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  • Locate devices within a building

    - by ams0
    The situation: Our company is spread between two floors in a building. Every employee has a laptop (macbook Air or MacbookPro) and an iPhone. We have static DHCP mappings and DNS resolution so every mobile gets a name like employeeiphone.example.com, every macbook air gets a employeelaptop.example.com and every macbook pro gets a employeelaptop.example.com on the Ethernet interface (the wifi gets a dynamic IP from a small range dedicated for the purpose). We know each and every MAC address of phones and laptops, since we do DHCP static mapping (ISC DHCP server runs on linux). At each floor we have a Netgear stack of two switches, connected via 10GB fiber to each other. No VLANs so far. At every floor there are 4 Airport Extreme making a single SSID network with WPA2 authentication. The request: Our CTO wants to know who is present at which floor. My solution (so far): Every switch contains an table listing MAC address and originating port. On each switch stack, all the MAC addresses coming from the other floor are listed as coming on port 48 (the fiber link). So I came up with: 1) Get the table from each switch via SNMP 2) Filter out the ones associated with port 48 3) Grep dhcpd.conf, removing all entries not *laptop and not *iphone 4) Match the two lists for each switch, output in JSON or XML 5) present the results on a dashboard for all to see I wrote it in bash with a lot of awk and sed, it kinda works but I always have for some reason stale entries in the switch lookup tables, making it unreliable; some people may have put their laptop to sleep, their iphones drop connections after a while, if not woken up and so on..I searched left and right, we are prepared to spend a little on the project too (RFIDs?), does anybody do something similar? I can provide with the script if needed (although it's really specific to our switches and naming scheme). Thanks! p.s. perhaps is this a question for stackoverflow? please move if it so.

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  • Issues with returned mail sent to web-based email domains

    - by Beeder
    My company is having issues with returned mail that we send out to external domains. A few weeks ago we replaced a firewall and changed ISP providers and began subsequently having issues RECEIVING emails from external sources because we hadn't updated our new IPs in the DNS records. After making the necessary configuration changes and setting up SMTP forwarding over port 25 to our mail server, everything was working fine up until a few days ago when we started having mail sent out returned to us. We aren't having any trouble communicating internally (to recipients on our domain) but it seems we're having trouble with outbound messages to web-based email recipients. (@hotmail, @live, @yahoo, @gmail...etc) Currently we are running Server 2003 SP2 and exchange 2003. I'm very unfamiliar with configuring Exchange and could really use some help in narrowing down the possibilities. I did some research and am becoming suspicious of Sender ID being the culprit due to our recent IP address change and the likelihood that Sender ID is identifying us as a fake domain. Am I going in entirely the wrong direction? Any input or guidance would be infinitely appreciated. This is the message that is returned when an outbound message fails...this particular one was sent to my @live.com account for testing purposes... Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients. The following recipient(s) could not be reached: [email protected] on 5/17/2012 3:02 PM There was a SMTP communication problem with the recipient's email server. Please contact your system administrator. Unfortunately, messages from xx.x.xx.x weren't sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block list. I tried a reverse DNS lookup and found that we are set up as a Forward-confirmed reverse DNS. So do I just need to contact my ISP and have them correct their DNS records or is this something I can solve on our end??

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  • Server high CPU load issue! ( Cpanel + CentOS 5)

    - by kenby
    Our server cpu load is high todays sometimes reaches to 560! .. We have the lastest Cpanel/whm and the kernel is update!while the load average is : Load Averages: 39.05 75.01 45.33 the apache log is: Current Time: Sunday, 30-Jan-2011 01:50:13 EST Restart Time: Saturday, 29-Jan-2011 21:51:20 EST Parent Server Generation: 2 Server uptime: 3 hours 58 minutes 53 seconds Total accesses: 149493 - Total Traffic: 2.4 GB CPU Usage: u9.17 s10.66 cu42.82 cs0 - .437% CPU load 10.4 requests/sec - 174.6 kB/second - 16.7 kB/request 121 requests currently being processed, 42 idle workers W_WWW.W_..W.W_W_WCWW..W...W.WWW.WWWW.WW.C_W_.W.WW.WC..W.WW.WW .W.W.W...WWWW...WW.CC.C.._W.WC.WW_WW._W....W.WWW.W.WWW.W..W WW.....WW.W_WWWWW..WCRW..WWCW.WWW__.WWWWCW_W._._WW_W...W...W _W..W..WW.W...._W..._WW.W.WWW.._W.WWW.WWW....WW_.C...W._ Scoreboard Key: "_" Waiting for Connection, "S" Starting up, "R" Reading Request, "W" Sending Reply, "K" Keepalive (read), "D" DNS Lookup, "C" Closing connection, "L" Logging, "G" Gracefully finishing, "I" Idle cleanup of worker, "." Open slot with no current process What cause this high cpu load while the apache cpu load is fine? the mysql process is also fine.. the cpu load is still high even if I stop mail-http-mysql services!

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  • Protocol (or service publish/discovery) to detect devices in network

    - by Gobliins
    we connect some embedded devices in a network. What i am looking for now, is a way to find the devices IP and identify them. We work with Windows PC´s and i am about to write a C# tool that should do this. I thought about send a udp broadcast and in the ack i.e. is the device´s ip, which would mean the device needs a daemon runnig to assign an ip itself. Running a service (like a printer) on the device, and on the PC just lookup for the service. I read about some things like apipa, zeroconf, ipv4 local link, bonjour, dns-sd, mdns, bonjour; They can automatically assign ip´s and publish services in a network. My Question is, can someone recommend me what would be good for my task? -The protocol or Service should be low on ressource (memory/cpu usage) use. -Are there some standard protocolls to use? -Is DNS a good idea or would it be to ressource consumpting just for finding a device´s IP? -Should also work when no dhcp servers are around. edit: To clarify a bit: The IP configuration is automatic. The problem to focus is how to tell the PC which IP in the network (or a direct connection in this vase there would only be one) belongs to the device (identity).

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  • A duplicate name has been detected on the TCP network

    - by MSedm
    When I installed my domain controller and DNS, I had 2 NIC on the server. Both NIC has its own IP address. NICs are not teamed, they are seperate and ip address are in the same subnet. Both IP address are now registered in the DNS. i found them in Forward and reverse lookup zone. Everything working ok except the following error in the event log. "A duplicate name has been detected on the TCP network......" Now I have realized that this is because of the second NIC. My question is if i disable the second NIC, what happen to those DNS record assiciated with the second ip address? How do I remove all the DNS recored for the disabled NIC? There are A record, some record with the name (same as parent folder), PTR record and may be more. How do i disable second NIC and remove all the associated DNS recoreds? Please help.

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  • How do I remove a printer connection without the user's intervention?

    - by 1.618
    Here's the situation: We're replacing 11 printers with newer models, and we'll be installing them on our print server and sharing them out. The plan is to share the new printers under different names than the ones they're replacing, and un-share the old ones. So I need to come up with a way to remove the client connections to old printers automatically. Clients are mostly Windows 7 with a few XP. My first idea was to call prnmngr.vbs from the login script to remove each old printer explicitly by name. The problem is that some users don't log out when they're done for the day, so I can't count on their login script running before they next need to print. I could remotely run prnmngr.vbs using SCCM, but if it's not 'impersonating' the user, I don't think it will remove their printers. Any ideas? Could I lookup how to access WMI using c# code and write a "trojan" to remove specific printers without requiring the user to do anything? (I'm only half joking). I'm open to any suggestion! Thanks!

