down by IP address. This is easy to do with URL Rewrite and IIS. You will also need Application Request Routing (ARR) installed even though for a simple reverse proxy you won’t use most of ARR’s functionality. If you don’t already have URL Rewrite and ARR installed you can do so easily with the Web Platform Installer. A lot can be said about reverse proxies and many different situations and ways to route the traffic and handle different URL patterns. However, my goal here is to get you up and going in the easiest way possible. Then you can dig in deeper after you get the base configuration in place. URL Rewrite makes a reverse proxy very easy to set up. Note that the URL Rewrite Add Rules template doesn’t include Reverse Proxy at the server level. That’s not to say that you can’t create a server-level reverse proxy, but the URL Rewrite rules template doesn’t help you with that. Getting Started First you must create a website on your public web server that has the public bindings that you need. Alternately, you can use an existing site and route using conditions for certain traffic. After you’ve created your site then open up URL Rewrite at the site level. Using the “Add Rule(s)…” template that is opened from the right-hand actions pane, create a new Reverse Proxy rule. If you receive a prompt (the first time) that the proxy functionality needs to be enabled, select OK. This is telling you that a proxy can route traffic outside of your web server, which happens to be our goal in this case. Be aware that reverse proxy rules can be dangerous if you open sites from inside you network to the world, so just be aware of what you’re doing and why. The next and final step of the template asks a few questions. The first textbox asks the name of the internal web server. In our example, it’s 10.10.0.50:8111. This can be any URL, including a subfolder like internal.mysite.com/blog. Don’t include the http or https here. The template assumes that it’s not entered. You can choose whether to perform SSL Offloading or not. If you leave this checked then all requests to the internal server will be over HTTP regardless of the original web request. This can help with performance and SSL bindings if all requests are within a trusted network. If the network path between the two web servers is not completely trusted and safe then uncheck this. Next, the template enables you to create an outbound rule. This is used to rewrite links in the page to look like your public domain name rather than the internal domain name. Outbound rules have a lot of CPU overhead because the entire web content needs to be parsed and updated. However, if you need it, then it’s well worth the extra CPU hit on the web server. If you check the “Rewrite the domain names of the links in HTTP responses” checkbox then the From textbox will be filled in with what you entered for the inbound rule. You can enter your friendly public URL for the outbound rule. This will essentially replace any reference to 10.10.0.50:8111 (or whatever you enter) with tools.mysite.com in all <a>, <form>, and <img> tags on your site. That’s it! Well, there is a lot more that you can do, this but will give you the base configuration. You can now visit www.mysite.com on your public web server and it will serve up the site from your internal web server. You should see two rules show up; one inbound and one outbound. You can edit these, add conditions, and tweak them further as needed. One common issue that can occur without outbound rules has to do with compression. If you run into errors with the new proxied site, try turning off compression to confirm if that’s the issue. Here’s a link with details on how to deal with compression and outbound rules. I hope this was helpful to get started and to see how easy it is to create a simple reverse proxy using URL Rewrite for IIS.

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• clear explanation sought: throw() and stack unwinding

  - by Jerry Gagelman

  I'm not a programmer but have learned a lot watching others. I am writing wrapper classes to simplify things with a really technical API that I'm working with. Its routines return error codes, and I have a function that converts those to strings: static const char* LibErrString(int errno); For uniformity I decided to have member of my classes throw an exception when an error is encountered. I created a class: struct MyExcept : public std::exception { const char* errstr_; const char* what() const throw() {return errstr_;} MyExcept(const char* errstr) : errstr_(errstr) {} }; Then, in one of my classes: class Foo { public: void bar() { int err = SomeAPIRoutine(...); if (err != SUCCESS) throw MyExcept(LibErrString(err)); // otherwise... } }; The whole thing works perfectly: if SomeAPIRoutine returns an error, a try-catch block around the call to Foo::bar catches a standard exception with the correct error string in what(). Then I wanted the member to give more information: void Foo::bar() { char adieu[128]; int err = SomeAPIRoutine(...); if (err != SUCCESS) { std::strcpy(adieu,"In Foo::bar... "); std::strcat(adieu,LibErrString(err)); throw MyExcept((const char*)adieu); } // otherwise... } However, when SomeAPIRoutine returns an error, the what() string returned by the exception contains only garbage. It occurred to me that the problem could be due to adieu going out of scope once the throw is called. I changed the code by moving adieu out of the member definition and making it an attribute of the class Foo. After this, the whole thing worked perfectly: a try-call block around a call to Foo::bar that catches an exception has the correct (expanded) string in what(). Finally, my question: what exactly is popped off the stack (in sequence) when the exception is thrown in the if-block when the stack "unwinds?" As I mentioned above, I'm a mathematician, not a programmer. I could use a really lucid explanation of what goes onto the stack (in sequence) when this C++ gets converted into running machine code.

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• Monogame/SharpDX - Shader parameters missing

  - by Layoric

  I am currently working on a simple game that I am building in Windows 8 using MonoGame (develop3d). I am using some shader code from a tutorial (made by Charles Humphrey) and having an issue populating a 'texture' parameter as it appears to be missing. Edit I have also tried 'Texture2D' and using it with a register(t0), still no luck I'm not well versed writing shaders, so this might be caused by a more obvious problem. I have debugged through MonoGame's Content processor to see how this shader is being parsed, all the non 'texture' parameters are there and look to be loading correctly. Edit This seems to go back to D3D compiler. Shader code below: #include "PPVertexShader.fxh" float2 lightScreenPosition; float4x4 matVP; float2 halfPixel; float SunSize; texture flare; sampler2D Scene: register(s0){ AddressU = Clamp; AddressV = Clamp; }; sampler Flare = sampler_state { Texture = (flare); AddressU = CLAMP; AddressV = CLAMP; }; float4 LightSourceMaskPS(float2 texCoord : TEXCOORD0 ) : COLOR0 { texCoord -= halfPixel; // Get the scene float4 col = 0; // Find the suns position in the world and map it to the screen space. float2 coord; float size = SunSize / 1; float2 center = lightScreenPosition; coord = .5 - (texCoord - center) / size * .5; col += (pow(tex2D(Flare,coord),2) * 1) * 2; return col * tex2D(Scene,texCoord); } technique LightSourceMask { pass p0 { VertexShader = compile vs_4_0 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_4_0 LightSourceMaskPS(); } } I've removed default values as they are currently not support in MonoGame and also changed ps and vs to v4 instead of 2. Could this be causing the issue? As I debug through 'DXConstantBufferData' constructor (from within the MonoGameContentProcessing project) I find that the 'flare' parameter does not exist. All others seem to be getting created fine. Any help would be appreciated. Update 1 I have discovered that SharpDX D3D compiler is what seems to be ignoring this parameter (perhaps by design?). The ConstantBufferDescription.VariableCount seems to be not counting the texture variable. Update 2 SharpDX function 'GetConstantBuffer(int index)' returns the parameters (minus textures) which is making is impossible to set values to these variables within the shader. Any one know if this is normal for DX11 / Shader Model 4.0? Or am I missing something else?

