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• SQLIO Writes

  - by Grant Fritchey

  SQLIO is a fantastic utility for testing the abilities of the disks in your system. It has a very unfortunate name though, since it's not really a SQL Server testing utility at all. It really is a disk utility. They ought to call it DiskIO because they'd get more people using I think. Anyway, branding is not the point of this blog post. Writes are the point of this blog post. SQLIO works by slamming your disk. It performs as mean reads as it can or it performs as many writes as it can depending on how you've configured your tests. There are much smarter people than me who will get into all the various types of tests you should run. I'd suggest reading a bit of what Jonathan Kehayias (blog|twitter) has to say or wade into Denny Cherry's (blog|twitter) work. They're going to do a better job than I can describing all the benefits and mechanisms around using this excellent piece of software. My concerns are very focused. I needed to set up a series of tests to see how well our product SQL Storage Compress worked. I wanted to know the effects it would have on a system, the disk for sure, but also memory and CPU. How to stress the system? SQLIO of course. But when I set it up and ran it, following the documentation that comes with it, I was seeing better than 99% compression on the files. Don't get me wrong. Our product is magnificent, wonderful, all things great and beautiful, gets you coffee in the morning and is made mostly from bacon. But 99% compression. No, it's not that good. So what's up? Well, it's the configuration. The default mechanism is to load up a file, something large that will overwhelm your disk cache. You're instructed to load the file with a character 0x0. I never got a computer science degree. I went to film school. Because of this, I didn't memorize ASCII tables so when I saw this, I thought it was zero's or something. Nope. It's NULL. That's right, you're making a very large file, but you're filling it with NULL values. That's actually ok when all you're testing is the disk sub-system. But, when you want to test a compression and decompression, that can be an issue. I got around this fairly quickly. Instead of generating a file filled with NULL values, I just copied a database file for my tests. And to test it with SQL Storage Compress, I used a database file that had already been run through compression (about 40% compression on that file if you're interested). Now the reads were taken care of. I am seeing very realistic performance from decompressing the information for reads through SQLIO. But what about writes? Well, the issue is, what does SQLIO write? I don't have access to the code. But I do have access to the results. I did two different tests, just to be sure of what I was seeing. First test, use the .DAT file as described in the documentation. I opened the .DAT file after I was done with SQLIO, using WordPad. Guess what? It's a giant file full of air. SQLIO writes NULL values. What does that do to compression? I did the test again on a copy of an uncompressed database file. Then I ran the original and the SQLIO modified copy through ZIP to see what happened. I got better than 99% compression out of the SQLIO modified file (original file of 624,896kb went to 275,871kb compressed, after SQLIO it went to 608kb compressed). So, what does SQLIO write? It writes air. If you're trying to test it with compression or maybe some other type of file storage mechanism like dedupe, you need to know this because your tests really won't be valid. Should I find some other mechanism for testing? Yeah, if all I'm interested in is establishing performance to my own satisfaction, yes. But, I want to be able to compare my results with other people's results and we all need to be using the same tool in order for that to happen. SQLIO is the common mechanism that most people I know use to establish disk performance behavior. It'd be better if we could get SQLIO to do writes in some other fashion. Oh, and before I go, I get to brag a bit. Measuring IOPS, SQL Storage Compress outperforms my disk alone by about 30%.

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• Provocative Tweets From the Dachis Social Business Summit

  - by Mike Stiles

  On June 20, all who follow social business and how social is changing how we do business and internal business structures, gathered in London for the Dachis Social Business Summit. In addition to Oracle SVP Product Development, Reggie Bradford, brands and thought leaders posed some thought-provoking ideas and figures. Here are some of the most oft-tweeted points, and our thoughts that they provoked. Tweet: The winners will be those who use data to improve performance.Thought: Everyone is dwelling on ROI. Why isn’t everyone dwelling on the opportunity to make their product or service better (as if that doesn’t have an effect on ROI)? Big data can improve you…let it. Tweet: High performance hinges on integrated teams that interact with each other.Thought: Team members may work well with each other, but does the team as a whole “get” what other teams are doing? That’s the key to an integrated, companywide workforce. (Internal social platforms can facilitate that by the way). Tweet: Performance improvements come from making the invisible visible.Thought: Many of the factors that drive customer behavior and decisions are invisible. Through social, customers are now showing us what we couldn’t see before…if we’re paying attention. Tweet: Games have continuous feedback, which is why they’re so engaging.  Apply that to business operations.Thought: You think your employees have an obligation to be 100% passionate and engaged at all times about making you richer. Think again. Like customers, they must be motivated. Visible insight that they’re advancing on their goals helps. Tweet: Who can add value to the data?  Data will tend to migrate to where it will be most effective.Thought: Not everybody needs all the data. One team will be able to make sense of, use, and add value to data that may be irrelevant to another team. Like a strategized football play, the data has to get sent to the spot on the field where it’s needed most. Tweet: The sale isn’t the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s the start of a new marketing cycle.Thought: Another reason the ROI question is fundamentally flawed. The sale is not the end of the potential return on investment. After-the-sale service and nurturing begins where the sales “victory” ends. Tweet: A dead sale is one that’s not shared.  People must be incentivized to share.Thought: Guess what, customers now know their value to you as marketers on your behalf. They’ll tell people about your product, but you’ve got to answer, “Why should I?” And you’ve got to answer it with something substantial, not lame trinkets. Tweet: Social user motivations are competition, affection, excellence and curiosity.Thought: Your followers will engage IF; they can get something for doing it, love your culture so much they want you to win, are consistently stunned at the perfection and coolness of your products, or have been stimulated enough to want to know more. Tweet: In Europe, 92% surveyed said they couldn’t care less about brands.Thought: Oh well, so much for loving you or being impressed enough with your products & service that they want you to win. We’ve got a long way to go. Tweet: A complaint is a gift.Thought: Our instinct where complaints are concerned is to a) not listen, b) dismiss the one who complains as a kook, c) make excuses, and d) reassure ourselves with internal group-think that they’re wrong and we’re right. It’s the perfect recipe for how to never, ever grow or get better. In a way, this customer cares more than you do. Tweet: 78% of consumers think peer recommendation is the best form of advertising.  Eventually, engagement is going to eat advertising.Thought: Why is peer recommendation best? Trust. If a friend tells me how great a movie was, I believe him. He has credibility with me. He’s seen it, and he could care less if I buy a ticket. He’s telling me it was awesome because he sincerely believes that it was.  That’s gold. Tweet: 86% of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience. Thought: This “how mad can we make our customers without losing them” strategy has to end. The customer experience has actual monetary value, money you’re probably leaving on the table. @mikestilesPhoto: stock.xchng

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• Access Control Service v2: Registering Web Identities in your Applications [concepts]

  - by Your DisplayName here!

  ACS v2 support two fundamental types of client identities– I like to call them “enterprise identities” (WS-*) and “web identities” (Google, LiveID, OpenId in general…). I also see two different “mind sets” when it comes to application design using the above identity types: Enterprise identities – often the fact that a client can present a token from a trusted identity provider means he is a legitimate user of the application. Trust relationships and authorization details have been negotiated out of band (often on paper). Web identities – the fact that a user can authenticate with Google et al does not necessarily mean he is a legitimate (or registered) user of an application. Typically additional steps are necessary (like filling out a form, email confirmation etc). Sometimes also a mixture of both approaches exist, for the sake of this post, I will focus on the web identity case. I got a number of questions how to implement the web identity scenario and after some conversations it turns out it is the old authentication vs. authorization problem that gets in the way. Many people use the IsAuthenticated property on IIdentity to make security decisions in their applications (or deny user=”?” in ASP.NET terms). That’s a very natural thing to do, because authentication was done inside the application and we knew exactly when the IsAuthenticated condition is true. Been there, done that. Guilty ;) The fundamental difference between these “old style” apps and federation is, that authentication is not done by the application anymore. It is done by a third party service, and in the case of web identity providers, in services that are not under our control (nor do we have a formal business relationship with these providers). Now the issue is, when you switch to ACS, and someone with a Google account authenticates, indeed IsAuthenticated is true – because that’s what he is! This does not mean, that he is also authorized to use the application. It just proves he was able to authenticate with Google. Now this obviously leads to confusion. How can we solve that? Easy answer: We have to deal with authentication and authorization separately. Job done ;) For many application types I see this general approach: Application uses ACS for authentication (maybe both enterprise and web identities, we focus on web identities but you could easily have a dual approach here) Application offers to authenticate (or sign in) via web identity accounts like LiveID, Google, Facebook etc. Application also maintains a database of its “own” users. Typically you want to store additional information about the user In such an application type it is important to have a unique identifier for your users (think the primary key of your user database). What would that be? Most web identity provider (and all the standard ACS v2 supported ones) emit a NameIdentifier claim. This is a stable ID for the client (scoped to the relying party – more on that later). Furthermore ACS emits a claims identifying the identity provider (like the original issuer concept in WIF). When you combine these two values together, you can be sure to have a unique identifier for the user, e.g.: Facebook-134952459903700\799880347 You can now check on incoming calls, if the user is already registered and if yes, swap the ACS claims with claims coming from your user database. One claims would maybe be a role like “Registered User” which can then be easily used to do authorization checks in the application. The WIF claims authentication manager is a perfect place to do the claims transformation. If the user is not registered, show a register form. Maybe you can use some claims from the identity provider to pre-fill form fields. (see here where I show how to use the Facebook API to fetch additional user properties). After successful registration (which may include other mechanisms like a confirmation email), flip the bit in your database to make the web identity a registered user. This is all very theoretical. In the next post I will show some code and provide a download link for the complete sample. More on NameIdentifier Identity providers “guarantee” that the name identifier for a given user in your application will always be the same. But different applications (in the case of ACS – different ACS namespaces) will see different name identifiers. This is by design to protect the privacy of users because identical name identifiers could be used to create “profiles” of some sort for that user. In technical terms they create the name identifier approximately like this: name identifier = Hash((Provider Internal User ID) + (Relying Party Address)) Why is this important to know? Well – when you change the name of your ACS namespace, the name identifiers will change as well and you will will lose your “connection” to your existing users. Oh an btw – never use any other claims (like email address or name) to form a unique ID – these can often be changed by users.

