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• SQL Sentry First Impressions

  - by AjarnMark

  After struggling to defend my SQL Servers from a political attack recently, I realized that I needed better tools to back me up, and SQL Sentry is the leading candidate. A couple of weeks ago, seemingly from out of nowhere, complaints from the business users started coming in that one of the core internal applications was running dramatically slower than normal, and fingers were being pointed at the SQL Server.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a production DBA whose entire job is to monitor and maintain our SQL Servers.  The responsibility falls to me to do the best I can, investing only a small portion of my time, because there are so many other responsibilities to take care of, and our industry is still deep in recession.  I inherited these SQL Servers and have made significant improvements in process and procedure, but I had not yet made the time to take real baseline measurements or keep a really close eye on the performance.  Like many DBAs, I wrote several of my own tools and used the “built-in tools” like Profiler, PerfMon, and sp_who2 (did I mention most of our instances are SQL Server 2000?).  These have all served me well for in-the-moment troubleshooting and maintenance, but they really fell down on the job when I was called upon to “prove” that SQL Server performance was acceptable and more importantly had not degraded recently (i.e. historical comparisons).  I really didn’t have anything from a historical comparison perspective, but I was able to show that current performance was acceptable, and deflect attention back onto other components (which in fact turned out to be the real culprit). That experience dramatically illustrated the need for better monitoring tools.  Coincidentally, I had been talking recently to my boss about the mini nightmare of monitoring several critical and interdependent overnight jobs that operate on separate instances of SQL Server.  Among other tools, I had been using Idera’s SQL Job Manager which is a free tool and did a nice job of showing me job schedules and histories in a nice calendar view.  This worked fairly well, and for the money (did I mention it was free?) it couldn’t be beat.  But it is based on the stored job history in MSDB, and there were other performance problems that we ran into when we started changing the settings for how much job history to retain, in order to be able to look back a month or more in the calendar view.  Another coincidence (if you believe in such things) was that when we had some of those performance challenges, I posted a couple of questions to the #sqlhelp hashtag on Twitter and Greg Gonzalez (@SQLSensei) suggested I check out SQL Sentry’s Event Manager.  At the time, I just thought he worked there, but later found out that he founded the company.  When I took a quick look at the features & benefits, the one that really jumped out at me is Chaining and Queueing which sounded like it would really help with our “interdependent jobs on different servers” issue. I know that is a lot of background story and coincidences, but hopefully you have stuck with me so far, and now we have arrived at the point where last week I downloaded and installed the 30-day trial of the SQL Sentry Power Suite, which is Event Manager plus Performance Advisor.  And I must say that I really like what I see so far.  Here are a few highlights: Great Support.  I had two issues getting the trial setup and monitoring a handful of our servers.  One of which was entirely my fault (missed a security setting in SQL 2008) and the other was mostly my fault (late change to some config settings that were apparently cached and did not get refreshed properly).  In both cases, the support staff at SQL Sentry were very responsive and rather quickly figured out what the cause and fix was for each of them.  This left me with a great impression of the company.  Kudos to them! Chaining and Queueing.  While I have not yet activated this feature, I am very excited about the possibilities.  We have jobs on three different instances of SQL Server that have to be run in a certain order, and each has to finish before the next can successfully begin, and I believe this feature will ensure just that.  It has been a real pain in the backside when one of those jobs runs just a little too long and does not finish before the job on another instance starts, thus triggering a chain reaction of either outright job failures, or worse, successful completion of completely invalid processing. Calendar View.  I really, really like the Event Manager calendar view where I can see all jobs and events across all instances and identify potential resource contention as well as windows of opportunity for maintenance activity.  Very well done, and based on Event Manager’s own database of accumulated historical information rather than querying the source instances every time. Performance Advisor Dashboard History View.  This view let’s me quickly select a date and time range and it displays graphs of key SQL Server and Windows metrics.  This is exactly the thing I needed to answer the “has performance changed recently” question at the beginning of this post. Reporting Services Subscription Jobs with Report Name.  This was a big and VERY pleasant surprise.  If you have ever looked at the list of SQL Server jobs that SQL Server Reporting Services creates when you make a Subscription, you will notice that they all have some sort of GUID as the name of the job.  This is really ugly, and really annoying because when you are just looking at the SQL Agent and Job Activity Monitor, if you see that Job X failed, you really do not have any indication in the name or the properties of the Job itself, as to what Report that was for.  But with SQL Sentry Event Manager you do.  The Jobs list in the Navigator pane in SQL Sentry, amazingly, displays the name of the Report that the Subscription Job is for.  And when you open it to see more details, it shows you the full Reporting Services path to that Report, so you can immediately track it down in the Report Manager in case you want to identify/notify the owner or edit the Subscription information.  I did not expect this at all, but I sure do like it.  HOORAY! That is just my first impressions from using the tools for a few days.  And I haven’t even gotten into how it showed me where I was completely mistaken about one aspect of my SQL Server disk configurations.  I’ll share that lesson in another blog entry.  But I have to say it again, the combination of Event Manager and Performance Advisor working together have really made me a fan.

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• How to Identify Which Hardware Component is Failing in Your Computer

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Concluding that your computer has a hardware problem is just the first step. If you’re dealing with a hardware issue and not a software issue, the next step is determining what hardware problem you’re actually dealing with. If you purchased a laptop or pre-built desktop PC and it’s still under warranty, you don’t need to care about this. Have the manufacturer fix the PC for you — figuring it out is their problem. If you’ve built your own PC or you want to fix a computer that’s out of warranty, this is something you’ll need to do on your own. Blue Screen 101: Search for the Error Message This may seem like obvious advice, but searching for information about a blue screen’s error message can help immensely. Most blue screens of death you’ll encounter on modern versions of Windows will likely be caused by hardware failures. The blue screen of death often displays information about the driver that crashed or the type of error it encountered. For example, let’s say you encounter a blue screen that identified “NV4_disp.dll” as the driver that caused the blue screen. A quick Google search will reveal that this is the driver for NVIDIA graphics cards, so you now have somewhere to start. It’s possible that your graphics card is failing if you encounter such an error message. Check Hard Drive SMART Status Hard drives have a built in S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) feature. The idea is that the hard drive monitors itself and will notice if it starts to fail, providing you with some advance notice before the drive fails completely. This isn’t perfect, so your hard drive may fail even if SMART says everything is okay. If you see any sort of “SMART error” message, your hard drive is failing. You can use SMART analysis tools to view the SMART health status information your hard drives are reporting. Test Your RAM RAM failure can result in a variety of problems. If the computer writes data to RAM and the RAM returns different data because it’s malfunctioning, you may see application crashes, blue screens, and file system corruption. To test your memory and see if it’s working properly, use Windows’ built-in Memory Diagnostic tool. The Memory Diagnostic tool will write data to every sector of your RAM and read it back afterwards, ensuring that all your RAM is working properly. Check Heat Levels How hot is is inside your computer? Overheating can rsult in blue screens, crashes, and abrupt shut downs. Your computer may be overheating because you’re in a very hot location, it’s ventilated poorly, a fan has stopped inside your computer, or it’s full of dust. Your computer monitors its own internal temperatures and you can access this information. It’s generally available in your computer’s BIOS, but you can also view it with system information utilities such as SpeedFan or Speccy. Check your computer’s recommended temperature level and ensure it’s within the appropriate range. If your computer is overheating, you may see problems only when you’re doing something demanding, such as playing a game that stresses your CPU and graphics card. Be sure to keep an eye on how hot your computer gets when it performs these demanding tasks, not only when it’s idle. Stress Test Your CPU You can use a utility like Prime95 to stress test your CPU. Such a utility will fore your computer’s CPU to perform calculations without allowing it to rest, working it hard and generating heat. If your CPU is becoming too hot, you’ll start to see errors or system crashes. Overclockers use Prime95 to stress test their overclock settings — if Prime95 experiences errors, they throttle back on their overclocks to ensure the CPU runs cooler and more stable. It’s a good way to check if your CPU is stable under load. Stress Test Your Graphics Card Your graphics card can also be stress tested. For example, if your graphics driver crashes while playing games, the games themselves crash, or you see odd graphical corruption, you can run a graphics benchmark utility like 3DMark. The benchmark will stress your graphics card and, if it’s overheating or failing under load, you’ll see graphical problems, crashes, or blue screens while running the benchmark. If the benchmark seems to work fine but you have issues playing a certain game, it may just be a problem with that game. Swap it Out Not every hardware problem is easy to diagnose. If you have a bad motherboard or power supply, their problems may only manifest through occasional odd issues with other components. It’s hard to tell if these components are causing problems unless you replace them completely. Ultimately, the best way to determine whether a component is faulty is to swap it out. For example, if you think your graphics card may be causing your computer to blue screen, pull the graphics card out of your computer and swap in a new graphics card. If everything is working well, it’s likely that your previous graphics card was bad. This isn’t easy for people who don’t have boxes of components sitting around, but it’s the ideal way to troubleshoot. Troubleshooting is all about trial and error, and swapping components out allows you to pin down which component is actually causing the problem through a process of elimination. This isn’t a complete guide to everything that could likely go wrong and how to identify it — someone could write a full textbook on identifying failing components and still not cover everything. But the tips above should give you some places to start dealing with the more common problems. Image Credit: Justin Marty on Flickr     

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• Book Review: Brownfield Application Development in .NET

  - by DotNetBlues

  I recently finished reading the book Brownfield Application Development in .NET by Kyle Baley and Donald Belcham.  The book is available from Manning.  First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Manning as a publisher.  I've found their books to be top-quality, over all.  As a Kindle owner, I also appreciate getting an ebook copy along with the dead tree copy.  I find ebooks to be much more convenient to read, but hard-copies are easier to reference. The book covers, surprisingly enough, working with brownfield applications.  Which is well and good, if that term has meaning to you.  It didn't for me.  Without retreading a chunk of the first chapter, the authors break code bases into three broad categories: greenfield, brownfield, and legacy.  Greenfield is, essentially, new development that hasn't had time to rust and is (hopefully) being approached with some discipline.  Legacy applications are those that are more or less stable and functional, that do not expect to see a lot of work done to them, and are more likely to be replaced than reworked. Brownfield code is the gray (brown?) area between the two and the authors argue, quite effectively, that it is the most likely state for an application to be in.  Brownfield code has, in some way, been allowed to tarnish around the edges and can be difficult to work with.  Although I hadn't realized it, most of the code I've worked on has been brownfield.  Sometimes, there's talk of scrapping and starting over.  Sometimes, the team dismisses increased discipline as ivory tower nonsense.  And, sometimes, I've been the ignorant culprit vexing my future self. The book is broken into two major sections, plus an introduction chapter and an appendix.  The first section covers what the authors refer to as "The Ecosystem" which consists of version control, build and integration, testing, metrics, and defect management.  The second section is on actually writing code for brownfield applications and discusses object-oriented principles, architecture, external dependencies, and, of course, how to deal with these when coming into an existing code base. The ecosystem section is just shy of 140 pages long and brings some real meat to the matter.  The focus on "pain points" immediately sets the tone as problem-solution, rather than academic.  The authors also approach some of the topics from a different angle than some essays I've read on similar topics.  For example, the chapter on automated testing is on just that -- automated testing.  It's all well and good to criticize a project as conflating integration tests with unit tests, but it really doesn't make anyone's life better.  The discussion on testing is more focused on the "right" level of testing for existing projects.  Sometimes, an integration test is the best you can do without gutting a section of functional code.  Even if you can sell other developers and/or management on doing so, it doesn't actually provide benefit to your customers to rewrite code that works.  This isn't to say the authors encourage sloppy coding.  Far from it.  Just that they point out the wisdom of ignoring the sleeping bear until after you deal with the snarling wolf. The other sections take a similarly real-world, workable approach to the pain points they address.  As the section moves from technical solutions like version control and continuous integration (CI) to the softer, process issues of metrics and defect tracking, the authors begin to gently suggest moving toward a zero defect count.  While that really sounds like an unreasonable goal for a lot of ongoing projects, it's quite apparent that the authors have first-hand experience with taming some gruesome projects.  The suggestions are grounded and workable, and the difficulty of some situations is explicitly acknowledged. I have to admit that I started getting bored by the end of the ecosystem section.  No matter how valuable I think a good project manager or business analyst is to a successful ALM, at the end of the day, I'm a gear-head.  Also, while I agreed with a lot of the ecosystem ideas, in theory, I didn't necessarily feel that a lot of the single-developer projects that I'm often involved in really needed that level of rigor.  It's only after reading the sidebars and commentary in the coding section that I had the context for the arguments made in favor of a strong ecosystem supporting the development process.  That isn't to say that I didn't support good product management -- indeed, I've probably pushed too hard, on occasion, for a strong ALM outside of just development.  This book gave me deeper insight into why some corners shouldn't be cut and how damaging certain sins of omission can be. The code section, though, kept me engaged for its entirety.  Many technical books can be used as reference material from day one.  The authors were clear, however, that this book is not one of these.  The first chapter of the section (chapter seven, over all) addresses object oriented (OO) practices.  I've read any number of definitions, discussions, and treatises on OO.  None of the chapter was new to me, but it was a good review, and I'm of the opinion that it's good to review the foundations of what you do, from time to time, so I didn't mind. The remainder of the book is really just about how to apply OOP to existing code -- and, just because all your code exists in classes does not mean that it's object oriented.  That topic has the potential to be extremely condescending, but the authors miraculously managed to never once make me feel like a dolt or that they were wagging their finger at me for my prior sins.  Instead, they continue the "pain points" and problem-solution presentation to give concrete examples of how to apply some pretty academic-sounding ideas.  That's a point worth emphasizing, as my experience with most OO discussions is that they stay in the academic realm.  This book gives some very, very good explanations of why things like the Liskov Substitution Principle exist and why a corporate programmer should even care.  Even if you know, with absolute certainty, that you'll never have to work on an existing code-base, I would recommend this book just for the clarity it provides on OOP. This book goes beyond just theory, or even real-world application.  It presents some methods for fixing problems that any developer can, and probably will, encounter in the wild.  First, the authors address refactoring application layers and internal dependencies.  Then, they take you through those layers from the UI to the data access layer and external dependencies.  Finally, they come full circle to tie it all back to the overall process.  By the time the book is done, you're left with a lot of ideas, but also a reasonable plan to begin to improve an existing project structure. Throughout the book, it's apparent that the authors have their own preferred methodology (TDD and domain-driven design), as well as some preferred tools.  The "Our .NET Toolbox" is something of a neon sign pointing to that latter point.  They do not beat the reader over the head with anything resembling a "One True Way" mentality.  Even for the most emphatic points, the tone is quite congenial and helpful.  With some of the near-theological divides that exist within the tech community, I found this to be one of the more remarkable characteristics of the book.  Although the authors favor tools that might be considered Alt.NET, there is no reason the advice and techniques given couldn't be quite successful in a pure Microsoft shop with Team Foundation Server.  For that matter, even though the book specifically addresses .NET, it could be applied to a Java and Oracle shop, as well.

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• Why JSF Matters (to You)

  - by reza_rahman

        "Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge."                                                                                                    – Lao Tzu You may have noticed Thoughtworks recently crowned the likes AngularJS, etc imminent successors to server-side web frameworks. They apparently also deemed it necessary to single out JSF for righteous scorn. I have to say as I was reading the analysis I couldn't help but remember they also promptly jumped on the Ruby, Rails, Clojure, etc bandwagon a good few years ago seemingly similarly crowing these dynamic languages imminent successors to Java. I remember thinking then as I do now whether the folks at Thoughtworks are really that much smarter than me or if they are simply more prone to the Hipster buzz of the day. I'll let you make the final call on that one. I also noticed mention of "J2EE" in the context of JSF and had to wonder how up-to-date or knowledgeable the person writing the analysis actually was given that the term was basically retired almost a decade ago. There's one thing that I am absolutely sure about though - as a long time pretty happy user of JSF, I had no choice but to speak up on what I believe JSF offers. If you feel the same way, I would encourage you to support the team behind JSF whose hard work you may have benefited from over the years. True to his outspoken character PrimeFaces lead Cagatay Civici certainly did not mince words making the case for the JSF ecosystem - his excellent write-up is well worth a read. He specifically pointed out the practical problems in going whole hog with bare metal JavaScript, CSS, HTML for many development teams. I'll admit I had to smile when I read his closing sentence as well as the rather cheerful comments to the post from actual current JSF/PrimeFaces users that are apparently supposed to be on a gloomy death march. In a similar vein, OmniFaces developer Arjan Tijms did a great job pointing out the fact that despite the extremely competitive server-side Java Web UI space, JSF seems to manage to always consistently come out in either the number one or number two spot over many years and many data sources - do give his well-written message in the JAX-RS user forum a careful read. I don't think it's really reasonable to expect this to be the case for so many years if JSF was not at least a capable if not outstanding technology. If fact if you've ever wondered, Oracle itself is one of the largest JSF users on the planet. As Oracle's Shay Shmeltzer explains in a recent JSF Central interview, many of Oracle's strategic products such as ADF, ADF Mobile and Fusion Applications itself is built on JSF. There are well over 3,000 active developers working on these codebases. I don't think anyone can think of a more compelling reason to make sure that a technology is as effective as possible for practical development under real world conditions. Standing on the shoulders of the above giants, I feel like I can be pretty brief in making my own case for JSF: JSF is a powerful abstraction that brings the original Smalltalk MVC pattern to web development. This means cutting down boilerplate code to the bare minimum such that you really can think of just writing your view markup and then simply wire up some properties and event handlers on a POJO. The best way to see what this really means is to compare JSF code for a pretty small case to other approaches. You should then multiply the additional work for the typical enterprise project to try to understand what the productivity trade-offs are. This is reason alone for me to personally never take any other approach seriously as my primary web UI solution unless it can match the sheer productivity of JSF. Thanks to JSF's focus on components from the ground-up JSF has an extremely strong ecosystem that includes projects like PrimeFaces, RichFaces, OmniFaces, ICEFaces and of course ADF Faces/Mobile. These component libraries taken together constitute perhaps the largest widget set ever developed and optimized for a single web UI technology. To begin to grasp what this really means, just briefly browse the excellent PrimeFaces showcase and think about the fact that you can readily use the widgets on that showcase by just using some simple markup and knowing near to nothing about AJAX, JavaScript or CSS. JSF has the fair and legitimate advantage of being an open vendor neutral standard. This means that no single company, individual or insular clique controls JSF - openness, transparency, accountability, plurality, collaboration and inclusiveness is virtually guaranteed by the standards process itself. You have the option to choose between compatible implementations, escape any form of lock-in or even create your own compatible implementation! As you might gather from the quote at the top of the post, I am not a fan of crystal ball gazing and certainly don't want to engage in it myself. Who knows? However far-fetched it may seem maybe AngularJS is the only future we all have after all. If that is the case, so be it. Unlike what you might have been told, Java EE is about choice at heart and it can certainly work extremely well as a back-end for AngularJS. Likewise, you are also most certainly not limited to just JSF for working with Java EE - you have a rich set of choices like Struts 2, Vaadin, Errai, VRaptor 4, Wicket or perhaps even the new action-oriented web framework being considered for Java EE 8 based on the work in Jersey MVC... Please note that any views expressed here are my own only and certainly does not reflect the position of Oracle as a company.