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  • MVC 2 Entity Framework View Model Insert

    - by cannibalcorpse
    This is driving me crazy. Hopefully my question makes sense... I'm using MVC 2 and Entity Framework 1 and am trying to insert a new record with two navigation properties. I have a SQL table, Categories, that has a lookup table CategoryTypes and another self-referencing lookup CategoryParent. EF makes two nav properties on my Category model, one called Parent and another called CategoryType, both instances of their respective models. On my view that creates the new Category, I have two dropdowns, one for the CategoryType and another for the ParentCategory. When I try and insert the new Category WITHOUT the ParentCategory, which allows nulls, everything is fine. As soon as I add the ParentCategory, the insert fails, and oddly (or so I think) complains about the CategoryType in the form of this error: 0 related 'CategoryTypes' were found. 1 'CategoryTypes' is expected. When I step through, I can verifiy that both ID properties coming in on the action method parameter are correct. I can also verify that when I go to the db to get the CategoryType and ParentCategory with the ID's, the records are being pulled fine. Yet it fails on SaveChanges(). All that I can see is that my CategoryParent dropdownlistfor in my view, is somehow causing the insert to bomb. Please see my comments in my httpPost Create action method. My view model looks like this: public class EditModel { public Category MainCategory { get; set; } public IEnumerable<CategoryType> CategoryTypesList { get; set; } public IEnumerable<Category> ParentCategoriesList { get; set; } } My Create action methods look like this: // GET: /Categories/Create public ActionResult Create() { return View(new EditModel() { CategoryTypesList = _db.CategoryTypeSet.ToList(), ParentCategoriesList = _db.CategorySet.ToList() }); } // POST: /Categories/Create [HttpPost] public ActionResult Create(Category mainCategory) { if (!ModelState.IsValid) return View(new EditModel() { MainCategory = mainCategory, CategoryTypesList = _db.CategoryTypeSet.ToList(), ParentCategoriesList = _db.CategorySet.ToList() }); mainCategory.CategoryType = _db.CategoryTypeSet.First(ct => ct.Id == mainCategory.CategoryType.Id); // This db call DOES get the correct Category, but fails on _db.SaveChanges(). // Oddly the error is related to CategoryTypes and not Category. // Entities in 'DbEntities.CategorySet' participate in the 'FK_Categories_CategoryTypes' relationship. // 0 related 'CategoryTypes' were found. 1 'CategoryTypes' is expected. //mainCategory.Parent = _db.CategorySet.First(c => c.Id == mainCategory.Parent.Id); // If I just use the literal ID of the same Category, // AND comment out the CategoryParent dropdownlistfor in the view, all is fine. mainCategory.Parent = _db.CategorySet.First(c => c.Id == 2); _db.AddToCategorySet(mainCategory); _db.SaveChanges(); return RedirectToAction("Index"); } Here is my Create form on the view : <% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%> <%= Html.ValidationSummary(true) %> <fieldset> <legend>Fields</legend> <div> <%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.MainCategory.Parent.Id) %> <%= Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.MainCategory.Parent.Id, new SelectList(Model.ParentCategoriesList, "Id", "Name")) %> <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.MainCategory.Parent.Id) %> </div> <div> <%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.MainCategory.CategoryType.Id) %> <%= Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.MainCategory.CategoryType.Id, new SelectList(Model.CategoryTypesList, "Id", "Name"))%> <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.MainCategory.CategoryType.Id)%> </div> <div> <%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.MainCategory.Name) %> <%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.MainCategory.Name)%> <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.MainCategory.Name)%> </div> <div> <%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.MainCategory.Description)%> <%= Html.TextAreaFor(model => model.MainCategory.Description)%> <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.MainCategory.Description)%> </div> <div> <%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.MainCategory.SeoName)%> <%= Html.TextBoxFor(model => model.MainCategory.SeoName, new { @class = "large" })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.MainCategory.SeoName)%> </div> <div> <%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.MainCategory.HasHomepage)%> <%= Html.CheckBoxFor(model => model.MainCategory.HasHomepage)%> <%= Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.MainCategory.HasHomepage)%> </div> <p><input type="submit" value="Create" /></p> </fieldset> <% } %> Maybe I've just been staying up too late playing with MVC 2? :) Please let me know if I'm not being clear enough.

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  • Connection drop problem with Hibernate-mysql-c3p0

    - by user344788
    hi all, This is an issue which I have seen all across the web. I will bring it up again as till now I don't have a fix for the same. I am using hibernate 3. mysql 5 and latest c3p0 jar. I am getting a broken pipe exception. Following is my hibernate.cfg file. com.mysql.jdbc.Driver org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect <property name="hibernate.show_sql">true</property> <property name="hibernate.use_sql_comments">true</property> <property name="hibernate.current_session_context_class">thread</property> <property name="connection.autoReconnect">true</property> <property name="connection.autoReconnectForPools">true</property> <property name="connection.is-connection-validation-required">true</property> <!--<property name="c3p0.min_size">5</property> <property name="c3p0.max_size">20</property> <property name="c3p0.timeout">1800</property> <property name="c3p0.max_statements">50</property> --><property name="hibernate.connection.provider_class">org.hibernate.connection.C3P0ConnectionProvider </property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.acquireRetryAttempts">30</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.acquireIncrement">5</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.automaticTestTable">C3P0TestTable</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.idleConnectionTestPeriod">36000</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.initialPoolSize">20</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.maxPoolSize">100</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.maxIdleTime">1200</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.maxStatements">50</property> <property name="hibernate.c3p0.minPoolSize">10</property>--> My connection pooling is occurring fine. During the day it is fine , but once i keep it idle over the night ,next day I find it giving me broken connection error. public class HibernateUtil { private static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(HibernateUtil.class); //private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(HibernateUtil.class); private static Configuration configuration; private static SessionFactory sessionFactory; static { // Create the initial SessionFactory from the default configuration files try { log.debug("Initializing Hibernate"); // Read hibernate.properties, if present configuration = new Configuration(); // Use annotations: configuration = new AnnotationConfiguration(); // Read hibernate.cfg.xml (has to be present) configuration.configure(); // Build and store (either in JNDI or static variable) rebuildSessionFactory(configuration); log.debug("Hibernate initialized, call HibernateUtil.getSessionFactory()"); } catch (Throwable ex) { // We have to catch Throwable, otherwise we will miss // NoClassDefFoundError and other subclasses of Error log.error("Building SessionFactory failed.", ex); throw new ExceptionInInitializerError(ex); } } /** * Returns the Hibernate configuration that was used to build the SessionFactory. * * @return Configuration */ public static Configuration getConfiguration() { return configuration; } /** * Returns the global SessionFactory either from a static variable or a JNDI lookup. * * @return SessionFactory */ public static SessionFactory getSessionFactory() { String sfName = configuration.getProperty(Environment.SESSION_FACTORY_NAME); System.out.println("Current s name is "+sfName); if ( sfName != null) { System.out.println("Looking up SessionFactory in JNDI"); log.debug("Looking up SessionFactory in JNDI"); try { System.out.println("Returning new sssion factory"); return (SessionFactory) new InitialContext().lookup(sfName); } catch (NamingException ex) { throw new RuntimeException(ex); } } else if (sessionFactory == null) { System.out.println("calling rebuild session factory now"); rebuildSessionFactory(); } return sessionFactory; } /** * Closes the current SessionFactory and releases all resources. * <p> * The only other method that can be called on HibernateUtil * after this one is rebuildSessionFactory(Configuration). */ public static void shutdown() { log.debug("Shutting down Hibernate"); // Close caches and connection pools getSessionFactory().close(); // Clear static variables sessionFactory = null; } /** * Rebuild the SessionFactory with the static Configuration. * <p> * Note that this method should only be used with static SessionFactory * management, not with JNDI or any other external registry. This method also closes * the old static variable SessionFactory before, if it is still open. */ public static void rebuildSessionFactory() { log.debug("Using current Configuration to rebuild SessionFactory"); rebuildSessionFactory(configuration); } /** * Rebuild the SessionFactory with the given Hibernate Configuration. * <p> * HibernateUtil does not configure() the given Configuration object, * it directly calls buildSessionFactory(). This method also closes * the old static variable SessionFactory before, if it is still open. * * @param cfg */ public static void rebuildSessionFactory(Configuration cfg) { log.debug("Rebuilding the SessionFactory from given Configuration"); if (sessionFactory != null && !sessionFactory.isClosed()) sessionFactory.close(); if (cfg.getProperty(Environment.SESSION_FACTORY_NAME) != null) { log.debug("Managing SessionFactory in JNDI"); cfg.buildSessionFactory(); } else { log.debug("Holding SessionFactory in static variable"); sessionFactory = cfg.buildSessionFactory(); } configuration = cfg; } } Above is my code for the session factory. And I have only select operations . And below is the method which is used most often to execute my select queries. One tricky thing which I am not understanding is in my findById method i am using this line of code getSession().beginTransaction(); without which it gives me an error saying that this cannot happpen without a transaction. But nowhere I am closing this transaction. And thers no method to close a transaction apart from commit or rollback (as far as i know) which are not applicable for select statements. public T findById(ID id, boolean lock) throws HibernateException, DAOException { log.debug("findNyId invoked with ID ="+id+"and lock ="+lock); T entity; getSession().beginTransaction(); if (lock) entity = (T) getSession().load(getPersistentClass(), id, LockMode.UPGRADE); else entity = (T) getSession().load(getPersistentClass(), id); return entity; } Can anyone please suggest what can I do ? I have tried out almost every solution available via googling, on stackoverlow or on hibernate forums with no avail. (And increasing wait_timeout on mysql is not a valid option in my case).

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  • Null-free "maps": Is a callback solution slower than tryGet()?