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• Using Resources the Right Way

  - by BuckWoody

  It’s an interesting time in computing technology. At one point there was a dearth of information available for solving a given problem, or educating ourselves on broader topics so that we can solve problems in the future. With dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands of web sites and content available (for free, in many cases) from vendors, peers, even colleges and universities, it seems like there is actually too much information. Who has the time to absorb all this information and training? Even if you had the inclination, where to start? In fact, it seems so overwhelming that I often hear people saying that they can’t find the training they need, or that vendor X or Y “doesn’t help their users”. On questioning these folks, however, I often find that they – and sometimes I - haven’t put in the effort to learn what resources we have. That’s where blogs, like this one, can help. If you follow a blog, either by checking it often or perhaps subscribing to the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, you’ll be able to spread out the search or create a mental filter for the information you need. But it’s not enough just read a blog or a web page. The creators need real feedback – what doesn’t work, and what does. Yes, you’re allowed to tell a vendor or writer “This helped me because…” so that you reinforce the positives. To be sure, bring up what doesn’t work as well –  that’s fine. But be specific, and be constructive. You’d be surprised at how much it matters. I know for a fact at Microsoft we listen – there is a real live person that reads your comments. I’m sure this is true of other vendors, and I also know that most blog authors – yours truly most especially – wants to know what you think.   In this blog entry I’d to call your attention to three resources you have at your disposal, and how you can use them to help. I’ll try to bring up things like this from time to time that I find useful, and cover in them in more depth like this. Think of this as a synopsis of a longer set of resources that you can use to filter whether you want to research further, bookmark, or forward on to a circle of friends where you think it might help them.   Data Driven Design Concepts http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/jj156154 I’ll start with a great site that walks you through the process of designing a solution from a data-first perspective. As you know, I believe all computing is merely re-arranging data. If you follow that logic as well, you’ll realize that whenever you create a solution, you should start at the data-end of the application. This resource helps you do that. Even if you don’t use the specific technologies the instructions use, the concepts hold for almost any other technology that deals with data. This should be a definite bookmark for a developer, DBA, or Data Architect. When I mentioned my admiration for this resource here at Microsoft, the team that created it contacted me and asked if I’d share an e-mail address to my readers so that you can comment on it. You’re guaranteed to be heard – you can suggest changes, talk about how useful – or not – it is, and so on. Here’s that address:  [email protected]   End-to-End Example of a complete Hybrid Application – with Live Demo https://azurestocktrader.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx I learn by example. I also like having ready-made, live, functional demos that show the completed solution at work. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how a complex, complete, hybrid application that bridges on-premises systems with cloud-based databases, code, functions and more, this is it. It’s a stock-trading simulator, and you can get everything from the design to the code itself, or you can just play with the application. It’s running on Windows Azure, the actual production servers we use for everything else. Using a Cloud-Based Service https://azureconfigweb.cloudapp.net/Default.aspx Along with that stock-trading application, you have a full demonstration and usable code sample of a web-based service available. If you’re a developer, this is a style of code you need to understand for everything from iPhone development to a full Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) environment. So check out these resources. I’ll post more from time to time as I run across them. Hopefully they’ll be as useful to you as they are to me. Oh, and if you have a comment on any of the resources, let them know. And if you have any comments about these or any of my entries, feel free to post away. To quote a famous TV Show: “Hello Seattle – I’m listening…”

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• JPRT: A Build & Test System

  - by kto

  DRAFT A while back I did a little blogging on a system called JPRT, the hardware used and a summary on my java.net weblog. This is an update on the JPRT system. JPRT ("JDK Putback Reliablity Testing", but ignore what the letters stand for, I change what they mean every day, just to annoy people :\^) is a build and test system for the JDK, or any source base that has been configured for JPRT. As I mentioned in the above blog, JPRT is a major modification to a system called PRT that the HotSpot VM development team has been using for many years, very successfully I might add. Keeping the source base always buildable and reliable is the first step in the 12 steps of dealing with your product quality... or was the 12 steps from Alcoholics Anonymous... oh well, anyway, it's the first of many steps. ;\^) Internally when we make changes to any part of the JDK, there are certain procedures we are required to perform prior to any putback or commit of the changes. The procedures often vary from team to team, depending on many factors, such as whether native code is changed, or if the change could impact other areas of the JDK. But a common requirement is a verification that the source base with the changes (and merged with the very latest source base) will build on many of not all 8 platforms, and a full 'from scratch' build, not an incremental build, which can hide full build problems. The testing needed varies, depending on what has been changed. Anyone that was worked on a project where multiple engineers or groups are submitting changes to a shared source base knows how disruptive a 'bad commit' can be on everyone. How many times have you heard: "So And So made a bunch of changes and now I can't build!". But multiply the number of platforms by 8, and make all the platforms old and antiquated OS versions with bizarre system setup requirements and you have a pretty complicated situation (see http://download.java.net/jdk6/docs/build/README-builds.html). We don't tolerate bad commits, but our enforcement is somewhat lacking, usually it's an 'after the fact' correction. Luckily the Source Code Management system we use (another antique called TeamWare) allows for a tree of repositories and 'bad commits' are usually isolated to a small team. Punishment to date has been pretty drastic, the Queen of Hearts in 'Alice in Wonderland' said 'Off With Their Heads', well trust me, you don't want to be the engineer doing a 'bad commit' to the JDK. With JPRT, hopefully this will become a thing of the past, not that we have had many 'bad commits' to the master source base, in general the teams doing the integrations know how important their jobs are and they rarely make 'bad commits'. So for these JDK integrators, maybe what JPRT does is keep them from chewing their finger nails at night. ;\^) Over the years each of the teams have accumulated sets of machines they use for building, or they use some of the shared machines available to all of us. But the hunt for build machines is just part of the job, or has been. And although the issues with consistency of the build machines hasn't been a horrible problem, often you never know if the Solaris build machine you are using has all the right patches, or if the Linux machine has the right service pack, or if the Windows machine has it's latest updates. Hopefully the JPRT system can solve this problem. When we ship the binary JDK bits, it is SO very important that the build machines are correct, and we know how difficult it is to get them setup. Sure, if you need to debug a JDK problem that only shows up on Windows XP or Solaris 9, you'll still need to hunt down a machine, but not as a regular everyday occurance. I'm a big fan of a regular nightly build and test system, constantly verifying that a source base builds and tests out. There are many examples of automated build/tests, some that trigger on any change to the source base, some that just run every night. Some provide a protection gateway to the 'golden' source base which only gets changes that the nightly process has verified are good. The JPRT (and PRT) system is meant to guard the source base before anything is sent to it, guarding all source bases from the evil developer, well maybe 'evil' isn't the right word, I haven't met many 'evil' developers, more like 'error prone' developers. ;\^) Humm, come to think about it, I may be one from time to time. :\^{ But the point is that by spreading the build up over a set of machines, and getting the turnaround down to under an hour, it becomes realistic to completely build on all platforms and test it, on every putback. We have the technology, we can build and rebuild and rebuild, and it will be better than it was before, ha ha... Anybody remember the Six Million Dollar Man? Man, I gotta get out more often.. Anyway, now the nightly build and test can become a 'fetch the latest JPRT build bits' and start extensive testing (the testing not done by JPRT, or the platforms not tested by JPRT). Is it Open Source? No, not yet. Would you like to be? Let me know. Or is it more important that you have the ability to use such a system for JDK changes? So enough blabbering on about this JPRT system, tell me what you think. And let me know if you want to hear more about it or not. Stay tuned for the next episode, same Bloody Bat time, same Bloody Bat channel. ;\^) -kto

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• Why bother writing an Windows 8 app?

  - by Dennis Vroegop

  So you want to know more about development for Window 8. Great! There are lots of reasons you should be excited about this. Since I don’t know why YOU are interested in this, I’ll make a list of reasons people can choose from. (as a side note: whenever I talk about Win8 development I am referring to the Metro Style / WinRt side of things. Apps for the ‘classic’ desktop side of Win8 on Intel are business as usual…) So… Why would you care about making an app for Windows 8? 1. It’s cool. Let’s not beat around the bush: if you like development for a hobby then you’ll love to work on this new platform. You can create apps in a relative short time (short time as in compared to writing a new CRM system) and that makes it great for a hobby product. 2. You’ll stand out. Hey, we all need an ego boost every now and then. We all need to feel special. So if you can manage to be one of the first to have you app in the Store then you’ll likely to be noticed. Just close your eyes for a moment and image you standing in a bar. It’s crowded, and then you casually say “Oh yeah, I just had my app certified and it’s in the Win8 store now”. People will stop talking, will offer you drinks and beautiful women / gorgeous man / furry creatures from Alpha Centauri (whatever your preferences are) will propose. Or maybe not. Anyway…. 3. Make some cash! IDC predicts there will be about 350,000,000 Windows 8 licenses sold in the next year. Think about that number. 350,000,000. And they all have access to the Store. Where you’re app will be. With one little click they can select it, download and somehow magically $1.00 or $2.00 from their bank account is transferred to yours. Now, I am not saying that all of those people will download and buy your app but what if only 1% of them did? Remember: there aren’t that many apps available yet….. 4. Learn. Creating new small apps is a great way to learn new stuff. Yes, you could read about it (on this blog for instance) but the only way to learn something is to do it. So be prepared for the future and learn something new by doing it.Write an app! Now! 5. The biggie (for me at least): it’s fun. Even if you remove the points above it’s still fun to write for these devices and this platform. Now some of you will say : “But why not write a great app for IOS or Android?” I think this is a valid question. Of course the novelty of the platform wears out and points 2 and 3 from above list will not be as relevant as it is today. But still 1 4 and 5 remain. And don’t forget: if you already work on the Microsoft platform it’s not that hard to learn this new Win8 stuff. If you have done some XAML development (be it WPF or Silverlight) you are almost there in becoming a good Win8 developer. So you’ll be more productive much sooner than when you have to learn Objective C or Java. Even if you’re a HTML / Javascript developer (I say developer here, not designer) you’ll be up to speed on Win8 development pretty soon. Yes, you, that funky Web Developer who lives and breathes HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript / Node.Js / JQuery: you too can be a Win8 developer. A first class Win8 developer! So.. Download the stuff you need from http://dev.windows.com install Windows 8 and Visual Studio 12 and by the time you’re ready I’ll be working on the next article: how to do all this? Happy coding!