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• How to pad number with leading zero with C#

  - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

  Recently I was working with a project where I was in need to format a number in such a way which can apply leading zero for particular format.  So after doing such R and D I have found a great way to apply this leading zero format. I was having need that I need to pad number in 5 digit format. So following is a table in which format I need my leading zero format. 1-> 00001 20->00020 300->00300 4000->04000 50000->5000 So in the above example you can see that 1 will become 00001 and 20 will become 00200 format so on. So to display an integer value in decimal format I have applied interger.Tostring(String) method where I have passed “Dn” as the value of the format parameter, where n represents the minimum length of the string. So if we pass 5 it will have padding up to 5 digits. So let’s create a simple console application and see how its works. Following is a code for that. using System; namespace LeadingZero { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { int a = 1; int b = 20; int c = 300; int d = 4000; int e = 50000; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}",a,a.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", b, b.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", c, c.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", d, d.ToString("D5"))); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}------>{1}", e, e.ToString("D5"))); Console.ReadKey(); } } } As you can see in the above code I have use string.Format function to display value of integer and after using integer value’s  ToString method. Now Let’s run the console application and following is the output as expected. Here you can see the integer number are converted into the exact output that we requires. That’s it you can see it’s very easy. We have written code in nice clean way and without writing any extra code or loop. Hope you liked it. Stay tuned for more.. Till than happy programming.

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• SQL SERVER – Order By Numeric Values Formatted as String

  - by pinaldave

  When I was writing this blog post I had a hard time to come up with the title of the blog post so I did my best to come up with one. Here is the reason why? I wrote a blog post earlier SQL SERVER – Find First Non-Numeric Character from String. One of the questions was that how that blog can be useful in real life scenario. This blog post is the answer to that question. Let us first see a problem. We have a table which has a column containing alphanumeric data. The data always has first as an integer and later part as a string. The business need is to order the data based on the first part of the alphanumeric data which is an integer. Now the problem is that no matter how we use ORDER BY the result is not produced as expected. Let us understand this with example. Prepare a sample data: -- How to find first non numberic character USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE MyTable (ID INT, Col1 VARCHAR(100)) GO INSERT INTO MyTable (ID, Col1) SELECT 1, '1one' UNION ALL SELECT 2, '11eleven' UNION ALL SELECT 3, '2two' UNION ALL SELECT 4, '22twentytwo' UNION ALL SELECT 5, '111oneeleven' GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable GO The above query will give following result set. Now let us use ORDER BY COL1 and observe the result along with Original SELECT. -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable ORDER BY Col1 GO The result of the table is not as per expected. We need the result in following format. Here is the good example of how we can use PATINDEX. -- Use of PATINDEX SELECT ID, LEFT(Col1,PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1)-1) 'Numeric Character', Col1 'Original Character' FROM MyTable ORDER BY LEFT(Col1,PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1)-1) GO We can use PATINDEX to identify the length of the digit part in the alphanumeric string (Remember: Our string has a first part as an int always. It will not work in any other scenario). Now you can use the LEFT function to extract the INT portion from the alphanumeric string and order the data according to it. You can easily clean up the script by dropping following table. DROP TABLE MyTable GO Here is the complete script so you can easily refer it. -- How to find first non numberic character USE tempdb GO CREATE TABLE MyTable (ID INT, Col1 VARCHAR(100)) GO INSERT INTO MyTable (ID, Col1) SELECT 1, '1one' UNION ALL SELECT 2, '11eleven' UNION ALL SELECT 3, '2two' UNION ALL SELECT 4, '22twentytwo' UNION ALL SELECT 5, '111oneeleven' GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable GO -- Select Data SELECT * FROM MyTable ORDER BY Col1 GO -- Use of PATINDEX SELECT ID, Col1 'Original Character' FROM MyTable ORDER BY LEFT(Col1,PATINDEX('%[^0-9]%',Col1)-1) GO DROP TABLE MyTable GO Well, isn’t it an interesting solution. Any suggestion for better solution? Additionally any suggestion for changing the title of this blog post? Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL String, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL SERVER – OLEDB – Link Server – Wait Type – Day 23 of 28

  - by pinaldave

  When I decided to start writing about this wait type, the very first question that came to my mind was, “What does ‘OLEDB’ stand for?” A quick search on Wikipedia tells me that OLEDB means Object Linking and Embedding Database. (How many of you knew this?) Anyway, I found it very interesting that this wait type was in one of the top 10 wait types in many of the systems I have come across in my performance tuning experience. Books On-Line: ????OLEDB occurs when SQL Server calls the SQL Server Native Client OLE DB Provider. This wait type is not used for synchronization. Instead, it indicates the duration of calls to the OLE DB provider. OLEDB Explanation: This wait type primarily happens when Link Server or Remove Query has been executed. The most common case wherein this wait type is visible is during the execution of Linked Server. When SQL Server is retrieving data from the remote server, it uses OLEDB API to retrieve the data. It is possible that the remote system is not quick enough or the connection between them is not fast enough, leading SQL Server to wait for the result’s return from the remote (or external) server. This is the time OLEDB wait type occurs. Reducing OLEDB wait: Check the Link Server configuration. Checking Disk-Related Perfmon Counters Average Disk sec/Read (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk sec/Write (Consistent higher value than 4-8 millisecond is not good) Average Disk Read/Write Queue Length (Consistent higher value than benchmark is not good) At this point in time, I am not able to think of any more ways on reducing this wait type. Do you have any opinion about this subject? Please share it here and I will share your comment with the rest of the Community, and of course, with due credit unto you. Please read all the post in the Wait Types and Queue series. Note: The information presented here is from my experience and there is no way that I claim it to be accurate. I suggest reading Book OnLine for further clarification. All the discussion of Wait Stats in this blog is generic and varies from system to system. It is recommended that you test this on a development server before implementing it to a production server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Wait Stats, SQL Wait Types, T SQL, Technology

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• Code refactoring with Visual Studio 2010-Part 3

  - by Jalpesh P. Vadgama

  I have been writing few post about Code refactoring features of visual studio 2010 and This blog post is also one of them. In this post I am going to show you reorder parameters features in visual studio 2010. As a developer you might need to reorder parameter of a method or procedure in code for better readability of the the code and if you do this task manually then it is tedious job to do. But Visual Studio Reorder Parameter code refactoring feature can do this stuff within a minute. So let’s see how its works. For this I have created a simple console application which I have used earlier posts . Following is a code for that. using System; namespace CodeRefractoring { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string firstName = "Jalpesh"; string lastName = "Vadgama"; PrintMyName(firstName, lastName); } private static void PrintMyName(string firstName, string lastName) { Console.WriteLine(string.Format("FirstName:{0}", firstName)); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("LastName:{0}", lastName)); Console.ReadLine(); } } } Above code is very simple. It just print a firstname and lastname via PrintMyName method. Now I want to reorder the firstname and lastname parameter of PrintMyName. So for that first I have to select method and then click Refactor Menu-> Reorder parameters like following. Once you click a dialog box appears like following where it will give options to move parameter with arrow navigation like following. Now I am moving lastname parameter as first parameter like following. Once you click OK it will show a preview option where I can see the effects of changes like following. Once I clicked Apply my code will be changed like following. using System; namespace CodeRefractoring { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string firstName = "Jalpesh"; string lastName = "Vadgama"; PrintMyName(lastName, firstName); } private static void PrintMyName(string lastName, string firstName) { Console.WriteLine(string.Format("FirstName:{0}", firstName)); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("LastName:{0}", lastName)); Console.ReadLine(); } } } As you can see its very easy to use this feature. Hoped you liked it.. Stay tuned for more.. Till that happy programming.