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• Maintenance plans love story

  - by Maria Zakourdaev

  There are about 200 QA and DEV SQL Servers out there.  There is a maintenance plan on many of them that performs a backup of all databases and removes the backup history files. First of all, I must admit that I’m no big fan of maintenance plans in particular or the SSIS packages in general.  In this specific case, if I ever need to change anything in the way backup is performed, such as the compression feature or perform some other change, I have to open each plan one by one. This is quite a pain. Therefore, I have decided to replace the maintenance plans with a stored procedure that will perform exactly the same thing.  Having such a procedure will allow me to open multiple server connections and just execute an ALTER PROCEDURE whenever I need to change anything in it. There is nothing like good ole T-SQL. The first challenge was to remove the unneeded maintenance plans. Of course, I didn’t want to do it server by server.  I found the procedure msdb.dbo.sp_maintplan_delete_plan, but it only has a parameter for the maintenance plan id and it has no other parameters, like plan name, which would have been much more useful. Now I needed to find the table that holds all maintenance plans on the server. You would think that it would be msdb.dbo.sysdbmaintplans but, unfortunately, regardless of the number of maintenance plans on the instance, it contains just one row.    After a while I found another table: msdb.dbo.sysmaintplan_subplans. It contains the plan id that I was looking for, in the plan_id column and well as the agent’s job id which is executing the plan’s package: That was all I needed and the rest turned out to be quite easy.  Here is a script that can be executed against hundreds of servers from a multi-server query window to drop the specific maintenance plans. DECLARE @PlanID uniqueidentifier   SELECT @PlanID = plan_id FROM msdb.dbo.sysmaintplan_subplans Where name like ‘BackupPlan%’   EXECUTE msdb.dbo.sp_maintplan_delete_plan @plan_id=@PlanID   The second step was to create a procedure that will perform  all of the old maintenance plan tasks: create a folder for each database, backup all databases on the server and clean up the old files. The script is below. Enjoy.   ALTER PROCEDURE BackupAllDatabases                                   @PrintMode BIT = 1 AS BEGIN          DECLARE @BackupLocation VARCHAR(500)        DECLARE @PurgeAferDays INT        DECLARE @PurgingDate VARCHAR(30)        DECLARE @SQLCmd  VARCHAR(MAX)        DECLARE @FileName  VARCHAR(100)               SET @PurgeAferDays = -14        SET @BackupLocation = '\\central_storage_servername\BACKUPS\'+@@servername               SET @PurgingDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(19), DATEADD (dd,@PurgeAferDays,GETDATE()),126)               SET @FileName = '?_full_'+                      + REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(19), GETDATE(),126),':','-')                      +'.bak';          SET @SQLCmd = '               IF ''?'' <> ''tempdb'' BEGIN                      EXECUTE master.dbo.xp_create_subdir N'''+@BackupLocation+'\?\'' ;                        BACKUP DATABASE ? TO  DISK = N'''+@BackupLocation+'\?\'+@FileName+'''                      WITH NOFORMAT, NOINIT,  SKIP, REWIND, NOUNLOAD, COMPRESSION,  STATS = 10 ;                        EXECUTE master.dbo.xp_delete_file 0,N'''+@BackupLocation+'\?\'',N''bak'',N'''+@PurgingDate+''',1;               END'          IF @PrintMode = 1 BEGIN               PRINT @SQLCmd        END               EXEC sp_MSforeachdb @SQLCmd        END

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• Why does this mod_rewrite rule 'not-match'? (big rewrite log included)

  - by Christopher

  I've got a scenario involving two domains: WordPress site hosted on domain1.com domain2.co.uk, simply redirecting users to domain1 via mod_rewrite This rule applies irrespective of whether www. is specified or not. (It's eventually removed from the URL, I'm a no-WWW fan.) There's nothing on domain2.co.uk at all except for an .htaccess with some mod_rewrite rules. However, I want to be able to allow users to be redirected to the correct article URI even if they specify the "wrong" URL (i.e., a 301 redirect preserving the stuff after the first forward slash). I'm currently achieving this with this ruleset: RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^((www\.)?[^\.]+)\.domain2\.co\.uk [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain2\.co\.uk [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain1.com/$1 [R=301,L] This works but is uglier than I want it to be. I'm not a mod_rewrite zen master, but from what I can tell the top rule should match irrespective of whether www. is specified... But it doesn't. In order to catch www-less requests, I need the second RewriteCond. From the rewrite log, with just the first RewriteCond: [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e670168/initial] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] strip per-dir prefix: /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/ -> [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e670168/initial] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '' [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e670168/initial] (4) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] RewriteCond: input='domain2.co.uk' pattern='^((www\.)|[^\.]+)\.domain2\.co\.uk' [NC] => not-matched [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e670168/initial] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/ [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e653868/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.html [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65f8b8/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.htm [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e653868/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.shtml [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65f8b8/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.php [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e653868/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.php5 [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e666c98/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.php4 [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65f8b8/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.php3 [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e653868/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.phtml [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65f8b8/subreq] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/index.cgi [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e66c370/initial/redir#1] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] strip per-dir prefix: /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/403.shtml -> 403.shtml [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e66c370/initial/redir#1] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '403.shtml' [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e66c370/initial/redir#1] (4) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] RewriteCond: input='domain2.co.uk' pattern='^((www\.)|[^\.]+)\.domain2\.co\.uk' [NC] => not-matched [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e66c370/initial/redir#1] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/403.shtml [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e668ca8/initial] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] strip per-dir prefix: /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/favicon.ico -> favicon.ico [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e668ca8/initial] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri 'favicon.ico' [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e668ca8/initial] (4) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] RewriteCond: input='domain2.co.uk' pattern='^((www\.)|[^\.]+)\.domain2\.co\.uk' [NC] => not-matched [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e668ca8/initial] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/favicon.ico [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#f160b40/initial/redir#1] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] strip per-dir prefix: /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/404.shtml -> 404.shtml [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#f160b40/initial/redir#1] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '404.shtml' [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#f160b40/initial/redir#1] (4) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] RewriteCond: input='domain2.co.uk' pattern='^((www\.)|[^\.]+)\.domain2\.co\.uk' [NC] => not-matched [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#f160b40/initial/redir#1] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] pass through /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/404.shtml However with the second RewriteCond added, the rule works, and the logs show this: [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] strip per-dir prefix: /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/ -> [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (3) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] applying pattern '^(.*)$' to uri '' [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (4) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] RewriteCond: input='domain2.co.uk' pattern='^((www\.)?[^\.]+)\.domain2\.co\.uk' [NC] => not-matched [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (4) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] RewriteCond: input='domain2.co.uk' pattern='^domain2\.co\.uk' [NC] => matched [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (2) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] rewrite '' -> 'http://domain1.com/' [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (2) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] explicitly forcing redirect with http://domain1.com/ [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] escaping http://domain1.com/ for redirect [domain2.co.uk/sid#e200498][rid#e65fe58/initial] (1) [perdir /home/devnull/domains/domain2.co.uk/public_html/] redirect to http://domain1.com/ [REDIRECT/301] Can anybody help me figure out why it just won't work with the one rule? I feel like I'm missing the bleeding obvious, and while the second RewriteCond is a valid workaround, it's a kludge and that annoys me. ;-) All help appreciated...

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• T60 Screen/LCD gets black after some minutes with a highpitched sound rising and fading

  - by edelwater

  Just now my T60 screen got "black" (so no display). On my second monitor: no problems so the VGA output works. Symptom: Screen blanks / no display, but it works on the second monitor Steps to reproduce: - boot - wait (it does not matter what you do you do not have to login or anything) - (now the monitor of the laptop slowly begins to make a ssssssssHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWOEOEssssssss noise of about 10 seconds) - right after the sounds ends, the monitor gets black. Sometimes it seems to be the same each time. Software: Installed no new software before/after, running ZoneAlarm and antivirus. Other: It does not feel hot in any place, there don't seem to be running processes with strange behaviour. Warranty: Out of warranty What was I doing: Typing text on a website and doing some PHP coding in a text editor. What can I do here other than buy a new laptop? Does it sound familiar to known cases? Update 1: Exactly the same problem: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/T60-Screen-Blackout/m-p/288772 and the second poster (garyj), http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/Black-Screen-on-T60/m-p/235053#M48627 And here: "I have that same problem. I replaced the CCRL on mine and it works fine when the screen is not screwed in. Once the frame of the LCD screen (metal portion) touches the metal on the laptop which holds the screen the screen goes black. If the metal is touching the screen when you boot up it boots up with it being very dimmly lit. " from http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/T60-screen-problems/m-p/205047#M44995 (it seems replacing the LCD display is no use, he tried it three times). Same problem: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/T60-black-screen/m-p/80604#M25914 Hmmm... not handy 3 or 4 months ago I ordered and installed a new fan. Now the LCD. Which does not seem the core issue but some electric issue so it seems replacing the LCD is not the thing to do here. If it is not the LCD that needs to be replaced (see other threads), which parts can I order to fix this? Is there any information which could lead me to identify the issue? I have read replacing the "inverter" AND the "backlightning" would that make sense? Update 2: I replaced the inverter with another inverter, but IO have the same problem. I DID notice that the inverter is the component that makes the sssssssssssssHHHHHHHHHH sound AND it becomes very hot in a few seconds. (So both the old and the test one) The problem is hmmm wat is then the thing that makes the inverter hot by (assumption) after which it shuts itself down. Is it either the input or the output? The output seems to me not, because the screen seems to function so it must be the electricity coming in. But what causes it to become so hot would it be the VGA card outputting some unusual high voltage seems unlikely? I am looking for the component to order / replace update 3: Great news. Ewendish gave me the hint to look in the BIOS. While I was in the BIOS I noticed that the screen did not switch off and there was not a high pitched sound. So I lowered some settings in the BIOS. I then noticed that with brightness turned to 0 (via FN End), it does not make a high pitched sound and does not turn off, with brightness turned up just three "stripes" it starts making the sound. So I could from now on work under lowest brightness modus or... see where the problem lies. So as stated below with either power management or display drivers / ATI Catalyst settings / Windows display settings. I'm trying to see where it lies, but I will google some first. Update 4: I wiped clean the Windows XP installation and installed Windows 7 on it. Unfortunately the problem remains: as soon as the brightness goes up the screen starts hissing. This means... back to original thought: it probably IS a hardware problem. Although ... again... if it is NOT the inverter, what is it? Could it be the backlightning component? I could try to switch that with a another T60... but this is quite tricky.

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• Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community

  There we go! I finally managed to push myself forward and pick up an old, actually too old, idea since I ever arrived here in Mauritius more than six years ago. I'm talking about a community for all kind of ICT connected people. In the past (back in Germany), I used to be involved in various community activities. For example, I was part of the Microsoft Community Leader/Influencer Program (CLIP) in Germany due to an FAQ on Visual FoxPro, actually Active FoxPro Pages (AFP) to be more precise. Then in 2003/2004 I addressed the responsible person of the dFPUG user group in Speyer in order to assist him in organising monthly user group meetings. Well, he handed over management completely, and attended our meetings regularly. Why did it take you so long? Well, I don't want to bother you with the details but short version is that I was too busy on either job (building up new companies) or private life (got married and we have two lovely children, eh 'monsters') or even both. But now is the time where I was starting to look for new fields given the fact that I gained some spare time. My businesses are up and running, the kids are in school, and I am finally in a position where I can commit myself again to community activities. And I love to do that! Why a new user group? Good question... And 'easy' to answer. Since back in 2007 I did my usual research, eh Google searches, to see whether there existing user groups in Mauritius and in which field of interest. And yes, there are! If I recall this correctly, then there are communities for PHP, Drupal, Python (just recently), Oracle, and Linux (which used to be even two). But... either they do not exist anymore, they are dormant, or there is only a low heart-beat, frankly speaking. And yes, I went to meetings of the Linux User Group Meta (Mauritius) back in 2010/2011 and just recently. I really like the setup and the way the LUGM is organised. It's just that I have a slightly different point of view on how a user group or community should organise itself and how to approach future members. Don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing others doing a very good job, I'm only saying that I'd like to do it differently. The last meeting of the LUGM was awesome; read my feedback about it. Ok, so what's up with 'Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community' or short: MSCC? As I've already written in my article on 'Communities - The importance of exchange and discussion' I think it is essential in a world of IT to stay 'connected' with a good number of other people in the same field. There is so much dynamic and every day's news that it is almost impossible to keep on track with all of them. The MSCC is going to provide a common platform to exchange experience and share knowledge between each other. You might be a newbie and want to know what to expect working as a software developer, or as a database administrator, or maybe as an IT systems administrator, or you're an experienced geek that loves to share your ideas or solutions that you implemented to solve a specific problem, or you're the business (or HR) guy that is looking for 'fresh' blood to enforce your existing team. Or... you're just interested and you'd like to communicate with like-minded people. Meetup of 26.06.2013 @ L'arabica: Of course there are laptops around. Free WiFi, power outlet, coffee, code and Linux in one go. The MSCC is technology-agnostic and spans an umbrella over any kind of technology. Simply because you can't ignore other technologies anymore in a connected IT world as we have. A front-end developer for iOS applications should have the chance to connect with a Python back-end coder and eventually with a DBA for MySQL or PostgreSQL and exchange their experience. Furthermore, I'm a huge fan of cross-platform development, and it is very pleasant to have pure Web developers - with all that HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and JS libraries stuff - and passionate C# or Java coders at the same table. This diversity of knowledge can assist and boost your personal situation. And last but not least, there are projects and open positions 'flying' around... People might like to hear others opinion about an employer or get new impulses on how to tackle down an issue at their workspace, etc. This is about community. And that's how I see the MSCC in general - free of any limitations be it by programming language or technology. Having the chance to exchange experience and to discuss certain aspects of technology saves you time and money, and it's a pleasure to enjoy. Compared to dusty books and remote online resources. It's human! Organising meetups (meetings, get-together, gatherings - you name it!) As of writing this article, the MSCC is currently meeting every Wednesday for the weekly 'Code & Coffee' session at various locations (suggestions are welcome!) in Mauritius. This might change in the future eventually but especially at the beginning I think it is very important to create awareness in the Mauritian IT world. Yes, we are here! Come and join us! ;-) The MSCC's main online presence is located at Meetup.com because it allows me to handle the organisation of events and meeting appointments very easily, and any member can have a look who else is involved so that an exchange of contacts is given at any time. In combination with the other entities (G+ Communities, FB Pages or in Groups) I advertise and manage all future activities here: Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community This is a community for those who care and are proud of what they do. For those developers, regardless how experienced they are, who want to improve and master their craft. This is a community for those who believe that being average is just not good enough. I know, there are not many 'craftsmen' yet but it's a start... Let's see how it looks like by the end of the year. There are free smartphone apps for Android and iOS from Meetup.com that allow you to keep track of meetings and to stay informed on latest updates. And last but not least, there is a Trello workspace to collect and share ideas and provide downloads of slides, etc. Trello is also available as free smartphone app. Sharing is caring! As mentioned, the #MSCC is present in various social media networks in order to cover as many people as possible here in Mauritius. Following is an overview of the current networks: Twitter - Latest updates and quickies Google+ - Community channel Facebook - Community Page LinkedIn - Community Group Trello - Collaboration workspace to share and develop ideas Hopefully, this covers the majority of computer-related people in Mauritius. Please spread the word about the #MSCC between your colleagues, your friends and other interested 'geeks'. Your future looks bright Running and participating in a user group or any kind of community usually provides quite a number of advantages for anyone. On the one side it is very joyful for me to organise appointments and get in touch with people that might be interested to present a little demo of their projects or their recent problems they had to tackle down, and on the other side there are lots of companies that have various support programs or sponsorships especially tailored for user groups. At the moment, I already have a couple of gimmicks that I would like to hand out in small contests or raffles during one of the upcoming meetings, and as said, companies provide all kind of goodies, books free of charge, or sometimes even licenses for communities. Meeting other software developers or IT guys also opens up your point of view on the local market and there might be interesting projects or job offers available, too. A community like the Mauritius Software Craftsmanship Community is great for freelancers, self-employed, students and of course employees. Meetings will be organised on a regular basis, and I'm open to all kind of suggestions from you. Please leave a comment here in blog or join the conversations in the above mentioned social networks. Let's get this community up and running, my fellow Mauritians! Recent updates The MSCC is now officially participating in the O'Reilly UK User Group programm and we are allowed to request review or recension copies of recent titles. Additionally, we have a discount code for any books or ebooks that you might like to order on shop.oreilly.com. More applications for user group sponsorship programms are pending and I'm looking forward to a couple of announcement very soon. And... we need some kind of 'corporate identity' - Over at the MSCC website there is a call for action (or better said a contest with prizes) to create a unique design for the MSCC. This would include a decent colour palette, a logo, graphical banners for Meetup, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and of course badges for our craftsmen to add to their personal blogs and websites. Please spread the word and contribute. Thanks!