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• University teaches DOS-style C++, how to deal with it

  - by gaidal

  Half a year ago I had a look at available programming educations. I chose this one because unlike most of the choices: The majority of the courses seemed to be about something concrete and useful; the languages used are C++ and Java which are platform-independent; later courses include developing for mobile devices and a course on Android development, which seemed modern and relevant. Now after two introductory courses we're just starting with C++, and my programming professor seems a bit weird. He's tested us on things like "why should you use constants" and "why are globals bad" in a kind of mechanical way, without much context, before teaching actual programming. His handouts use system("pause"), system("cls"), and getch() from some conio.h that seems ancient according to what I've read. I just did a task that was about printing the "ASCII letters from 32 to 255" (huh?), with an example picture showing a table with Windows' Extended ASCII - of course I got other results for 128-255 on my Arch Linux that uses Unicode, and this isn't mentioned at all. I don't know, it just doesn't seem right... As if he is teaching programming because he has to, perhaps? Should I bring such things up? Hmm. I was looking forward to learning from someone who really knows stuff, and in an academic, rigorous way, like SICP or something. Aren't professors in programming supposed to be like that? I studied math for a while and every teacher and assistant there were really precise about what they said, but this is my second programming teacher that is sort of disappointing. Oh well. Now, question: Is this what to expect from universities or Not OK, and how do I deal with it? I have never touched the language C++ (or C) until now, and am not the right person to jump up and say "This is So Wrong!", so if I google something and find 10 people who say "xxx is blasphemy", how do I skillfully communicate this? I do think it would be better for those classmates who are total beginners not to learn bad habits (such as these vibes of total ignorance of other platforms!) during the upcoming courses, but don't want to disrespect the teacher. I don't know if it's reasonable or just cocky to bring up things like "what about other platforms?" or "but what about this article or stackoverflow answer that I read that said..." for every assignment? Or, if he keeps ignoring non-Windows-programming, should I give up and focus on my own projects or somehow argue that this really isn't OK nowadays? Are there any programming teachers out there, what do you think? By the way these are web-based courses, all interaction between teachers and students takes place in a forum. EDIT: A few answers seem to be making some incorrect assumptions, so maybe I should add a few things. I have been doing programming for fun on and off for 10 years, am pretty comfortable in 3 languages and read programming blogs et c regularly. Also, I feel kind of done being a student, having a degree in another field. I just need another, relevant diploma to work as a programmer, so I'm going back for that. Studying computer science for 5 years is not for me anymore, even though I enjoy learning and solving problems in my free time. Second, let me highlight that I don't expect it to be like the industry at all, quite the contrary. I expect it to be academic, dry and unnecessarily correct. No, it's not just math. Every professor I have had in math, or Japanese (major) or Chinese (minor) have been very very academic, discussing subtle points for hours with passion. But the courses I'm taking now and a previous one in programming don't seem serious. They neither resemble industry NOR academia. That is the problem. And it's not because I can't learn programming anyway. Third, I don't necessarily want to learn C++ or Android development, and I know I could teach myself those and anything else if I wanted to. But I am going back to school anyway, and those platform-independent languages and mobile stuff made me think that maybe they're serious about teaching something relevant here. Seems like I got this wrong, but we'll see.

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• World Backup Day

  - by red(at)work

  Here at Red Gate Towers, the SQL Backup development team have been hunkered down in their shed for the last few months, with the toolbox, blowtorch and chamois leather out, upgrading SQL Backup. When we started, autumn leaves were falling. Now we're about to finish, spring flowers are budding. If not quite a gleaming new machine, at the very least a familiar, reliable engine with some shiny new bits on it will trundle magnificently out of the workshop. One of the interesting things I've noticed about working on software development teams is that the team is together for so long 'implementing' stuff - designing, coding, testing, fixing bugs and so on - that you occasionally forget why you're doing what you're doing. Doubt creeps in. It feels like a long time since we launched this project in a fanfare of optimism and enthusiasm, and all that clarity of purpose and mission "yee-haw" has dissipated with the daily pressures of development. Every now and again, we look up from our bunker and notice all those thousands of users out there, with their different configurations and working practices and each with their own set of problems and requirements, and we ask ourselves "does anyone care about what we're doing?" Has the world moved on while we've been busy? Could we have been doing something more useful with the time and talent of all these excellent people we've assembled? In truth, you can research and test and validate all you like, but you never really know if you've done the right thing (or at least, something valuable for some users) until you release. All projects suffer this insecurity. If they don't, maybe you're not worrying enough about what you're building. The two enemies of software development are certainty and complacency. Oh, and of course, rival teams with Nerf guns. The goal of SQL Backup 7 is to make it so easy to schedule regular restores of your backups that you have no excuse not to. Why schedule a restore? Because your data is not as good as your last backup. It's only as good as your last successful restore. If you're not checking your backups by restoring them and running an integrity check on the database, you're only doing half the job. It seems that most DBAs know that this is best practice, but it can be tricky and time-consuming to set up, so it's one of those tasks that can get forgotten in the midst all the other demands on their time. Sometimes, they're just too busy firefighting. But if it was simple to do? That was our inspiration for SQL Backup 7. So it was heartening to read Brent Ozar's blog post the other day about World Backup Day. To be honest, I'd never heard of World Backup Day (Talk Like a Pirate Day, yes, but not this one); however, its emphasis on not just backing up your data but checking the validity of those backups was exactly the same message we had in mind when building SQL Backup 7. It's printed on a piece of A3 above our planning board - "Make backup verification so easy to do that no DBA has an excuse for not doing it" It's the missing piece that completes the puzzle. Simple idea, great concept, useful feature, but, as it turned out, far from straightforward to implement. The problem is the future. As Marty McFly discovered over the course of three movies, the future is uncertain and hard to predict - so when you are scheduling a restore to take place an hour, day, week or month after the backup, there are all kinds of questions that you wouldn't normally have to consider. Where will this backup live? Will it even exist at the time? Will it be split into multiple files? What will the file names be? Will it be encrypted? What files should it be restored to? SQL Backup needs to know what to expect at the time the restore job is actually run. Of course, a DBA will know the answer to all these questions, but to deliver the whole point of version 7, we wanted to make it easy for them to input that information into SQL Backup. We think we've done that. When you create your scheduled backup job, there is now an option to create a "reminder" to follow it up with a scheduled restore to verify the resulting backups. Actually, it's much more than a reminder, as it stores all the relevant data so you can click it and pre-populate the wizard with all the right settings to set up your verification restores. Simple. But, what do you think? We'd love you to try it. Post by Brian Harris

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• The Dreaded Startup Repair Loop on Win 7

  - by HighAltitudeCoder

  For most people, upgrading to Windows 7 has been a relatively painless process.  Not me.  I am in the unlucky 1% or less who had a somewhat less pleasant experience.  First, I cloned my entire onto a larger (and much faster) solid state hard drive, only experiencing minimal problems. Then, I bought the Retail version of Windows 7 Ultimate, took a deep breath and... oh yeah, I almost forgot - BACK UP THE COMPUTER.  The next morning I upgraded to Win 7 and everything seemed fine, until... I rebooted the system, the nice Windows 7 launch graphics come up, it's about to launch and AWWW, are you kidding me?!?!  Back to the BIOS splash screen?  Next comes the sequence of failure - attempt repair - unable to repair - do you want to wipe your hard drive decisions. Because I purchased the retail version, a number is provided where I could call Microsoft Tech support.  When I did, they instructed me to click "Install" from my installation CD, which did not work.  When I tried the "Upgrade" option, it reaches an impasse, telling you that yoiu have a newer version of Win 7, and thus cannot Upgrade.  If you choose "Install" you willl lose everything... files, programs, EVERYTHING.  Or at least this is what it tells you.  I was not willing to take the risk. To make things worse, I had installed a new antivirus software application before I realized my system was unstable (Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security), and this was causing additional problems. One interesting thing, and the only saving grace as it turns out, was that my system WOULD successfully reboot into the OS if I chose to restart it, rather than shut it down.  If I chose to shut down, I would have to go through the loop again until I was given the option to restart. As it turned out, I needed to update my BIOS.  I assumed that since I had updated my BIOS a long time ago to settings that were stable under Windows Vista Ultimate x64, I incorrectly expected Win 7 to adopt the same settings and didn't expect there to be any problems.  WRONG. My BIOS had a setting to halt the boot cycle if various kinds of errors were detected.  Windows Vista didn't care about this, but forget it under Windows 7.  I turned immediately corrected that BIOS setting.  Next, there were the two separate BIOS settings: enable USB mouse and enable USB keyboard.  The only sequence of events that would work were to start my reboot process over from stratch with a hard-wired non-usb keyboard and mouse.  Whent the system booted under these settings, it doesn't detect any errors due to either the mouse or keyboard, and actually booted for the first time in a long while (let me tell ya, that's an amazing experience after fiddling with settings for two entire weekends!) Next step: leave your old mouse and keyboard connected, but also connect your other two devices (mouse, keyboard) that use USB connections.  During the boot cycle, the operating system will not fail due to missing requirements during startup, and it will then pick up the new drivers necessary to use your new hardware. If you think you are in the clear here, you are wrong.  The next VERY IMPORTANT step is to remember to change your settings in the BIOS upon next startup.  Specifically, yoiu will need ot change your BIOS to enable USB mouse and enable USB keyboard input.  If you don't, Windows will detect an incompatibility upon the next startup, and you will be stuck once again in the endless cycle of reboot/Startup Repair/reboot/Startup Repair, without ever reaching a successful boot. Here's the thing - the BIOS and the drivers registered in Win 7 need to match.  If they don't, you're going to lose another weekend worrying and fiddling, all the while wondering if you've permanently damaged your hard drive beyond repair. (Sigh).  In the end, things worked out.  I must note that it is saddening to see how many posts there are out there that recommend just doing a clean install, as if it's the only option.  How many countless poor souls have lost their data, their backups, their pictures and videos, all for nothing other than the fact that the person giving advice just didn't know what to do at that point? My advice to you, try having a look at your BIOS settings first and making sure Win 7 can find your BIOS settings, and also disabling in your BIOS anything that might halt your system boot-up process if it encounters errors.