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• SharePoint, HTTP Modules, and Page Validation

  - by Damon Armstrong

  Sometimes I really believe that SharePoint actively thwarts my attempts to get it to do what I want.  First you look at something and say, wow, that should work.  Then you realize it doesn’t.  Then you have an epiphany and see a workaround.  And when you almost have that work around working… well then SharePoint says no again.  Then it’s off on another whirl-wind adventure to find a work around for the workaround.  I had one of those issues today, but I think I finally got past the last roadblock. So, I was writing an HTTP module as a workaround for another problem.  Everything looked like it was working great because I had been slowly adding code into the HTTP module bit by bit in a prototyping effort.  Finally I put in the last bit of code in place… and I started to get an error: “The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Web browser, refresh the page, and try your operation again.” This is not an uncommon error – it normally occurs when you are updating an item on a GET request and you have not marked the web containing the item with AllowUnsafeUpdates.  One issue, however, is that I wasn’t updating anything in my code.  I was, however, getting an SPWeb object so I decided to set the AllowUnsafeUpdates property on it to true for good measure. Once that was in place, I ran it again… “The security validation for this page is invalid. Click Back in your Web browser, refresh the page, and try your operation again.” WTF?!?!  I really expected that setting the AllowUnsafeUpdates property on the SPWeb would fix the issue, but clearly that was not the case.  I have had occasion to disassemble some SharePoint code with .NET Reflector in the past, and one of the things SharePoint abuses a bit more than it should is the HttpContext.  One way to avoid this abuse is to clear out the HttpContext while your code runs and then set it back once you are done.  I tried this next, and everything worked out just like I had expected.  So, if you are building an HTTP Module for SharePoint and some code that you are running ends up giving you a security validation error, remember to try running that code with AllowUnsafeUpdates turned on and try running the code with the HttpContext nulled out (just remember to set it back after your code runs or else you’ll really jack things up).

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• SharePoint 2010 Field Expression Builder

  - by Ricardo Peres

  OK, back to two of my favorite topics, expression builders and SharePoint. This time I wanted to be able to retrieve a field value from the current page declaratively on the markup so that I can assign it to some control’s property, without the need for writing code. Of course, the most straight way to do it is through an expression builder. Here’s the code: 1: [ExpressionPrefix("SPField")] 2: public class SPFieldExpressionBuilder : ExpressionBuilder 3: { 4: #region Public static methods 5: public static Object GetFieldValue(String fieldName, PropertyInfo propertyInfo) 6: { 7: Object fieldValue = SPContext.Current.ListItem[fieldName]; 8:  9: if (fieldValue != null) 10: { 11: if ((fieldValue is IConvertible) && (typeof(IConvertible).IsAssignableFrom(propertyInfo.PropertyType) == true)) 12: { 13: if (propertyInfo.PropertyType.IsAssignableFrom(fieldValue.GetType()) != true) 14: { 15: fieldValue = Convert.ChangeType(fieldValue, propertyInfo.PropertyType); 16: } 17: } 18: } 19:  20: return (fieldValue); 21: } 22:  23: #endregion 24:  25: #region Public override methods 26: public override Object EvaluateExpression(Object target, BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 27: { 28: return (GetFieldValue(entry.Expression, entry.PropertyInfo)); 29: } 30:  31: public override CodeExpression GetCodeExpression(BoundPropertyEntry entry, Object parsedData, ExpressionBuilderContext context) 32: { 33: if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(entry.Expression) == true) 34: { 35: return (new CodePrimitiveExpression(String.Empty)); 36: } 37: else 38: { 39: return (new CodeMethodInvokeExpression(new CodeMethodReferenceExpression(new CodeTypeReferenceExpression(this.GetType()), "GetFieldValue"), new CodePrimitiveExpression(entry.Expression), new CodePropertyReferenceExpression(new CodeArgumentReferenceExpression("entry"), "PropertyInfo"))); 40: } 41: } 42:  43: #endregion 44:  45: #region Public override properties 46: public override Boolean SupportsEvaluate 47: { 48: get 49: { 50: return (true); 51: } 52: } 53: #endregion 54: } You will notice that it will even try to convert the field value to the target property’s type, through the use of the IConvertible interface and the Convert.ChangeType method. It must be placed on the Global Assembly Cache or you will get a security-related exception. The other alternative is to change the trust level of your web application to full trust. Here’s how to register it on Web.config: 1: <expressionBuilders> 2: <!-- ... --> 3: <add expressionPrefix="SPField" type="MyNamespace.SPFieldExpressionBuilder, MyAssembly, Culture=neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=29186a6b9e7b779f" /> 4: </expressionBuilders> And finally, here’s how to use it on an ASPX or ASCX file inside a publishing page: 1: <asp:Label runat="server" Text="<%$ SPField:Title %>"/>

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• Separating physics and game logic from UI code

  - by futlib

  I'm working on a simple block-based puzzle game. The game play consists pretty much of moving blocks around in the game area, so it's a trivial physics simulation. My implementation, however, is in my opinion far from ideal and I'm wondering if you can give me any pointers on how to do it better. I've split the code up into two areas: Game logic and UI, as I did with a lot of puzzle games: The game logic is responsible for the general rules of the game (e.g. the formal rule system in chess) The UI displays the game area and pieces (e.g. chess board and pieces) and is responsible for animations (e.g. animated movement of chess pieces) The game logic represents the game state as a logical grid, where each unit is one cell's width/height on the grid. So for a grid of width 6, you can move a block of width 2 four times until it collides with the boundary. The UI takes this grid, and draws it by converting logical sizes into pixel sizes (that is, multiplies it by a constant). However, since the game has hardly any game logic, my game logic layer [1] doesn't have much to do except collision detection. Here's how it works: Player starts to drag a piece UI asks game logic for the legal movement area of that piece and lets the player drag it within that area Player lets go of a piece UI snaps the piece to the grid (so that it is at a valid logical position) UI tells game logic the new logical position (via mutator methods, which I'd rather avoid) I'm not quite happy with that: I'm writing unit tests for my game logic layer, but not the UI, and it turned out all the tricky code is in the UI: Stopping the piece from colliding with others or the boundary and snapping it to the grid. I don't like the fact that the UI tells the game logic about the new state, I would rather have it call a movePieceLeft() method or something like that, as in my other games, but I didn't get far with that approach, because the game logic knows nothing about the dragging and snapping that's possible in the UI. I think the best thing to do would be to get rid of my game logic layer and implement a physics layer instead. I've got a few questions regarding that: Is such a physics layer common, or is it more typical to have the game logic layer do this? Would the snapping to grid and piece dragging code belong to the UI or the physics layer? Would such a physics layer typically work with pixel sizes or with some kind of logical unit, like my game logic layer? I've seen event-based collision detection in a game's code base once, that is, the player would just drag the piece, the UI would render that obediently and notify the physics system, and the physics system would call a onCollision() method on the piece once a collision is detected. What is more common? This approach or asking for the legal movement area first? [1] layer is probably not the right word for what I mean, but subsystem sounds overblown and class is misguiding, because each layer can consist of several classes.