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• When should I use Areas in TFS instead of Team Projects

  - by Martin Hinshelwood

  Well, it depends…. If you are a small company that creates a finite number of internal projects then you will find it easier to create a single project for each of your products and have TFS do the heavy lifting with reporting, SharePoint sites and Version Control. But what if you are not… Update 9th March 2010 Michael Fourie gave me some feedback which I have integrated. Ed Blankenship via @edblankenship offered encouragement and a nice quote. Ewald Hofman gave me a couple of Cons, and maybe a few more soon. Ewald’s company, Avanade, currently uses Areas, but it looks like the manual management is getting too much and the project is getting cluttered. What if you are likely to have hundreds of projects, possibly with a multitude of internal and external projects? You might have 1 project for a customer or 10. This is the situation that most consultancies find themselves in and thus they need a more sustainable and maintainable option. What I am advocating is that we should have 1 “Team Project” per customer, and use areas to create “sub projects” within that single “Team Project”. "What you describe is what we generally do internally and what we recommend. We make very heavy use of area path to categorize the work within a larger project." - Brian Harry, Microsoft Technical Fellow & Product Unit Manager for Team Foundation Server   "We tend to use areas to segregate multiple projects in the same team project and it works well." - Tiago Pascoal, Visual Studio ALM MVP   "In general, I believe this approach provides consistency [to multi-product engagements] and lowers the administration and maintenance costs. All good." - Michael Fourie, Visual Studio ALM MVP   “@MrHinsh BTW, I'm very much a fan of very large, if not huge, team projects in TFS. Just FYI :) Use Areas & Iterations.” Ed Blankenship, Visual Studio ALM MVP   This would mean that SSW would have a single Team Project called “SSW” that contains all of our internal projects and consequently all of the Areas and Iteration move down one hierarchy to accommodate this. Where we would have had “\SSW\Sprint 1” we now have “\SSW\SqlDeploy\Sprint1” with “SqlDeploy” being our internal project. At the moment SSW has over 70 internal projects and more than 170 total projects in TFS. This method has long term benefits that help to simplify the support model for companies that often have limited internal support time and many projects. But, there are implications as TFS does not provide this model “out-of-the-box”. These implications stretch across Areas, Iterations, Queries, Project Portal and Version Control. Michael made a good comment, he said: I agree with your approach, assuming that in a multi-product engagement with a client, they are happy to adopt the same process template across all products. If they are not, then it’ll either be easy to convince them or there is a valid reason for having a different template - Michael Fourie, Visual Studio ALM MVP   At SSW we have a standard template that we use and this is applied across the board, to all of our projects. We even apply any changes to the core process template to all of our existing projects as well. If you have multiple projects for the same clients on multiple templates and you want to keep it that way, then this approach will not work for you. However, if you want to standardise as we have at SSW then this approach may benefit you as well. Implications around Areas Areas should be used for topological classification/isolation of work items. You can think of this as architecture areas, organisational areas or even the main features of your application. In our scenario there is an additional top level item that represents the Project / Product that we want to chop our Team Project into. Figure: Creating a sub area to represent a product/project is easy. <teamproject> <teamproject>\<Functional Area/module whatever> Becomes: <teamproject> <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\ <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\<Functional Area/module whatever> Implications around Iterations Iterations should be used for chronological classification/isolation of work items. This could include isolated time boxes, milestones or release timelines and really depends on the logical flow of your project or projects. Due to the new level in Area we need to add the same level to Iteration. This is primarily because it is unlikely that the sprints in each of your projects/products will start and end at the same time. This is just a reality of managing multiple projects. Figure: Adding the same Area value to Iteration as the top level item adds flexibility to Iteration. <teamproject>\Sprint 1 Or <teamproject>\Release 1\Sprint 1 Becomes: <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\Sprint 1 Or <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\Release 1\Sprint 1 Implications around Queries Queries are used to filter your work items based on a specified level of granularity. There are a number of queries that are built into a project created using the MSF Agile 5.0 template, but we now have multiple projects and it would be a pain to have to edit all of the work items every time we changed project, and that would only allow one team to work on one project at a time.   Figure: The Queries that are created in a normal MSF Agile 5.0 project do not quite suit our new needs. In order for project contributors to be able to query based on their project we need a couple of things. The first thing I did was to create an “_Area Template” folder that has a copy of the project layout with all the queries setup to filter based on the “_Area Template” Area and the “_Sprint template” you can see in the Area and Iteration views. Figure: The template is currently easily drag and drop, but you then need to edit the queries to point at the right Area and Iteration. This needs a tool. I then created an “Areas” folder to hold all of the area specific queries. So, when you go to create a new TFS Sub-Project you just drag “_Area Template” while holding “Ctrl” and drop it onto “Areas”. There is a little setup here. That said I managed it in around 10 minutes which is not so bad, and I can imagine it being quite easy to build a tool to create these queries Figure: These new queries can be configured in around 10 minutes, which includes setting up the Area and Iteration as well. Version Control What about your source code? Well, that is the easiest of the lot. Just create a sub folder for each of your projects/products.   Figure: Creating sub folders in source control is easy as “Right click | Create new folder”. <teamproject>\DEV\Main\ Becomes: <teamproject>\<ProjectName>\DEV\Main\ Conclusion I think it is up to each company to make a call on how you want to configure your Team Projects and it depends completely on how many projects/products you are going to have for each customer including yourself. If we decide to utilise this route it will require some configuration to get our 170+ projects into this format, and I will probably be writing some tools to help. Pros You only have one project to upgrade when a process template changes – After going through an upgrade of over 170 project prior to the changes in the RC I can tell you that that many projects is no fun. Standardises your Process Template – You will always have the same Process implementation across projects/products without exception You get tighter control over the permissions – Yes, you can do this on a standard Team Project, but it gets a lot easier with practice. You can “move” work items from one “product” to another – Have we not always wanted to do that. You can rename your projects – Wahoo: everyone wants to do this, now you can. One set of Reporting Services reports to manage – You set an area and iteration to run reports anyway, so you may as well set both. Simplified Check-In Policies– There is only one set of check-in policies per client. This simplifies administration of policies. Simplified Alerts – As alerts are applied across multiple projects this simplifies your alert rules as per client. Cons All of these cons could be mitigated by a custom tool that helps automate creation of “Sub-projects” within Team Projects. This custom tool could create areas, Iteration, permissions, SharePoint and queries. It just does not exist yet :) You need to configure the Areas and Iterations You need to configure the permissions You may need to configure sub sites for SharePoint (depends on your requirement) – If you have two projects/products in the same Team Project then you will not see the burn down for each one out-of-the-box, but rather a cumulative for the Team Project. This is not really that much of a problem as you would have to configure your burndown graphs for your current iteration anyway. note: When you create a sub site to a TFS linked portal it will inherit the settings of its parent site :) This is fantastic as it means that you can easily create sub sites and then set the Area and Iteration path in each of the reports to be the correct one. Every team wants their own customization (via Ewald Hofman) - small teams of 2 persons against teams of 30 – or even outsourcing – need their own process, you cannot allow that because everybody gets the same work item types. note: Luckily at SSW this is not a problem as our template is standardised across all projects and customers. Large list of builds (via Ewald Hofman) – As the build list in Team Explorer is just a flat list it can get very cluttered. note: I would mitigate this by removing any build that has not been run in over 30 days. The build template and workflow will still be available in version control, but it will clean the list. Feedback Now that I have explained this method, what do you think? What other pros and cons can you see? What do you think of this approach? Will you be using it? What tools would you like to support you?   Technorati Tags: Visual Studio ALM,TFS Administration,TFS,Team Foundation Server,Project Planning,TFS Customisation

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• Entity Association Mapping with Code First Part 1 : Mapping Complex Types

  - by mortezam

  Last week the CTP5 build of the new Entity Framework Code First has been released by data team at Microsoft. Entity Framework Code-First provides a pretty powerful code-centric way to work with the databases. When it comes to associations, it brings ultimate flexibility. I’m a big fan of the EF Code First approach and am planning to explain association mapping with code first in a series of blog posts and this one is dedicated to Complex Types. If you are new to Code First approach, you can find a great walkthrough here. In order to build a solid foundation for our discussion, we will start by learning about some of the core concepts around the relationship mapping.   What is Mapping?Mapping is the act of determining how objects and their relationships are persisted in permanent data storage, in our case, relational databases. What is Relationship mapping?A mapping that describes how to persist a relationship (association, aggregation, or composition) between two or more objects. Types of RelationshipsThere are two categories of object relationships that we need to be concerned with when mapping associations. The first category is based on multiplicity and it includes three types: One-to-one relationships: This is a relationship where the maximums of each of its multiplicities is one. One-to-many relationships: Also known as a many-to-one relationship, this occurs when the maximum of one multiplicity is one and the other is greater than one. Many-to-many relationships: This is a relationship where the maximum of both multiplicities is greater than one. The second category is based on directionality and it contains two types: Uni-directional relationships: when an object knows about the object(s) it is related to but the other object(s) do not know of the original object. To put this in EF terminology, when a navigation property exists only on one of the association ends and not on the both. Bi-directional relationships: When the objects on both end of the relationship know of each other (i.e. a navigation property defined on both ends). How Object Relationships Are Implemented in POCO domain models?When the multiplicity is one (e.g. 0..1 or 1) the relationship is implemented by defining a navigation property that reference the other object (e.g. an Address property on User class). When the multiplicity is many (e.g. 0..*, 1..*) the relationship is implemented via an ICollection of the type of other object. How Relational Database Relationships Are Implemented? Relationships in relational databases are maintained through the use of Foreign Keys. A foreign key is a data attribute(s) that appears in one table and must be the primary key or other candidate key in another table. With a one-to-one relationship the foreign key needs to be implemented by one of the tables. To implement a one-to-many relationship we implement a foreign key from the “one table” to the “many table”. We could also choose to implement a one-to-many relationship via an associative table (aka Join table), effectively making it a many-to-many relationship. Introducing the ModelNow, let's review the model that we are going to use in order to implement Complex Type with Code First. It's a simple object model which consist of two classes: User and Address. Each user could have one billing address. The Address information of a User is modeled as a separate class as you can see in the UML model below: In object-modeling terms, this association is a kind of aggregation—a part-of relationship. Aggregation is a strong form of association; it has some additional semantics with regard to the lifecycle of objects. In this case, we have an even stronger form, composition, where the lifecycle of the part is fully dependent upon the lifecycle of the whole. Fine-grained domain models The motivation behind this design was to achieve Fine-grained domain models. In crude terms, fine-grained means “more classes than tables”. For example, a user may have both a billing address and a home address. In the database, you may have a single User table with the columns BillingStreet, BillingCity, and BillingPostalCode along with HomeStreet, HomeCity, and HomePostalCode. There are good reasons to use this somewhat denormalized relational model (performance, for one). In our object model, we can use the same approach, representing the two addresses as six string-valued properties of the User class. But it’s much better to model this using an Address class, where User has the BillingAddress and HomeAddress properties. This object model achieves improved cohesion and greater code reuse and is more understandable. Complex Types: Splitting a Table Across Multiple Types Back to our model, there is no difference between this composition and other weaker styles of association when it comes to the actual C# implementation. But in the context of ORM, there is a big difference: A composed class is often a candidate Complex Type. But C# has no concept of composition—a class or property can’t be marked as a composition. The only difference is the object identifier: a complex type has no individual identity (i.e. no AddressId defined on Address class) which make sense because when it comes to the database everything is going to be saved into one single table. How to implement a Complex Types with Code First Code First has a concept of Complex Type Discovery that works based on a set of Conventions. The convention is that if Code First discovers a class where a primary key cannot be inferred, and no primary key is registered through Data Annotations or the fluent API, then the type will be automatically registered as a complex type. Complex type detection also requires that the type does not have properties that reference entity types (i.e. all the properties must be scalar types) and is not referenced from a collection property on another type. Here is the implementation: public class User{    public int UserId { get; set; }    public string FirstName { get; set; }    public string LastName { get; set; }    public string Username { get; set; }    public Address Address { get; set; }} public class Address {     public string Street { get; set; }     public string City { get; set; }            public string PostalCode { get; set; }        }public class EntityMappingContext : DbContext {     public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }        } With code first, this is all of the code we need to write to create a complex type, we do not need to configure any additional database schema mapping information through Data Annotations or the fluent API. Database SchemaThe mapping result for this object model is as follows: Limitations of this mappingThere are two important limitations to classes mapped as Complex Types: Shared references is not possible: The Address Complex Type doesn’t have its own database identity (primary key) and so can’t be referred to by any object other than the containing instance of User (e.g. a Shipping class that also needs to reference the same User Address). No elegant way to represent a null reference There is no elegant way to represent a null reference to an Address. When reading from database, EF Code First always initialize Address object even if values in all mapped columns of the complex type are null. This means that if you store a complex type object with all null property values, EF Code First returns a initialized complex type when the owning entity object is retrieved from the database. SummaryIn this post we learned about fine-grained domain models which complex type is just one example of it. Fine-grained is fully supported by EF Code First and is known as the most important requirement for a rich domain model. Complex type is usually the simplest way to represent one-to-one relationships and because the lifecycle is almost always dependent in such a case, it’s either an aggregation or a composition in UML. In the next posts we will revisit the same domain model and will learn about other ways to map a one-to-one association that does not have the limitations of the complex types. References ADO.NET team blog Mapping Objects to Relational Databases Java Persistence with Hibernate

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• Letter to Ballmer: Making Better Consumer Devices

  - by andrewbrust

  Last year, I wrote Steve Ballmer an email, and he was kind enough to write me back.  The email contained a scan of a column I wrote praising Microsoft’s BI strategy.  His reply contained three simple words: “Super nice  thanks.” Well, now I’d like to write to Steve again, in an open letter format, and this time the love may be a bit tougher.  But I’m still super earnest. The past two days have been eventful ones for Microsoft: The company announced the departure of company veterans Robbie Bach and J Allard and the market announced Apple is now besting Microsoft in market capitalization. Plus, announcements were made that make it plain that Ballmer will, in effect, be running Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division himself. With that in mind, I’d like to offer my list of a dozen things I think Microsoft’s CEO should do to improve that division’s offerings and, hopefully, its bottom line. So here goes:   1. On Windows Phone 7, Stay the Course The press is teeming with headlines and reader comments proclaiming the death-before-arrival of Windows Phone 7.  That’s plain silly.  You’ve got the makings of a great and unique SmartPhone platform, and you’re the only company (even considering RIM) that can offer full fidelity Exchange integration, not to mention implementing Office on the device.  Let the existing team finish this puppy and ship it. And then have them pump out a few updates, over-the-air, quickly.  Show them that Google Android’s not the only product that can do good, rapid dot releases. And another thing: make sure your OEMs’ devices have flawless touch screens.  If they don’t, then you shouldn’t certify them for delivery to customers.  Period. Oh, and kill the Kin, quietly.  It was DOA, and you know it.   2. Move Media Center to the Xbox Platform Media Center is, at its core, a good product.  But delivering a media distribution and DVR platform on a sophisticated PC operating system like Windows 7 just creates too many moving parts.  Xbox already functions as the best Media Center extender device – it should actually be the hub as well. Media Center is mostly based on .NET code – and XNA is a .NET environment for Xbox – find a way to bridge that small gap and make Media Center a joy to work with instead of a frustration.  Beating Apple TV out of this sub-market is the lowest hanging fruit on the tree (goofy pun, but it’s true).   3. Integrate Media Center with Mediaroom, or Kill the Latter You have two media products with almost identical names.  One is for standalone DVRs and the other is for IPTV cable set tops with DVR capabilities.  Can we merge these please?  My previous request of putting Media Center on Xbox would seem to tie into this nicely, since you’ve announced plans to do that with Mediaroom already.   4. Fix the Red Ring of Death People love the Xbox, but they really don’t love sending their consoles back every 18-24 months, when they get a bunch of red lights flashing on power up.  You’ve handled this defect about as gracefully as possible, but it’s been around for a long time now and it doesn’t seem to be fixed yet.  You can do better.  In fact, you must do better, or you insult your customers.   5. Add Blu Ray to Xbox I know, streaming movies are the future; physical media is legacy technology.  So if that’s true, why did you back HD DVD so hard?  You know why: for now, the film studios won’t allow a large selection of new release, HD, surround sound content be distributed on any medium other than Blu Ray or cable pay per view/on-demand.  Don’t you want home theater buffs to see the Xbox as a fantastic device for their rigs?  Don’t you want to put PlayStation 3 out of its misery?  And if you follow my suggestions above (move Media Center to the Xbox and fix the Red Ring problem), you’d have it all sewn up.  Do I think Blu Ray functionality will move a lot of units?  No.  Do I think that it would move more units with desperately needed influential home theater consumers?  You bet.  And you might sell more ZunePass subscriptions in the process. But while you’re at it, make the fan quieter, please.   6. Make More of Windows Home Server Home Server is a fantastic product.  And for reasons unknown to me, it seems like you’re letting it languish.  Development of the add-in ecosystem seems underfunded.  WHS’ unparalleled ease of use and reliability for home PC backup (and emergency restores) goes unsung.  Product cycles are slow.  Support for your OEMs, who are doing great work, especially in the green space with Atom CPUs, seems lacking.  You’ve married a trophy girl and you keep her cloistered at home!  That’s cruel, unusual and, um, incredibly ill-advised.  Make use of this ace card, and while you’re at it, give it real integration with Media Center.  The integration thus far proof-of-concept quality.  You should go way past that – both products will benefit immeasurably.   7. Set Up a Partner Platform for Custom Installers There’s a whole sub-industry of companies that install, integrate and configure home theater, security and connected home products.  They have an industry group. They are influential in the high-end of the consumer electronics industry, and so are their customers.  They love Media Center and they love Windows Home Server.  But I have talked to several of them at the Consumer Electronics Show and they tell me you don’t love them.  They find it very difficult to do business with Microsoft, even though they want nothing more than to sell and evangelize your platform.  This is a travesty.  Please fix it.  Get Allison Watson and the Microsoft Partner Network on board and have her hire someone who knows how to run a channel program for consumer electronics companies.  Problem solved.  Markets expanded.   8. Make Your Own Hardware In other areas, I know you love your partners.  I help run one, so I appreciate that.  But when it came to Xbox and Zune you built them it yourself (albeit on a contract basis, which is fine).  Windows Phone 7 has a chance to work as an OEM play, but it would work better if you produced the devices.  At least consider building a reference device that sells alongside your OEMs’ offerings.  That’s what Google did with the Nexxus One.  And while that phone was not itself a big seller, it catalyzed two wonderful things : (1) a quality bar was set and (2) partners exceeded it.  Before the Nexxus One, the best Android handset out there was the Motorola Droid. The Nexxus One was better, and the HTC Droid Incredible and Evo 4G are now even better than Google’s phone, which is why Verizon and Sprint decided not to carry it.  Imagine if all Windows Phone 6.x devices were on par with the HTC HD2.  I tend to believe you’d have a lot bigger market share than you do now.   9. Continue with Your Retail Initiative From what I hear, it sounds like it’s going well.  And this goes right along with making your own hardware.  When you build it, they will come.  And then it makes the likes of Best Buy and Staples do better.   10. Make an Acquisition (or Two) TiVo and/or Moxi look ripe for the picking.  With their ability to build stuff people love and your ability to run a business, you might just have something.  But do a better job than you did when you bought Danger.  Buy the ideas, not just the customers, eh?   11. Make Beautiful Stuff You’ve heard this one before, I know.  But I have some head-shrinking advice on this one.  You know that Apple obsesses over its industrial design.  You know that appeals to consumers.  But it seems you think doing so is Apple’s game exclusively and so you shouldn’t even try.  Bull dinky.  Come to New York and visit the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design gallery.  You’ll see that lots of companies and product categories have had very high design value well before Apple existed.  You can do this, and the Zune HD was a great start.  Now run with that.  Find those negative voices in your head that are telling you that you can’t and shut them up.  For good.   12. Burst the Bubble Some of the products you’ve built seem like they were conceived in a bizarro world.  That would appear to be the result of groupthink.  You must do better.  And there’s lots of people willing to advise you.  This includes just about everyone in the Regional Director program, and probably a bunch of MVPs.  Heck, I bet the guys at Engadget could help out too.  Imagine if you let them see the Kin before it shipped.  Talk to high-end gear consumers.  Talk to Best Buy and CostCo customers too.   Signing Off I hope this was of value to you.  As I wrote this I kept telling myself how obvious, even trite, some of these pieces of advice were and then, because of that, doubting they’d really help.  But I decided that they must not be obvious to Microsoft.  Sometimes when you get wrapped up in stuff, it’s hard to clear your head.  I think my head’s pretty clear here though (I’m wrapped up in other stuff), so maybe my perspective can help.  If not, well, then, I guess they all can’t be super nice.