    - by David Moles
    In comments to "How to implement List, Set, and Map in null free design?", Steven Sudit and I got into a discussion about using a callback, with handlers for "found" and "not found" situations, vs. a tryGet() method, taking an out parameter and returning a boolean indicating whether the out parameter had been populated. Steven maintained that the callback approach was more complex and almost certain to be slower; I maintained that the complexity was no greater and the performance at worst the same. But code speaks louder than words, so I thought I'd implement both and see what I got. The original question was fairly theoretical with regard to language ("And for argument sake, let's say this language don't even have null") -- I've used Java here because that's what I've got handy. Java doesn't have out parameters, but it doesn't have first-class functions either, so style-wise, it should suck equally for both approaches. (Digression: As far as complexity goes: I like the callback design because it inherently forces the user of the API to handle both cases, whereas the tryGet() design requires callers to perform their own boilerplate conditional check, which they could forget or get wrong. But having now implemented both, I can see why the tryGet() design looks simpler, at least in the short term.) First, the callback example: class CallbackMap<K, V> { private final Map<K, V> backingMap; public CallbackMap(Map<K, V> backingMap) { this.backingMap = backingMap; } void lookup(K key, Callback<K, V> handler) { V val = backingMap.get(key); if (val == null) { handler.handleMissing(key); } else { handler.handleFound(key, val); } } } interface Callback<K, V> { void handleFound(K key, V value); void handleMissing(K key); } class CallbackExample { private final Map<String, String> map; private final List<String> found; private final List<String> missing; private Callback<String, String> handler; public CallbackExample(Map<String, String> map) { this.map = map; found = new ArrayList<String>(map.size()); missing = new ArrayList<String>(map.size()); handler = new Callback<String, String>() { public void handleFound(String key, String value) { found.add(key + ": " + value); } public void handleMissing(String key) { missing.add(key); } }; } void test() { CallbackMap<String, String> cbMap = new CallbackMap<String, String>(map); for (int i = 0, count = map.size(); i < count; i++) { String key = "key" + i; cbMap.lookup(key, handler); } System.out.println(found.size() + " found"); System.out.println(missing.size() + " missing"); } } Now, the tryGet() example -- as best I understand the pattern (and I might well be wrong): class TryGetMap<K, V> { private final Map<K, V> backingMap; public TryGetMap(Map<K, V> backingMap) { this.backingMap = backingMap; } boolean tryGet(K key, OutParameter<V> valueParam) { V val = backingMap.get(key); if (val == null) { return false; } valueParam.value = val; return true; } } class OutParameter<V> { V value; } class TryGetExample { private final Map<String, String> map; private final List<String> found; private final List<String> missing; public TryGetExample(Map<String, String> map) { this.map = map; found = new ArrayList<String>(map.size()); missing = new ArrayList<String>(map.size()); } void test() { TryGetMap<String, String> tgMap = new TryGetMap<String, String>(map); for (int i = 0, count = map.size(); i < count; i++) { String key = "key" + i; OutParameter<String> out = new OutParameter<String>(); if (tgMap.tryGet(key, out)) { found.add(key + ": " + out.value); } else { missing.add(key); } } System.out.println(found.size() + " found"); System.out.println(missing.size() + " missing"); } } And finally, the performance test code: public static void main(String[] args) { int size = 200000; Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>(); for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) { String val = (i % 5 == 0) ? null : "value" + i; map.put("key" + i, val); } long totalCallback = 0; long totalTryGet = 0; int iterations = 20; for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++) { { TryGetExample tryGet = new TryGetExample(map); long tryGetStart = System.currentTimeMillis(); tryGet.test(); totalTryGet += (System.currentTimeMillis() - tryGetStart); } System.gc(); { CallbackExample callback = new CallbackExample(map); long callbackStart = System.currentTimeMillis(); callback.test(); totalCallback += (System.currentTimeMillis() - callbackStart); } System.gc(); } System.out.println("Avg. callback: " + (totalCallback / iterations)); System.out.println("Avg. tryGet(): " + (totalTryGet / iterations)); } On my first attempt, I got 50% worse performance for callback than for tryGet(), which really surprised me. But, on a hunch, I added some garbage collection, and the performance penalty vanished. This fits with my instinct, which is that we're basically talking about taking the same number of method calls, conditional checks, etc. and rearranging them. But then, I wrote the code, so I might well have written a suboptimal or subconsicously penalized tryGet() implementation. Thoughts?

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  • Something for the weekend - Whats the most complex query?

    - by simonsabin
    Whenever I teach about SQL Server performance tuning I try can get across the message that there is no such thing as a table. Does that sound odd, well it isn't, trust me. Rather than tables you need to consider structures. You have 1. Heaps 2. Indexes (b-trees) Some people split indexes in two, clustered and non-clustered, this I feel confuses the situation as people associate clustered indexes with sorting, but don't associate non clustered indexes with sorting, this is wrong. Clustered and non-clustered indexes are the same b-tree structure(and even more so with SQL 2005) with the leaf pages sorted in a linked list according to the keys of the index.. The difference is that non clustered indexes include in their structure either, the clustered key(s), or the row identifier for the row in the table (see http://sqlblog.com/blogs/kalen_delaney/archive/2008/03/16/nonclustered-index-keys.aspx for more details). Beyond that they are the same, they have key columns which are stored on the root and intermediary pages, and included columns which are on the leaf level. The reason this is important is that this is how the optimiser sees the world, this means it can use any of these structures to resolve your query. Even if your query only accesses one table, the optimiser can access multiple structures to get your results. One commonly sees this with a non-clustered index scan and then a key lookup (clustered index seek), but importantly it's not restricted to just using one non-clustered index and the clustered index or heap, and that's the challenge for the weekend. So the challenge for the weekend is to produce the most complex single table query. For those clever bods amongst you that are thinking, great I will just use lots of xquery functions, sorry these are the rules. 1. You have to use a table from AdventureWorks (2005 or 2008) 2. You can add whatever indexes you like, but you must document these 3. You cannot use XQuery, Spatial, HierarchyId, Full Text or any open rowset function. 4. You can only reference your table once, i..e a FROM clause with ONE table and no JOINs 5. No Sub queries. The aim of this is to show how the optimiser can use multiple structures to build the results of a query and to also highlight why the optimiser is doing that. How many structures can you get the optimiser to use? As an example create these two indexes on AdventureWorks2008 create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person (lastName, FirstName,NameStyle,PersonType) create index IX_Person_Person on Person.Person(BusinessentityId,ModifiedDate)with drop_existing    select lastName, ModifiedDate   from Person.Person  where LastName = 'Smith' You will see that the optimiser has decided to not access the underlying clustered index of the table but to use two indexes above to resolve the query. This highlights how the optimiser considers all storage structures, clustered indexes, non clustered indexes and heaps when trying to resolve a query. So are you up to the challenge for the weekend to produce the most complex single table query? The prize is a pdf version of a popular SQL Server book, or a physical book if you live in the UK.  

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  • How To Rip an Audio CD to FLAC with Foobar2000

    - by Mysticgeek
    Foobar2000 is a great audio player that is fully customizable, is light on system resources, and contains a lot of tools and features. Today we show you how to use it to rip an audio CD to FLAC format. Note: For this tutorial we’re going to assume this is the first time you’re ripping a disc with Foobar2000. We’re running it on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. Install Foobar2000 and FLAC First download and install Foobar2000 (link below). The main thing you’ll want to make sure to enable during the install process is Audio CD Support… And the freedb Tagger which are located under Optional Features, then continue through the rest of the install wizard. Next you need to install the latest version of the FLAC codec (link below) following the defaults. Rip Audio CD To rip a CD, place it in your CDROM drive, launch Foobar2000 and click File \ Open Audio CD. Select the appropriate CD drive and click the Rip button. Next you’ll want to lookup the disc information with freedb…or you can manually enter in the track data if it’s a custom disc. Select the proper tag information in the freedb tagger window, then click Update files. The data will be entered in, make sure the radio button next to Go to the Converter Setup dialog is selected, and click the Rip button. In the Converter Setup screen, here you can select the output format, where in our case we’re selecting FLAC. In this window you can choose several other options like the output path, merging the tracks into one or individual files…etc. When you have those settings completed click OK. Next you’ll need to find flac.exe which is located wherever you installed it. On our 64-bit Windows 7 system the default path is C:\Program Files (x86)\FLAC Now wait while your CD is ripped and converted to FLAC. You’ll get a Converter Status Report…after you’ve checked it over you can close out of it. If you set the option to show the output files after conversion you can take a look, make sure all tracks were converted, and play them right away if you want. You can play the tracks in Foobar2000 or any player that supports FLAC. If you want to use WMC or WMP see our article on how to play FLAC files in Windows 7 Media Center or Player. That’s all there is to it! If you’re a fan of Foobar2000 and enjoy your music converted to FLAC format, Foobar2000 does the job quite well. There are a lot of customizations and tools you can use in Foobar2000 that we’ll be taking a look at in future articles. For more information check out our look at this fully customizable music player. Foobar2000 run on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 Links Download Foobar2000 Download FLAC Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Using Ubuntu: What Package Did This File Come From?Easily Change Audio File Formats with XRECODEFoobar2000 is a Fully Customizable Music PlayerConvert Virtually Any Audio Format with XRECODE IIExtract Audio from a Video File with Pazera Free Audio Extractor 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 Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites Restore Hidden Updates in Windows 7 & Vista Iceland an Insurance Job? Find Downloads and Add-ins for Outlook