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• How do I dig myself out of this DEEP hole? [closed]

  - by user74847

  I may be a bit bias in the way i word this but any opinions and suggestions are welcome. I should start by saying i have a MSc in CS and a degree in new media +6 years expereince and im probably around a middleweight developer. I started a web development company with my friend from uni a year ago, there was a 4 month gap in the middle where i went miles away work on a big project. Ive since returned and picked up where we left off. A year on though i find im still staying up til 5am and getting up at 9 sometimes 2-3 days without sleep. While i was away i was working 9-5 and struggling to keep up with doing stuff for my clients 8 hours ahead, after work, so things stagnated. We currently have about 12 active projects, with one other part time developer and a full time freelancer who is dealing with one of our major projects. I am solely responsible for concurrently developing 2 big sites similar to gumtree in functionality, at the same time as about 5-6+ small WordPress based 5-10page sites. a lot of the content isnt in yet or the client is delaying so i chop and change project every other day which does my head in. Is it reasonable to expect myself to remember the intricate details of each project when i come back to it a week later? and remember the details of a task which hasnt been written down? my business partner seems to think so. or am i just forgetful? Im particularly bad at estimating timescales which doesnt help, added to that a lot of the technologies im am using are new to me (a magento site took weeks to theme rather than days and was full of bugs, even after 1000's of google searches and hours reading forums) im still trying to learn and find the best CMS for us to use and getting my head around the likes of Bootstrap and jquery, Cpanel / Linux (we just got a blank vps for me to set up with no experience) even installing an SSL certificate caused everyone's mail clients to go down which was more stress for me to sort out. I find the pressure of the workload and timescales and trying to learn this stuff so fast is beginning to turn me against my career path. The fact that i never seem to get anything done really winds up my business partner and iv come to associate him with the stress and pain of the whole situation especially when I get berated or a look that says "oh you retard" when I forget something. Even today i spent hours learning how a particular themeforest theme worked with wordpress and how i could twist it to work for our partiuclar needs, on the surface had done no work, that triggered a 30 minute tirade of anger and stress and questioning what i had done from my business partner. had i taken too long to work on that? shoudl i have done it in 2 hours instead of 6? i told him i would take 2 hours. i was wrong. I feel like im running myself into the ground. My sleeping pattern has got so bad that when im working im half asleep and making mistakes, my eyes are constantly purple underneath, i literally fall asleep at my desk, its affecting my social life too, ive not slept more than lightly for the last year and grind through impossible code puzzles in my half sleep wich keeps me awake, when im already exhausted. plus the work is rushed and buggy when it does get done so drags on into the next project. I also procrastinate quite badly, pacing the livingroom, looking out the window when Im alone for three days straight in the flat and start to get cabin fever which means i do even less work and the negative feedback loop continues. I get told im the only one with the problem when i say that i cant work from home any more, and examples of other freelancers get brought up. an office wouldnt bring any extra cash in to the company but im convinced having that moving more than 2 meters away from my bed to go to "work" would get me working, at the moment i feel guilty like i should be working 24-7. It is important that we do all this work to raise enough cash to get our business to the next level but every month still feels like a struggle to pay the rent (there is about £20K coming in by Jan) and i have to borrow money from friends often to buy food or get a taxi to a meeting, so it is vital the money keeps coming in. (im also 20 mins late for nearly all meetings but thats a different issue) have you experienced anything similar? how can i deal with the issues ive raised? is it realistic to develop 10 sites at once? how can i improve my relationship with my business partner? do you struggle to work at home? how do you deal with that? i think if i dont get my life on track by feb i will seriously consider giving it all up, but that seems like such a waste. any ideas!!? i need help! Thanks.

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• Solaris 11.1: Changes to included FOSS packages