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• Issuing Current Time Increments in StreamInsight (A Practical Example)

  The issuing of a Current Time Increment, Cti, in StreamInsight is very definitely one of the most important concepts to learn if you want your Streams to be responsive. A full discussion of how to issue Ctis is beyond the scope of this article but a very good explanation in addition to Books Online can be found in these three articles by a member of the StreamInsight team at Microsoft, Ciprian Gerea. Time in StreamInsight Series http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/23/time-in-streaminsight-i.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/07/30/time-in-streaminsight-ii.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/streaminsight/archive/2010/08/03/time-in-streaminsight-iii.aspx A lot of the problems I see with unresponsive or stuck streams on the MSDN Forums are to do with how Ctis are enqueued or in a lot of cases not enqueued. If you enqueue events and never enqueue a Cti then StreamInsight will be perfectly happy. You, on the other hand, will never see data on the output as you have not told StreamInsight to flush the stream. This article deals with a specific implementation problem I had recently whilst working on a StreamInsight project. I look at some possible options and discuss why they would not work before showing the way I solved the problem. The stream of data I was dealing with on this project was very bursty that is to say when events were flowing they came through very quickly and in large numbers (1000 events/sec), but when the stream calmed down it could be a few seconds between each event. When enqueuing events into the StreamInsight engne it is best practice to do so with a StartTime that is given to you by the system producing the event . StreamInsight processes events and it doesn't matter whether those events are being pushed into the engine by a source system or the events are being read from something like a flat file in a directory somewhere. You can apply the same logic and temporal algebra to both situations. Reading from a file is an excellent example of where the time of the event on the source itself is very important. We could be reading that file a long time after it was written. Being able to read the StartTime from the events allows us to define windows that will hold the correct sets of events. I was able to do this with my stream but this is where my problems started. Below is a very simple script to create a SQL Server table and populate it with sample data that will show exactly the problem I had. CREATE TABLE [dbo].[t] ( [c1] [int] PRIMARY KEY, [c2] [datetime] NULL ) INSERT t VALUES (1,'20100810'),(2,'20100810'),(3,'20100810') Column c2 defines the StartTime of the event on the source and as you can see the values in all 3 rows of data is the same. If we read Ciprian’s articles we know that we can define how Ctis get injected into the stream in 3 different places The Stream Definition The Input Factory The Input Adapter I personally have always been a fan of enqueing Ctis through the factory. Below is code typical of what I would use to do this On the class itself I do some inheriting public class SimpleInputFactory : ITypedInputAdapterFactory<SimpleInputConfig>, ITypedDeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<SimpleInputConfig> And then I implement the following function public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.FromTicks(-1)), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } The configInfo .CtiFrequency property is a value I pass through to define after how many events I want a Cti to be injected and this in turn will flush through the stream of data. I usually pass a value of 1 for this setting. The second parameter determines the CTI timestamp in terms of a delay relative to the events. -1 ticks in the past results in 1 tick in the future, i.e., ahead of the event. The problem with this method though is that if consecutive events have the same StartTime then only one of those events will be enqueued. In this example I use the following to define how I assign the StartTime of my events currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; If I go ahead and run my StreamInsight process with this configuration i can see on the output adapter that two events have been removed To see this in a little more depth I can use the StreamInsight Debugger and see what happens internally. What is happening here is that the first event arrives and a Cti is injected with a time of 1 tick after the StartTime of that event (Also the EndTime of the event). The second event arrives and it has a StartTime of before the Cti and even though we specified AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust on the factory we know that a point event can never be adjusted like this and the event is dropped. The same happens for the third event as well (The second and third events get trumped by the Cti). For a more detailed discussion of why this happens look here http://www.sqlis.com/sqlis/post/AdvanceTimePolicy-and-Point-Event-Streams-In-StreamInsight.aspx We end up with a single event being pushed into the output adapter and our result now makes sense. The next way I tried to solve this problem by changing the value of the second parameter to TimeSpan.Zero Here is how my factory code now looks public AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings DeclareAdvanceTimeProperties<TPayload>(SimpleInputConfig configInfo, EventShape eventShape) { return new AdapterAdvanceTimeSettings( new AdvanceTimeGenerationSettings(configInfo.CtiFrequency, TimeSpan.Zero), AdvanceTimePolicy.Adjust); } What I am doing here is declaring a policy that says inject a Cti together with every event and stamp it with a StartTime that is equal to the start time of the event itself (TimeSpan.Zero). This method has plus points as well as a downside. The upside is that no events will be lost by having the same StartTime as previous events. The Downside is that because the Cti is declared with the StartTime of the event itself then it does not actually flush that particular event because in the StreamInsight algebra, a Cti commits only those events that occurred strictly before them. To flush the events we need a Cti to be enqueued with a greater StartTime than the events themselves. Here is what happened when I ran this configuration As you can see all we got through was the Cti and none of the events. The debugger output shows the stamps on the Cti and the events themselves. Because the Cti issued has the same timestamp (StartTime) as the events then none of the events get flushed. I was nearly there but not quite. Because my stream was bursty it was possible that the next event would not come along for a few seconds and this was far too long for an event to be enqueued and not be flushed to the output adapter. I needed another solution. Two possible solutions crossed my mind although only one of them made sense when I explored it some more. Where multiple events have the same StartTime I could add 1 tick to the first event, two to the second, three to third etc thereby giving them unique StartTime values. Add a timer to manually inject Ctis The problem with the first implementation is that I would be giving the events a new StartTime. This would cause me the following problems If I want to define windows over the stream then some events may not be captured in the right windows and therefore any calculations on those windows I did would be wrong What would happen if we had 10,000 events with the same StartTime? I would enqueue them with StartTime + n ticks. Along comes a genuine event with a StartTime of the very first event + 1 tick. It is now too far in the past as far as my stream is concerned and it would be dropped. Not what I would want to do at all. I decided then to look at the Timer based solution I created a timer on my input adapter that elapsed every 200ms. private Timer tmr; public SimpleInputAdapter(SimpleInputConfig configInfo) { ctx = new SimpleTimeExtractDataContext(configInfo.ConnectionString); this.configInfo = configInfo; tmr = new Timer(200); tmr.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(t_Elapsed); tmr.Enabled = true; } void t_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e) { ts = DateTime.Now - dtCtiIssued; if (ts.TotalMilliseconds >= 200 && TimerIssuedCti == false) { EnqueueCtiEvent(System.DateTime.Now.AddTicks(-100)); TimerIssuedCti = true; } }   In the t_Elapsed event handler I find out the difference in time between now and when the last event was processed (dtCtiIssued). I then check to see if that is greater than or equal to 200ms and if the last issuing of a Cti was done by the timer or by a genuine event (TimerIssuedCti). If I didn’t do this check then I would enqueue a Cti every time the timer elapsed which is not something I wanted. If the difference between the two times is greater than or equal to 500ms and the last event enqueued was by a real event then I issue a Cti through the timer to flush the event Queue, otherwise I do nothing. When I enqueue the Ctis into my stream in my ProduceEvents method I also set the values of dtCtiIssued and TimerIssuedCti   currEvent = CreateInsertEvent(); currEvent.StartTime = (DateTimeOffset)dt.c2; TimerIssuedCti = false; dtCtiIssued = currEvent.StartTime; If I go ahead and run this configuration I see the following in my output. As we can see the first Cti gets enqueued as before but then another is enqueued by the timer and because this has a later timestamp it flushes the enqueued events through the engine. Conclusion Hopefully this has shown how the enqueuing of Ctis can have a dramatic effect on the responsiveness of your output in StreamInsight. Understanding the temporal nature of the product is for me one of the most important things you can learn. I have attached my solution for the demos. It is all in one project and testing each variation is a simple matter of commenting and un-commenting the parts in the code we have been dealing with here.

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• Run WordPress & Other Web Apps with Windows Web Platform

  - by Matthew Guay

  Would you like to run WordPress or other web apps on your PC so you can easily test and design websites?  Here we’ll look at how you can get the latest web apps on your computer in only a few quick steps. Many web apps today, such as WordPress, MediaWiki, and more, are open source and can be run for free from any computer with even a simple local web server.  They are often very difficult to install on your computer, since they require a number of dependencies such as PHP and MySQL.  Microsoft has worked to make this easier, releasing the Windows Web Platform Installer.  This lets you install many popular web apps and free tools in Windows with only a few clicks. Here we’re going to look at how to install WordPress and the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express to edit web code with the Web Platform Installer.  But, if you’d rather install a different web app or tool, feel free to choose those as the installations are generally similar. Getting Started Head over to Microsoft’s Web development site and download the Web Platform Installer (link below).  This will download very quick, as it is just a small loader.  When you run this loader, it will download the Web Platform Installer files.  The Web Platform Installer works on XP, Vista, and Windows 7, as well as the related versions of Windows Server. After a couple moments, the Web Platform Installer will open and load information about the latest web offerings.    Now you can choose what you want to install.  You can quickly select the recommended products for several categories such as Web Server, Database, and more. Alternately, click Customize under the category and select exactly what you want to install.  Note that items already installed on your computer will be grayed out. We wanted to install Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, so select Customize under Tools, and select Visual Web Developer 2010 Express. Or, for more preset choices, select Options on the bottom of the window. You can choose to add Multimedia, Developer, and Enterprise tools to the lists, or add a new preset list from a feed. Choose Specific Web apps to Install We wanted to install WordPress, so instead of choosing a preset, select the Web Applications tab on the left.  Now you can choose from a variety of apps based on category, or you can view them all together in an A to Z, Most Popular, or Highest Rating list. Click the checkbox beside the app you want to install to select it, or click the “i” for more information. Here’s the More Information pane for WordPress.  If you’re ready to install it, click the checkbox. Now you can go back and add more web apps or tools to the install list if you like.  The Web Platform Installer will automatically find and select prerequisite apps such as MySQL, so you won’t need to worry about finding them. Once you’ve selected everything you want to install, click the Install button on the bottom of the window. The Web Platform Installer will now show you everything that’s selected, including components that it automatically selected.  Notice we only chose to install WordPress and Visual Web Developer 2010 Express, but it also has selected MySQL and PHP automatically.  Click I Accept to proceed. Enter an administrator password for MySQL before the setup begins. Now the Web Platform Installer will take over, automatically downloading, installing, and configuring all of your web apps.  It will also activate optional Windows components that may be needed on your computer.  This may take several minutes, depending on the components you selected and your internet speed.   Setting up Your Test Site Once the installation is finished, you’ll be asked to enter some information about your site.  You can simply accept the defaults or enter your own choices, and then click Continue. Now you’ll need to enter some information for your web apps.  When installing WordPress, you’ll need to choose a database and enter administrative usernames and passwords.  You may also be asked to enter extra information for additional security, but for a local-only test site this isn’t necessary.  Click Continue when you’re finished. You’ll need to wait a few more moments as it complete the setup of your web apps.  The good thing is, once it’s finished, they’ll be ready to go with only minimal configuration. And you’re finished!  The installer will let you know everything it installed, and if there were any problems.  In our test, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express failed to install successfully.  Often the problems may be with the download, so click Finish and then reselect the apps that didn’t install and run the installer again. Now you’re ready to run WordPress from your PC.  Click the Launch WordPress link or enter http://localhost:80/wordpress in your browser to get started. You’ll only have a little more setup to do on WordPress to get it running.  Once you’ve opened your WordPress page in your browser, enter a name for your blog and your email address, and click Install WordPress.   After a few seconds, you should see a Success! page with your username and a temporary password.  Copy the password, and then click Log In. Enter admin as the Username and paste the random generated password, and click Log In. WordPress will remind you to change the default password.  Click the Yes, Take me to my profile page link to do this. Enter something easier for you to remember, and click Update Profile. Now you’re ready to enjoy your new WordPress install on Windows.  You can add plugins and themes, and everything else you’d do with a normal WordPress site.  Here’s the dashboard running from localhost. And here’s the default blog running. Setting up Visual Web Developer 2010 Express As mentioned before, Visual Web Developer 2010 Express didn’t install correctly on our first try, but the second time it installed seamlessly.  Once it’s installed, launch it from your start menu as normal.  It may take a few minutes to load on the first run as it is finishing up setup. You may notice that the splash screen displayed while the program is loading says For Evaluation Purposes Only.  This is because you still need to register the program. You have 30 days to register the program, but let’s go ahead and do it to get this step out of the way.  Click Help in the menu bar, and select Register Product. Click Obtain a registration key online in the popup window. You’ll need to sign in with your Windows Live ID, and then fill out a quick form. When you’re done, copy the registration key displayed and paste it into the registration dialog in Visual Web Developer.   Now you’ve got a registered, free web development program with full standards compliance and IntelliSense to help you work smarter and faster.  And it works great with your local web apps, so you can create, tweak, and then deploy, all from your desktop with this simple installer! Install More Apps You can always run the Web Platform Installer again in the future and add more apps if you’d like.  The install adds a link to the Installer in the Start menu; just run it and repeat the steps above with your new selections. Also, from the installer, you can cleanup the setup files downloaded during the installation if you want.  Click the Options link in the bottom of the window, and then scroll down and select Delete installer cache folder. Uninstalling the apps is not as easy, unfortunately.  If you wish to uninstall the Web Platform Installer and everything you installed with it, you’ll need to uninstall each item individually.  One easy way to see what was all installed together is to sort the entries in Uninstall Programs by date.  In our case, we also installed some other applications on the same day, but it’s easier to see what was installed together. Or if you are not a fan of using Programs and Features to uninstall them, try out a program like Revo Uninstaller Pro. Conclusion Whether you’re a full-time web developer or just enjoy testing out the latest web apps, the Web Platform Installer makes it quick and easy to get your computer loaded up with the latest bits.  In fact, it’s easier to install these tools with all their dependencies than it is to install many standard boxed programs. If you’d like to take your web server anywhere you go and not have it confined to your desktop, then check out our article on how to Turn Your Flashdrive into a Portable Webserver. Link Download the Microsoft Web Platform Installer Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Linux QuickTip: Downloading and Un-tarring in One StepQuick Tip: Set a Future Date for a Post in WordPressHow-To Geek SoftwareAdd Social Bookmarking (Digg This!) Links to your Wordpress BlogHow-To Geek Software: WordPress Comment Moderation Notifier TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Xobni Plus for Outlook All My Movies 5.9 CloudBerry Online Backup 1.5 for Windows Home Server Snagit 10 Windows Media Player Glass Icons (icons we like) How to Forecast Weather, without Gadgets Outlook Tools, one stop tweaking for any Outlook version Zoofs, find the most popular tweeted YouTube videos Video preview of new Windows Live Essentials 21 Cursor Packs for XP, Vista & 7

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, April 27, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, April 27, 2010New ProjectsActive Directory User Properties Change: A complete application in VS 2005 and VB.NET, for Request Request in User Details in Active Directory, with flow to HR and then to IT for approval ...AVR Terminal: A Windows application for connecting to an AVR via RS232 serial or USB-to-COM FTDI ports. Works on Arduino, Bare Bones Board, and any custom board...Battle Droids: AVR-based Network Combat!: A Battle Droid is an AVR® microcontroller running the BattleDroid firmware. This firmware turns your AVR into a lean, mean, fighting machine, and ...Camp Foundation: Camp Foundationchakma: chakma is a question - answer based web application to make people get questions from anybody around the world and being able to answer them. c...Document.Editor: Document.Editor is a multitab text editor for Windows. It includes plain and rich text format support, multi tab interface so you can edit multiple...Dot Net Marche Music Store Demo Application: This is a demo application that the DotNetMarche user gorup (www.dotnetmarche.org) use to make experiments and prepare demos for our workshopselivators: a monitor which enables the user to view the movement of the elivators in a buildingExtended SSIS Package Execute: The SSIS package execute task is flawed as it does not support passing variables. Here we have a custom task that will pass items in a dataflow as...File tools: File toolsFileExplorer.NET: FileExplorer.NET is a .net usercontrol which tries to mimic the Windows FileExplorer treeview.Kazuku: ASP.NET MVC 2 Content Management SystemKSharp Ajax Control Toolkit Library: Built ontop of the Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax Control Toolkit, this library offers enhanced versions of the controls found in the Ajax Control Toolkit....Nitrous - An Aspx ViewEngine for ASP.NET MVC: Near drop-in replacement ASP.NET ViewEngine for MVC.Open Data Protocol - Client Libraries: This is an Open Source release of the .NET and Silverlight Client Libraries for the Open Data Protocol (OData). For more information on odata, see ...ORAYLIS BI.SmartDiff: BI.SmartDiff is a helper to connect the functionality of BIDS Helper – SmartDiff to TortoiseSVN. BIDS Helper – SmartDiff helps you to get more read...RicciWebSiteSystem: soon websiteSynapse:Silverlight A Simple Silverlight Framework: Synapse:Silverlight is a simplified framework for Silverlight. It's purpose is to help developers and designers produce basic LOB solutions that do...TestProjectMB: Testing Team Foundation ServerThoughtWorks Cruise Notification Interceptor: Cruise notification interceptorThreadSafeControls: ThreadSafeControls is a C# project that greatly simplifies the process of transitioning Windows Forms applications to a multithreaded environment b...Unscrambler: Unscrambler is a multitouch WPF word game built with MVVM Light in order to show how to use the touch maniupation and inertia features included in ...Web Utilities: web utilitiesNew Releases7zbackup - PowerShell Script to Backup Files with 7zip: 7zBackup v. 1.7.1 Stable: Bug Solved : Presence of junction.exe is wrongly referred to 7z.exeAVR Terminal: AVR Terminal v0.2: Here is an Alpha-almost-BETA release of the AVR Terminal. That being said, I use it almost daily and it shouldn't break anything on your system, b...Bistro FSharp Extensions: 0.9.7.0: This is the VS 2010 release of BistroFS extensions. This release focused on usability, adding key functionality such as resource aliasing and secur...Bojinx: Bojinx Dialog Management V1.0: Stable release of the Bojinx Dialog Management library.BOWIE: BOWIE 2010: This new version works on Outlook 2007/2010 and TFS 2008/2010 RTM. Details about all features in this version on the Home Page : http://bowie.code...Catharsis: Catharsis 2.5 on catarsa.com: The Catharsis framework has finally its own portal http://catarsa.com Example - documented steps to create Web-Application http://catarsa.com/Arti...Colorful Expression: Expression Blend 3: Alpha Version, Read Issues and Installing! Colorful Expression is an add-in for Expression Blend and Expression Design that brings you the Adobe K...Colorful Expression: Expression Blend 4: Read Issues and Installing! Colorful Expression is an add-in for Expression Blend and Expression Design that brings you the Adobe Kuler and ColorLo...Courier: Version 1.0: This release includes integration with the Reactive Framework for more elegant message handling and allowing more succinct client code. Full suite...CRM 4.0 Contract Utilities: Release 1.0: Project Description List of Contract Utilities (i.e. custom workflow actions) 1. Change contract status from Active to Draft 2. Copy Contract (with...Document.Editor: 0.9.0: Whats New?: New icon set Bug fix'sDotNetNuke® Blog: 04.00.00: Minimum Required DNN Version: 4.06.02General Code organization * Converted project to .NET 3.5 * Converted solution to Visual Stud...EPiAbstractions: EPiAbstractions 1.2: Updated for EPiServer CMS 6. Only features abstractions for EPiServer CMS. For abstractions for EPiServer.Common and EPiServer.Community use versio...Fluent ViewModel Configuration for WPF (MVVM): FluentViewModel Alpha2: Added support for view model validation using FluentValidation (http://fluentvalidation.codeplex.com/) Fixed exception from Blend while in design...GArphics: Beta v0.9: Beta v0.9. Practically all of the planned features have been implemented and are available to the users. For the version 1.0 mainly just some minor...HTML Ruby: 6.22.2.1: Fixed a bug where HTML Ruby's options window will generate entries in the error log when applying option changes (regression from 6.21.8)HTML Ruby: 6.22.3: Add/remove stop spacing event listener as needed for possible fix to 4620iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.2.3768 Beta 3b: Beta 3 requires iTunes 9.1.0.79 or later A Librarian status panel showing active and queued Librarian scanners. This will be hidden behind the "bi...LiveUpload to Facebook: LiveUpload to Facebook 3.2.3: Version 3.2.3Become a fan on Facebook! Features Quickly and easily upload your photos and videos to Facebook, including any people tags added in W...Maintainance Schedule: Maintenance Scheduler: The first Alpha release of the project.NetSockets: NetSockets (1.2): The NetSockets library (DLL)NSIS Autorun: NSIS Autorun 0.1.2: NSIS Autorun 0.1.1 This release includes source code, application binary, and example materials.OpenSceneGraph glsl samples: OsgGlslSamples Win32 binaries: Project binary release for Windows. The effects shown are: Ambient Occlusion, Depth of Field, DoF with alpha channel, Fire effects, HDR, Light Ma...ORAYLIS BI.SmartDiff: ORAYLIS BI.SmartDiff 0.6.1: First public versionpatterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Code Drop 4 - Content Complete: This release includes documentation and all code samples intended for this first guide. As before, this code release builds on the previous one an...Pex Custom Arithmetic Solver: Custom Solver Package: This is the custom solvers packaged together. To use simply include the dll in your project and add [assembly: PexCustomArithmeticSolver] to your P...PokeIn Comet Ajax Library: PokeIn v08 x86: New FeatureFrom this version forward, PokeIn will define a way between the main page and client side automaticly based to security level. Add "pub...Proxi [Proxy Interface]: Proxi Release 1.0.0.426: Proxi Release 1.0.0.426QuestTracker: QuestTracker 0.3: This release includes recurring quests! Now you can set a quest to uncomplete itself every X minutes, hours, or days! And the quests still retain t...Rensea Image Viewer: RIV 0.4.5: RIV Fix Version. You would need .NET Framework 4.0 to make it run RIVU Improved Version. With separated RIV up-loader, to upload images to Renjian...SCC Switch Provider: Provides a GUI to Switch Source Code Control Provi: Transferred from GotDotNet Workplace. Initial public Release. Downloaded ~922 times from original post.sTASKedit: sTASKedit v0.7a (Alpha): + Fixed: XOR text encoding + Fixed: adding timed rewards missing values + Fixed: occupations in clone()Synapse:Silverlight A Simple Silverlight Framework: Synapse Silverlight Alpha Release: Initial Road-map is being defined.ThoughtWorks Cruise Notification Interceptor: 1.0.0: Initial release.UDC indexes parser: UDC indexex parser Beta 2: Добавлена возможность работать с распределением определителей как если бы генератор был бы LALR(2) То что осталось: Если текстовое дополнение начи...Unscrambler: Release 1.0: Here's the first release of Unscrambler.WinXound: WinXound 3.3.0 Beta 2 for Mac OsX: New: Code Repository (for UDO and personal code) New: Format Code - Added the ability to format only the selected text of the code New: Explore...WPF Inspirational Quote Management System: Release 1.2.2: - Fixed issue some users were having when the application is minimised.Most Popular ProjectsRawrWBFS ManagerAJAX Control ToolkitSilverlight Toolkitpatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)ASP.NETMicrosoft SQL Server Community & SamplesPHPExcelMost Active Projectspatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryRawrGMap.NET - Great Maps for Windows Forms & PresentationParticle Plot PivotBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog ModuleFarseer Physics EngineIonics Isapi Rewrite FilterN2 CMSDotNetZip Library