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• Algorithm for spreading labels in a visually appealing and intuitive way

  - by mac

  Short version Is there a design pattern for distributing vehicle labels in a non-overlapping fashion, placing them as close as possible to the vehicle they refer to? If not, is any of the method I suggest viable? How would you implement this yourself? Extended version In the game I'm writing I have a bird-eye vision of my airborne vehicles. I also have next to each of the vehicles a small label with key-data about the vehicle. This is an actual screenshot: Now, since the vehicles could be flying at different altitudes, their icons could overlap. However I would like to never have their labels overlapping (or a label from vehicle 'A' overlap the icon of vehicle 'B'). Currently, I can detect collisions between sprites and I simply push away the offending label in a direction opposite to the otherwise-overlapped sprite. This works in most situations, but when the airspace get crowded, the label can get pushed very far away from its vehicle, even if there was an alternate "smarter" alternative. For example I get: B - label A -----------label C - label where it would be better (= label closer to the vehicle) to get: B - label label - A C - label EDIT: It also has to be considered that beside the overlapping vehicles case, there might be other configurations in which vehicles'labels could overlap (the ASCII-art examples show for example three very close vehicles in which the label of A would overlap the icon of B and C). I have two ideas on how to improve the present situation, but before spending time implementing them, I thought to turn to the community for advice (after all it seems like a "common enough problem" that a design pattern for it could exist). For what it's worth, here's the two ideas I was thinking to: Slot-isation of label space In this scenario I would divide all the screen into "slots" for the labels. Then, each vehicle would always have its label placed in the closest empty one (empty = no other sprites at that location. Spiralling search From the location of the vehicle on the screen, I would try to place the label at increasing angles and then at increasing radiuses, until a non-overlapping location is found. Something down the line of: try 0°, 10px try 10°, 10px try 20°, 10px ... try 350°, 10px try 0°, 20px try 10°, 20px ...

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• New SQL Code Deployment Book and Damn I Need to Blog More

  - by Rodney

  Select datediff(d,'02/19/2009',getdate()) This value returned from the above SELECT statement  is 398 and that is the number of days since my last blog post.  As I was formulating my apology for this hiatus from blogging, it dawned on me that I also do not twitter (sorry tweet) and as apologies beget apologies, I then realized that instead of catching up on the backlog of blogs, I should write a book about what I have been most focused on in the past year, one month and 3 days.  That focus is my day job, which of course, most of us have. And that day job we share is why most of us read blogs, tweets, articles and even books in the first place. So my focus for the past year has been SQL code deployments and all of that entails. I am fortunate that Redgate has agreed to entertain my crazy notion of writing an entire book about this subject, which I have tentatively titled, "The Sound and the Fury". Wait..that is not right. Oh yes, a title more befiting a techical tome but with as much profundity, "Standardizing SQL Server Code Deployements - A Redgate Guide". The great American novel must wait a few more years. As I begin this journey, I am inviting you to assist me in the discovery process and even be interviewed and included in the book itself. How do you do deployments in your company? Do you have a documented process or no process? Do you do code review or cross your fingers? Do you work for a small company or a Fortune 100 company? Government regulations or  garage? It does not  matter to me. I am not here to judge. I worked for both companies myself and have seen many things that you can relate to.  If you would like to participate and are one of the 3 people still reading this blog after 398 days, please fill out my survey and let's get started.  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RRG86RH  

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• How to Disable the New Geolocation Feature in Google Chrome

  - by Asian Angel

  The latest release of Google Chrome has geolocation enabled by default, and if you are worried about privacy or just don’t want websites to prompt you for your location, we’ve got the quick details on how to turn it off. Readers should note that the new Geolocation feature doesn’t give out your details by default, so don’t panic. It’s also only active, at the time of this writing, in the Dev channel builds of Chrome—so if you are using the regular stable build this feature won’t arrive for a while anyway. Note: If you’re a Firefox user, be sure to check out our guide to disabling geolocation in Firefox 3.x. What’s this Geolocation Feature About? Geolocation is a way for your browser to tell a website about your physical location, so you can get results tailored to where you actually are—for example, if you visited Google Maps it can ask you for your location to give you an accurate picture of where you are. To use this feature in Google Maps, you would click on the small white icon to activate the feature. As soon as you have clicked on the small white icon, a thin green toolbar will appear at the top of the webpage, asking to Allow or Deny.   How to Turn Chrome’s Geolocation Off If you want to turn geolocation off you will need to open the “Chrome Options Window”, navigate to the third tab, and click on the “Content settings… ” button. When the “Content Settings Window” opens go to the “Location Tab” and select “Do not allow any site to track my physical location”. Once that is done close out the “Content Settings & Chrome Options Windows”. When you go back to Google Maps and try using the small white icon again this is the message that you will see at the top of the page. Now that is much better! If you are unhappy with geolocation being enabled by default in the latest Dev Channel release then this will help get the problem sorted out nicely. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Stupid Geek Tricks: Compare Your Browser’s Memory Usage with Google ChromeHow To Disable Individual Plug-ins in Google ChromeStop YouTube Videos from Automatically Playing in ChromeDisable YouTube Comments while using ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default Browser TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Microsoft’s “How Do I ?” Videos Home Networks – How do they look like & the problems they cause Check Your IMAP Mail Offline In Thunderbird Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff

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• SQL SERVER – CSVExpress and Quick Data Load