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  • Christian Radio Locator iPhone app

    - by Tim Hibbard
    For the last three months or so I've been working on an iPhone (and iPad) app in my spare time. It all started when I took the kids to Minneapolis and had a hard time finding radio stations to listen to on the trip. I looked in the App Store for an app that would use my GPS to show me Christian radio stations nearby, but there wasn't one. So I decided to build my own. Using public information from the FCC and a few other sources, I built a database in Google docs that contains the frequency for all Christian radio stations, where the tower is located and how far the tower can reach. I also included any streaming audio information and other contact information like Facebook or Twitter that I could find. Google spreadsheets publish in JSON format (yes, really) and Xcode can automatically deserialize JSON into a properly formatted entity. This is one area that Xcode is far superior to C#. In a just a few lines of code, I can have a list of in-memory strongly typed objects from a web-based JSON feed. To accomplish the same thing natively in .NET would be much more work and wouldn't feel nearly as clean when it was said and done. The snazzy icon shown above was built by my very talented wife. She hasn't yet provided any feedback on the app's user interface, which is why it is so plain and boring. I used a navigation view controller and EGO pull to refresh table view to construct the main window. Pulling down to refresh initiates a GPS lookup, which queries the database for radio stations in range (yes, you can pass parameters to Google spreadsheets and get a subset back in JSON). Pulling up on the table extends the range of the search and includes stations that may not be close enough to get clear audio. This feature is not that intuitive and the next version contains an update to that functionality. Tapping a cell will show a detail view that displays additional information about the station. The user can click to view the station on a map, click to listen to an online stream (if available) or click to see the station's Facebook or Twitter pages. Swiping back and forth on the table changes the information that is displayed on the right hand side of the table cell. It scrolls through the city where the tower is located, how far the phone is from the tower, the range of the tower and in the next version a signal strength indicator. This was pretty easy to implement once I figured out how to assign the gesture recognizer delegate.  Tapping and holding on a cell will jump the user to the map view screen. Which is pretty cool, but very hard for even a power user to discover. To tackle the issue of discoverability, the next version has a series of instructions displayed at the bottom of the screen to show the user the various shortcuts. Once the user has performed the swipes and long holds, the instructions disappear. I've learned a lot developing this app. Spending over a decade exclusively in .NET made the learning curve a bit steep, but once I learned the structure and syntax of Objective-C, I've learned to appreciate the power and simplicity of it. Here are a few screenshots. I would really appreciate any feedback and especially iTunes reviews. Technically it is open source and a smart googler could probably find it. I just haven't promoted it as open source.     Cross posted from timhibbard.com

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  • Adventures in MVVM &ndash; ViewModel Location and Creation

    - by Brian Genisio's House Of Bilz
    More Adventures in MVVM In this post, I am going to explore how I prefer to attach ViewModels to my Views.  I have published the code to my ViewModelSupport project on CodePlex in case you'd like to see how it works along with some examples.  Some History My approach to View-First ViewModel creation has evolved over time.  I have constructed ViewModels in code-behind.  I have instantiated ViewModels in the resources sectoin of the view. I have used Prism to resolve ViewModels via Dependency Injection. I have created attached properties that use Dependency Injection containers underneath.  Of all these approaches, I continue to find issues either in composability, blendability or maintainability.  Laurent Bugnion came up with a pretty good approach in MVVM Light Toolkit with his ViewModelLocator, but as John Papa points out, it has maintenance issues.  John paired up with Glen Block to make the ViewModelLocator more generic by using MEF to compose ViewModels.  It is a great approach, but I don’t like baking in specific resolution technologies into the ViewModelSupport project. I bring these people up, not to name drop, but to give them credit for the place I finally landed in my journey to resolve ViewModels.  I have come up with my own version of the ViewModelLocator that is both generic and container agnostic.  The solution is blendable, configurable and simple to use.  Use any resolution mechanism you want: MEF, Unity, Ninject, Activator.Create, Lookup Tables, new, whatever. How to use the locator 1. Create a class to contain your resolution configuration: public class YourViewModelResolver: IViewModelResolver { private YourFavoriteContainer container = new YourFavoriteContainer(); public YourViewModelResolver() { // Configure your container } public object Resolve(string viewModelName) { return container.Resolve(viewModelName); } } Examples of doing this are on CodePlex for MEF, Unity and Activator.CreateInstance. 2. Create your ViewModelLocator with your custom resolver in App.xaml: <VMS:ViewModelLocator x:Key="ViewModelLocator"> <VMS:ViewModelLocator.Resolver> <local:YourViewModelResolver /> </VMS:ViewModelLocator.Resolver> </VMS:ViewModelLocator> 3. Hook up your data context whenever you want a ViewModel (WPF): <Border DataContext="{Binding YourViewModelName, Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}}"> This example uses dynamic properties on the ViewModelLocator and passes the name to your resolver to figure out how to compose it. 4. What about Silverlight? Good question.  You can't bind to dynamic properties in Silverlight 4 (crossing my fingers for Silverlight 5), but you CAN use string indexing: <Border DataContext="{Binding [YourViewModelName], Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}}"> But, as John Papa points out in his article, there is a silly bug in Silverlight 4 (as of this writing) that will call into the indexer 6 times when it binds.  While this is little more than a nuisance when getting most properties, it can be much more of an issue when you are resolving ViewModels six times.  If this gets in your way, the solution (as pointed out by John), is to use an IndexConverter (instantiated in App.xaml and also included in the project): <Border DataContext="{Binding Source={StaticResource ViewModelLocator}, Converter={StaticResource IndexConverter}, ConverterParameter=YourViewModelName}"> It is a bit uglier than the WPF version (this method will also work in WPF if you prefer), but it is still not all that bad.  Conclusion This approach works really well (I suppose I am a bit biased).  It allows for composability from any mechanisim you choose.  It is blendable (consider serving up different objects in Design Mode if you wish... or different constructors… whatever makes sense to you).  It works in Cider.  It is configurable.  It is flexible.  It is the best way I have found to manage View-First ViewModel hookups.  Thanks to the guys mentioned in this article for getting me to something I love using.  Enjoy.

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  • Why is Apache ignoring VirtualHost directive for first name in hosts file?