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• Uget tray icon not showing

  - by ArK

  Since I upgraded to Saucy, Uget is not showing in the system tray, although the Always show tray icon option in Uget settings is checked. P.S. this happens only with Uget, all the other Softwares have working tray icons (vlc,qbittorrent..) Here is the snapshot which shows the settings of Uget: sudo dpkg -l | grep -e "^rc" -e "^iU": rc account-plugin-generic-oauth 0.10bzr13.03.26-0ubuntu1.1 i386 GNOME Control Center account plugin for single signon - generic OAuth rc appmenu-gtk:i386 12.10.3daily13.04.03-0ubuntu1 i386 Export GTK menus over DBus rc appmenu-gtk3:i386 12.10.3daily13.04.03-0ubuntu1 i386 Export GTK menus over DBus rc arora 0.11.0-0ubuntu1 i386 simple cross platform web browser rc buc 0.5.2-20 i386 BUC rc clementine 1.1.1+dfsg-2ubuntu1 i386 modern music player and library organizer rc epiphany-browser 3.6.1-2ubuntu1 i386 Intuitive GNOME web browser rc epiphany-browser-data 3.6.1-2ubuntu3 all Data files for the GNOME web browser rc fancontrol 1:3.3.3-1ubuntu1 all utilities to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors rc flaremonitor 1.0-5 i386 It is an advanced browser integration helper module of FlareGet rc google-chrome-stable 28.0.1500.95-r213514 i386 The web browser from Google rc hal 0.5.14-8ubuntu1 i386 Hardware Abstraction Layer rc hotot-gtk 1:0.9.8.5+git20120630.884797d-1 all lightweight microblogging client - GTK+ wrapper rc jockey-common 0.9.7-0ubuntu13 all user interface and desktop integration for driver management rc libanalitza4abi1 4:4.10.4-0ubuntu0.1 i386 library to work with mathematical expressions rc libanalitza5 4:4.11.2-0ubuntu1 i386 library to work with mathematical expressions rc libanalitzagui4abi2 4:4.10.4-0ubuntu0.1 i386 library to work with mathematical expressions - GUI routines rc libanalitzaplot4 4:4.10.4-0ubuntu0.1 i386 library to work with mathematical expressions - plot routines rc libavcodec53:i386 6:0.8.6-1ubuntu2 i386 Libav codec library rc libavutil51:i386 6:0.8.6-1ubuntu2 i386 Libav utility library rc libbamf3-1:i386 0.4.0daily13.06.19~13.04-0ubuntu1 i386 Window matching library - shared library rc libboost-iostreams1.49.0 1.49.0-4 i386 Boost.Iostreams Library rc libboost-program-options1.49.0 1.49.0-4 i386 program options library for C++ rc libboost-python1.49.0 1.49.0-4 i386 Boost.Python Library rc libboost-thread1.49.0 1.49.0-4 i386 portable C++ multi-threading rc libbrlapi0.5:i386 4.4-8ubuntu4 i386 braille display access via BRLTTY - shared library rc libcamel-1.2-40 3.6.4-0ubuntu1.1 i386 Evolution MIME message handling library rc libcolumbus0-0 0.4.0daily13.04.16~13.04-0ubuntu1 i386 error tolerant matching engine - shared library rc libdns95 1:9.9.2.dfsg.P1-2ubuntu2.1 i386 DNS Shared Library used by BIND rc libdvbpsi7 0.2.2-1 i386 library for MPEG TS and DVB PSI tables decoding and generating rc libebackend-1.2-5 3.6.4-0ubuntu1.1 i386 Utility library for evolution data servers rc libechonest2.0:i386 2.0.2-0ubuntu1 i386 Qt library for communicating with The Echo Nest platform rc libechonest2.1:i386 2.1.0-2 i386 Qt library for communicating with The Echo Nest platform rc libedata-book-1.2-15 3.6.4-0ubuntu1.1 i386 Backend library for evolution address books rc libedata-cal-1.2-18 3.6.4-0ubuntu1.1 i386 Backend library for evolution calendars rc libftgl2 2.1.3~rc5-4ubuntu1 i386 library to render text in OpenGL using FreeType rc libgc1c3:i386 1:7.2d-0ubuntu5 i386 conservative garbage collector for C and C++ rc libgnome-desktop-3-4 3.6.3-0ubuntu1 i386 Utility library for loading .desktop files - runtime files rc libgtksourceview-3.0-0:i386 3.6.3-0ubuntu1 i386 shared libraries for the GTK+ syntax highlighting widget rc libgweather-3-1 3.6.2-0ubuntu1 i386 GWeather shared library rc libhal-storage1 0.5.14-8ubuntu1 i386 Hardware Abstraction Layer - shared library for storage devices rc libhal1 0.5.14-8ubuntu1 i386 Hardware Abstraction Layer - shared library rc libharfbuzz0:i386 0.9.13-1 i386 OpenType text shaping engine rc libhd16 16.0-2.2 i386 Hardware identification system library rc libibus-1.0-0:i386 1.4.2-0ubuntu2 i386 Intelligent Input Bus - shared library rc libical0 0.48-2 i386 iCalendar library implementation in C (runtime) rc libimobiledevice3 1.1.4-1ubuntu6.2 i386 Library for communicating with the iPhone and iPod Touch rc libisc92 1:9.9.2.dfsg.P1-2ubuntu2.1 i386 ISC Shared Library used by BIND rc libkdegamesprivate1 4:4.10.2-0ubuntu1 i386 private shared library for KDE games rc libkeybinder0 0.3.0-1ubuntu1 i386 registers global key bindings for applications rc libkgapi0:i386 0.4.4-0ubuntu1 i386 Google API library for KDE rc liblastfm1:i386 1.0.7-2 i386 Last.fm web services library rc libnetfilter-queue1 1.0.2-1 i386 Netfilter netlink-queue library rc libnl1:i386 1.1-7ubuntu1 i386 library for dealing with netlink sockets rc libossp-uuid16 1.6.2-1.3 i386 OSSP uuid ISO-C and C++ - shared library rc libpackagekit-glib2-14:i386 0.7.6-3ubuntu1 i386 Library for accessing PackageKit using GLib rc libpoppler28:i386 0.20.5-1ubuntu3 i386 PDF rendering library rc libprojectm2 2.1.0+dfsg-1build1 i386 Advanced Milkdrop-compatible music visualization library rc libqxt-core0:i386 0.6.1-7 i386 extensions to Qt core classes (LibQxt) rc libqxt-gui0:i386 0.6.1-7 i386 extensions to Qt GUI classes (LibQxt) rc libraw5:i386 0.14.7-0ubuntu1.13.04.2 i386 raw image decoder library rc librhythmbox-core6 2.98-0ubuntu5 i386 support library for the rhythmbox music player rc librhythmbox-core7 3.0.1-0~13.10~ppa1 i386 support library for the rhythmbox music player rc libsnmp15 5.4.3~dfsg-2.7ubuntu1 i386 SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) library rc libsqlite0 2.8.17-8fakesync1 i386 SQLite shared library rc libsyncdaemon-1.0-1 4.2.0-0ubuntu1 i386 Ubuntu One synchronization daemon library rc libtiff4:i386 3.9.7-2ubuntu1 i386 Tag Image File Format (TIFF) library (old version) rc libunity-core-6.0-5 7.0.0daily13.06.19~13.04-0ubuntu1 i386 Core library for the Unity interface. rc libva-wayland1:i386 1.2.1-0ubuntu0~raring i386 Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux -- Wayland runtime rc libwayland0:i386 1.0.5-0ubuntu1 i386 wayland compositor infrastructure - shared libraries rc libwebp2:i386 0.1.3-3 i386 Lossy compression of digital photographic images. rc linux-image-3.8.0-19-generic 3.8.0-19.30 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-3.8.0-21-generic 3.8.0-21.32 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-3.8.0-22-generic 3.8.0-22.33 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-3.8.0-26-generic 3.8.0-26.38 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-3.8.0-27-generic 3.8.0-27.40 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-3.9.0-030900-generic 3.9.0-030900.201304291257 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.9.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-3.9.0-030900rc8-generic 3.9.0-030900rc8.201304211835 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.9.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-3.8.0-19-generic 3.8.0-19.30 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-3.8.0-21-generic 3.8.0-21.32 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-3.8.0-22-generic 3.8.0-22.33 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-3.8.0-26-generic 3.8.0-26.38 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc linux-image-extra-3.8.0-27-generic 3.8.0-27.40 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP rc preload 0.6.4-2 i386 adaptive readahead daemon rc steam-launcher 1.0.0.39 all Launcher for the Steam software distribution service rc super-boot-manager 0.7.15 all Simple gui to configure Grub2, Burg and Plymouth. rc totem 3.6.3-0ubuntu6 i386 Simple media player for the GNOME desktop based on GStreamer rc transmission-gtk 2.77-0ubuntu1 i386 lightweight BitTorrent client (GTK interface) rc unity-common 7.0.0daily13.06.19~13.04-0ubuntu1 all Common files for the Unity interface. rc vino 3.6.2-0ubuntu4 i386 VNC server for GNOME rc wicd-daemon 1.7.2.4-4.1 all wired and wireless network manager - daemon rc wicd-gtk 1.7.2.4-4.1 all wired and wireless network manager - GTK+ client rc xscreensaver 5.15-2ubuntu1 i386 Automatic screensaver for X rc xscreensaver-data 5.15-3ubuntu1 i386 data files to be shared among screensaver frontends sudo dpkg -l | grep uget: ii uget 1.10.3-1 i386 easy-to-use download manager written in GTK+ sudo dpkg -l | grep indicator: ii gir1.2-appindicator3-0.1 12.10.1+13.10.20130920-0ubuntu2 i386 Typelib files for libappindicator3-1. ii gir1.2-syncmenu-0.1 12.10.5+13.10.20131011-0ubuntu1 i386 indicator for synchronisation processes status - bindings ii indicator-applet-complete 12.10.2+13.10.20130924.2-0ubuntu1 i386 Clone of the GNOME panel indicator applet ii indicator-application 12.10.1daily13.01.25-0ubuntu1 i386 Application Indicators ii indicator-appmenu 13.01.0+13.10.20130930-0ubuntu1 i386 Indicator for application menus. ii indicator-bluetooth 0.0.6+13.10.20131016-0ubuntu1 i386 System bluetooth indicator. ii indicator-datetime 13.10.0+13.10.20131023.2-0ubuntu1 i386 Simple clock ii indicator-keyboard 0.0.0+13.10.20131010.1-0ubuntu1 i386 Keyboard indicator ii indicator-messages 13.10.1+13.10.20131011-0ubuntu1 i386 indicator that collects messages that need a response ii indicator-multiload 0.3-0ubuntu1 i386 Graphical system load indicator for CPU, ram, etc. ii indicator-power 12.10.6+13.10.20131008-0ubuntu1 i386 Indicator showing power state. ii indicator-printers 0.1.7daily13.03.01-0ubuntu1 i386 indicator showing active print jobs ii indicator-session 12.10.5+13.10.20131023.1-0ubuntu1 i386 indicator showing session management, status and user switching ii indicator-sound 12.10.2+13.10.20131011-0ubuntu1 i386 System sound indicator. ii indicator-sync 12.10.5+13.10.20131011-0ubuntu1 i386 indicator for synchronisation processes status ii libappindicator1 12.10.1+13.10.20130920-0ubuntu2 i386 Application Indicators ii libappindicator3-1 12.10.1+13.10.20130920-0ubuntu2 i386 Application Indicators ii libindicator3-7 12.10.2+13.10.20130913-0ubuntu2 i386 panel indicator applet - shared library ii libindicator7 12.10.2+13.10.20130913-0ubuntu2 i386 panel indicator applet - shared library ii libsync-menu1:i386 12.10.5+13.10.20131011-0ubuntu1 i386 indicator for synchronisation processes status - libraries ii python-appindicator 12.10.1+13.10.20130920-0ubuntu2 i386 Python bindings for libappindicator ii sni-qt:i386 0.2.6-0ubuntu1 i386 indicator support for Qt ii telepathy-indicator 0.3.1daily13.06.19-0ubuntu1 i386 Desktop service to integrate Telepathy with the messaging menu.

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• Resons why I'm using php rather then asp.net [closed]

  - by spirytus

  I have basic idea of how asp .Net works, but finds all framework hard to use if you are a newbie. I found compiling, web applications vs websites and all that stuff you should know to program in asp .net a bit tedious and so personally I go with php to create small, to medium applications for my clients. There are couple of reasons for it: php is easy scripting language, top to bottom and you done. You still can create objects, classes and if you have idea of MVC its fairly easy to create basic structure yourself so you can keep you presentation layer "relatively" clean. Although I find myself still mixing basic logic in my view's, I am trying to stick to booleans, and for each loops. ASP .net keeps it cleaner as far as I know and I agree that this is great. Heaps of free stuff for php and lots of help everywhere Although choice of IDE's for php is very limited, I still don't have to be stuck with VisualStudio. Lets be honest.. you can program in whatever you like but does anyone uses anything else other than VS? For basic applications I create, Visual Studio doesn't come even close to notepad :) / phpEdit (or similar) combination. It lacks of many features I constantly use, although armies of developers are using it and it must be for good reason. Personally not a big fan of VS though. Being on the market for that long should make editing much easier. I know .Net comes with awesome set of controls, validators etc. which is truly awesome. For me the problem starts if I want my validator to behave slightly different way and lets say fade in/out error messages. I know its possible to extend it behavior, plug into lifecycle and output different JS to the client and so on. I just never see it happen in places I work, and honestly, I don't even think most of .net developers I worked with during last couple of years would know how to do that. In php I have to grab some plugin for jQuery and use it for validation, which is fairly easy task once you had done it before. Again I'm sure its easy for .net gurus, but for newbie like me its almost impossible. I found that many asp .net programmers are very limited in what they are able to do and basically whack together .net applications using same lame set of controls, not even bothering in looking into how it works and what if? Now I don't want to anger anyone :) I know there is huge number of excellent .Net developers who know their stuff and are able to extend controls and do all that magic in no time. I found it a bit annoying though that many of them stick to what is provided without even trying to make it better. Nothing against .net here, just a thought really :) I remember when asp.net came out the idea was that front-end people will not be able to screw anything up and do their fron-end stuff without worrying what happens behind. Now its never that easy and I always tend to get server side people to fix this and that during development. Things like ID's assigned to controls can very easily make your application break and if someone is pure HTML guy using VS its easy to break something. Thats my thoughs on php and .net and reasons why for my work I go with php. I know that once learned asp .net is awesome technology and summing all up php doesn't even come close to it. For someone like me however, individually developing small basic applications for clients, php seems to work much better. Please let me know your thoughts on the above :)

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• Including Overestimates in MSF Agile Burndown Report

  After using the MSF Agile Burndown report for a few weeks in our new TFS 2010 environment, I have to say I am a huge fan.  I especially find the assignment of Work (hours) portion to be very useful in motivating the team to keep their tasks up to date every day.  Here is a view of the report that you get out of the box. However, I have one problem.  Id like the top line to have some more meaning.  Specifically, when it is changing is that an indication of scope creep, mis-estimation or a combination of the two.  So, today I decided to try to build in a view that would show overestimated time.  This would give me a more consistent top line.  My idea was to add another visual area on top of the graph whenever my originally estimated time was greater than the sum of completed and remaining.  This will effectively show me at least when the top line goes down whether it was scope change or over-estimation. Here is the final result. How did I do it?  Step 1: Add Cumulative_Original_Estimate field to the dsBurndown My approach was to follow the pattern where the completed time is included in the burndown chart and add my Overestimated hours.  First I added a field to the dsBurndown to hold the estimated time.         <Field Name="Cumulative_Original_Estimate">           <DataField><?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Field xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="Measure" UniqueName="[Measures].[Microsoft_VSTS_Scheduling_OriginalEstimate]" /></DataField>           <rd:TypeName>System.Int32</rd:TypeName>         </Field> Step 2: Add a column to the query SELECT {     [Measures].[DateValue],     [Measures].[Work Item Count],     [Measures].[Microsoft_VSTS_Scheduling_RemainingWork],     [Measures].[Microsoft_VSTS_Scheduling_CompletedWork],     [Measures].[Microsoft_VSTS_Scheduling_OriginalEstimate],     [Measures].[RemainingWorkLine],     [Measures].[CountLine] Step 3: Add a new Item to the QueryDefinition <Item> <ID xsi:type="Measure"> <MeasureName>Microsoft_VSTS_Scheduling_OriginalEstimate</MeasureName> <UniqueName>[Measures].[Microsoft_VSTS_Scheduling_OriginalEstimate]</UniqueName> </ID> <ItemCaption>Cumulative Original Estimate</ItemCaption> <FormattedValue>true</FormattedValue> </Item> Step 4: Add a new ChartMember to DundasChartControl1 The burndown chart is called DundasChartControl1.  I need to add a ChartMember for the estimated time. <ChartMember>   <Label>Cumulative Original Estimate</Label> </ChartMember> Step 5: Add a ChartSeries to show the Overestimated Time <ChartSeries Name="OriginalEstimate">   <Hidden>=IIF(Parameters!YAxis.Value="count",True,False)</Hidden>   <ChartDataPoints>     <ChartDataPoint>       <ChartDataPointValues>         <Y>=IIF(Parameters!YAxis.Value = "hours", IIF(SUM(Fields!Cumulative_Original_Estimate.Value)>SUM(Fields!Cumulative_Completed_Work.Value+Fields!Cumulative_Remaining_Work.Value), SUM(Fields!Cumulative_Original_Estimate.Value-(Fields!Cumulative_Completed_Work.Value+Fields!Cumulative_Remaining_Work.Value)),Nothing),Nothing)</Y>       </ChartDataPointValues>       <ChartDataLabel>         <Style>           <FontFamily>Microsoft Sans Serif</FontFamily>           <FontSize>8pt</FontSize>         </Style>       </ChartDataLabel>       <Style>         <Border>           <Color>#9bdb00</Color>           <Width>0.75pt</Width>         </Border>         <Color>#666666</Color>         <BackgroundGradientEndColor>#666666</BackgroundGradientEndColor>       </Style>       <ChartMarker>         <Style />       </ChartMarker>       <CustomProperties>         <CustomProperty>           <Name>LabelStyle</Name>           <Value>Top</Value>         </CustomProperty>       </CustomProperties>     </ChartDataPoint>   </ChartDataPoints>   <Type>Area</Type>   <Subtype>Stacked</Subtype>   <Style />   <ChartEmptyPoints>     <Style>       <Color>#00ffffff</Color>     </Style>     <ChartMarker>       <Style />     </ChartMarker>     <ChartDataLabel>       <Style />     </ChartDataLabel>   </ChartEmptyPoints>   <LegendName>Default</LegendName>   <ChartItemInLegend>     <LegendText>Overestimated Hours</LegendText>   </ChartItemInLegend>   <ChartAreaName>Default</ChartAreaName>   <ValueAxisName>Primary</ValueAxisName>   <CategoryAxisName>Primary</CategoryAxisName>   <ChartSmartLabel>     <Disabled>true</Disabled>     <MaxMovingDistance>22.5pt</MaxMovingDistance>   </ChartSmartLabel> </ChartSeries> Thats it.  I find the improved report to add some value over the out of the box version.  You can download the updated rdl for the report here.  Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• How I Record Screencasts