  - by pinaldave

  One of the newest ETL tools is CSVexpress.com.  This is a program that can quickly load any CSV file into ODBC compliant databases uses data integration.  For those of you familiar with databases and how they operate, the question that comes to mind might be what use this program will have in your life. I have written earlier article on this subject over here SQL SERVER – Import CSV into Database – Transferring File Content into a Database Table using CSVexpress. You might know that RDBMS have automatic support for loading CSV files into tables – but it is not quite as easy as one click of a button.  First of all, most databases have a command line interface and you need the file and configuration script in order to load up.  You also need to know enough to write the script – which for novices can be extremely daunting.  On top of all this, if you work with more than one type of RDBMS, you need to know the ins and outs of uploading and writing script for more than one program. So you might begin to see how useful CSVexpress.com might be!  There are many other tools that enable uploading files to a database.  They can be very fancy – some can generate configuration files automatically, others load the data directly.  Again, novices will be able to tell you why these aren’t the most useful programs in the world.  You see, these programs were created with SQL in mind, not for uploading data.  If you don’t have large amounts of data to upload, getting the configurations right can be a long process and you will have to check the code that is generated yourself.  Not exactly “easy to use” for novices. That makes CSVexpress.com one of the best new tools available for everyone – but especially people who don’t want to learn a lot of new material all at once.  CSVexpress has an easy to navigate graphical user interface and no scripting or coding is required.  There are built-in constraints and data validations, and you can configure transforms and reject records right there on the screen.  But the best thing of all – it’s free! That’s right, you can download CSVexpress for free from www.csvexpress.com and start easily uploading and configuring riles almost immediately.  If you’re currently happy with your method of data configuration, keep up with the good work.  For the rest of us, there’s CSVexpress.com. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• Dynamically switching the theme in Orchard

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  It may sound a little puzzling at first, but in Orchard CMS, more than one theme can be active at any given time. The reason for that is that we have an extensibility point that allows a module (or a theme) to participate in the choice of the theme to use, for each request. The motivation for building the theme engine this way was to enable developers to switch themes based on arbitrary criteria, such as user preferences or the user agent (if you want to serve a mobile theme for phones for example). The choice is made between the active themes, which is why there is a difference between the default theme and the active themes. In order to have a say in the choice of the theme, all you have to do is implement IThemeSelector. That interface is quite simple as it only has one method, GetTheme, that takes the current RequestContext and returns a ThemeSelectorResult or null if the implementation of the interface does not want to participate in the current request (we'll see an example in a moment). ThemeSelectorResult itself is just a ThemeName string property and an integer Priority. We're using a priority so that an arbitrary number of implementations of IThemeSelector can contribute to the choice of a theme. If you look for existing implementations of the interface in Orchard, you'll find four: AdminThemeSelector: selects the TheAdmin theme with a very high priority (100) if the current request is for a page that is part of the admin. Otherwise, null is returned, which enables other implementations to choose the theme. PreviewThemeSelector: selects the preview theme if there is one, with a high priority (90), and null otherwise. This enables administrators to view the site under a different theme while everybody else continues to see the current default theme. SiteThemeSelector: this is the implementation that is doing what you expect most of the time, which is to get the current theme from site settings and set it with a priority of –5. SafeModeThemeSelector: this is the fallback implementation, which should almost never win. It sets the theme as the safe mode theme, which has no style and just uses the default templates for everything. The priority is very low (-100). While this extensibility mechanism is great to have, I wanted to bring that level of choice into the hands of the site administrator rather than just developers. In order to achieve that, I built the Vandelay Theme Picker module. The module provides administration UI to create rules for theme selection. It provides its own extensibility point (the IThemeSelectionRule interface) and one implementation of a rule: UserAgentThemeSelectorRule. This rule gets the current user agent from the context and tries to match it with a regular expression that the administrator can configure in the admin UI. You can for example configure a rule with a regular expression that matches IE6 and serve a different subtheme where the stylesheet has been tweaked for such an antique browser. Another possible configuration is to detect mobile devices from their agent string and serve the mobile theme. All those operations can be done with this module entirely from the admin UI, without writing a line of code. The module also offers the administrator the opportunity to inject a link into the front-end in a specific zone and with a specific position that enables the user to switch to the default theme if he wishes to. This is especially useful for sites that use a mobile theme but still want to allow users to use the full desktop site. While the module is nice and flexible, it may be overkill. On my own personal blog, I have only two active themes: the desktop theme and the mobile theme. I'm fine with going into code to change the criteria on which to switch the theme, so I'm not using my own Theme Picker module. Instead, I made the mobile theme a theme with code (in other words there is a csproj file in the theme). The project includes a single C# file, my MobileThemeSelector for which the code is the following: public class MobileThemeSelector : IThemeSelector { private static readonly Regex _Msie678 = new Regex(@"^Mozilla\/4\.0 \(compatible; MSIE [678]" + @"\.0; Windows NT \d\.\d(.*)\)$", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase); private ThemeSelectorResult _requestCache; private bool _requestCached; public ThemeSelectorResult GetTheme(RequestContext context) { if (_requestCached) return _requestCache; _requestCached = true; var userAgent = context.HttpContext.Request.UserAgent; if (userAgent.IndexOf("phone", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) != -1 || _Msie678.IsMatch(userAgent) || userAgent.IndexOf("windows live writer", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) != -1) { _requestCache = new ThemeSelectorResult { Priority = 10, ThemeName = "VuLuMobile" }; } return _requestCache; } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } The theme selector selects the current theme for Internet Explorer versions 6 to 8, for phones, and for Windows Live Writer (so that the theme that is used when I write posts is as simple as possible). What's interesting here is that it's the theme that selects itself here, based on its own criteria. This should give you a good panorama of what's possible in terms of dynamic theme selection in Orchard. I hope you find some fun uses for it. As usual, I can't wait to see what you're going to come up with…

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• Getting Internet Explorer to Open Different Sets of Tabs Based on the Day of the Week

  - by Akemi Iwaya

  If you have to use Internet Explorer for work and need to open a different set of work-specific tabs every day, is there a quick and easy way to do it instead of opening each one individually? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader bobSmith1432 is looking for a quick and easy way to open different daily sets of tabs in Internet Explorer for his work: When I open Internet Explorer on different days of the week, I want different tabs to be opened automatically. I have to run different reports for work each day of the week and it takes a lot of time to open the 5-10 tabs I use to run the reports. It would be a lot faster if, when I open Internet Explorer, the tabs I needed would automatically load and be ready. Is there a way to open 5-10 different tabs in Internet Explorer depending on the day of the week? Example: Monday – 6 Accounting Pages Tuesday – 7 Billing Pages Wednesday – 5 HR Pages Thursday – 10 Schedule Pages Friday – 8 Work Summary/Order Pages Is there an easier way for Bob to get all those tabs to load and be ready to go each day instead of opening them individually every time? The Answer SuperUser contributor Julian Knight has a simple, non-script solution for us: Rather than trying the brute force method, how about a work around? Open up each set of tabs either in different windows, or one set at a time, and save all tabs to bookmark folders. Put the folders on the bookmark toolbar for ease of access. Each day, right-click on the appropriate folder and click on ‘Open in tab group’ to open all the tabs. You could put all the day folders into a top-level folder to save space if you want, but at the expense of an extra click to get to them. If you really must go further, you need to write a program or script to drive Internet Explorer. The easiest way is probably writing a PowerShell script. Special Note: There are various scripts shared on the discussion page as well, so the solution shown above is just one possibility out of many. If you love the idea of using scripts for a function like this, then make sure to browse on over to the discussion page to see the various ones SuperUser members have shared! Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.