    - by Peter Taylor
    Standard pre-emptive disclaimer: host names, IP addresses, and directories are anonymised. Problem We have a server with Apache 2.2 (WAMP) listening on one IP and IIS listening on another. An ASP.Net application running under IIS needs to do some simple GETs from the PHP applications running under Apache to build a unified search results page. This is a virtual server, so the internal IPs are mapped somehow to external ones. The internal DNS system doesn't resolve the publicly published names under which the applications are accessed externally, so the obvious solution was to add them to etc/hosts with the internal IP address: 127.0.0.1 localhost # 10.0.1.17 is the IP address Apache listens on 10.0.1.17 phpappone.example.com 10.0.1.17 phpapptwo.example.com After restarting Apache, phpappone.example.com stopped working. Instead of returning pages from that app, Apache was returning pages from the default site. The other PHP apps worked fine. Relevant configuration httpd.conf, summarised, says: ServerAdmin [email protected] ServerRoot "c:/server/Apache2" ServerName www.example.com Listen 10.0.1.17:80 Listen 10.0.1.17:443 # Not obviously related config options elided # Nothing obviously astandard # If you want more details, post a comment DocumentRoot "c:/server/Apache2/htdocs" <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all </Directory> # Fallback for unknown host names <Directory "c:/server/Apache2/htdocs"> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> # PHP apps common config <Directory "C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/phpapps"> Options FollowSymLinks -Indexes +ExecCGI AllowOverride All Order Allow,Deny Allow from All </Directory> # Virtual hosts NameVirtualHost 10.0.1.17:80 NameVirtualHost 10.0.1.17:443 <VirtualHost _default_:80> </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost _default_:443> SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile "certs/example.crt" SSLCertificateKeyFile "certs/example.key" </VirtualHost> Include conf/vhosts/*.conf and the vhosts files are e.g. <VirtualHost 10.0.1.17:80> ServerName phpappone.example.com DocumentRoot "c:/Inetpub/wwwroot/phpapps/phpappone" </VirtualHost> <VirtualHost 10.0.1.17:443> ServerName phpappone.example.com DocumentRoot "c:/Inetpub/wwwroot/phpapps/phpappone" SSLEngine On SSLCertificateFile "certs/example.crt" SSLCertificateKeyFile "certs/example.key" </VirtualHost> Buggy behaviour or our misunderstanding? The documentation for name-based virtual hosts says that Now when a request arrives, the server will first check if it is using an IP address that matches the NameVirtualHost. If it is, then it will look at each <VirtualHost> section with a matching IP address and try to find one where the ServerName or ServerAlias matches the requested hostname. If it finds one, then it uses the configuration for that server. If no matching virtual host is found, then the first listed virtual host that matches the IP address will be used. Yet that isn't what we observe. It seems that if the hostname is the first hostname listed against the IP address in etc/hosts then it uses the configuration from the main server and skips the virtual host lookup. Workarounds The workaround we've put in place for the time being is to add a fake line to the hosts file: 127.0.0.1 localhost # 10.0.1.17 is the IP address Apache listens on 10.0.1.17 fakename.example.com 10.0.1.17 phpappone.example.com 10.0.1.17 phpapptwo.example.com This fixes the problem, but it's not very elegant. In addition, it seems a bit brittle: reordering lines in the hosts file (or deleting the nonsense value) can break it. The other obvious workaround is to make the main server configuration match that of the troublesome virtual host, but that is equally brittle. A third option, which is just ugly, would be to change the ASP.Net code to take separate config items for the IP address and the hostname and to implement HTTP manually. Ugh. The question Is there a good solution to this problem which localises any "Do not touch this!" explanations to the Apache config files?

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  • T-SQL Tuesday #005 : SSRS Parameters and MDX Data Sets

    - by blakmk
    Well it this weeks  T-SQL Tuesday #005  topic seems quite fitting. Having spent the past few weeks creating reports and dashboards in SSRS and SSAS 2008, I was frustrated by how difficult it is to use custom datasets to generate parameter drill downs. It also seems Reporting Services can be quite unforgiving when it comes to renaming things like datasets, so I want to share a couple of techniques that I found useful. One of the things I regularly do is to add parameters to the querys. However doing this causes Reporting Services to generate a hidden dataset and parameter name for you. One of the things I like to do is tweak these hidden datasets removing the ‘ALL’ level which is a tip I picked up from Devin Knight in his blog: There are some rules i’ve developed for myself since working with SSRS and MDX, they may not be the best or only way but they work for me. Rule 1 – Never trust the automatically generated hidden datasets Or even ANY, automatically generated MDX queries for that matter.... I’ve previously blogged about this here.   If you examine the MDX generated in the hidden dataset you will see that it generates the MDX in the context of the originiating query by building a subcube, this mean it may NOT be appropriate to use this in a subsequent query which has a different context. Make sure you always understand what is going on. Often when i’m developing a dashboard or a report there are several parameter oriented datasets that I like to manually create. It can be that I have different datasets using the same dimension but in a different context. One example of this, is that I often use a dataset for last month and a dataset for the last 6 months. Both use the same date hierarchy. However Reporting Services seems not to be too smart when it comes to generating unique datasets when working with and renaming parameters and datasets. Very often I have come across this error when it comes to refactoring parameter names and default datasets. "an item with the same key has already been added" The only way I’ve found to reliably avoid this is to obey to rule 2. Rule 2 – Follow this sequence when it comes to working with Parameters and DataSets: 1.    Create Lookup and Default Datasets in advance 2.    Create parameters (set the datasets for available and default values) 3.    Go into query and tick parameter check box 4.    On dataset properties screen, select the parameter defined earlier from the parameter value defined earlier. Rule 3 – Dont tear your hair out when you have just renamed objects and your report doesn’t build Just use XML notepad on the original report file. I found I gained a good understanding of the structure of the underlying XML document just by using XML notepad. From this you can do a search and find references of the missing object. You can also just do a wholesale search and replace (after taking a backup copy of course ;-) So I hope the above help to save the sanity of anyone who regularly works with SSRS and MDX.   @Blakmk

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  • Whether to use UNION or OR in SQL Server Queries

    - by Dinesh Asanka
    Recently I came across with an article on DB2 about using Union instead of OR. So I thought of carrying out a research on SQL Server on what scenarios UNION is optimal in and which scenarios OR would be best. I will analyze this with a few scenarios using samples taken  from the AdventureWorks database Sales.SalesOrderDetail table. Scenario 1: Selecting all columns So we are going to select all columns and you have a non-clustered index on the ProductID column. --Query 1 : OR SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR ProductID =709 OR ProductID =998 OR ProductID =875 OR ProductID =976 OR ProductID =874 --Query 2 : UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 709 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 998 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 875 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 976 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 874 So query 1 is using OR and the later is using UNION. Let us analyze the execution plans for these queries. Query 1 Query 2 As expected Query 1 will use Clustered Index Scan but Query 2, uses all sorts of things. In this case, since it is using multiple CPUs you might have CX_PACKET waits as well. Let’s look at the profiler results for these two queries: CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 78 1252 389 3854 UNION 250 7495 660 3854 You can see from the above table the UNION query is not performing well as the  OR query though both are retuning same no of rows (3854).These results indicate that, for the above scenario UNION should be used. Scenario 2: Non-Clustered and Clustered Index Columns only --Query 1 : OR SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR ProductID =709 OR ProductID =998 OR ProductID =875 OR ProductID =976 OR ProductID =874 GO --Query 2 : UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 709 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 998 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 875 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 976 UNION SELECT ProductID,SalesOrderID, SalesOrderDetailID FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 874 GO So this time, we will be selecting only index columns, which means these queries will avoid a data page lookup. As in the previous case we will analyze the execution plans: Query 1 Query 2 Again, Query 2 is more complex than Query 1. Let us look at the profile analysis: CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 0 24 208 3854 UNION 0 38 193 3854 In this analyzis, there is only slight difference between OR and UNION. Scenario 3: Selecting all columns for different fields Up to now, we were using only one column (ProductID) in the where clause.  What if we have two columns for where clauses and let us assume both are covered by non-clustered indexes? --Query 1 : OR SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR CarrierTrackingNumber LIKE 'D0B8%' --Query 2 : UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE CarrierTrackingNumber  LIKE 'D0B8%' Query 1 Query 2: As we can see, the query plan for the second query has improved. Let us see the profiler results. CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 47 1278 443 1228 UNION 31 1334 400 1228 So in this case too, there is little difference between OR and UNION. Scenario 4: Selecting Clustered index columns for different fields Now let us go only with clustered indexes: --Query 1 : OR SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 OR CarrierTrackingNumber LIKE 'D0B8%' --Query 2 : UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE ProductID = 714 UNION SELECT * FROM Sales.SalesOrderDetail WHERE CarrierTrackingNumber  LIKE 'D0B8%' Query 1 Query 2 Now both execution plans are almost identical except is an additional Stream Aggregate is used in the first query. This means UNION has advantage over OR in this scenario. Let us see profiler results for these queries again. CPU Reads Duration Row Counts OR 0 319 366 1228 UNION 0 50 193 1228 Now see the differences, in this scenario UNION has somewhat of an advantage over OR. Conclusion Using UNION or OR depends on the scenario you are faced with. So you need to do your analyzing before selecting the appropriate method. Also, above the four scenarios are not all an exhaustive list of scenarios, I selected those for the broad description purposes only.