  - by alanc

  Besides the documentation changes I mentioned last time, another place you can see Solaris 11.1 changes before upgrading is in the online package repository, now that the 11.1 packages have been published to http://pkg.oracle.com/solaris/release/, as the “0.175.1.0.0.24.2” branch. (Oracle Solaris Package Versioning explains what each field in that version string means.) When you’re ready to upgrade to the packages from either this repo, or the support repository, you’ll want to first read How to Update to Oracle Solaris 11.1 Using the Image Packaging System by Pete Dennis, as there are a couple issues you will need to be aware of to do that upgrade, several of which are due to changes in the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) packages included with Solaris, as I’ll explain in a bit. Solaris 11 can update more readily than Solaris 10 In the Solaris 10 and older update models, the way the updates were built constrained what changes we could make in those releases. To change an existing SVR4 package in those releases, we created a Solaris Patch, which applied to a given version of the SVR4 package and replaced, added or deleted files in it. These patches were released via the support websites (originally SunSolve, now My Oracle Support) for applying to existing Solaris 10 installations, and were also merged into the install images for the next Solaris 10 update release. (This Solaris Patches blog post from Gerry Haskins dives deeper into that subject.) Some of the restrictions of this model were that package refactoring, changes to package dependencies, and even just changing the package version number, were difficult to do in this hybrid patch/OS update model. For instance, when Solaris 10 first shipped, it had the Xorg server from X11R6.8. Over the first couple years of update releases we were able to keep it up to date by replacing, adding, & removing files as necessary, taking it all the way up to Xorg server release 1.3 (new version numbering begun after the X11R7 split of the X11 tree into separate modules gave each module its own version). But if you run pkginfo on the SUNWxorg-server package, you’ll see it still displayed a version number of 6.8, confusing users as to which version was actually included. We stopped upgrading the Xorg server releases in Solaris 10 after 1.3, as later versions added new dependencies, such as HAL, D-Bus, and libpciaccess, which were very difficult to manage in this patching model. (We later got libpciaccess to work, but HAL & D-Bus would have been much harder due to the greater dependency tree underneath those.) Similarly, every time the GNOME team looked into upgrading Solaris 10 past GNOME 2.6, they found these constraints made it so difficult it wasn’t worthwhile, and eventually GNOME’s dependencies had changed enough it was completely infeasible. Fortunately, this worked out for both the X11 & GNOME teams, with our management making the business decision to concentrate on the “Nevada” branch for desktop users - first as Solaris Express Desktop Edition, and later as OpenSolaris, so we didn’t have to fight to try to make the package updates fit into these tight constraints. Meanwhile, the team designing the new packaging system for Solaris 11 was seeing us struggle with these problems, and making this much easier to manage for both the development teams and our users was one of their big goals for the IPS design they were working on. Now that we’ve reached the first update release to Solaris 11, we can start to see the fruits of their labors, with more FOSS updates in 11.1 than we had in many Solaris 10 update releases, keeping software more up to date with the upstream communities. Of course, just because we can more easily update now, doesn’t always mean we should or will do so, it just removes the package system limitations from forcing the decision for us. So while we’ve upgraded the X Window System in the 11.1 release from X11R7.6 to 7.7, the Solaris GNOME team decided it was not the right time to try to make the jump from GNOME 2 to GNOME 3, though they did update some individual components of the desktop, especially those with security fixes like Firefox. In other parts of the system, decisions as to what to update were prioritized based on how they affected other projects, or what customer requests we’d gotten for them. So with all that background in place, what packages did we actually update or add between Solaris 11.0 and 11.1? Core OS Functionality One of the FOSS changes with the biggest impact in this release is the upgrade from Grub Legacy (0.97) to Grub 2 (1.99) for the x64 platform boot loader. This is the cause of one of the upgrade quirks, since to go from Solaris 11.0 to 11.1 on x64 systems, you first need to update the Boot Environment tools (such as beadm) to a new version that can handle boot environments that use the Grub2 boot loader. System administrators can find the details they need to know about the new Grub in the Administering the GRand Unified Bootloader chapter of the Booting and Shutting Down Oracle Solaris 11.1 Systems guide. This change was necessary to be able to support new hardware coming into the x64 marketplace, including systems using UEFI firmware or booting off disk drives larger than 2 terabytes. For both platforms, Solaris 11.1 adds rsyslog as an optional alternative to the traditional syslogd, and OpenSCAP for checking security configuration settings are compliant with site policies. Note that the support repo actually has newer versions of BIND & fetchmail than the 11.1 release, as some late breaking critical fixes came through from the community upstream releases after the Solaris 11.1 release was frozen, and made their way to the support repository. These are responsible for the other big upgrade quirk in this release, in which to upgrade a system which already installed those versions from the support repo, you need to either wait for those packages to make their way to the 11.1 branch of the support repo, or follow the steps in the aforementioned upgrade walkthrough to let the package system know it's okay to temporarily downgrade those. Developer Stack While Solaris 11.0 included Python 2.7, many of the bundled python modules weren’t packaged for it yet, limiting its usability. For 11.1, many more of the python modules include 2.7 versions (enough that I filtered them out of the below table, but you can always search on the package repository server for them. For other language runtimes and development tools, 11.1 expands the use of IPS mediated links to choose which version of a package is the default when the packages are designed to allow multiple versions to install side by side. For instance, in Solaris 11.0, GNU automake 1.9 and 1.10 were provided, and developers had to run them as either automake-1.9 or automake-1.10. In Solaris 11.1, when automake 1.11 was added, also added was a /usr/bin/automake mediated link, which points to the automake-1.11 program by default, but can be changed to another version by running the pkg set-mediator command. Mediated links were also used for the Java runtime & development kits in 11.1, changing the default versions to the Java 7 releases (the 1.7.0.x package versions), while allowing admins to switch links such as /usr/bin/javac back to Java 6 if they need to for their site, to deal with Java 7 compatibility or other issues, without having to update each usage to use the full versioned /usr/jdk/jdk1.6.0_35/bin/javac paths for every invocation. Desktop Stack As I mentioned before, we upgraded from X11R7.6 to X11R7.7, since a pleasant coincidence made the X.Org release dates line up nicely with our feature & code freeze dates for this release. (Or perhaps it wasn’t so coincidental, after all, one of the benefits of being the person making the release is being able to decide what schedule is most convenient for you, and this one worked well for me.) For the table below, I’ve skipped listing the packages in which we use the X11 “katamari” version for the Solaris package version (mainly packages combining elements of multiple upstream modules with independent version numbers), since they just all changed from 7.6 to 7.7. In the graphics drivers, we worked with Intel to update the Intel Integrated Graphics Processor support to support 3D graphics and kernel mode setting on the Ivy Bridge chipsets, and updated Nvidia’s non-FOSS graphics driver from 280.13 to 295.20. Higher up in the desktop stack, PulseAudio was added for audio support, and liblouis for Braille support, and the GNOME applications were built to use them. The Mozilla applications, Firefox & Thunderbird moved to the current Extended Support Release (ESR) versions, 10.x for each, to bring up-to-date security fixes without having to be on Mozilla’s agressive 6 week feature cycle release train. Detailed list of changes This table shows most of the changes to the FOSS packages between Solaris 11.0 and 11.1. As noted above, some were excluded for clarity, or to reduce noise and duplication. All the FOSS packages which didn't change the version number in their packaging info are not included, even if they had updates to fix bugs, security holes, or add support for new hardware or new features of Solaris. Package11.011.1 archiver/unrar 3.8.5 4.1.4 audio/sox 14.3.0 14.3.2 backup/rdiff-backup 1.2.1 1.3.3 communication/im/pidgin 2.10.0 2.10.5 compress/gzip 1.3.5 1.4 compress/xz not included 5.0.1 database/sqlite-3 3.7.6.3 3.7.11 desktop/remote-desktop/tigervnc 1.0.90 1.1.0 desktop/window-manager/xcompmgr 1.1.5 1.1.6 desktop/xscreensaver 5.12 5.15 developer/build/autoconf 2.63 2.68 developer/build/autoconf/xorg-macros 1.15.0 1.17 developer/build/automake-111 not included 1.11.2 developer/build/cmake 2.6.2 2.8.6 developer/build/gnu-make 3.81 3.82 developer/build/imake 1.0.4 1.0.5 developer/build/libtool 1.5.22 2.4.2 developer/build/makedepend 1.0.3 1.0.4 developer/documentation-tool/doxygen 1.5.7.1 1.7.6.1 developer/gnu-binutils 2.19 2.21.1 developer/java/jdepend not included 2.9 developer/java/jdk-6 1.6.0.26 1.6.0.35 developer/java/jdk-7 1.7.0.0 1.7.0.7 developer/java/jpackage-utils not included 1.7.5 developer/java/junit 4.5 4.10 developer/lexer/jflex not included 1.4.1 developer/parser/byaccj not included 1.14 developer/parser/java_cup not included 0.10 developer/quilt 0.47 0.60 developer/versioning/git 1.7.3.2 1.7.9.2 developer/versioning/mercurial 1.8.4 2.2.1 developer/versioning/subversion 1.6.16 1.7.5 diagnostic/constype 1.0.3 1.0.4 diagnostic/nmap 5.21 5.51 diagnostic/scanpci 0.12.1 0.13.1 diagnostic/wireshark 1.4.8 1.8.2 diagnostic/xload 1.1.0 1.1.1 editor/gnu-emacs 23.1 23.4 editor/vim 7.3.254 7.3.600 file/lndir 1.0.2 1.0.3 image/editor/bitmap 1.0.5 1.0.6 image/gnuplot 4.4.0 4.6.0 image/library/libexif 0.6.19 0.6.21 image/library/libpng 1.4.8 1.4.11 image/library/librsvg 2.26.3 2.34.1 image/xcursorgen 1.0.4 1.0.5 library/audio/pulseaudio not included 1.1 library/cacao 2.3.0.0 2.3.1.0 library/expat 2.0.1 2.1.0 library/gc 7.1 7.2 library/graphics/pixman 0.22.0 0.24.4 library/guile 1.8.4 1.8.6 library/java/javadb 10.5.3.0 10.6.2.1 library/java/subversion 1.6.16 1.7.5 library/json-c not included 0.9 library/libedit not included 3.0 library/libee not included 0.3.2 library/libestr not included 0.1.2 library/libevent 1.3.5 1.4.14.2 library/liblouis not included 2.1.1 library/liblouisxml not included 2.1.0 library/libtecla 1.6.0 1.6.1 library/libtool/libltdl 1.5.22 2.4.2 library/nspr 4.8.8 4.8.9 library/openldap 2.4.25 2.4.30 library/pcre 7.8 8.21 library/perl-5/subversion 1.6.16 1.7.5 library/python-2/jsonrpclib not included 0.1.3 library/python-2/lxml 2.1.2 2.3.3 library/python-2/nose not included 1.1.2 library/python-2/pyopenssl not included 0.11 library/python-2/subversion 1.6.16 1.7.5 library/python-2/tkinter-26 2.6.4 2.6.8 library/python-2/tkinter-27 2.7.1 2.7.3 library/security/nss 4.12.10 4.13.1 library/security/openssl 1.0.0.5 (1.0.0e) 1.0.0.10 (1.0.0j) mail/thunderbird 6.0 10.0.6 network/dns/bind 9.6.3.4.3 9.6.3.7.2 package/pkgbuild not included 1.3.104 print/filter/enscript not included 1.6.4 print/filter/gutenprint 5.2.4 5.2.7 print/lp/filter/foomatic-rip 3.0.2 4.0.15 runtime/java/jre-6 1.6.0.26 1.6.0.35 runtime/java/jre-7 1.7.0.0 1.7.0.7 runtime/perl-512 5.12.3 5.12.4 runtime/python-26 2.6.4 2.6.8 runtime/python-27 2.7.1 2.7.3 runtime/ruby-18 1.8.7.334 1.8.7.357 runtime/tcl-8/tcl-sqlite-3 3.7.6.3 3.7.11 security/compliance/openscap not included 0.8.1 security/nss-utilities 4.12.10 4.13.1 security/sudo 1.8.1.2 1.8.4.5 service/network/dhcp/isc-dhcp 4.1 4.1.0.6 service/network/dns/bind 9.6.3.4.3 9.6.3.7.2 service/network/ftp (ProFTPD) 1.3.3.0.5 1.3.3.0.7 service/network/samba 3.5.10 3.6.6 shell/conflict 0.2004.9.1 0.2010.6.27 shell/pipe-viewer 1.1.4 1.2.0 shell/zsh 4.3.12 4.3.17 system/boot/grub 0.97 1.99 system/font/truetype/liberation 1.4 1.7.2 system/library/freetype-2 2.4.6 2.4.9 system/library/libnet 1.1.2.1 1.1.5 system/management/cim/pegasus 2.9.1 2.11.0 system/management/ipmitool 1.8.10 1.8.11 system/management/wbem/wbemcli 1.3.7 1.3.9.1 system/network/routing/quagga 0.99.8 0.99.19 system/rsyslog not included 6.2.0 terminal/luit 1.1.0 1.1.1 text/convmv 1.14 1.15 text/gawk 3.1.5 3.1.8 text/gnu-grep 2.5.4 2.10 web/browser/firefox 6.0.2 10.0.6 web/browser/links 1.0 1.0.3 web/java-servlet/tomcat 6.0.33 6.0.35 web/php-53 not included 5.3.14 web/php-53/extension/php-apc not included 3.1.9 web/php-53/extension/php-idn not included 0.2.0 web/php-53/extension/php-memcache not included 3.0.6 web/php-53/extension/php-mysql not included 5.3.14 web/php-53/extension/php-pear not included 5.3.14 web/php-53/extension/php-suhosin not included 0.9.33 web/php-53/extension/php-tcpwrap not included 1.1.3 web/php-53/extension/php-xdebug not included 2.2.0 web/php-common not included 11.1 web/proxy/squid 3.1.8 3.1.18 web/server/apache-22 2.2.20 2.2.22 web/server/apache-22/module/apache-sed 2.2.20 2.2.22 web/server/apache-22/module/apache-wsgi not included 3.3 x11/diagnostic/xev 1.1.0 1.2.0 x11/diagnostic/xscope 1.3 1.3.1 x11/documentation/xorg-docs 1.6 1.7 x11/keyboard/xkbcomp 1.2.3 1.2.4 x11/library/libdmx 1.1.1 1.1.2 x11/library/libdrm 2.4.25 2.4.32 x11/library/libfontenc 1.1.0 1.1.1 x11/library/libfs 1.0.3 1.0.4 x11/library/libice 1.0.7 1.0.8 x11/library/libsm 1.2.0 1.2.1 x11/library/libx11 1.4.4 1.5.0 x11/library/libxau 1.0.6 1.0.7 x11/library/libxcb 1.7 1.8.1 x11/library/libxcursor 1.1.12 1.1.13 x11/library/libxdmcp 1.1.0 1.1.1 x11/library/libxext 1.3.0 1.3.1 x11/library/libxfixes 4.0.5 5.0 x11/library/libxfont 1.4.4 1.4.5 x11/library/libxft 2.2.0 2.3.1 x11/library/libxi 1.4.3 1.6.1 x11/library/libxinerama 1.1.1 1.1.2 x11/library/libxkbfile 1.0.7 1.0.8 x11/library/libxmu 1.1.0 1.1.1 x11/library/libxmuu 1.1.0 1.1.1 x11/library/libxpm 3.5.9 3.5.10 x11/library/libxrender 0.9.6 0.9.7 x11/library/libxres 1.0.5 1.0.6 x11/library/libxscrnsaver 1.2.1 1.2.2 x11/library/libxtst 1.2.0 1.2.1 x11/library/libxv 1.0.6 1.0.7 x11/library/libxvmc 1.0.6 1.0.7 x11/library/libxxf86vm 1.1.1 1.1.2 x11/library/mesa 7.10.2 7.11.2 x11/library/toolkit/libxaw7 1.0.9 1.0.11 x11/library/toolkit/libxt 1.0.9 1.1.3 x11/library/xtrans 1.2.6 1.2.7 x11/oclock 1.0.2 1.0.3 x11/server/xdmx 1.10.3 1.12.2 x11/server/xephyr 1.10.3 1.12.2 x11/server/xorg 1.10.3 1.12.2 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-input-keyboard 1.6.0 1.6.1 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-input-mouse 1.7.1 1.7.2 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-input-synaptics 1.4.1 1.6.2 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-input-vmmouse 12.7.0 12.8.0 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-ast 0.91.10 0.93.10 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-ati 6.14.1 6.14.4 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-cirrus 1.3.2 1.4.0 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-dummy 0.3.4 0.3.5 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-intel 2.10.0 2.18.0 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-mach64 6.9.0 6.9.1 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-mga 1.4.13 1.5.0 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-openchrome 0.2.904 0.2.905 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-r128 6.8.1 6.8.2 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-trident 1.3.4 1.3.5 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-vesa 2.3.0 2.3.1 x11/server/xorg/driver/xorg-video-vmware 11.0.3 12.0.2 x11/server/xserver-common 1.10.3 1.12.2 x11/server/xvfb 1.10.3 1.12.2 x11/server/xvnc 1.0.90 1.1.0 x11/session/sessreg 1.0.6 1.0.7 x11/session/xauth 1.0.6 1.0.7 x11/session/xinit 1.3.1 1.3.2 x11/transset 0.9.1 1.0.0 x11/trusted/trusted-xorg 1.10.3 1.12.2 x11/x11-window-dump 1.0.4 1.0.5 x11/xclipboard 1.1.1 1.1.2 x11/xclock 1.0.5 1.0.6 x11/xfd 1.1.0 1.1.1 x11/xfontsel 1.0.3 1.0.4 x11/xfs 1.1.1 1.1.2 P.S. To get the version numbers for this table, I ran a quick perl script over the output from: % pkg contents -H -r -t depend -a type=incorporate -o fmri \ `pkg contents -H -r -t depend -a type=incorporate -o fmri [email protected],5.11-0.175.1.0.0.24` \ | sort /tmp/11.1 % pkg contents -H -r -t depend -a type=incorporate -o fmri \ `pkg contents -H -r -t depend -a type=incorporate -o fmri [email protected],5.11-0.175.0.0.0.2` \ | sort /tmp/11.0