  - by Daniel Moth

  I get this asked a lot so here is my brain dump on the topic. What A screencast is just a demo that you present to yourself while recording the screen. As such, my advice for clearing your screen for demo purposes and setting up Visual Studio still applies here (adjusting for the fact I wrote those blog posts when I was running Vista and VS2008, not Windows 8 and VS2012). To see examples of screencasts, watch any of my screencasts on channel9. Why If you are a technical presenter, think of when you get best reactions from a developer audience in your sessions: when you are doing demos, of course. Imagine if you could package those alone and share them with folks to watch over and over? If you have ever gone through a tutorial trying to recreate steps to explore a feature, think how much more helpful it would be if you could watch a video and follow along. Think of how many folks you "touch" with a conference presentation, and how many more you can reach with an online shorter recording of the demo. If you invest so much of your time for the first type of activity, isn't the second type of activity also worth an investment? Fact: If you are able to record a screencast of a demo, you will be much better prepared to deliver it in person. In fact lately I will force myself to make a screencast of any demo I need to present live at an upcoming event. It is also a great backup - if for whatever reason something fails (software, network, etc) during an attempt of a live demo, you can just play the recorded video for the live audience. There are other reasons (e.g. internal sharing of the latest implemented feature) but the context above is the one within which I create most of my screencasts. Software & Hardware I use Camtasia from Tech Smith, version 7.1.1. Microsoft has a variety of options for capturing the screen to video, but I have been using this software for so long now that I have not invested time to explore alternatives… I also use whatever cheapo headset is near me, but sometimes I get some complaints from some folks about the audio so now I try to remember to use "the good headset". I do not use a web camera as I am not a huge fan of PIP. Preparation First you have to know your technology and demo. Once you think you know it, write down the outline and major steps of the demo. Keep it short 5-20 minutes max. I break that rule sometimes but try not to. The longer the video is the more chances that people will not have the patience to sit through it and the larger the download wmv file ends up being. Run your demo a few times, timing yourself each time to ensure that you have the planned timing correct, but also to make sure that you are comfortable with what you are going to demo. Unlike with a live audience, there is no live reaction/feedback to steer you, so it can be a bit unnerving at first. It can also lead you to babble too much, so try extra hard to be succinct when demoing/screencasting on your own. TIP: Before recording, hide your desktop/taskbar clock if it is showing. Recording To record you start the Camtasia Recorder tool Configure the settings thought the menus Capture menu to choose custom size or full screen. I try to use full screen and remember to lower the resolution of your screen to as low as possible, e.g. 1024x768 or 1360x768 or something like that. From the Tools -> Options dialog you can choose to record audio and the volume level. Effects menu I typically leave untouched but you should explore and experiment to your liking, e.g. how the mouse pointer is captured, and whether there should be a delay for the recording when you start it. Once you've configured these settings, typically you just launch this tool and hit the F9 key to start recording. TIP: As you record, if you ever start to "lose your way" hit F9 again to pause recording, regroup your thoughts and flow, and then hit F9 again to resume. Finally, hit F10 to stop recording. At that point the video starts playing for you in the recorder. This is where you can preview the video to see that you are happy with it before saving. If you are happy, hit the Save As menu to choose where you want to save the video.     TIP: If you've really lost your way to the extent where you'll need to do some editing, hit F10 to stop recording, save the video and then record some more - you'll be able to stitch the videos together later and this will make it easier for you to delete the parts where you messed up. TIP: Before you commit to recording the whole demo, every time you should record 5 seconds and preview them to ensure that you are capturing the screen the way you want to and that your audio is still correctly configured and at the right level. Trust me, you do not want to be recording 15 minutes only to find out that you messed up on the configuration somewhere. Editing To edit the video you launch another Camtasia app, the Camtasia Studio. File->New Project. File->Save Project and choose location. File->Import Media and choose the video(s) you saved earlier. These adds them to the area at the top/middle but not at the timeline at the bottom. Right click on the video and choose Add to timeline. It will prompt you for the Editing dimensions and I always choose Recording Dimensions. Do whatever edits you want to do for this video, then add the next video if you have one to stitch and repeat. In terms of edits there are many options. The simplest is to do nothing, which is the option I did when I first starting doing these in 2006. Nowadays, I typically cut out pieces that I don't like and also lower/mute the audio in other areas and also speed up the video in some areas. A full tutorial on how to do this is beyond the scope of this blog post, but your starting point is to select portions on the timeline and then open the Edit menu at the very top (tip: the context menu doesn't have all options). You can spend hours editing a recording, so don’t lose track of time! When you are done editing, save again, and you are now ready to Produce. Producing Production is specific to where you will publish. I've only ever published on channel9, so for that I do the following File -> Produce and share. This opens a wizard dialog In the dropdown choose Custom production settings Hit Next and then choose WMV Hit Next and keep the default of Camtasia Studio Best Quality and File Size (recommended) Hit Next and choose Editing dimensions video size Hit Next, hit Options and you get a dialog. Enter a Title for the project tab and then on the author tab enter the Creator and Homepage. Hit OK Hit Next. Hit Next again. Enter a video file name in the Production name textbox and then hit Finish. Now do other stuff while you wait for the video to be produced and you hear it playing. After the video is produced watch it to ensure it was produced correctly (e.g. sometimes you get mouse issues) and then you are ready for publishing it. Publishing Follow the instructions of the place where you are going to publish. If you are MSFT internal and want to choose channel9 then contact those folks so they can share their instructions (if you don't know who they are ping me and I'll connect you but they are easy to find in the GAL). For me this involves using a tool to point to the video, choosing a file name (again), choosing an image from the video to display when it is not playing, choosing what output formats I want, and then later on a webpage adding tags, adding a description, and adding a title. That’s all folks, have fun! Comments about this post by Daniel Moth welcome at the original blog.

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• Surface RT: To Be Or Not To Be (Part 1)

  - by smehaffie

  So the Surface RT has been out for 9 months and Microsoft just declared a $900 million dollar write-down. So how did this happen and what does it mean for Microsoft’s efforts to break into the tablet market? I have been thinking a lot about most of the information below since the Surface product line was released. If you are looking for a “Microsoft Is Dead” story, then don’t read any further. But if you want an honest look at what I think led Microsoft to this point and what I think can be done to make Surface RT devices better, then please continue reading. What Led Microsoft To The $900 Million Write-Down Surface Unveiling:Microsoft totally missed the boat when they unveiled the Surface product line on June 18th, 2012. Microsoft should’ve been ready to post the specifications of both devices that night. Microsoft should’ve had a site up and running right after the event so people could pre-order the devices. This would have given them a good idea what the interest was in each device.  They could also have used this data to make a better estimate for the number of units to to have available for the launch and beyond.  They also lost out on taking advantage of the excitement generated by the Surface RT and Surface Pro announcement. They could have thrown in a free touch keyboard to anyone who pre-ordered. The advertising should have started right after the announcement and gotten bigger as launch day approached. Push for as many pre-order as possible and build excitement for the launch. Actual Launch (Surface RT): By this time all excitement was gone from the initial announcement, except for the Micorsoft faithful. Microsoft should have been ready to sell the Surface in as many markets as possible at launch. The limited market release was a real letdown for a lot of people.  A limited release right after the initial announce is understandable, but not at the official launch of the product. Microsoft overpriced the device and now they are lowering it to what it should have been to start with. The $349 price is within the range I suggested it should be at before pricing was announced. (Surface Tablets: The Price Must Be Right). Limited ordering options online was also a killer. User should have been able to buy the base unit of each device and then add on whatever keyboard they wanted to (this applies more to the Surface Pro).  There should have also been a place where users could order any additional add-ins that they wanted to buy (covers, extra power supplies, etc.) Marketing was better and the dancing “Click In” commercial was cool, but the ads comparing the iPad with Siri should have been on the air from day one of the announcement (or at least the launch).  Consumers want to know why you tablet is better, not just that is has a clickable keyboard and built-in kickstand. They could have also compared it to some of the other mid-range tablets if they had not overprices it to begin with. Stock Applications (Mail, People, Calendar, Music, Video, Reader and IE): This is where Microsoft really blew it. They had all the time in the world to make these applications the best of breed and instead we got applications that seemed thrown together.  Some updates have made these application better, but they are all still lacking in features that should have been there from day one. This did not help to enhance a new users experience any. ** I will admit that the applications that were data driven were first class citizen’s and that makes it even more perplexing why MS could knock it out of the park with the Weather, Travel, Finance, Bing, etc.) and fail so miserably on the core applications users would use the most on a tablet. Desktop on Tablet: The desktop just is so out of place on the tablet  I understand it was needed for Office but think it would have been better to not have the desktop in Windows RT, but instead open up the Office applications in full screen mode, in a desktop shell (same goes for  IE11).That way the user wouldn’t realize they are leaving Metro and going to the desktop. The other option would have been to just not include Office on Windows RT devices. Instead they could have made awesome Widows Store Apps for Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint. In addition, they could have made the stock Mail, People, and Calendar applications contain all the functions that Outlook gives desktop users. Having some of the settings in desktop mode and others under “Change PC Settings” made Windows RT seemed unfinished and rushed to market. What Can Be Done To Make Windows RT Based Tablets Better (At least in my opinion) Either eliminate the desktop all together from Windows RT or at least make the user experience better by hiding the fact the user is running Office/IE in the desktop. Personally I ‘d like them to totally get rid of it and just make awesome Windows Store Application version of Word, Excel PowerPoint & OneNote.  This might also make the OS smaller and give the user more available disk space. I doubt there will ever be a Windows Store App versions of Office, but I still think it is a good idea. Make is so users can easily direct their documents, picture, videos and music to their extra storage and can access these files from the standard libraries.  A user should not have to create a VM on their microSD card or create symbolic links to get this to work properly. Most consumers would not be able to do this. Then users get frustrated when they run out or room on their main storage because nothing is automatically save to their microSD card when saved to libraries.  This is a major bug that needs to be fixed, otherwise Microsoft’s selling point of having a microSD slot is worthless. Allows users to uninstall and re-install any of the Office product that come with the Surface. That way people can free up storage space by uninstalling the Office applications they do not need. Everyone’s needs are different, so make the options flexible. Don’t take up storage space for applications the user will not use. Make the Core applications the “Cream of the Crop” Windows App Store applications. The should set the bar for all other Store applications. Improve performance as much as possible, if it seems to be sluggish on a tablet consumer will not buy it. They need to price the next line of Surface product very aggressive to undercut not only iPad but also Android low end tablets (Nook, Kindle Fire, and Nexus, etc.) Give developers incentives to write quality applications for the devices. Don’t reward developers for cranking out cookie cutter, low quality applications. I’d even suggest Microsoft consider implementing some new store certification guideline to stop these type of applications being published. Allow users to easily move the recover disk “partition between their microSD card and main storage. My Predictions for the Surface RT and Windows RT I honestly think even with all the missteps MS has made since the announcement  about the Surface product line, that they are on the right path. I was excited the Surface tablets when they were announced, and I still am. The truth be told, Windows 8 on a tablet (aka: Windows RT) is better than both iOS and Android. My nephew who is an Apple fan boy told me after he saw and used Windows 8 (he got the beta running on his iPad), that Windows 8 kicked Apples butt as a tablet OS. So there is hope for all Windows RT based tablets. I agree with my nephew and that is why whenever anyone asks me about my Surface, I love showing it off and recommend it. The 6 keys to gaining market share in the tablet market are; Aggressive pricing by both Microsoft and their OEM’s Good quality devices put out by Microsoft and their OEM’s (there are some out there, but not enough) Marketing, Marketing, Marketing from both Microsoft and their OEM’s (Need more ads showing why windows based tablets are better than iPads and Android tablets) Getting Widows tablets in retails stores all over, and giving sales people incentive to sell them. Consumers like to try electronics out before they buy them, and most will listen to what the sales person suggest. Microsoft needs sales people in retail stores directing people to buy windows based tablets over iPads and Android tablets. I think the Microsoft Stores within Best Buy is a good start, but they also need to get prominent displays in Walmart, Target, etc.. Release a smaller form factor Surface, Hopefully the 8”-10” next generation Surface is not a rumor. Make “Surface” the brand name for all Microsoft tablets and hybrid devices that they come out with. They cannot change the name with each new release.  Make Surface synonymous with quality, the same way that iPad  is for Apple. Well, that is my 2 cents on the subject. Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below. Soon to follow will be my thought on the Surface Pro, so keep an eye out for it. var addthis_pub="smehaffie"; var addthis_options="email, print, digg, slashdot, delicious, twitter, live, myspace, facebook, google, stumbleupon, newsvine";

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• C#: Why Decorate When You Can Intercept

  - by James Michael Hare

  We've all heard of the old Decorator Design Pattern (here) or used it at one time or another either directly or indirectly.  A decorator is a class that wraps a given abstract class or interface and presents the same (or a superset) public interface but "decorated" with additional functionality.   As a really simplistic example, consider the System.IO.BufferedStream, it itself is a descendent of System.IO.Stream and wraps the given stream with buffering logic while still presenting System.IO.Stream's public interface:   1: Stream buffStream = new BufferedStream(rawStream); Now, let's take a look at a custom-code example.  Let's say that we have a class in our data access layer that retrieves a list of products from a database:  1: // a class that handles our CRUD operations for products 2: public class ProductDao 3: { 4: ... 5:  6: // a method that would retrieve all available products 7: public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 8: { 9: var results = new List<Product>(); 10:  11: // must create the connection 12: using (var con = _factory.CreateConnection()) 13: { 14: con.ConnectionString = _productsConnectionString; 15: con.Open(); 16:  17: // create the command 18: using (var cmd = _factory.CreateCommand()) 19: { 20: cmd.Connection = con; 21: cmd.CommandText = _getAllProductsStoredProc; 22: cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure; 23:  24: // get a reader and pass back all results 25: using (var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader()) 26: { 27: while(reader.Read()) 28: { 29: results.Add(new Product 30: { 31: Name = reader["product_name"].ToString(), 32: ... 33: }); 34: } 35: } 36: } 37: }            38:  39: return results; 40: } 41: } Yes, you could use EF or any myriad other choices for this sort of thing, but the germaine point is that you have some operation that takes a non-trivial amount of time.  What if, during the production day I notice that my application is performing slowly and I want to see how much of that slowness is in the query versus my code.  Well, I could easily wrap the logic block in a System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch and log the results to log4net or other logging flavor of choice: 1:     // a class that handles our CRUD operations for products 2:     public class ProductDao 3:     { 4:         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(ProductDao)); 5:         ... 6:         7:         // a method that would retrieve all available products 8:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 9:         { 10:             var results = new List<Product>(); 11:             var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 12:             13:             // must create the connection 14:             using (var con = _factory.CreateConnection()) 15:             { 16:                 con.ConnectionString = _productsConnectionString; 17:                 18:                 // and all that other DB code... 19:                 ... 20:             } 21:             22:             timer.Stop(); 23:             24:             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000) 25:             { 26:                 _log.WarnFormat("Long query in GetAvailableProducts() took {0} ms", 27:                     timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 28:             } 29:             30:             return results; 31:         } 32:     } In my eye, this is very ugly.  It violates Single Responsibility Principle (SRP), which says that a class should only ever have one responsibility, where responsibility is often defined as a reason to change.  This class (and in particular this method) has two reasons to change: If the method of retrieving products changes. If the method of logging changes. Well, we could “simplify” this using the Decorator Design Pattern (here).  If we followed the pattern to the letter, we'd need to create a base decorator that implements the DAOs public interface and forwards to the wrapped instance.  So let's assume we break out the ProductDAO interface into IProductDAO using your refactoring tool of choice (Resharper is great for this). Now, ProductDao will implement IProductDao and get rid of all logging logic: 1:     public class ProductDao : IProductDao 2:     { 3:         // this reverts back to original version except for the interface added 4:     } 5:  And we create the base Decorator that also implements the interface and forwards all calls: 1:     public class ProductDaoDecorator : IProductDao 2:     { 3:         private readonly IProductDao _wrappedDao; 4:         5:         // constructor takes the dao to wrap 6:         public ProductDaoDecorator(IProductDao wrappedDao) 7:         { 8:             _wrappedDao = wrappedDao; 9:         } 10:         11:         ... 12:         13:         // and then all methods just forward their calls 14:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 15:         { 16:             return _wrappedDao.GetAvailableProducts(); 17:         } 18:     } This defines our base decorator, then we can create decorators that add items of interest, and for any methods we don't decorate, we'll get the default behavior which just forwards the call to the wrapper in the base decorator: 1:     public class TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator : ProductDaoDecorator 2:     { 3:         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator)); 4:         5:         public TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator(IProductDao wrappedDao) : 6:             base(wrappedDao) 7:         { 8:         } 9:         10:         ... 11:         12:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 13:         { 14:             var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 15:             16:             var results = _wrapped.GetAvailableProducts(); 17:             18:             timer.Stop(); 19:             20:             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000) 21:             { 22:                 _log.WarnFormat("Long query in GetAvailableProducts() took {0} ms", 23:                     timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 24:             } 25:             26:             return results; 27:         } 28:     } Well, it's a bit better.  Now the logging is in its own class, and the database logic is in its own class.  But we've essentially multiplied the number of classes.  We now have 3 classes and one interface!  Now if you want to do that same logging decorating on all your DAOs, imagine the code bloat!  Sure, you can simplify and avoid creating the base decorator, or chuck it all and just inherit directly.  But regardless all of these have the problem of tying the logging logic into the code itself. Enter the Interceptors.  Things like this to me are a perfect example of when it's good to write an Interceptor using your class library of choice.  Sure, you could design your own perfectly generic decorator with delegates and all that, but personally I'm a big fan of Castle's Dynamic Proxy (here) which is actually used by many projects including Moq. What DynamicProxy allows you to do is intercept calls into any object by wrapping it with a proxy on the fly that intercepts the method and allows you to add functionality.  Essentially, the code would now look like this using DynamicProxy: 1: // Note: I like hiding DynamicProxy behind the scenes so users 2: // don't have to explicitly add reference to Castle's libraries. 3: public static class TimeThresholdInterceptor 4: { 5: // Our logging handle 6: private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(TimeThresholdInterceptor)); 7:  8: // Handle to Castle's proxy generator 9: private static readonly ProxyGenerator _generator = new ProxyGenerator(); 10:  11: // generic form for those who prefer it 12: public static object Create<TInterface>(object target, TimeSpan threshold) 13: { 14: return Create(typeof(TInterface), target, threshold); 15: } 16:  17: // Form that uses type instead 18: public static object Create(Type interfaceType, object target, TimeSpan threshold) 19: { 20: return _generator.CreateInterfaceProxyWithTarget(interfaceType, target, 21: new TimedThreshold(threshold, level)); 22: } 23:  24: // The interceptor that is created to intercept the interface calls. 25: // Hidden as a private inner class so not exposing Castle libraries. 26: private class TimedThreshold : IInterceptor 27: { 28: // The threshold as a positive timespan that triggers a log message. 29: private readonly TimeSpan _threshold; 30:  31: // interceptor constructor 32: public TimedThreshold(TimeSpan threshold) 33: { 34: _threshold = threshold; 35: } 36:  37: // Intercept functor for each method invokation 38: public void Intercept(IInvocation invocation) 39: { 40: // time the method invocation 41: var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 42:  43: // the Castle magic that tells the method to go ahead 44: invocation.Proceed(); 45:  46: timer.Stop(); 47:  48: // check if threshold is exceeded 49: if (timer.Elapsed > _threshold) 50: { 51: _log.WarnFormat("Long execution in {0} took {1} ms", 52: invocation.Method.Name, 53: timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 54: } 55: } 56: } 57: } Yes, it's a bit longer, but notice that: This class ONLY deals with logging long method calls, no DAO interface leftovers. This class can be used to time ANY class that has an interface or virtual methods. Personally, I like to wrap and hide the usage of DynamicProxy and IInterceptor so that anyone who uses this class doesn't need to know to add a Castle library reference.  As far as they are concerned, they're using my interceptor.  If I change to a new library if a better one comes along, they're insulated. Now, all we have to do to use this is to tell it to wrap our ProductDao and it does the rest: 1: // wraps a new ProductDao with a timing interceptor with a threshold of 5 seconds 2: IProductDao dao = TimeThresholdInterceptor.Create<IProductDao>(new ProductDao(), 5000); Automatic decoration of all methods!  You can even refine the proxy so that it only intercepts certain methods. This is ideal for so many things.  These are just some of the interceptors we've dreamed up and use: Log parameters and returns of methods to XML for auditing. Block invocations to methods and return default value (stubbing). Throw exception if certain methods are called (good for blocking access to deprecated methods). Log entrance and exit of a method and the duration. Log a message if a method takes more than a given time threshold to execute. Whether you use DynamicProxy or some other technology, I hope you see the benefits this adds.  Does it completely eliminate all need for the Decorator pattern?  No, there may still be cases where you want to decorate a particular class with functionality that doesn't apply to the world at large. But for all those cases where you are using Decorator to add functionality that's truly generic.  I strongly suggest you give this a try!