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  • Entity Framework - Single EMDX Mapping Multiple Database

    - by michaelalisonalviar
    Because of my recent craze on Entity Framework thanks to Sir Humprey, I have continuously searched the Internet for tutorials on how to apply it to our current system. So I've come to learn that with EF, I can eliminate the numerous coding of methods/functions for CRUD operations, my overly used assigning of connection strings, Data Adapters or Data Readers as Entity Framework will map my desired database and will do its magic to create entities for each table I want (using EF Powertool) and does all the methods/functions for my Crud Operations. But as I begin applying it to a new project I was assigned to, I realized our current server is designed to contain each similar entities in different databases. For example Our lookup tables are stored in LookupDb, Accounting-related tables are in AccountingDb, Sales-related tables in SalesDb. My dilemma is I have to use an existing table from LookupDB and use it as a look-up for my new table. Then I have found Miss Rachel's Blog (here)Thank You Miss Rachel!  which enables me to let EF think that my TableLookup1 is in the AccountingDB using the following steps. Im on VS 2010, I am using C# , Using Entity Framework 5, SQL Server 2008 as our DB ServerStep 1:Creating A SQL Synonym. If you want a more detailed discussion on synonyms, this was what i have read -> (link here). To simply put it, A synonym enabled me to simplify my query for the Look-up table when I'm using the AccountingDB fromSELECT [columns] FROM LookupDB.dbo.TableLookup1toSELECT [columns] FROM TableLookup1Syntax: CREATE SYNONYM  TableLookup1(1) FOR LookupDB.dbo.TableLookup1 (2)1. What you want to call the table on your other DB2. DataBaseName.schema.TableNameStep 2: We will now follow Miss Rachel's steps. you can either visit the link on the original topic I posted earlier or just follow the step I made.1. I created a Visual Basic Solution that will contain the 4 projects needed to complete the merging2. First project will contain the edmx file pointing to the AccountingDB3. Second project will contain the edmx file pointing to the LookupDB4. Third Project will will be our repository of the merged edmx file. Create an edmx file pointing To AccountingDB as this the database that we created the Synonym on.Reminder: Aside from using the same name for the Entities, please make sure that you have the same Model Namespace for all your Entities  5. Fourth project that will contain the beautiful EDMX merger that Miss Rachel created that will free you from Hard coding of the merge/recoding the Edmx File of the third project everytime a change is done on either one of the first two projects' Edmx File.6. Run the solution, but make sure that on the solutions properties Single startup project is selected and the project containing the EDMX merger is selected.7. After running the solution, double click on the EDMX file of the 3rd project and set Lazy Loading Enabled = False. This will let you use the tables/entities that you see in that EDMX File.8. Feel free to do your CRUD Operations.I don't know if EF 5 already has a feature to support synonyms as I am still a newbie on that aspect but I have seen a linked where there are supposed suggestions on Entity Framework upgrades and one is the "Support for multiple databases"  So that's it! Thanks for reading!

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  • SSRS Parameters and MDX Data Sets

    - by blakmk
    Having spent the past few weeks creating reports and dashboards in SSRS and SSAS 2008, I was frustrated by how difficult it is to use custom datasets to generate parameter drill downs. It also seems Reporting Services can be quite unforgiving when it comes to renaming things like datasets, so I want to share a couple of techniques that I found useful. One of the things I regularly do is to add parameters to the querys. However doing this causes Reporting Services to generate a hidden dataset and parameter name for you. One of the things I like to do is tweak these hidden datasets removing the ‘ALL’ level which is a tip I picked up from Devin Knight in his blog: There are some rules i’ve developed for myself since working with SSRS and MDX, they may not be the best or only way but they work for me. Rule 1 – Never trust the automatically generated hidden datasets Or even ANY, automatically generated MDX queries for that matter.... I’ve previously blogged about this here.   If you examine the MDX generated in the hidden dataset you will see that it generates the MDX in the context of the originiating query by building a subcube, this mean it may NOT be appropriate to use this in a subsequent query which has a different context. Make sure you always understand what is going on. Often when i’m developing a dashboard or a report there are several parameter oriented datasets that I like to manually create. It can be that I have different datasets using the same dimension but in a different context. One example of this, is that I often use a dataset for last month and a dataset for the last 6 months. Both use the same date hierarchy. However Reporting Services seems not to be too smart when it comes to generating unique datasets when working with and renaming parameters and datasets. Very often I have come across this error when it comes to refactoring parameter names and default datasets. "an item with the same key has already been added" The only way I’ve found to reliably avoid this is to obey to rule 2. Rule 2 – Follow this sequence when it comes to working with Parameters and DataSets: 1.    Create Lookup and Default Datasets in advance 2.    Create parameters (set the datasets for available and default values) 3.    Go into query and tick parameter check box 4.    On dataset properties screen, select the parameter defined earlier from the parameter value defined earlier. Rule 3 – Dont tear your hair out when you have just renamed objects and your report doesn’t build Just use XML notepad on the original report file. I found I gained a good understanding of the structure of the underlying XML document just by using XML notepad. From this you can do a search and find references of the missing object. You can also just do a wholesale search and replace (after taking a backup copy of course ;-) So I hope the above help to save the sanity of anyone who regularly works with SSRS and MDX.

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  • JMSContext, @JMSDestinationDefintion, DefaultJMSConnectionFactory with simplified JMS API: TOTD #213

    - by arungupta
    "What's New in JMS 2.0" Part 1 and Part 2 provide comprehensive introduction to new messaging features introduced in JMS 2.0. The biggest improvement in JMS 2.0 is introduction of the "new simplified API". This was explained in the Java EE 7 Launch Technical Keynote. You can watch a complete replay here. Sending and Receiving a JMS message using JMS 1.1 requires lot of boilerplate code, primarily because the API was designed 10+ years ago. Here is a code that shows how to send a message using JMS 1.1 API: @Statelesspublic class ClassicMessageSender { @Resource(lookup = "java:comp/DefaultJMSConnectionFactory") ConnectionFactory connectionFactory; @Resource(mappedName = "java:global/jms/myQueue") Queue demoQueue; public void sendMessage(String payload) { Connection connection = null; try { connection = connectionFactory.createConnection(); connection.start(); Session session = connection.createSession(false, Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE); MessageProducer messageProducer = session.createProducer(demoQueue); TextMessage textMessage = session.createTextMessage(payload); messageProducer.send(textMessage); } catch (JMSException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } finally { if (connection != null) { try { connection.close(); } catch (JMSException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } } } }} There are several issues with this code: A JMS ConnectionFactory needs to be created in a application server-specific way before this application can run. Application-specific destination needs to be created in an application server-specific way before this application can run. Several intermediate objects need to be created to honor the JMS 1.1 API, e.g. ConnectionFactory -> Connection -> Session -> MessageProducer -> TextMessage. Everything is a checked exception and so try/catch block must be specified. Connection need to be explicitly started and closed, and that bloats even the finally block. The new JMS 2.0 simplified API code looks like: @Statelesspublic class SimplifiedMessageSender { @Inject JMSContext context; @Resource(mappedName="java:global/jms/myQueue") Queue myQueue; public void sendMessage(String message) { context.createProducer().send(myQueue, message); }} The code is significantly improved from the previous version in the following ways: The JMSContext interface combines in a single object the functionality of both the Connection and the Session in the earlier JMS APIs.  You can obtain a JMSContext object by simply injecting it with the @Inject annotation.  No need to explicitly specify a ConnectionFactory. A default ConnectionFactory under the JNDI name of java:comp/DefaultJMSConnectionFactory is used if no explicit ConnectionFactory is specified. The destination can be easily created using newly introduced @JMSDestinationDefinition as: @JMSDestinationDefinition(name = "java:global/jms/myQueue",        interfaceName = "javax.jms.Queue") It can be specified on any Java EE component and the destination is created during deployment. JMSContext, Session, Connection, JMSProducer and JMSConsumer objects are now AutoCloseable. This means that these resources are automatically closed when they go out of scope. This also obviates the need to explicitly start the connection JMSException is now a runtime exception. Method chaining on JMSProducers allows to use builder patterns. No need to create separate Message object, you can specify the message body as an argument to the send() method instead. Want to try this code ? Download source code! Download Java EE 7 SDK and install. Start GlassFish: bin/asadmin start-domain Build the WAR (in the unzipped source code directory): mvn package Deploy the WAR: bin/asadmin deploy <source-code>/jms/target/jms-1.0-SNAPSHOT.war And access the application at http://localhost:8080/jms-1.0-SNAPSHOT/index.jsp to send and receive a message using classic and simplified API. A replay of JMS 2.0 session from Java EE 7 Launch Webinar provides complete details on what's new in this specification: Enjoy!