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• List of freely available programming books

  - by Karan Bhangui

  I'm trying to amass a list of programming books with opensource licenses, like Creative Commons, GPL, etc. The books can be about a particular programming language or about computers in general. Hoping you guys could help: Languages BASH Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide (An in-depth exploration of the art of shell scripting) C The C book C++ Thinking in C++ C++ Annotations How to Think Like a Computer Scientist C# .NET Book Zero: What the C or C++ Programmer Needs to Know About C# and the .NET Framework Illustrated C# 2008 (Dead Link) Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in C# Threading in C# Common Lisp Practical Common Lisp On Lisp Java Thinking in Java How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Java Thin-Client Programming JavaScript Eloquent JavaScript Haskell Real world Haskell Learn You a Haskell for Great Good! Objective-C The Objective-C Programming Language Perl Extreme Perl (license not specified - home page is saying "freely available") The Mason Book (Open Publication License) Practical mod_perl (CreativeCommons Attribution Share-Alike License) Higher-Order Perl Learning Perl the Hard Way PHP Practical PHP Programming Zend Framework: Survive the Deep End PowerShell Mastering PowerShell Prolog Building Expert Systems in Prolog Adventure in Prolog Prolog Programming A First Course Logic, Programming and Prolog (2ed) Introduction to Prolog for Mathematicians Learn Prolog Now! Natural Language Processing Techniques in Prolog Python Dive Into Python Dive Into Python 3 How to Think Like a Computer Scientist A Byte of Python Python for Fun Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python Ruby Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby Programming Ruby - The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide Mr. Neighborly's Humble Little Ruby Book SQL Practical PostgreSQL x86 assembly Paul Carter's tutorial Lua Programming In Lua (for v5 but still largely relevant) Algorithms and Data Structures Algorithms Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Java Planning Algorithms Frameworks/Projects The Django Book The Pylons Book Introduction to Design Patterns in C++ with Qt 4 (Open Publication License) Version control The SVN Book Mercurial: The Definitive Guide Pro Git UNIX / Linux The Art of Unix Programming Linux Device Drivers, Third Edition Others Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs The Little Book of Semaphores Mathematical Logic - an Introduction An Introduction to the Theory of Computation Developers Developers Developers Developers Linkers and loaders Beej's Guide to Network Programming Maven: The Definitive Guide I will expand on this list as I get comments or when I think of more :D Related: Programming texts and reference material for my Kindle What are some good free programming books? Can anyone recommend a free software engineering book? Edit: Oh I didn't notice the community wiki feature. Feel free to edit your suggestions right in!

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• Cucumber error under bundler

  - by Senthil

  I've confirmed cucumber tests work fine without bundler, but with bundler it breaks. This is the error I get: You have a nil object when you didn't expect it! You might have expected an instance of Array. The error occurred while evaluating nil.each (NoMethodError) /home/senthil/rails/othersprograms/nmicho-teambox/vendor/plugins/cucumber/lib/cucumber/formatter/console.rb:148:in `record_tag_occurrences' /home/senthil/rails/othersprograms/nmicho-teambox/vendor/plugins/cucumber/lib/cucumber/formatter/pretty.rb:71:in `before_feature_element' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:190:in `__send__' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:190:in `send_to_all' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:188:in `each' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:188:in `send_to_all' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:179:in `broadcast' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:50:in `visit_feature_element' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/feature.rb:26:in `accept' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/feature.rb:25:in `each' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/feature.rb:25:in `accept' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:20:in `visit_feature' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:180:in `broadcast' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:19:in `visit_feature' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/features.rb:29:in `accept' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/features.rb:17:in `each' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/features.rb:17:in `each' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/features.rb:28:in `accept' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:14:in `visit_features' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:180:in `broadcast' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/ast/tree_walker.rb:13:in `visit_features' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/cli/main.rb:61:in `execute!' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/../lib/cucumber/cli/main.rb:20:in `execute' /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/cucumber-0.6.1/bin/cucumber:8 /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin/cucumber:19:in `load' /var/lib/gems/1.8/bin/cucumber:19 I've searched all over Google and nothing. Oh btw the above tests is when I was trying to run cucumber tests in Teambox app. I've downloaded it fresh and it still breaks. But if I use their old versions where they didn't not have bundler installed, it works fine. Can anyone help? Thanks

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• System.Data.SQLite parameter issue

  - by CasperT

  I have the following code: try { //Create connection SQLiteConnection conn = DBConnection.OpenDB(); //Verify user input, normally you give dbType a size, but Text is an exception var uNavnParam = new SQLiteParameter("@uNavnParam", SqlDbType.Text) { Value = uNavn }; var bNavnParam = new SQLiteParameter("@bNavnParam", SqlDbType.Text) { Value = bNavn }; var passwdParam = new SQLiteParameter("@passwdParam", SqlDbType.Text) {Value = passwd}; var pc_idParam = new SQLiteParameter("@pc_idParam", SqlDbType.TinyInt) { Value = pc_id }; var noterParam = new SQLiteParameter("@noterParam", SqlDbType.Text) { Value = noter }; var licens_idParam = new SQLiteParameter("@licens_idParam", SqlDbType.TinyInt) { Value = licens_id }; var insertSQL = new SQLiteCommand("INSERT INTO Brugere (navn, brugernavn, password, pc_id, noter, licens_id)" + "VALUES ('@uNameParam', '@bNavnParam', '@passwdParam', '@pc_idParam', '@noterParam', '@licens_idParam')", conn); insertSQL.Parameters.Add(uNavnParam); //replace paramenter with verified userinput insertSQL.Parameters.Add(bNavnParam); insertSQL.Parameters.Add(passwdParam); insertSQL.Parameters.Add(pc_idParam); insertSQL.Parameters.Add(noterParam); insertSQL.Parameters.Add(licens_idParam); insertSQL.ExecuteNonQuery(); //Execute query //Close connection DBConnection.CloseDB(conn); //Let the user know that it was changed succesfully this.Text = "Succes! Changed!"; } catch(SQLiteException e) { //Catch error MessageBox.Show(e.ToString(), "ALARM"); } It executes perfectly, but when I view my "brugere" table, it has inserted the values: '@uNameParam', '@bNavnParam', '@passwdParam', '@pc_idParam', '@noterParam', '@licens_idParam' literally. Instead of replacing them. I have tried making a breakpoint and checked the parameters, they do have the correct assigned values. So that is not the issue either. I have been tinkering with this a lot now, with no luck, can anyone help? Oh and for reference, here is the OpenDB method from the DBConnection class: public static SQLiteConnection OpenDB() { try { //Gets connectionstring from app.config const string myConnectString = "data source=data;"; var conn = new SQLiteConnection(myConnectString); conn.Open(); return conn; } catch (SQLiteException e) { MessageBox.Show(e.ToString(), "ALARM"); return null; } }

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• C socket programming: calling recv() changes my socket file descriptor?

  - by fourier

  Hey all, I have this strange problem with recv(). I'm programming client/server where client send() a message (a structure to be exact) and server recv() it. I am also working with multiple sockets and select(). while(1) { readset = info->read_set; info->copy_set = info->read_set; timeout.tv_sec = 1; timeout.tv_usec = 0; // 0.5 seconds ready = select(info->max_fd+1, &readset, NULL, NULL, &timeout); if (ready == -1) { printf("S: ERROR: select(): %s\nEXITING...", strerror(errno)); exit(1); } else if (ready == 0) { continue; } else { printf("S: oh finally you have contacted me!\n"); for(i = 0; i < (info->max_fd+1); i++) { if(FD_ISSET(i, &readset)) //this is where problem begins { printf("S: %i is set\n", i); printf("S: we talking about socket %i son\n", i); // i = 4 num_bytes = recv(i, &msg, MAX_MSG_BYTE, 0); printf("S: number of bytes recieved in socket %i is %i\n", i, num_bytes); // prints out i = 0 what?? if (num_bytes == 0) { printf("S: socket has been closed\n"); break; } else if (num_bytes == -1) { printf("S: ERROR recv: %d %s \n", i, strerror(errno)); continue; } else { handle_request(arg, &msg); printf("S: msg says %s\n", msg->_payload); } } // if (FD_ISSET(i, &readset) else printf("S: %i is not set\n", i); } // for (i = 0; i < maxfd+1; i++) to check sockets for msg } // if (ready == -1) info->read_set = info->copy_set; printf("S: copied\n"); } the problem I have is that in read_set, 0~3 aren't set and 4 is. That is fine. But when i call recv(), i suddently becomes 0. Why is that? It doesn't make sense to me why recv() would take an socket file descriptor number and modify to another number. Is that normal? Am I missing something? S: 0 is not set S: 1 is not set S: 2 is not set S: 3 is not set S: 4 is set S: we talking about socket 4 son S: i is strangely or unstrangely 0 S: number of bytes recieved in socket 0 is 40 That's what it prints out.