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• Guest Post: Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the &lsquo;Hello World of WPF&rsquo;

  - by Eric Nelson

  [You might want to also read other GuestPosts on my blog – or contribute one?] On the 26th and 27th of March (2010) myself and Edd Morgan of Microsoft will be popping along to the Scottish Ruby Conference. I dabble with Ruby and I am a huge fan whilst Edd is a “proper Ruby developer”. Hence I asked Edd if he was interested in creating a guest post or two for my blog on IronRuby. This is the second of those posts. If you should stumble across this post and happen to be attending the Scottish Ruby Conference, then please do keep a look out for myself and Edd. We would both love to chat about all things Ruby and IronRuby. And… we should have (if Amazon is kind) a few books on IronRuby with us at the conference which will need to find a good home. This is me and Edd and … the book: Order on Amazon: http://bit.ly/ironrubyunleashed Using IronRuby and .NET to produce the ‘Hello World of WPF’ In my previous post I introduced, to a minor extent, IronRuby. I expanded a little on the basics of by getting a Rails app up-and-running on this .NET implementation of the Ruby language — but there wasn't much to it! So now I would like to go from simply running a pre-existing project under IronRuby to developing a whole new application demonstrating the seamless interoperability between IronRuby and .NET. In particular, we'll be using WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) — the component of the .NET Framework stack used to create rich media and graphical interfaces. Foundations of WPF To reiterate, WPF is the engine in the .NET Framework responsible for rendering rich user interfaces and other media. It's not the only collection of libraries in the framework with the power to do this — Windows Forms does the trick, too — but it is the most powerful and flexible. Put simply, WPF really excels when you need to employ eye candy. It's all about creating impact. Whether you're presenting a document, video, a data entry form, some kind of data visualisation (which I am most hopeful for, especially in terms of IronRuby - more on that later) or chaining all of the above with some flashy animations, you're likely to find that WPF gives you the most power when developing any of these for a Windows target. Let's demonstrate this with an example. I give you what I like to consider the 'hello, world' of WPF applications: the analogue clock. Today, over my lunch break, I created a WPF-based analogue clock using IronRuby... Any normal person would have just looked at their watch. - Twitter The Sample Application: Click here to see this sample in full on GitHub. Using Windows Presentation Foundation from IronRuby to create a Clock class Invoking the Clock class   Gives you The above is by no means perfect (it was a lunch break), but I think it does the job of illustrating IronRuby's interoperability with WPF using a familiar data visualisation. I'm sure you'll want to dissect the code yourself, but allow me to step through the important bits. (By the way, feel free to run this through ir first to see what actually happens). Now we're using IronRuby - unlike my previous post where we took pure Ruby code and ran it through ir, the IronRuby interpreter, to demonstrate compatibility. The main thing of note is the very distinct parallels between .NET namespaces and Ruby modules, .NET classes and Ruby classes. I guess there's not much to say about it other than at this point, you may as well be working with a purely Ruby graphics-drawing library. You're instantiating .NET objects, but you're doing it with the standard Ruby .new method you know from Ruby as Object#new — although, the root object of all your IronRuby objects isn't actually Object, it's System.Object. You're calling methods on these objects (and classes, for example in the call to System.Windows.Controls.Canvas.SetZIndex()) using the underscored, lowercase convention established for the Ruby language. The integration is so seamless. The fact that you're using a dynamic language on top of .NET's CLR is completely abstracted from you, allowing you to just build your software. A Brief Note on Events Events are a big part of developing client applications in .NET as well as under every other environment I can think of. In case you aren't aware, event-driven programming is essentially the practice of telling your code to call a particular method, or other chunk of code (a delegate) when something happens at an unpredictable time. You can never predict when a user is going to click a button, move their mouse or perform any other kind of input, so the advent of the GUI is what necessitated event-driven programming. This is where one of my favourite aspects of the Ruby language, blocks, can really help us. In traditional C#, for instance, you may subscribe to an event (assign a block of code to execute when an event occurs) in one of two ways: by passing a reference to a named method, or by providing an anonymous code block. You'd be right for seeing the parallel here with Ruby's concept of blocks, Procs and lambdas. As demonstrated at the very end of this rather basic script, we are using .NET's System.Timers.Timer to (attempt to) update the clock every second (I know it's probably not the best way of doing this, but for example's sake). Note: Diverting a little from what I said above, the ticking of a clock is very predictable, yet we still use the event our Timer throws to do this updating as one of many ways to perform that task outside of the main thread. You'll see that all that's needed to assign a block of code to be triggered on an event is to provide that block to the method of the name of the event as it is known to the CLR. This drawback to this is that it only allows the delegation of one code block to each event. You may use the add method to subscribe multiple handlers to that event - pushing that to the end of a queue. Like so: def tick puts "tick tock" end timer.elapsed.add method(:tick) timer.elapsed.add proc { puts "tick tock" } tick_handler = lambda { puts "tick tock" } timer.elapsed.add(tick_handler)   The ability to just provide a block of code as an event handler helps IronRuby towards that very important term I keep throwing around; low ceremony. Anonymous methods are, of course, available in other more conventional .NET languages such as C# and VB but, as usual, feel ever so much more elegant and natural in IronRuby. Note: Whether it's a named method or an anonymous chunk o' code, the block you delegate to the handling of an event can take arguments - commonly, a sender object and some args. Another Brief Note on Verbosity Personally, I don't mind verbose chaining of references in my code as long as it doesn't interfere with performance - as evidenced in the example above. While I love clean code, there's a certain feeling of safety that comes with the terse explicitness of long-winded addressing and the describing of objects as opposed to ambiguity (not unlike this sentence). However, when working with IronRuby, even I grow tired of typing System::Whatever::Something. Some people enjoy simply assuming namespaces and forgetting about them, regardless of the language they're using. Don't worry, IronRuby has you covered. It is completely possible to, with a call to include, bring the contents of a .NET-converted module into context of your IronRuby code - just as you would if you wanted to bring in an 'organic' Ruby module. To refactor the style of the above example, I could place the following at the top of my Clock class: class Clock include System::Windows::Shape include System::Windows::Media include System::Windows::Threading # and so on...   And by doing so, reduce calls to System::Windows::Shapes::Ellipse.new to simply Ellipse.new or references to System::Windows::Threading::DispatcherPriority.Render to a friendlier DispatcherPriority.Render. Conclusion I hope by now you can understand better how IronRuby interoperates with .NET and how you can harness the power of the .NET framework with the dynamic nature and elegant idioms of the Ruby language. The manner and parlance of Ruby that makes it a joy to work with sets of data is, of course, present in IronRuby — couple that with WPF's capability to produce great graphics quickly and easily, and I hope you can visualise the possibilities of data visualisation using these two things. Using IronRuby and WPF together to create visual representations of data and infographics is very exciting to me. Although today, with this project, we're only presenting one simple piece of information - the time - the potential is much grander. My day-to-day job is centred around software development and UI design, specifically in the realm of healthcare, and if you were to pay a visit to our office you would behold, directly above my desk, a large plasma TV with a constantly rotating, animated slideshow of charts and infographics to help members of our team do their jobs. It's an app powered by WPF which never fails to spark some conversation with visitors whose gaze has been hooked. If only it was written in IronRuby, the pleasantly low ceremony and reduced pre-processing time for my brain would have helped greatly. Edd Morgan blog Related Links: Getting PhP and Ruby working on Windows Azure and SQL Azure

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, July 01, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, July 01, 2012Popular ReleasesEnterprise Library 5 Caching with ProtoBuf.NET: Initial Release: This is the initial version, which includes zipped up sourcecode????: ????2.0.3: 1、???????????。 2、????????。 3、????????????。 4、bug??，????。Apworks: Apworks (v2.5.4563.21309, 30JUN2012): Installation Prerequisites: 1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 SP1 2. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SP1 3. Other required libraries & assemblies are now included in the installation package so no more prerequisites needed Functional Updates: 1. Refactor the identity field of the IEntity interface from 'Id' to 'ID' 2. Changed the MySql Storage to use the MySql NetConnector version 6.4.4. 3. Implemented the paging support for the repositories. 4. Added the Eager Loading Property specification t...Turing Machine Simulator in C#: TuringMachineSimulator 1.0 Setup: Initial release.RESTester: First version: First beta release that contain following features: - specify http method - specify content type - specify url - specify custom headers - make request - see request result in plain text, XML, JSON, WEB form - save request to DB - load request from DB - delete request from DBScreen Mate: ScreenMate17551.7z: ScreenMate17551.7z - Full Source StarTrek.exe - Just the exe for USSExcelsiorNCC-2000myManga: myManga v1.0.0.6: ChangeLogUpdating from Previous Version: Extract contents of Release - myManga v1.0.0.5.zip to previous version's folder. Replaces: myManga.exe BakaBox.dll CoreMangaClasses.dll Manga.dll Plugins/MangaReader.manga.dll Plugins/MangaFox.manga.dll Plugins/MangaHere.manga.dll Plugins/MangaPanda.manga.dllMagelia WebStore Open-source Ecommerce software: Magelia WebStore 2.0: User Right Licensing ContentType version 2.0.267.1Supporting Guidance and Whitepapers: v1 - Supporting Media: Welcome to the Release Candidate (RC) release of the ALM Rangers Readiness supporting edia As this is a RC release and the quality bar for the final Release has not been achieved, we value your candid feedback and recommend that you do not use or deploy these RC artifacts in a production environment. Quality-Bar Details All critical bugs have been resolved Known Issues / Bugs Practical Ruck training workshop not yet includedDesigning Windows 8 Applications with C# and XAML: Chapters 1 - 7 Release Preview: Source code for all examples from Chapters 1 - 7 for the Release PreviewMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.57: Fix for issue #18284: evaluating literal expressions in the pattern c1 * (x / c2) where c1/c2 is an integer value (as opposed to c2/c1 being the integer) caused the expression to be destroyed.Visual Studio ALM Quick Reference Guidance: v2 - Visual Studio 2010 (Japanese): Rex Tang (?? ??) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub/archive/2011/12/08/introducing-the-visual-studio-alm-rangers-rex-tang.aspx, Takaho Yamaguchi (?? ??), Masashi Fujiwara (?? ??), localized and reviewed the Quick Reference Guidance for the Japanese communities, based on http://vsarquickguide.codeplex.com/releases/view/52402. The Japanese guidance is available in AllGuides and Everything packages. The AllGuides package contains guidances in PDF file format, while the Everything packag...Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Branching and Merging Guide: v1 - Visual Studio 2010 (Japanese): Rex Tang (?? ??) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/willy-peter_schaub/archive/2011/12/08/introducing-the-visual-studio-alm-rangers-rex-tang.aspx, Takaho Yamaguchi (?? ??), Hirokazu Higashino (?? ??), localized and reviewed the Branching Guidance for the Japanese communities, based on http://vsarbranchingguide.codeplex.com/releases/view/38849. The Japanese guidance is available in AllGuides and Everything packages. The AllGuides package contains guidances in PDF file format, while the Everything packag...SQL Server FineBuild: Version 3.1.0: Top SQL Server FineBuild Version 3.1.0This is the stable version of FineBuild for SQL Server 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005 Documentation FineBuild Wiki containing details of the FineBuild process Known Issues Limitations with this release FineBuild V3.1.0 Release Contents List of changes included in this release Please DonateFineBuild is free, but please donate what you think FineBuild is worth as everything goes to charity. Tearfund is one of the UK's leading relief and de...EasySL: RapidSL V2: Rewrite RapidSL UI Framework, Using Silverlight 5.0 EF4.1 Code First Ria Service SP2 + Lastest Silverlight Toolkit.SOLID by example: All examples: All solid examplesSiteMap Editor for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: SiteMap Editor (1.1.1726.406): Use of new version of connection controls for a full support of OSDP authentication mechanism for CRM Online.Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.2: Development on Umbraco v5 discontinued After much discussion and consultation with leaders from the Umbraco community it was decided that work on the v5 branch would be discontinued with efforts being refocused on the stable and feature rich v4 branch. For full details as to why this decision was made please watch the CodeGarden 12 Keynote. What about all that hard work?!?? We are not binning everything and it does not mean that all work done on 5 is lost! we are taking all of the best and m...CodeGenerate: CodeGenerate Alpha: The Project can auto generate C# code. Include BLL Layer、Domain Layer、IDAL Layer、DAL Layer. Support SqlServer And Oracle This is a alpha program,but which can run and generate code. Generate database table info into MS WordXDA ROM HUB: XDA ROM HUB v0.9: Kernel listing added -- Thanks to iONEx Added scripts installer button. Added "Nandroid On The Go" -- Perform a Nandroid backup without a PC! Added official Android app!New ProjectsAdventureWorks Portal: This project will serve as a demonstration of web-based composite application using HTML 5 (with JSRender), ASP.NET MVC 4, Unity, and Entity Framework.Arkalia Core: Basic vD1.29.1 emulatorBooncraft: This project is a launcher for minecraft that loads and updates the BoonCraft mod pack. See 352n.dyndns.org for more info on BoonCraft.CloudWebSiteDemo: Windows Azure demo codeComputer Mayhem: Computer Mayhem is a growing collection of computer related add-ons for Mayhem.CSharp Extensions: Piccolo insieme di estensioni alla libreria standard di C#D3MediaLib: Diablo 3 Media LibraryEpub Editor: A simple epub editor that allows you to make quick changes to epub source files.IpScanner: The IpScanner windows application should help discovering hosts in a ip based network. The project is written in C#jQuery UI Script# Import Library: This library allows you to develop C# code against the jQueryUI API. This library is a Script# import library with definitions for the jQueryUI v1.8.21 API.Mayhem KeyLogger: The reaction module created allows for a given user to write text to a given file. When enough mappings between Key Press Events and my reaction module, the MayMayhem Keypress Module: The Mayhem Keypress Module was written as a reaction module for the purpose of simulating a keypress. Given an event, a certain key will be pressed in reaction.mIP - A C# Managed TCP/IP Stack for .NET Micro Framework: A fully managed TCP/IP stack for .NET MicroFramework with the primary purpose of enabling web servers. Local Name Resolution for Windows and iOS is automatic!OL 2012 Mayhem: OL 2012 Mayhem is a collection of OL 2012 related add-ons for Mayhem.PHP Code Model: A PHP class library that abstracts PHP language constructs with the goal is to facilitate automated PHP code generationQTalk: QChat, using Gtalk technologyreal date & time for command mode in windows OS: This is a console application to output date and time in specified format in Windows OS both 32 and 64 bits.RESTester: Help to create web requests with all needed customization. Available possibility to save any request to database and in any time recover it.Screen Mate: This project is an open source Visual Studio 2010 C# WinForms screen mate template. As a Star Trek fan (Trekee) my first screen mate will be starships.Sensor Mayhem: Sensor Mayhem is a growing collection of sensor and location related add-ons for Mayhem.SharpTFTP: TFTP server/client lib for .Net/C# (v3.5) implementing RFC1350 The TFTP Protocol (Revision 2), RFC2347 TFTP Option Extension and RFC 2348 TFTP Blocksize Option.Turing Machine Simulator in C#: Turing machine simulator simulates the working of Turing machine. Turing machine is used to study model of computation. Twilio Mayhem: Twilio Mayhem is a growing collection of Twilio related add-ons for Mayhem.Vimeo API for Metro and Windows Runtime: This library helps you to easily access the Vimeo Advanced API from your Metro style applications. It is based on the VimeoDotNet code, and supports Upload API.?????????? ?????: ?????????? ????? ?????????? ? ?????????????? ????????? ??????? ?????????????????? ? ????????? ???????

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• Is C# slower than VB.NET?