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  • Essential Links for the SharePoint Client Side Developer

    - by Mark Rackley
    Front End Developer? Client Side Developer? Middle Tier??? I’m covering all my bases.  Regardless, I’m sick and tired of Googling with Bing when I forget where information that I need often is located. I was getting ready to bookmark some of them when it hit me… “Hey Mark… (I don’t actually refer to myself in the third person), Why don’t you put the links in a blog so that it looks like you are being helpful!” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to go back to some of my old blogs to remember how I did something. Seriously people, you need to start a blog, it’s the best way to remember how the frick you got something to work… and it looks like you are being helpful when in reality you are just forgetful.  So… where was I? Oh yeah.. essential information that I’ve needed from time to time when I was not using Visual Studio. All of this info has come in handy from time to time. Know about these things and keep them in your tool belt, it’s amazing the stuff you can accomplish with just knowing where to look. What Why SPServices Widely used library written by Marc Anderson used to call SharePoint Web Services with jQuery jQuery For SPServices and other cool stuff Easy Tabs Essential tool for quick page enhancements. This widely used too from Christophe Humbert groups multiple web parts into one tabbed display. Very quick and easy way to get oohs and ahs from End Users. Convert Calculated Columns to HTML Also from Christophe, I use this script all the time to convert html in my calculated columns to actually display as html and not with the tags. Unlocking the Mysteries of Data View Web Part XSL Tags This blog series from Marc Anderson makes it very easy to understand what’s going on with all those weird xsl tags in your data view web parts. Essential to make those things do what you want them to do. Creating Parent / Child list relationships (2007) Creating Parent / Child list relationships (2010) By far my most viewed blog posts (tens and tens of thousands).  I have posts for both 2007 and 2010 that walk you through automatically setting the lookup id on a list to its “parent”. Set SharePoint Form fields using Query String Variables Also widely read, this one walks you through taking a variable from your Query String and set a form field to that value.   Hmmm… I KNOW there are more, but I’m tired and drawing a blank.  I’ll try to add them when I remember them (or need them again and think “Oh, I forgot to add that one”) But it’s a start, and please feel free to add your own in the comments… So, it’s YOUR turn to be helpful. What little tip or trick do you find yourself using ALL the time that you think everyone should know about??

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  • database design help for game / user levels / progress

    - by sprugman
    Sorry this got long and all prose-y. I'm creating my first truly gamified web app and could use some help thinking about how to structure the data. The Set-up Users need to accomplish tasks in each of several categories before they can move up a level. I've got my Users, Tasks, and Categories tables, and a UserTasks table which joins the three. ("User 3 has added Task 42 in Category 8. Now they've completed it.") That's all fine and working wonderfully. The Challenge I'm not sure of the best way to track the progress in the individual categories toward each level. The "business" rules are: You have to achieve a certain number of points in each category to move up. If you get the number of points needed in Cat 8, but still have other work to do to complete the level, any new Cat 8 points count toward your overall score, but don't "roll over" into the next level. The number of Categories is small (five currently) and unlikely to change often, but by no means absolutely fixed. The number of points needed to level-up will vary per level, probably by a formula, or perhaps a lookup table. So the challenge is to track each user's progress toward the next level in each category. I've thought of a few potential approaches: Possible Solutions Add a column to the users table for each category and reset them all to zero each time a user levels-up. Have a separate UserProgress table with a row for each category for each user and the number of points they have. (Basically a Many-to-Many version of #1.) Add a userLevel column to the UserTasks table and use that to derive their progress with some kind of SUM statement. Their current level will be a simple int in the User table. Pros & Cons (1) seems like by far the most straightforward, but it's also the least flexible. Perhaps I could use a naming convention based on the category ids to help overcome some of that. (With code like "select cats; for each cat, get the value from Users.progress_{cat.id}.") It's also the one where I lose the most data -- I won't know which points counted toward leveling up. I don't have a need in mind for that, so maybe I don't care about that. (2) seems complicated: every time I add or subtract a user or a category, I have to maintain the other table. I foresee synchronization challenges. (3) Is somewhere in between -- cleaner than #2, but less intuitive than #1. In order to find out where a user is, I'd have mildly complex SQL like: SELECT categoryId, SUM(points) from UserTasks WHERE userId={user.id} & countsTowardLevel={user.level} groupBy categoryId Hmm... that doesn't seem so bad. I think I'm talking myself into #3 here, but would love any input, advice or other ideas. P.S. Sorry for the cross-post. I wrote this up on SO and then remembered that there was a game dev-focused one. Curious to see if I get different answers one place than the other....

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  • Clever memory usage through the years

    - by Ben Emmett
    A friend and I were recently talking about the really clever tricks people have used to get the most out of memory. I thought I’d share my favorites, and would love to hear yours too! Interleaving on drum memory Back in the ye olde days before I’d been born (we’re talking the 50s / 60s here), working memory commonly took the form of rotating magnetic drums. These would spin at a constant speed, and a fixed head would read from memory when the correct part of the drum passed it by, a bit like a primitive platter disk. Because each revolution took a few milliseconds, programmers took to manually arranging information non-sequentially on the drum, timing when an instruction or memory address would need to be accessed, then spacing information accordingly around the edge of the drum, thus reducing the access delay. Similar techniques were still used on hard disks and floppy disks into the 90s, but have become irrelevant with modern disk technologies. The Hashlife algorithm Conway’s Game of Life has attracted numerous implementations over the years, but Bill Gosper’s Hashlife algorithm is particularly impressive. Taking advantage of the repetitive nature of many cellular automata, it uses a quadtree structure to store the hashes of pieces of the overall grid. Over time there are fewer and fewer new structures which need to be evaluated, so it starts to run faster with larger grids, drastically outperforming other algorithms both in terms of speed and the size of grid which can be simulated. The actual amount of memory used is huge, but it’s used in a clever way, so makes the list . Elite’s procedural generation Ok, so this isn’t exactly a memory optimization – more a storage optimization – but it gets an honorable mention anyway. When writing Elite, David Braben and Ian Bell wanted to build a rich world which gamers could explore, but their 22K memory was something of a limitation (for comparison that’s about the size of my avatar picture at the top of this page). They procedurally generated all the characteristics of the 2048 planets in their virtual universe, including the names, which were stitched together using a lookup table of parts of names. In fact the original plans were for 2^52 planets, but it was decided that that was probably too many. Oh, and they did that all in assembly language. Other games of the time used similar techniques too – The Sentinel’s landscape generation algorithm being another example. Modern Garbage Collectors Garbage collection in managed languages like Java and .NET ensures that most of the time, developers stop needing to care about how they use and clean up memory as the garbage collector handles it automatically. Achieving this without killing performance is a near-miraculous feet of software engineering. Much like when learning chemistry, you find that every time you think you understand how the garbage collector works, it turns out to be a mere simplification; that there are yet more complexities and heuristics to help it run efficiently. Of course introducing memory problems is still possible (and there are tools like our memory profiler to help if that happens to you) but they’re much, much rarer. A cautionary note In the examples above, there were good and well understood reasons for the optimizations, but cunningly optimized code has usually had to trade away readability and maintainability to achieve its gains. Trying to optimize memory usage without being pretty confident that there’s actually a problem is doing it wrong. So what have I missed? Tell me about the ingenious (or stupid) tricks you’ve seen people use. Ben

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  • Solaris 11.1: Encrypted Immutable Zones on (ZFS) Shared Storage