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• grails 1.3.1 Error executing script GenerateViews:

  - by mswallace

  Here is the lay of the land. I have an app that I have created. I uninstalled hibernate, installed app-engine plugin and am using jdo. I am able to create a domain-class but the when I run generate-all I run into the following error. Oh and I did try just generating the controller for the domain class and that seemed to work fine but then after that I try just generate-views on the same domain class and I also get the following error. Error executing script GenerateViews: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure5.doCall(Gant.groovy:391) at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure7.doCall(Gant.groovy:415) at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure7.doCall(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant.withBuildListeners(Gant.groovy:427) at gant.Gant.this$2$withBuildListeners(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant$this$2$withBuildListeners.callCurrent(Unknown Source) at gant.Gant.dispatch(Gant.groovy:415) at gant.Gant.this$2$dispatch(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant.invokeMethod(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant.executeTargets(Gant.groovy:590) at gant.Gant.executeTargets(Gant.groovy:589) Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException at SimpleTemplateScript1.run(SimpleTemplateScript1.groovy:43) at _GrailsGenerate_groovy.generateForDomainClass(_GrailsGenerate_groovy:85) at _GrailsGenerate_groovy$_run_closure1.doCall(_GrailsGenerate_groovy:50) at GenerateViews$_run_closure1.doCall(GenerateViews.groovy:33) at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure5.doCall(Gant.groovy:381) ... 10 more Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/hibernate/mapping/Value ... 15 more Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.hibernate.mapping.Value at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.RootLoader.findClass(RootLoader.java:156) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307) at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.RootLoader.loadClass(RootLoader.java:128) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:248) ... 15 more --- Nested Exception --- java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException at SimpleTemplateScript1.run(SimpleTemplateScript1.groovy:43) at _GrailsGenerate_groovy.generateForDomainClass(_GrailsGenerate_groovy:85) at _GrailsGenerate_groovy$_run_closure1.doCall(_GrailsGenerate_groovy:50) at GenerateViews$_run_closure1.doCall(GenerateViews.groovy:33) at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure5.doCall(Gant.groovy:381) at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure7.doCall(Gant.groovy:415) at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure7.doCall(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant.withBuildListeners(Gant.groovy:427) at gant.Gant.this$2$withBuildListeners(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant$this$2$withBuildListeners.callCurrent(Unknown Source) at gant.Gant.dispatch(Gant.groovy:415) at gant.Gant.this$2$dispatch(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant.invokeMethod(Gant.groovy) at gant.Gant.executeTargets(Gant.groovy:590) at gant.Gant.executeTargets(Gant.groovy:589) Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/hibernate/mapping/Value ... 15 more Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.hibernate.mapping.Value at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.RootLoader.findClass(RootLoader.java:156) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:307) at org.codehaus.groovy.tools.RootLoader.loadClass(RootLoader.java:128) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:248) ... 15 more

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• WebClient security error when accessing the world of warcraft armoury

  - by user348446

  Hello World, I am trying to piece together a solution to a problem. Basically I am using Silverlight 4 with C# 4.0 to access the world of warcraft armoury. If anyone has done this - please oh please provide the working .net 4.0 code. The code I am attempting to run is (e.Error contains a securtiy error): private void button10_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { string url = @"http://eu.wowarmory.com/guild-info.xml?r=Eonar&n=Gifted and Talented"; WebClient wc = new WebClient(); // HOW DO I ADD A USER AGENT STRING (RESPONSE MAY VARY (I.E. HTML VS XML) IF PAGE THINKS CALL IS NOT CAPABABLE OF SUPPORTING XML TRANSFORMATIONS) //wc.ResponseHeaders["User-Agent"] = "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)"; wc.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(wc_DownloadStringCompleted); wc.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri(url)); } void wc_DownloadStringCompleted(object sender, DownloadStringCompletedEventArgs e) { if (e.Error == null) { string result = e.Result; XDocument ArmouryXML = XDocument.Parse(result); ShowGuildies(ArmouryXML); } else { MessageBox.Show("Something is complaining about security but not sure what!"); } } Notes: C# 4.0 The armoury is an XML file - but i believe it reverts to html should the request not be from a browser that supports XML transformation. But i don't think I am getting this far. The armoury has a cross domain policy file on it - this may be the cause of the error (not sure! I have uploaded to a production server I am testing it locally using IIS website I am going insane! Websites have made the suggestion that this problem can be overcome by creating a WebProxy - but I haven't the first clue how to do this. It would be great if someone could take on this challenge and show us all that it is possible. I'd prefer a non-proxy solution first, then try a proxy. The error details: e.Error = {System.Security.SecurityException --- System.Security.SecurityException: Security error. at System.Net.Browser.BrowserHttpWebRequest.InternalEndGetResponse(IAsyncResult asyncResult) at System.Net.Browser.BrowserHttpWebRequest.<c__DisplayClass5. Any intelligent master coders out there who can solve this in their sleep? Thanks if you can! Pass this on to someone who can if you can't. If you know someone who can't, don't pass it to them, but if you know someone can't then presumedly you know how to solve it and would encourage you to give it a go! Cheers! Dan.

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• Adding OutputCache to a WebForm crashes my site :(

  - by Pure.Krome

  Hi folks, When I add either ... <%@ OutputCache Duration="600" Location="Any" VaryByParam="*" %> or <%@ OutputCache CacheProfile="CmsArticlesListOrItem" %> (.. and this into the web.config file...) <caching> <outputCacheSettings> <outputCacheProfiles> <add name="CmsArticlesListOrItem" duration="600" varyByParam="*" /> </outputCacheProfiles> </outputCacheSettings> <sqlCacheDependency ........ ></sqlCacheDependency </caching> my page/site crashes with the following error:- Source: System.Web ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TargetSite: System.Web.DirectoryMonitor FindDirectoryMonitor(System.String, Boolean, Boolean) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Message:System.Web.HttpException: Directory 'C:\Web Sites\My Site Foo - Main Site\Controls\InfoAdvice' does not exist. Failed to start monitoring file changes. at System.Web.FileChangesMonitor.FindDirectoryMonitor(String dir, Boolean addIfNotFound, Boolean throwOnError) at System.Web.FileChangesMonitor.StartMonitoringPath(String alias, FileChangeEventHandler callback, FileAttributesData& fad) at System.Web.Caching.CacheDependency.Init(Boolean isPublic, String[] filenamesArg, String[] cachekeysArg, CacheDependency dependency, DateTime utcStart) at System.Web.Caching.CacheDependency..ctor(Int32 dummy, String[] filenames, DateTime utcStart) at System.Web.Hosting.MapPathBasedVirtualPathProvider.GetCacheDependency(String virtualPath, IEnumerable virtualPathDependencies, DateTime utcStart) at System.Web.ResponseDependencyList.CreateCacheDependency(CacheDependencyType dependencyType, CacheDependency dependency) at System.Web.HttpResponse.CreateCacheDependencyForResponse(CacheDependency dependencyVary) at System.Web.Caching.OutputCacheModule.InsertResponse(HttpResponse response, HttpContext context, String keyRawResponse, HttpCachePolicySettings settings, CachedVary cachedVary, CachedRawResponse memoryRawResponse) at System.Web.Caching.OutputCacheModule.OnLeave(Object source, EventArgs eventArgs) at System.Web.HttpApplication.SyncEventExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) Ok .. so for some reason, the OutputCache wants a folder/file to be there? Well, i've had this site live for around 3 years and i'm pretty sure that the folders \Controls and \Controls\InfoAdvice doesn't exist on my production server. On my localhost, it sure does .. and contains a large list of ascx controls. But they don't exist on my live server. So ... what is going on here? Can anyone please help? Oh :) Before someone suggests I create those two folders and even stick a random file in those folders .. and have some random text in those random files .. i've done that and it doesn't seem to work, still :( Please Help !

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• Conflict between Jquery Validate and Asp.net MVC

  - by chobo2

  Hi I am using asp.net mvc 2.0 and jquery validate 1.7 (http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/) What happens is this. A user can click on a link to edit a product. When a user clicks on which product they want to edit a jquery dialog box appears with a form of textboxes and dropdown lists. These html controls have information filled in them. Say if the user chooses to edit the Ipad product a dialog will appear and one of the form textboxes will have "Ipad" in it. Now this form gets rendered on the server side(the form is in a partial view). When loading the dialog box a ajax request is made to get that partial view and in the response part of the ajax call I do something like $('#EditDialog).html(ajaxresponse).dialog({...}); So I would have something like this rendered in my dialog box <form id="EditProduct"> Product Name: <input type="text" value="IPad" name="ProductName" /> </form> Now my jquery validate would be something like this. $("#EditProduct").validate( { errorContainer: "#Errorbox", errorLabelContainer: "#Errorbox ul", wrapper: "li", rules: { ProductName: "required" } }); So I know this works because I use the same validate for add product and if you try to leave ProductName blank it will show a validation error. Now it does not work with the edit one though and I think I know the reason why but not how to fix it. The value for the textbox is "IPad" this is how the Html.TextBoxFor() renders it. However if a user goes and changes the product name to "Iphone" or blank the value never changes. It is always "Ipad" in the html. So I think when the validate goes and looks it goes oh there is a value already in it. It is valid even though in reality it might be blank. When I post to the server through ajax it gets the right value and the server side validation stops it but my entire clientside validation is rendered useless because of this problem as it will never change the html.