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• Cross-platform independent development

  - by Joe Wreschnig

  Some years ago, if you wrote in C and some subset of C++ and used a sufficient number of platform abstractions (via SDL or whatever), you could run on every platform an indie could get on - Linux, Windows, Mac OS of various versions, obscure stuff like BeOS, and the open consoles like the GP2X and post-death Dreamcast. If you got a contract for a closed platform at some point, you could port your game to that platform with "minimal" code changes as well. Today, indie developers must use XNA to get on the Xbox 360 (and upcoming Windows phone); must not use XNA to work anywhere else but Windows; until recently had to use Java on Android; Flash doesn't run on phones, HTML5 doesn't work on IE. Unlike e.g. DirectX vs. OpenGL or Windows vs. Unix, these are changes to the core language you write your code in and can't be papered over without, basically, writing a compiler. You can move some game logic into scripts and include an interpreter - except when you can't, because the iPhone SDK doesn't allow it, and performance suffers because no one allows JIT. So what can you do if you want a really cross-platform portable game, or even just a significant body of engine and logic code? Is this not a problem because the platforms have fundamentally diverged - it's just plain not worthwhile to try to target both an iPhone and the Xbox 360 with any shared code because such a game would be bad? (I find this very unlikely. I can easily see wanting to share a game between a Windows Mobile phone and an Android, or an Xbox 360 and an iPad.) Are interfaces so high-level now that porting time is negligible? (I might believe this for business applications, but not for games with strict performance requirements.) Is this going to become more pronounced in the future? Is the split going to be, somewhat scarily, still down vendor lines? Will we all rely on high-level middleware like Flash or Unity to get anything cross-platform done? tl;dr - Is porting a problem, is it going to be a bigger problem in the future, and if so how do we solve it?

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• What should you bring to the table as a Software Architect?

  - by Ahmad Mageed

  There have been many questions with good answers about the role of a Software Architect (SA) on StackOverflow and Programmers SE. I am trying to ask a slightly more focused question than those. The very definition of a SA is broad so for the sake of this question let's define a SA as follows: A Software Architect guides the overall design of a project, gets involved with coding efforts, conducts code reviews, and selects the technologies to be used. In other words, I am not talking about managerial rest and vest at the crest (further rhyming words elided) types of SAs. If I were to pursue any type of SA position I don't want to be away from coding. I might sacrifice some time to interface with clients and Business Analysts etc., but I am still technically involved and I'm not just aware of what's going on through meetings. With these points in mind, what should a SA bring to the table? Should they come in with a mentality of "laying down the law" (so to speak) and enforcing the usage of certain tools to fit "their way," i.e., coding guidelines, source control, patterns, UML documentation, etc.? Or should they specify initial direction and strategy then be laid back and jump in as needed to correct the ship's direction? Depending on the organization this might not work. An SA who relies on TFS to enforce everything may struggle to implement their plan at an employer that only uses StarTeam. Similarly, an SA needs to be flexible depending on the stage of the project. If it's a fresh project they have more choices, whereas they might have less for existing projects. Here are some SA stories I have experienced as a way of sharing some background in hopes that answers to my questions might also shed some light on these issues: I've worked with an SA who code reviewed literally every single line of code of the team. The SA would do this for not just our project but other projects in the organization (imagine the time spent on this). At first it was useful to enforce certain standards, but later it became crippling. FxCop was how the SA would find issues. Don't get me wrong, it was a good way to teach junior developers and force them to think of the consequences of their chosen approach, but for senior developers it was seen as somewhat draconian. One particular SA was against the use of a certain library, claiming it was slow. This forced us to write tons of code to achieve things differently while the other library would've saved us a lot of time. Fast forward to the last month of the project and the clients were complaining about performance. The only solution was to change certain functionality to use the originally ignored approach despite early warnings from the devs. By that point a lot of code was thrown out and not reusable, leading to overtime and stress. Sadly the estimates used for the project were based on the old approach which my project was forbidden from using so it wasn't an appropriate indicator for estimation. I would hear the PM say "we've done this before," when in reality they had not since we were using a new library and the devs working on it were not the same devs used on the old project. The SA who would enforce the usage of DTOs, DOs, BOs, Service layers and so on for all projects. New devs had to learn this architecture and the SA adamantly enforced usage guidelines. Exceptions to usage guidelines were made when it was absolutely difficult to follow the guidelines. The SA was grounded in their approach. Classes for DTOs and all CRUD operations were generated via CodeSmith and database schemas were another similar ball of wax. However, having used this setup everywhere, the SA was not open to new technologies such as LINQ to SQL or Entity Framework. I am not using this post as a platform for venting. There were positive and negative aspects to my experiences with the SA stories mentioned above. My questions boil down to: What should an SA bring to the table? How can they strike a balance in their decision making? Should one approach an SA job (as defined earlier) with the mentality that they must enforce certain ground rules? Anything else to consider? Thanks! I'm sure these job tasks are easily extended to people who are senior devs or technical leads, so feel free to answer at that capacity as well.

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• Thoughts on Nexus in SQL Server PDW

  - by jamiet

  I have been on a SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (aka PDW) training course this week and was interested to learn that you can't (yet) use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) against PDW, instead they ship a 3rd party tool called Nexus Chameleon. This was a bit of a disappointment at the beginning of the week (I'd prefer parity across SQL Server editions) but actually, having used Nexus for 3 days, I'm rather getting used to it. Some of it is a bit clunky (e.g. everything goes via an ODBC DSN) but once you get into using it its the epitome of "it just works". For example, over the past few years I have come to rely on intellisense in SSMS and have learnt to cope with its nuances. There is no intellisense in Nexus but you know what....I don't really miss it that much. In a sense its a breath of fresh air not having to hope that you've crossed the line into that will it work/won't it work grey area with SSMS intellisense. And I don't end up with writing @@CONNECTIONS instead of FROM anymore (anyone else suffer from this?) :) Moreover, Nexus is a standalone tool. Its not a bunch of features shoehorned into something else (Visual Studio). Another thing I like about Nexus is that you can actually do something with your resultset client-side. Take a look at the screenshots below:   You can see Nexus allows you to group a resultest by a column or set of columns. Nice touch. I know that many people have submitted Connect requests asking for the ability to do similar things in SSMS that would mean we don't have to copy resultsets into Excel (I know I have) - Nexus is a step in that direction. Its refreshing to use a tool that just gets out of the way yet still has some really useful features. How ironic that it gets shipped inside an edition of SQL Server! If I had the option of using Nexus in my day job I suspect that over time I would probably gravitate back to SSMS because as yet I haven’t really stretched Nexus’ capabilities, overall SSMS *does* have more features and up until now I've never really had any objections to it ... but its been an interesting awakening into the nuances that plague SSMS. Anyone else used Nexus? Any thoughts on it? @Jamiet

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• Data validation best practices: how can I better construct user feedback?