    - by darrenm
    Solaris 11 brought both ZFS encryption and the Immutable Zones feature and I've talked about the combination in the past.  Solaris 11.1 adds a fully supported method of storing zones in their own ZFS using shared storage so lets update things a little and put all three parts together. When using an iSCSI (or other supported shared storage target) for a Zone we can either let the Zones framework setup the ZFS pool or we can do it manually before hand and tell the Zones framework to use the one we made earlier.  To enable encryption we have to take the second path so that we can setup the pool with encryption before we start to install the zones on it. We start by configuring the zone and specifying an rootzpool resource: # zonecfg -z eizoss Use 'create' to begin configuring a new zone. zonecfg:eizoss> create create: Using system default template 'SYSdefault' zonecfg:eizoss> set zonepath=/zones/eizoss zonecfg:eizoss> set file-mac-profile=fixed-configuration zonecfg:eizoss> add rootzpool zonecfg:eizoss:rootzpool> add storage \ iscsi://zs7120-tvp540-c.uk.oracle.com/luname.naa.600144f09acaacd20000508e64a70001 zonecfg:eizoss:rootzpool> end zonecfg:eizoss> verify zonecfg:eizoss> commit zonecfg:eizoss> Now lets create the pool and specify encryption: # suriadm map \ iscsi://zs7120-tvp540-c.uk.oracle.com/luname.naa.600144f09acaacd20000508e64a70001 PROPERTY VALUE mapped-dev /dev/dsk/c10t600144F09ACAACD20000508E64A70001d0 # echo "zfscrypto" > /zones/p # zpool create -O encryption=on -O keysource=passphrase,file:///zones/p eizoss \ /dev/dsk/c10t600144F09ACAACD20000508E64A70001d0 # zpool export eizoss Note that the keysource example above is just for this example, realistically you should probably use an Oracle Key Manager or some other better keystorage, but that isn't the purpose of this example.  Note however that it does need to be one of file:// https:// pkcs11: and not prompt for the key location.  Also note that we exported the newly created pool.  The name we used here doesn't actually mater because it will get set properly on import anyway. So lets go ahead and do our install: zoneadm -z eizoss install -x force-zpool-import Configured zone storage resource(s) from: iscsi://zs7120-tvp540-c.uk.oracle.com/luname.naa.600144f09acaacd20000508e64a70001 Imported zone zpool: eizoss_rpool Progress being logged to /var/log/zones/zoneadm.20121029T115231Z.eizoss.install Image: Preparing at /zones/eizoss/root. AI Manifest: /tmp/manifest.xml.ujaq54 SC Profile: /usr/share/auto_install/sc_profiles/enable_sci.xml Zonename: eizoss Installation: Starting ... Creating IPS image Startup linked: 1/1 done Installing packages from: solaris origin: http://pkg.us.oracle.com/solaris/release/ Please review the licenses for the following packages post-install: consolidation/osnet/osnet-incorporation (automatically accepted, not displayed) Package licenses may be viewed using the command: pkg info --license <pkg_fmri> DOWNLOAD PKGS FILES XFER (MB) SPEED Completed 187/187 33575/33575 227.0/227.0 384k/s PHASE ITEMS Installing new actions 47449/47449 Updating package state database Done Updating image state Done Creating fast lookup database Done Installation: Succeeded Note: Man pages can be obtained by installing pkg:/system/manual done. Done: Installation completed in 929.606 seconds. Next Steps: Boot the zone, then log into the zone console (zlogin -C) to complete the configuration process. Log saved in non-global zone as /zones/eizoss/root/var/log/zones/zoneadm.20121029T115231Z.eizoss.install That was really all we had to do, when the install is done boot it up as normal. The zone administrator has no direct access to the ZFS wrapping keys used for the encrypted pool zone is stored on.  Due to how inheritance works in ZFS he can still create new encrypted datasets that use those wrapping keys (without them ever being inside a process in the zone) or he can create encrypted datasets inside the zone that use keys of his own choosing, the output below shows the two cases: rpool is inheriting the key material from the global zone (note we can see the value of the keysource property but we don't use it inside the zone nor does that path need to be (or is) accessible inside the zone). Whereas rpool/export/home/bob has set keysource locally. # zfs get encryption,keysource rpool rpool/export/home/bob NAME PROPERTY VALUE SOURCE rpool encryption on inherited from $globalzone rpool keysource passphrase,file:///zones/p inherited from $globalzone rpool/export/home/bob encryption on local rpool/export/home/bob keysource passphrase,prompt local  

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  • Best approach to depth streaming via existing codec

    - by Kevin
    I'm working on a development system (and game) intended for games set mostly in static third-person views. We produce our scenery by CG and photographic techniques. Our background art is rendered off-line by a production-grade renderer. To allow the runtime imagery to properly interact with the background art, I wrote a program to convert from depth output by Mental Ray into a texture, and a pixel shader to draw a quad such that the Z data comes from the texture. This technique is working out very well, but now we've decided that some of the camera angle changes between scenes should be animated. The animation itself is straightforward to produce from our CG models. We intend to encode it to some HD video codec such as H.264. The problem is that in order to maintain our runtime imagery on the screen, the depth buffer will need to be loaded for each video frame. Due to the bandwidth, the video's depth data will need to be compressed efficiently. I've looked into methods for performing temporal compression of depth info and found an interesting research paper here: http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/j.kautz/publications/depth-streaming.pdf The method establishes a mapping between 16-bit depth values and YCbCr values. The mapping is tuned to the properties of existing video codecs in order to maximize precision of the decoded depths after the YCbCr has undergone video compression. It allows an existing, unmodified video codec to be used on the backend. I'm looking at how to pull this off with the least possible work. (This design change was unplanned.) Our game engine itself is native C++, presently for Win32 and DirectX, although we've worked hard to keep platform dependence segregated because we intend other ports. We don't have motion video facilities in the engine yet but will ultimately need that anyway for cinematics. I was planning on using some off-the-shelf motion video solution we can plug into our engine, and haven't chosen one yet. This new added requirement makes selecting one harder since, among other things, we'll now need to bypass colourspace conversion on one of the streams, and also will need to be playing two streams simultaneously in lockstep, on top of in some cases audio on one of them (for the cinematics). I'm also wondering if it's possible (or even useful) to do the conversion from YCbCr to depth in a pixel shader, or if it's better to just do it in CPU and separately load the resulting depth values into a locked tex. The conversion unfortunately does involve branching logic per-pixel. (There are more naive mappings that don't need branching, but they produce inferior results.) It could be reduced to a table lookup but the table would be 32MB. Programming is second-nature to me but I'm not that experienced with pix shaders and have zero knowledge of off-the-shelf video solutions. I'd therefore be interested in advice from others who may have dealt more with depth streaming, pixel shaders, and/or off-the-shelf codecs, regarding how feasible the proposed application is and what off-the-shelf video systems out there would best get along with this usage case.

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  • PowerShell Script To Find Where SharePoint 2007 Features Are Activated

    - by Brian T. Jackett
    Recently I posted a script to find where SharePoint 2010 Features Are Activated.  I built the original version to use SharePoint 2010 PowerShell commandlets as that saved me a number of steps for filtering and gathering features at each level.  If there was ever demand for a 2007 version I could modify the script to handle that by using the object model instead of commandlets.  Just the other week a fellow SharePoint PFE Jason Gallicchio had a customer asking about a version for SharePoint 2007.  With a little bit of work I was able to convert the script to work against SharePoint 2007.   Solution    Below is the converted script that works against a SharePoint 2007 farm.  Note: There appears to be a bug with the 2007 version that does not give accurate results against a SharePoint 2010 farm.  I ran the 2007 version against a 2010 farm and got fewer results than my 2010 version of the script.  Discussing with some fellow PFEs I think the discrepancy may be due to sandboxed features, a new concept in SharePoint 2010.  I have not had enough time to test or confirm.  For the time being only use the 2007 version script against SharePoint 2007 farms and the 2010 version against SharePoint 2010 farms.    Note: This script is not optimized for medium to large farms.  In my testing it took 1-3 minutes to recurse through my demo environment.  This script is provided as-is with no warranty.  Run this in a smaller dev / test environment first. 001 002 003 004 005 006 007 008 009 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 021 022 023 024 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032 033 034 035 036 037 038 039 040 041 042 043 044 045 046 047 048 049 050 051 052 053 054 055 056 057 058 059 060 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 068 069 070 function Get-SPFeatureActivated { # see full script for help info, removed for formatting [CmdletBinding()] param(     [Parameter(position = 1, valueFromPipeline=$true)]     [string]     $Identity )#end param     Begin     {         # load SharePoint assembly to access object model         [void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint")             # declare empty array to hold results. Will add custom member for Url to show where activated at on objects returned from Get-SPFeature.         $results = @()                 $params = @{}     }     Process     {         if([string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -eq $false)         {             $params = @{Identity = $Identity}         }                 # create hashtable of farm features to lookup definition ids later         $farm = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm]::Local                         # check farm features         $results += ($farm.FeatureDefinitions | Where-Object {$_.Scope -eq "Farm"} | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                          % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value ([string]::Empty) -PassThru} |                          Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                 # check web application features         $contentWebAppServices = $farm.services | ? {$_.typename -like "Windows SharePoint Services Web Application"}                 foreach($webApp in $contentWebAppServices.WebApplications)         {             $results += ($webApp.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                          % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $webApp.GetResponseUri(0).AbsoluteUri -PassThru} |                          Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                         # check site collection features in current web app             foreach($site in ($webApp.Sites))             {                 $results += ($site.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                                  % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $site.Url -PassThru} |                                  Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                                 # check site features in current site collection                 foreach($web in ($site.AllWebs))                 {                     $results += ($web.Features | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Definition | Where-Object {[string]::IsNullOrEmpty($Identity) -or ($_.DisplayName -eq $Identity)} |                                      % {Add-Member -InputObject $_ -MemberType noteproperty -Name Url -Value $web.Url -PassThru} |                                      Select-Object -Property Scope, DisplayName, Id, Url)                                                        $web.Dispose()                 }                 $site.Dispose()             }         }     }     End     {         $results     } } #end Get-SPFeatureActivated Get-SPFeatureActivated   Conclusion    I have posted this script to the TechNet Script Repository (click here).  As always I appreciate any feedback on scripts.  If anyone is motivated to run this 2007 version script against a SharePoint 2010 to see if they find any differences in number of features reported versus what they get with the 2010 version script I’d love to hear from you.         -Frog Out

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