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• Modeling distribution of performance measurements

  - by peterchen

  How would you mathematically model the distribution of repeated real life performance measurements - "Real life" meaning you are not just looping over the code in question, but it is just a short snippet within a large application running in a typical user scenario? My experience shows that you usually have a peak around the average execution time that can be modeled adequately with a Gaussian distribution. In addition, there's a "long tail" containing outliers - often with a multiple of the average time. (The behavior is understandable considering the factors contributing to first execution penalty). My goal is to model aggregate values that reasonably reflect this, and can be calculated from aggregate values (like for the Gaussian, calculate mu and sigma from N, sum of values and sum of squares). In other terms, number of repetitions is unlimited, but memory and calculation requirements should be minimized. A normal Gaussian distribution can't model the long tail appropriately and will have the average biased strongly even by a very small percentage of outliers. I am looking for ideas, especially if this has been attempted/analysed before. I've checked various distributions models, and I think I could work out something, but my statistics is rusty and I might end up with an overblown solution. Oh, a complete shrink-wrapped solution would be fine, too ;) Other aspects / ideas: Sometimes you get "two humps" distributions, which would be acceptable in my scenario with a single mu/sigma covering both, but ideally would be identified separately. Extrapolating this, another approach would be a "floating probability density calculation" that uses only a limited buffer and adjusts automatically to the range (due to the long tail, bins may not be spaced evenly) - haven't found anything, but with some assumptions about the distribution it should be possible in principle. Why (since it was asked) - For a complex process we need to make guarantees such as "only 0.1% of runs exceed a limit of 3 seconds, and the average processing time is 2.8 seconds". The performance of an isolated piece of code can be very different from a normal run-time environment involving varying levels of disk and network access, background services, scheduled events that occur within a day, etc. This can be solved trivially by accumulating all data. However, to accumulate this data in production, the data produced needs to be limited. For analysis of isolated pieces of code, a gaussian deviation plus first run penalty is ok. That doesn't work anymore for the distributions found above. [edit] I've already got very good answers (and finally - maybe - some time to work on this). I'm starting a bounty to look for more input / ideas.

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• OSGI classcast exception on felix

  - by Nico

  Hi, i'm fairly new to osgi and am trying to get a functional proof of concept together. The setup is that my common api is created in a bundle creatively named common-api.jar with no bundle activator, but it exports all it's interfaces. the one of interest in this situation is DatabaseService.java. I then have a Second bundle called systemx-database-service. That implements the database service interface. this works fine as in the activator of the implementation bundle i test the connection to the database and select some arbitraty values. I also register the service i want to be available to the other bundle's like so: context.registerService(DatabaseService.class.getName(), new SystemDatabaseServiceImpl(context), new Properties()); The basic idea being when you look for a service reference for a Database service you'll get back the SystemDatabaseService implementation. When i do a inspect service the output it this: -> inspect s c 69 System Database Service (69) provides services: ---------------------------------------------- objectClass = za.co.xxx.xxx.common.api.DatabaseService service.id = 39 which would lead me to believe that if i do this in a test bundle: context.getService(context.getServiceReference(DatabaseService.class)); i should get back an instance of DatabaseService.class, but alas no such luck. it simply seems like it cannot find the service. stick with me here my story gets stranger. figuring there is no where to go but up i wrote this monstrosity: for (Bundle bundle : bundles) { if (bundle.getSymbolicName().equals("za.co.xxx.xxx.database-service")) { ServiceReference[] registeredServices = bundle.getRegisteredServices(); for (ServiceReference ref : registeredServices) { DatabaseService service = (DatabaseService) context.getService(ref); // use service here. } } } } now i can actually see the service reference, but i get this error java.lang.ClassCastException: za.co.xxx.xxx.database.service.impl.SystemDatabaseServiceImpl cannot be cast to za.co.xxx.xx.common.api.DatabaseService which is crazy since the implementation clearly implements the interface! Any help would be appreciated. Please keep in mind i'm very new at the osgi way of thinking so my whole approach here might be flawed. oh. if anyone wants the manifests i can post them. and i'm using the maven-bnd-plugin to build and executing on felix. thanks Nico

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• who free's setvbuf buffer?

  - by Evan Teran

  So I've been digging into how the stdio portion of libc is implemented and I've come across another question. Looking at man setvbuf I see the following: When the first I/O operation occurs on a file, malloc(3) is called, and a buffer is obtained. This makes sense, your program should have a malloc in it for I/O unless you actually use it. My gut reaction to this is that libc will clean up its own mess here. Which I can only assume it does because valgrind reports no memory leaks (they could of course do something dirty and not allocate it via malloc directly... but we'll assume that it literally uses malloc for now). But, you can specify your own buffer too... int main() { char *p = malloc(100); setvbuf(stdio, p, _IOFBF, 100); puts("hello world"); } Oh no, memory leak! valgrind confirms it. So it seems that whenever stdio allocates a buffer on its own, it will get deleted automatically (at the latest on program exit, but perhaps on stream close). But if you specify the buffer explicitly, then you must clean it up yourself. There is a catch though. The man page also says this: You must make sure that the space that buf points to still exists by the time stream is closed, which also happens at program termination. For example, the following is invalid: Now this is getting interesting for the standard streams. How would one properly clean up a manually allocated buffer for them, since they are closed in program termination? I could imagine a "clean this up when I close flag" inside the file struct, but it get hairy because if I read this right doing something like this: setvbuf(stdio, 0, _IOFBF, 100); printf("hello "); setvbuf(stdio, 0, _IOLBF, 100); printf("world\n"); would cause 2 allocations by the standard library because of this sentence: If the argument buf is NULL, only the mode is affected; a new buffer will be allocated on the next read or write operation.

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• Fuzzy Regex, Text Processing, Lexical Analysis?

  - by justinzane

  I'm not quite sure what terminology to search for, so my title is funky... Here is the workflow I've got: Semi-structured documents are scanned to file. The files are OCR'd to text. The text is parsed into Python objects The objects are serialized (to SQL, JSON, whatever) for use. The documents are structures like this: HEADER blah blah, Page ### blah Garbage text... 1. Question Text... continued until now. A. Choice text... adsadsf. B. Another Choice... 2. Another Question... I need to extract the questions and choices. The problem is that, because the text is OCR output, there are occasional strange substitutions like '2' - 'Z' which makes ordinary regular expressions useless. I've tried the Levenshtein module and it helps, but it requires prior knowledge of what edit distance is to be expected. I don't know whether I'm looking to create a parser? a lexer? something else? This has lead me down all kinds of interesting but nonrelevant paths. Guidance would be greatly appreciated. Oh, also, the text is generally from specific technical domains, so general spelling tools are not so helpful. Regarding the structure of the documents, there is no clear visual pattern -- like line breaks or indentation -- with the exception of the fact that "questions" usually begin a line. Crap on the document can cause characters to appear before the actual beginning of the line, which means that something along the lines of r'^[0-9]+' does not reliably work. Though the "questions" always begin with an int, a period and a space; the OCR can substitute other characters or skip characters. This is not so much a problem with Tesseract or Cunieform, rather with the poor quality of the paper documents. # Note: for the project in question, it was decided that having a human prep the OCR'd text was better that spending the time coding a solution. I'd still love good pointers, however.

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• Implement Semi-Round-Robin file which can be expanded and saved on demand

  - by ircmaxell

  Ok, that title is going to be a little bit confusing. Let me try to explain it a little bit better. I am building a logging program. The program will have 3 main states: Write to a round-robin buffer file, keeping only the last 10 minutes of data. Write to a buffer file, ignoring the time (record all data). Rename entire buffer file, and start a new one with the past 10 minutes of data (and change state to 1). Now, the use case is this. I have been experiencing some network bottlenecks from time to time in our network. So I want to build a system to record TCP traffic when it detects the bottleneck (detection via Nagios). However by the time it detects the bottlenecking, most of the useful data has already been transmitted. So, what I'd like is to have a deamon that runs something like dumpcap all the time. In normal mode, it'll only keep the past 10 minutes of data (Since there's no point in keeping a boat load of data if it's not needed). But when Nagios alerts, I will send a signal in the deamon to store everything. Then, when Naigos recovers it will send another signal to stop storing and flush the buffer to a save file. Now, the problem is that I can't see how to cleanly store a rotating 10 minutes of data. I could store a new file every 10 minutes and delete the old ones if in mode 1. But that seems a bit dirty to me (especially when it comes to figuring out when the alert happened in the file). Ideally, the file that was saved should be such that the alert is always at the 10:00 mark in the file. While that is possible with new files every 10 minutes, it seems like a bit dirty to "repair" the files to that point. Any ideas? Should I just do a rotating file system and combine them into 1 at the end (doing quite a bit of post-processing)? Is there a way to implement the semi-round-robin file cleanly so that there is no need for any post-processing? Thanks Oh, and the language doesn't matter as much at this stage (I'm leaning towards Python, but have no objection to any other language. It's less of an issue than the overall design)...

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• Making footer image stick to bottom of web browser or page

  - by Slyphee

  Hello, I know this has been asked alot of times in the past but for the life of me I can't seem to get any of the other solutions to work. What I'm trying to do is to get the footer (which is an image that repeats across the width of the page) to stick to the bottom of the browser when there isn't enough content to naturally push it to the bottom of the page and when there IS enough content to push it to the bottom it does just that. An example is the one at http://www.themaninblue.com/experiment/footerStickAlt/good_example_short.htm which does exactly what I want but I can't get to work either. The code that I've currently got implemented makes the footer stick to a certain section of the page with text going under it. You can see it at sourcectrl.co.uk but its not much to look at. Heres the code for your viewing pleasure. html, body { font: 100% Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; height: 100%; color: #597347; margin: 0; padding: 0; background: #573909; } header { display: block; position: relative; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 66px; background: url(../images/FillerPage_01.gif) repeat-x left bottom; } section { width: 940px; margin: 0 auto; font-size: 1.4em; overflow: auto; min-height: 100%; height: auto !important; height: 100%; margin-bottom: 87px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 90px; } footer { display:block; position: absolute; bottom: 0; width: 100%; height: 87px; background: url(../images/FillerPage_08.gif) repeat-x left bottom; } Sorry if it seems messy! I'd just like to know if I'm heading in the right direction or theres something I'm just not getting? Oh yeah I'm trying to do all of this with the html 5 markup which is why there is no #footer and the like (could this be why none of the solutions work?). If anyone could give me any help or guidance I'd be soooooo grateful.

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