  - by Cory Larson

  Data validation, whether it be domain object, form, or any other type of input validation, could theoretically be part of any development effort, no matter its size or complexity. I sometimes find myself writing informational or error messages that might seem harsh or demanding to unsuspecting users, and frankly I feel like there must be a better way to describe the validation problem to the user. I know that this topic is subjective and argumentative. StackOverflow might not be the proper channel for diving into this subject, but like I've mentioned, we all run into this at some point or another. There are so many StackExchange sites now; if there is a better one, feel free to share! Basically, I'm looking for good resources on data validation and user feedback that results from it at a theoretical level. Topics and questions I'm interested in are: Content Should I be describing what the user did correctly or incorrectly, or simply what was expected? How much detail can the user read before they get annoyed? (e.g. Is "Username cannot exceed 20 characters." enough, or should it be described more fully, such as "The username cannot be empty, and must be at least 6 characters but cannot exceed 30 characters."?) Grammar How do I decide between phrases like "must not," "may not," or "cannot"? Delivery This can depend on the project, but how should the information be delivered to the user? Should it be obtrusive (e.g. JavaScript alerts) or friendly? Should they be displayed prominently? Immediately (i.e. without confirmation steps, etc.)? Logging Do you bother logging validation errors? Internationalization Some cultures prefer or better understand directness over subtlety and vice-versa (e.g. "Don't do that!" vs. "Please check what you've done."). How do I cater to the majority of users? I may edit this list as I think more about the topic, but I'm genuinely interest in proper user feedback techniques. I'm looking for things like research results, poll results, etc. I've developed and refined my own techniques over the years that users seem to be okay with, but I work in an environment where the users prefer to adapt to what you give them over speaking up about things they don't like. I'm interested in hearing your experiences in addition to any resources to which you may be able to point me.

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• How do I prove or disprove "god" objects are wrong?

  - by honestduane

  Problem Summary: Long story short, I inherited a code base and an development team I am not allowed to replace and the use of God Objects is a big issue. Going forward, I want to have us re-factor things but I am getting push-back from the teams who want to do everything with God Objects "because its easier" and this means I would not be allowed to re-factor. I pushed back citing my years of dev experience, that I'm the new boss who was hired to know these things, etc, and so did the third party offshore companies account sales rep, and this is now at the executive level and my meeting is tomorrow and I want to go in with a lot of technical ammo to advocate best practices because I feel it will be cheaper in the long run (And I personally feel that is what the third party is worried about) for the company. My issue is from a technical level, I know its good long term but I'm having trouble with the ultra short term and 6 months term, and while its something I "know" I cant prove it with references and cited resources outside of one person (Robert C. Martin, aka Uncle Bob), as that is what I am being asked to do as I have been told having data from one person and only one person (Robert C Martin) is not good enough of an argument. Question: What are some resources I can cite directly (Title, year published, page number, quote) by well known experts in the field that explicitly say this use of "God" Objects/Classes/Systems is bad (or good, since we are looking for the most technically valid solution)? Research I have already done: I have a number of books here and I have searched their indexes for the use of the words "god object" and "god class". I found that oddly its almost never used and the copy of the GoF book I have for example, never uses it (At least according to the index in front of me) but I have found it in 2 books per the below, but I want more I can use. I checked the Wikipedia page for "God Object" and its currently a stub with little reference links so although I personally agree with that it says, It doesn't have much I can use in an environment where personal experience is not considered valid. The book cited is also considered too old to be valid by the people I am debating these technical points with as the argument they are making is that "it was once thought to be bad but nobody could prove it, and now modern software says "god" objects are good to use". I personally believe that this statement is incorrect, but I want to prove the truth, whatever it is. In Robert C Martin's "Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#" (ISBN: 0-13-185725-8, hardcover) where on page 266 it states "Everybody knows that god classes are a bad idea. We don't want to concentrate all the intelligence of a system into a single object or a single function. One of the goals of OOD is the partitioning and distribution of behavior into many classes and many function." -- And then goes on to say sometimes its better to use God Classes anyway sometimes (Citing micro-controllers as an example). In Robert C Martin's "Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship" page 136 (And only this page) talks about the "God class" and calls it out as a prime example of a violation of the "classes should be small" rule he uses to promote the Single Responsibility Principle" starting on on page 138. The problem I have is all my references and citations come from the same person (Robert C. Martin), and am from the same single person/source. I am being told that because he is just one guy, my desire to not use "God Classes" is invalid and not accepted as a standard best practice in the software industry. Is this true? Am I doing things wrong from a technical perspective by trying to keep to the teaching of Uncle Bob? God Objects and Object Oriented Programming and Design: The more I think of this the more I think this is more something you learn when you study OOP and its never explicitly called out; Its implicit to good design is my thinking (Feel free to correct me, please, as I want to learn), The problem is I "know" this, but but not everybody does, so in this case its not considered a valid argument because I am effectively calling it out as universal truth when in fact most people are statistically ignorant of it since statistically most people are not programmers. Conclusion: I am at a loss on what to search for to get the best additional results to cite, since they are making a technical claim and I want to know the truth and be able to prove it with citations like a real engineer/scientist, even if I am biased against god objects due to my personal experience with code that used them. Any assistance or citations would be deeply appreciated.

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• Silverlight Cream for April 22, 2010 -- #844

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Miroslav Miroslavov, David Anson, Mike Snow, Jason Alderman, Denis Gladkikh, John Papa, Adam Kinney, and CrocusGirl. Shoutout: Mike Snow is moving his blog to Silverlight Tips of The Day... his first is a repeat of number 110 of the last list, but you'll want to bookmark the page. Falling in the 'too cool not to mention' category... Pete Brown posted another MIX10 interview: New Channel 9 Video: Josh Blake on NaturalShow Multi-touch in WPF Adam Kinney announced that the Upgrade to Expression Studio v4 for free – now in writing! From SilverlightCream.com: Visuals staring at the mouse cursor Miroslav Miroslavov at SilverlightShow has a first part post up on the design of the CompleteIT site... going through the 'follow the mouse' effect that is so cool on the main page... with source. Today's DataVisualizationDemos release includes new demos showing off stacked series behavior Falling squarly into the category of "when does he sleep"... David Anson has another Visualization post up today... adding a stacked series and Text-to-Chat sample. Silverlight: Unable to start Debugging. The Silverlight managed debugging package isn’t installed. Mike Snow has a tip up about what to do if you get an "Unable to start debugging" box when you crank up VS ... not a great solution, but it's a solution. Introducing Pillbox for Windows Phone The folks at Veracity definitely have way too much fun with technology :) ... check out the WP7 app that Jason Alderman blogged about... he has a link out to another page with screenshots... oh, AND the code... Export data to Excel from Silverlight/WPF DataGrid Denis Gladkikh demonstrates using COM Interop to export to Excel from both WPF and Silverlight. He discusses isses he had and has all the source for both platforms available. Silverlight TV 21: Silverlight 4 - A Customer's Perspective John Papa has Silverlight TV number 21 up and he's chatting with Franck Jeannin of Ormetis, Ward Bell of IdeaBlade, and Dave Wolf of Cynergy Systems, all presenters in the Keynote at DevConnections. Avatar Mosaic -Experimenting with the Artefact Animator Adam Kinney spent enough time with Artefact Animator to put up a lengthy post about it including his project. Artefact Animator itself is available on CodePlex, and Adam has the link... this looks like good stuff. Windows Phone 7 Design Notes – Part2: Metro + Adrian Frutiger CrocusGirl continues her WP7 Metro discussion with a great long post on background she's researched and some of her own work with typography... a great read. Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Standard way of allowing general XML data