  - by Matt Winckler

  Believe it or not, despite the title, this is not a troll. Running some benchmarks this morning, my colleagues and I have discovered some strange things concerning performance, and I am wondering if we're doing something horribly wrong. We started out comparing C# vs. Delphi Prism calculating prime numbers, and found that Prism was about 30% faster. I figured maybe CodeGear did more optimization when generating IL (the exe was about twice as big as C#'s and had all sorts of different IL in it.) So I decided to write a test in VB.NET as well, assuming that Microsoft's compilers would end up writing essentially the same IL for each language. However, the result there was more shocking: C# was more than three times slower than VB running the same operations. The generated IL was different, but not extremely so, and I'm not good enough at reading it to understand the differences. As a fan of C#, this apparent slowness wounds me horribly, and I am left wondering: what in the world is going on here? Is it time to pack it all in and go write web apps in Ruby? ;-) I've included the code for each below--just copy it into a new VB or C# console app, and run. On my machine, VB finds 348513 primes in about 6.36 seconds. C# finds the same number of primes in 21.76 seconds. (I've got an Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @2.4Ghz; on another Intel machine in the office the code for both runs much faster but the ratio is about the same; on an AMD machine here the timing is ~10 seconds for VB and ~13 for C#--much less difference, but C# is still always slower.) Both of the console applications were compiled in Release mode, but otherwise no project settings were changed from the defaults generated by Visual Studio 2008. Is it a generally-known fact that C#'s generated IL is worse than VB's? Or is this a strange edge case? Or is my code flawed somehow (most likely)? Any insights are appreciated. VB code Imports System.Diagnostics Module Module1 Private temp As List(Of Int32) Private sw As Stopwatch Private totalSeconds As Double Sub Main() serialCalc() End Sub Private Sub serialCalc() temp = New List(Of Int32)() sw = Stopwatch.StartNew() For i As Int32 = 2 To 5000000 testIfPrimeSerial(i) Next sw.Stop() totalSeconds = sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds Console.WriteLine(String.Format("{0} seconds elapsed.", totalSeconds)) Console.WriteLine(String.Format("{0} primes found.", temp.Count)) Console.ReadKey() End Sub Private Sub testIfPrimeSerial(ByVal suspectPrime As Int32) For i As Int32 = 2 To Math.Sqrt(suspectPrime) If (suspectPrime Mod i = 0) Then Exit Sub End If Next temp.Add(suspectPrime) End Sub End Module C# Code using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Diagnostics; namespace FindPrimesCSharp { class Program { List<Int32> temp = new List<Int32>(); Stopwatch sw; double totalSeconds; static void Main(string[] args) { new Program().serialCalc(); } private void serialCalc() { temp = new List<Int32>(); sw = Stopwatch.StartNew(); for (Int32 i = 2; i <= 5000000; i++) { testIfPrimeSerial(i); } sw.Stop(); totalSeconds = sw.Elapsed.TotalSeconds; Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} seconds elapsed.", totalSeconds)); Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} primes found.", temp.Count)); Console.ReadKey(); } private void testIfPrimeSerial(Int32 suspectPrime) { for (Int32 i = 2; i <= Math.Sqrt(suspectPrime); i++) { if (suspectPrime % i == 0) return; } temp.Add(suspectPrime); } } }

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 22, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 22, 2013Popular ReleasesLINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter v2.1.10: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, Windows Phone 8, Client Profile, Windows 8, and Windows Azure. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also supports Twitter API v1.1! Also on NuGet.Grauers Hide Ribbon Items: Grauers Hide Ribbon Items: Hiding ribbon items in a SharePoint libraryMedia Companion: Media Companion MC3.584b: IMDB changes fixed. Fixed* mc_com.exe - Fixed to using new profile entries. * Movie - fixed rename movie and folder if use foldername selected. * Movie - Alt Edit Movie, trailer url check if changed and confirm valid. * Movie - Fixed IMDB poster scraping * Movie - Fixed outline and Plot scraping, including removal of Hyperlink's. * Movie Poster refactoring, attempts to catch gdi+ errors Revision HistoryJayData -The unified data access library for JavaScript: JayData 1.3.4: JayData is a unified data access library for JavaScript to CRUD + Query data from different sources like WebAPI, OData, MongoDB, WebSQL, SQLite, HTML5 localStorage, Facebook or YQL. The library can be integrated with KendoUI, Angular.js, Knockout.js or Sencha Touch 2 and can be used on Node.js as well. See it in action in this 6 minutes video KendoUI examples: JayData example site Examples for map integration JayData example site What's new in JayData 1.3.4 For detailed release notes check ...TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7.2 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: Added "Check for Update" button Hopefully fixed Windows XP issue You can now backspace in Item stack fieldsIsWiX: IsWiX 2.2.13293.1: This a minor enhancement of the 2.1 release. IsWiX Merge Module projects now include a second wxs fragment file that is useful for inserting `custom` components not supposed by the IsWiX UI.Simple Injector: Simple Injector v2.3.6: This patch releases fixes one bug concerning resolving open generic types that contain nested generic type arguments. Nested generic types were handled incorrectly in certain cases. This affects RegisterOpenGeneric and RegisterDecorator. (work item 20332)Virtual Wifi Hotspot for Windows 7 & 8: Virtual Router Plus 2.6.0: Virtual Router Plus 2.6.0Fast YouTube Downloader: Fast YouTube Downloader 2.3.0: Fast YouTube DownloaderMagick.NET: Magick.NET 6.8.7.101: Magick.NET linked with ImageMagick 6.8.7.1. Breaking changes: - Renamed Matrix classes: MatrixColor = ColorMatrix and MatrixConvolve = ConvolveMatrix. - Renamed Depth method with Channels parameter to BitDepth and changed the other method into a property.VidCoder: 1.5.9 Beta: Added Rip DVD and Rip Blu-ray AutoPlay actions for Windows: now you can have VidCoder start up and scan a disc when you insert it. Go to Start -> AutoPlay to set it up. Added error message for Windows XP users rather than letting it crash. Removed "quality" preset from list for QSV as it currently doesn't offer much improvement. Changed installer to ignore version number when copying files over. Should reduce the chances of a bug from me forgetting to increment a version number. Fixed ...MSBuild Extension Pack: October 2013: Release Blog Post The MSBuild Extension Pack October 2013 release provides a collection of over 480 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Active Directory, Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, FTP, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, AsyncExec, CAB Files, Code Signing, DynamicExecute, File Detokenisation, GUI...VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: VG-Ripper 2.9.49: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageTeam.org links NEW: Added Support for "ImgNext.com" links NEW: Added Support for "HostUrImage.com" links NEW: Added Support for "3XVintage.com" linksMoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): MoreTerra 1.11.3.1: Release 1.11.3.1 ================ = New Features = ================ Added markers for Copper Cache, Silver Cache and the Enchanted Sword. ============= = Bug Fixes = ============= Use Official Colors now no longer tries to change the Draw Wires option instead. World reading was breaking for people with a stock 1.2 Terraria version. Changed world name reading so it does not crash the program if you load MoreTerra while Terraria is saving the world. =================== = Feature Removal = =...patterns & practices - Windows Azure Guidance: Cloud Design Patterns: 1st drop of Cloud Design Patterns project. It contains 14 patterns with 6 related guidance.Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows and WP (v1.3): Includes all changes in v1.3 beta 1 and v1.3 beta 2 Support for Windows 8.1 RTM and VS2013 RTM Xaml: New property: AutoLoadPluginTypes to help control which stock plugins are loaded by default (requires AutoLoadPlugins = true). Support for SystemMediaTransportControls on Windows 8.1 JS: Support for visual markers in the timeline. JS: Support for markers collection and markerreached event. JS: New ChaptersPlugin to automatically populate timeline with chapter tracks. JS: Audio an...Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 8: Fix - Fixed not writing string quotes when QuoteName is falsePowerShell Community Extensions: 3.1 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 3.1 Release NotesOct 17, 2013 This version of PSCX supports Windows PowerShell 3.0 and 4.0 See the ReleaseNotes.txt download above for more information.Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.9): This new version includes: - Download latest status update and use it as vertex tooltip - Limit the timelines to parse to me, my friends or both - Fixed some reported bugs about the fan page and group importer - Fixed the login bug reported latelyPython Tools for Visual Studio: 2.0: PTVS 2.0 We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 2.0 RTM. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including CPython/IronPython, Edit/Intellisense/Debug/Profile, Cloud, IPython, and cross platform and cross language debugging support. QUICK VIDEO OVERVIEW For a quick overview of the general IDE experience, please watch this v...New Projects40FINGERS NB_Store Menumanipulator: This component allows you to add the categories of your NB_Store webshop to your DotNetNuke website's menu.ABCat: ??????? ?????????? ???????????? ????????, ?????????????? ??????? ??? ????????? ????????? ?????????? ? ?????????? ????? ?????????.AUTOFIX: This is a project related to Web Application development for University of HertfordshireAutomated service accounts creation for SharePoint 2010 and 2013 and SQL Server: Purpose of this project is just to automate the creation of SharePoint Service accounts in Active Directory.BeatportPro: Windows version of Beatport ProCasaNet: CasaNetFree Cascaded Dropdown lists JQuery Plugin for SharePoint Forms: SPCascade lets you create multi-level cascaded dropdown lists on a SharePoint form using easy JQuery code.GODspeed - FTP client for JTAG/RGH Xbox 360 consoles: Total Commander like FTP client designed to fasten and clarify file management of JTAG/RGH/DevKit Xbox 360 consoles.HCI Web Search: This project seaches for using alternative ways to handle and to visualize Web search results in a 3D environment, by interacting with gestures and speech reco.HengbeiVillage: ASP.Net + EF + AjaxToolkit ControlsIntegração Cielo Nopcommerce: Realizar a integração nopcommerce com a Cielo. Maiores detalhes são bem vindo.juzgadosdelaciudad: Mapa con Juzgados de la ciudad de buenos airesLeapJanken: LeapMotion?????、Windows Store Apps??????????????????。Looking tester for Template Engine: -VALIDATE TEMPLATE SYNTAX - no template parsing overhead, only compiles once. - unlimited nesting of sections, conditionals, etc.MQTT Broker for .NET: Project to develop a broker (server) for the MQTT protocol, an M2M Internet-of-Things communication protocol.NC MKT DNT: NC MKTNet Imobiliaria: Projeto Integrador IV SenacNewBiz: NewBiz Java Web ApplicationOAuthServer: OAuthServer is an Open Authentication server that allows you to securely authenticate your Active Directory users directly on the internet.QlikBar SDK for .NET 2.0: QlikBar SDK for .NET 2.0RainNoise - The Sound of Rain, without the wet feet.: Making some rain noise for Android device.Redsys / Sermepa gateway for Asp.Net MVC4: Coming soon....Restore Exchange 2003 Data to Exchange 2010: SysTools Exchange Recovery tool which proffers efficient and beneficial features in order to restore or migrate Exchange mailboxes from one server to anotherTimely: A library to fluently work with DateTime and TimeSpan objectstutorials_online: This is a project that is associated with my progress in tutorials in Web Scripting and Application Development in for the University of HertfordshireUQBuy ?????: ??????，?????，????，??????Voxel To Mesh Converter: Converts voxel models into mesh models.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, February 29, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, February 29, 2012Popular ReleasesZXing.Net: ZXing.Net 0.4.0.0: sync with rev. 2196 of the java version important fix for RGBLuminanceSource generating barcode bitmaps Windows Phone demo client (only tested with emulator, because I don't have a Windows Phone) Barcode generation support for Windows Forms demo client Webcam support for Windows Forms demo clientOrchard Project: Orchard 1.4: Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.4: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-4-Release-NotesFluentData -Micro ORM with a fluent API that makes it simple to query a database: FluentData version 1.2: New features: - QueryValues method - Added support for automapping to enumerations (both int and string are supported). Fixed 2 reported issues.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.15: 3.6.0.15 28-Feb-2012 • Fix: The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. Work Item 10435: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10435 • Fix: Made StorageCache thread safe. Thanks to tangrl. • Fix: Members property of SqlAzManApplicationGroup is not functioning. Thanks to tangrl. Work Item 10267: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10267 • Fix: Indexer are making database calls. Thanks to t...SCCM Client Actions Tool: Client Actions Tool v1.1: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.1 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added stop button to stop the ongoing process. Added action "Query update status". Added option "saveOnlineComputers" in config.ini to enable saving list of online computers from last session. Default value for "LatestClientVersion" set to SP2 R3 (4.00.6487.2157). Wuauserv service manual startup mode is considered healthy on Windows 7. Errors are now suppressed in checkReleases...Document.Editor: 2012.1: Whats new for Document.Editor 2012.1: Improved Recent Documents list Improved Insert Shape Improved Dialogs Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsKinect PowerPoint Control: Kinect PowerPoint Control v1.1: Updated for Kinect SDK 1.0.SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8: API Updates: SOLID Extract Method for Archives (7Zip and RAR). ExtractAllEntries method on Archive classes will extract archives as a streaming file. This can offer better 7Zip extraction performance if any of the entries are solid. The IsSolid method on 7Zip archives will return true if any are solid. Removed IExtractionListener was removed in favor of events. Unit tests show example. Bug fixes: PPMd passes tests plus other fixes (Thanks Pavel) Zip used to always write a Post Descri...Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.3): This new version includes: - Download new networks for Facebook fan pages. - New options for downloading more posts - Bug fixes To use the new graph data provider, do the following: Unzip the Zip file into the "PlugIns" folder that can be found in the NodeXL installation folder (i.e "C:\Program Files\Social Media Research Foundation\NodeXL Excel Template\PlugIns") Open NodeXL template and you can access the new importer from the "Import" menuASP.NET REST Services Framework: Release 1.1 - Standard version: Beginning from v1.1 the REST-services Framework is compatible with ASP.NET Routing model as well with CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete) principle. These two are often important when building REST API functionality within your application. It also includes ability to apply Filters to a class to target all WebRest methods, as well as some performance enhancements. New version includes Metadata Explorer providing ability exploring the existing services that becomes essential as the number ...SQL Live Monitor: SQL Live Monitor 1.31: A quick fix to make it this version work with SQL 2012. Version 2 already has 2012 working, but am still developing the UI in version 2, so this is just an interim fix to allow user to monitor SQL 2012.DotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 1.1 with Examples: Fixed small bug in JsonSerializer about the numbers represented as string. Fixed Issue 310: decimal values don't work Fixed Issue 345: Disable Animation Refactored Highcharts class. Implemented Issue 341: More charts on one page. Added new class Container which can combine and display multiple charts. Usage: new Container(new[] { chart1, chart2, chart3, chart4 }) Implemented Feature 302: Inside an UpdatePanel - Added method (InFunction) which create the Highchart inside JavaScript f...Content Slider Module for DotNetNuke: 01.02.00: This release has the following updates and new features: Feature: One-Click Enabling of Pager Setting Feature: Cache Sliders for Performance Feature: Configurable Cache Setting Enhancement: Transitions can be Selected Bug: Secure Folder Images not Viewable Bug: Sliders Disappear on Postback Bug: Remote Images Cause Error Bug: Deleted Images Cause Error System Requirements DotNetNuke v06.00.00 or newer .Net Framework v3.5 SP1 or newer SQL Server 2005 or newerImage Resizer for Windows: Image Resizer 3 Preview 3: Here is yet another iteration toward what will eventually become Image Resizer 3. This release is stable. However, I'm calling it a preview since there are still many features I'd still like to add before calling it complete. Updated on February 28 to fix an issue with installing on multi-user machines. As usual, here is my progress report. Done Preview 3 Fix: 3206 3076 3077 5688 Fix: 7420 Fix: 7527 Fix: 7576 7612 Preview 2 6308 6309 Fix: 7339 Fix: 7357 Preview 1 UI...Finestra Virtual Desktops: 2.5.4500: This is a bug fix release for version 2.5. It fixes several things and adds a couple of minor features. See the 2.5 release notes for more information on the major new features in that version. Important - If Finestra crashes on startup for you, you must install the Visual C++ 2010 runtime from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555. Fixes a bug with window animations not refreshing the screen on XP and with DWM off Fixes a bug with with crashing on XP due to a bug in t...AutoExpandOver - Show popup on mouseover, focus, click in Silverlight: AutoExpandOver 2.1: Many fixes. All leaks are gone. Features added.FileSquirrel: FileSquirrel Alpha 1.2.1 32bit and x64: FileSquirrel Alpha 1.2.1Publishing SCSM Work Item to a Sharepoint Calendar: PublishWI command line tool (Updated): Updated for SCSM 2012 (RC) PublishWI command line tool Usage: PublishWI.exe WIID URL CalendarName WIID: ID of the Work Item to publish (for example, CR3333) URL: URL of the SharePoint site, such as http://www.sharepoint.com CalendarName: The name of the sharepoint calendar to publish WI to.HttpRider - Tool for Web Site Performance and Stress Tests: HttpRider 1.0: Please let me know any issues you face. ThanksMedia Companion: MC 3.432b Release: General Now remembers window location. Catching a few more exceptions when an image is blank TV A couple of UI tweaks Movies Fixed the actor name displaying HTML Fixed crash when using Save files as "movie.nfo", "movie.tbn", & "fanart.jpg" New CSV template for HTML output function Added <createdate> tag for HTML output A couple of UI tweaks Known Issues Multiepisodes are not handled correctly in MC. The created nfo is valid, but they are not displayed in MC correctly & saving the...New Projects.NET Implementation of Extensions for Financial Services: NXFS is planned to be a compliant .Net implementation of CEN/XFS (currently version 3.20) to overcome some deficits of native implementation such as not supporting highly productive programming languages (like C#) and supporting only Windows XP and x86 platform.BigCoder WebMaster Tools: BigCoder WebMaster ToolsBigCoder Whois Program: BigCoder Whois ProgrambiscuitCMS: biscuitCMS makes it easier for <target user group> to <activity>. You'll no longer have to <activity>. It's developed in <programming language>. BridgeSeismic: BridgeSeismicData Normilizer: Decomposer for SQL fact tables, for BI projectsDownload Indexed Cache: "Download Indexed Cache" implements the Bing API Version 2 to retrieve content indexed within the Bing Cache to support the "Search Engine Reconnaissance" section of the OWASP Testing Guide v3. FITSExplorer: FITS Explorer is designed to allow astronomers to quickly and easily browse and preview the image and metadata stored in FITS files. The application was developed using primarily WPF and C#, with some low-level data manipulation routines written in C++ for high-performance.ICalSync: icalsyncLeague Manager: Nosso gerenciador de campeonatosLemcube SISTRI: interfacciamento ai servizi di Interoperabilità SIS.: Lemcube SISTRI: interfacciamento ai servizi di Interoperabilità SIS.LittlePluginLib: A small plugin system based on the .net framework 3.5Log reading: Reading and parsing huge log files, download from ftp server and upload to msql database.Mail Aggregator Service: To address the problem of being 'spammed' by your own alert emails this service was created to group/batch mail messages sent to the same 'to' address. It can integrate into QuickMon or even be used as a stand-alone tool to send out alert notifications. MangoTicTacToe: Demo application of a simple Silverlight game for Windows Phone 7. This tictactoe game features some of the most basics requirements for making a Silverlight game for Windows Phone 7.MonkeyButt: Web alternatives to commercial software like Facebook and Google.PizzaSoft: PizzaSoftproject: project demoSharePoint 2010 Automatically Generated Solution Demo: In this demo project I show how to generate Sandboxed Solutions by code at runtime.SoftService: Software ServiceSPAdmin: SharePoint WarmUp ToolSSASNet: SSASNetSSIS Data Masker: A SSIS Data Flow Transformation Component To Provide Basic Data Masking Capabilities.UpiGppf: This is a high shcool projectXMPP/Media Library for .NET and Windows Phone 7.5: .NET libraries for XMPP, TLS, RTP, STUN, SOCKS and more for windows and windows phone.

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