  - by Greg Jackson

  I'm writing a data gathering and reporting application that takes XML files as input, which will then be read, processed, and stored in a strongly-typed database. For example, an XML file for a "Job" might look like this: <Data type="Job"> <ID>12345</ID> <JobName>MyJob</JobName> <StartDate>04/07/2012 10:45:00 AM</StartDate> <Files> <File name="a.jpeg" path="images\" /> <File name="b.mp3" path="music\mp3\" /> </Files> </Data> I'd like to use a schema to have a standard format for these input files (depending on what type of data is being used, for example "Job", "User", "View"), but I'd also like to not fail validation if there is extra data provided. For example, perhaps a Job has additional properties such as "IsAutomated", "Requester", "EndDate", and so on. I don't particularly care about these extra properties. If they are included in the XML, I'll simply ignore them when I'm processing the XML file, and I'd like validation to do the same, without having to include in the schema every single possible property that a customer might provide me with. Is there a standard way of providing such a schema, or of allowing such a general XML file that can still be validated without resorting to something as naïve (and potentially difficult to deal with) as the below? <Data type="Job"> <Data name="ID">12345</Data> . . . <Data name="Files"> <Data name="File"> <Data name="Filename">a.jpeg</Data> <Data name="path">images</Data> . . . </Data> </Data>

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• Top Reasons You Need A User Engagement Platform

  - by Michael Snow

  Guest post by: Amit Sircar, Senior Sales Consultant, Oracle Deliver complex enterprise functionality through a simple intuitive and unified User Interface (UI) The modern enterprise contains a wide range of applications that are used to manage the business and drive competitive advantages. Organizations respond by creating a complex structure that results in a functional and management grouping of users. Each of these groups of users requires access to multiple applications and information sources in order to perform their job functions. This leads to the lack of a unified view of enterprise information, inconsistent user interfaces and disjointed security. To be effective, portals must be designed from the end-user perspective, enabling the user to accomplish as many tasks as possible while visiting the fewest number of portals. This requires rethinking the way that portals are built, moving from a functional business unit perspective to a user-focused, process-oriented point of view. Oracle WebCenter provides the Common User Experience Architecture that allows organizations to seamlessly present a unified view of enterprise information tailored to a particular user’s role and preferences. This architecture provides the best practices, design patterns and delivery mechanism for myriad services, applications, and data sources.  In order to serve as a primary system of access, Oracle WebCenter also provides access to unstructured content and to other users via integrated search, service-oriented artifacts, content management, and collaboration tools. Provide a modern and engaging experience without modifying the core business application Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, wikis, forums or social media sites are having a profound impact in the public internet.  These technologies can be leveraged by enterprises to add significant value to the business. Organizations need to integrate these technologies directly into their business applications while continuing to meet their security and governance needs. To deliver richer connections and become a more agile and intelligent business, WebCenter provides an enterprise portal platform that contains pre-integrated, standards-based Enterprise 2.0 services. These Enterprise 2.0 services can be easily accessed, integrated and utilized by users. By giving users the ability to use and integrate Enterprise 2.0 services such as tags, links, wikis, activities, blogs or social networking directly with their portals and applications, they are empowered to make richer connections, optimize their productivity, and ultimately increase the value of their applications. Foster a collaborative experience The organizational workplace has undergone a major change in the last decade. With increasing globalization and a distributed workforce, project teams may be physically separated by large distances. Online collaboration technologies are becoming a critical resource to enable virtual teams to share information and work together effectively. Oracle WebCenter delivers dynamic business communities with rich Services to empower teams to quickly and efficiently manage their information, applications, projects, and people without requiring IT assistance. It brings together the latest technology around Enterprise 2.0 and social computing, communities, personal productivity, and ad-hoc team interactions without any development effort. It enables the sharing and collaboration on team content, focusing an organization’s valuable resources on solving business problems, tapping into new ideas, and reducing time-to-market. Mobile Support The traditional workplace dynamics that required employees to access their work applications from their desktops have undergone a fundamental shift. Employees were used to primarily working from company offices and utilized an IT-issued computer for performing their job functions. With the introduction of flexible work hours and the growth of remote workers, more and more employees need the ability to remain productive even when they do not have access to a computer via the use of tablets and smartphones.  In addition, customers and citizens have come to expect 24x7 access to resources and websites from wherever they are located. Tablets and smartphones have empowered everyone to quickly access services they need anytime and from any place.  WebCenter provides out of the box capabilities to deliver the mobile experience in a seamless manner. Seeded device profiles and toolkits within WebCenter can be used to render the same web pages into multiple target devices such iPads, iPhones and android devices. Web designers can preview the portal using the built in simulator, make necessary updates and then deploy their UI design for the targeted device. Conclusion The competitive economy and resource constraints facing organizations today require them to find ways to make their applications, portals and Web sites more agile and intelligent and their knowledge workers more productive no matter where they are located. Organizations need to provide faster access to relevant information and resources, enhance existing applications and business processes with rich Enterprise 2.0 services, and seamlessly deliver content to mobile platforms. Oracle WebCenter successfully meets these challenges by providing the modern user experience platform for the enterprise and the Web.

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• I Choose iNada

  - by Mark Treadwell

  As a laptop and Kindle user, I have been looking at the usual cyclical Apple frenzy in the press with the same kind of amused tolerance I give my three-year-old son.  They never seem to learn, and they keep repeating the same things.  However when I ready articles like this, I am reminded that that is not always the case. I am a happy user of a monster-sized HP HDX laptop, HP touch screen all-in-one system, and multi-screen Dell desktops at home as well as a HP business laptop at work.  I have no iPod, iMac, iTouch or any other relationship with the company who wants to trademark the prefix “i”. I have not missed them. That is not to say that I have no technological gadgets.  I do.  They just do not dominate Every company wants to preserve their customer base, but Apple just does it too rigidly.  The buy-in necessary rubs me wrong.  When the fanboys scream about the next great iApple thing which will kill off another market segment (this time, the iPad will kill off laptops), the amused tolerance returns. From what I have seen, the iPad virtual keyboard is a poor substitute for an actual keyboard.  It was intended to let you get some kind of text into a device that is not really intended for keyboard input, but rather for touch manipulation of a designed interface.  I like the virtual keyboard on my LG Dare cell phone, but you will not catch me writing my next novel with it.  But, you hear, you can connect a real keyboard and get info from another computer.  That is when you realize that the iPad is not a true standalone device like a laptop.  You have to make more hardware purchases to get what you truly want.  It is an expensive accommodation to get you a different form of freedom. So if Apple made a product with me in mind, you can have it.  Everyone gets to make their own choice.  My choice is the iNada.

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