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  • Github Organization Repositories, Issues, Multiple Developers, and Forking - Best Workflow Practices

    - by Jim Rubenstein
    A weird title, yes, but I've got a bit of ground to cover I think. We have an organization account on github with private repositories. We want to use github's native issues/pull-requests features (pull requests are basically exactly what we want as far as code reviews and feature discussions). We found the tool hub by defunkt which has a cool little feature of being able to convert an existing issue to a pull request, and automatically associate your current branch with it. I'm wondering if it is best practice to have each developer in the organization fork the organization's repository to do their feature work/bug fixes/etc. This seems like a pretty solid work flow (as, it's basically what every open source project on github does) but we want to be sure that we can track issues and pull requests from ONE source, the organization's repository. So I have a few questions: Is a fork-per-developer approach appropriate in this case? It seems like it could be a little overkill. I'm not sure that we need a fork for every developer, unless we introduce developers who don't have direct push access and need all their code reviewed. In which case, we would want to institute a policy like that, for those developers only. So, which is better? All developers in a single repository, or a fork for everyone? Does anyone have experience with the hub tool, specifically the pull-request feature? If we do a fork-per-developer (or even for less-privileged devs) will the pull-request feature of hub operate on the pull requests from the upstream master repository (the organization's repository?) or does it have different behavior? EDIT I did some testing with issues, forks, and pull requests and found that. If you create an issue on your organization's repository, then fork the repository from your organization to your own github account, do some changes, merge to your fork's master branch. When you try to run hub -i <issue #> you get an error, User is not authorized to modify the issue. So, apparently that work flow won't work.

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  • Looking under the hood of SSRS

    - by Jim Giercyk
    SSRS is a powerful tool, but there is very little available to measure it’s performance or view the SSRS execution log or catalog in detail.  Here are a few simple queries that will give you insight to the system that you never had before.   ACTIVE REPORTS:  Have you ever seen your SQL Server performance take a nose dive due to a long-running report?  If the SPID is executing under a generic Report ID, or it is a scheduled job, you may have no way to tell which report is killing your server.  Running this query will show you which reports are executing at a given time, and WHO is executing them.   USE ReportServerNative SELECT runningjobs.computername,             runningjobs.requestname,              runningjobs.startdate,             users.username,             Datediff(s,runningjobs.startdate, Getdate()) / 60 AS    'Active Minutes' FROM runningjobs INNER JOIN users ON runningjobs.userid = users.userid ORDER BY runningjobs.startdate               SSRS CATALOG:  We have all asked “What was the last thing that changed”, or better yet, “Who in the world did that!”.  Here is a query that will show all of the reports in your SSRS catalog, when they were created and changed, and by who.           USE ReportServerNative SELECT DISTINCT catalog.PATH,                            catalog.name,                            users.username AS [Created By],                             catalog.creationdate,                            users_1.username AS [Modified By],                            catalog.modifieddate FROM catalog         INNER JOIN users ON catalog.createdbyid = users.userid  INNER JOIN users AS users_1 ON catalog.modifiedbyid = users_1.userid INNER JOIN executionlogstorage ON catalog.itemid = executionlogstorage.reportid WHERE ( catalog.name <> '' )               SSRS EXECUTION LOG:  Sometimes we need to know what was happening on the SSRS report server at a given time in the past.  This query will help you do just that.  You will need to set the timestart and timeend in the WHERE clause to suit your needs.         USE ReportServerNative SELECT catalog.name AS report,        executionlogstorage.username AS [User],        executionlogstorage.timestart,        executionlogstorage.timeend,         Datediff(mi,e.timestart,e.timeend) AS ‘Time In Minutes',        catalog.modifieddate AS [Report Last Modified],        users.username FROM   catalog  (nolock)        INNER JOIN executionlogstorage e (nolock)          ON catalog.itemid = executionlogstorage.reportid        INNER JOIN users (nolock)          ON catalog.modifiedbyid = users.userid WHERE  executionlogstorage.timestart >= Dateadd(s, -1, '03/31/2012')        AND executionlogstorage.timeend <= Dateadd(DAY, 1, '04/02/2012')      LONG RUNNING REPORTS:  This query will show the longest running reports over a given time period.  Note that the “>5” in the WHERE clause sets the report threshold at 5 minutes, so anything that ran less than 5 minutes will not appear in the result set.  Adjust the threshold and start/end times to your liking.  With this information in hand, you can better optimize your system by tweaking the longest running reports first.         USE ReportServerNative SELECT executionlogstorage.instancename,        catalog.PATH,        catalog.name,        executionlogstorage.username,        executionlogstorage.timestart,        executionlogstorage.timeend,        Datediff(mi, e.timestart, e.timeend) AS 'Minutes',        executionlogstorage.timedataretrieval,        executionlogstorage.timeprocessing,        executionlogstorage.timerendering,        executionlogstorage.[RowCount],        users_1.username        AS createdby,        CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), catalog.creationdate, 101)        AS 'Creation Date',        users.username        AS modifiedby,        CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), catalog.modifieddate, 101)        AS 'Modified Date' FROM   executionlogstorage e         INNER JOIN catalog          ON executionlogstorage.reportid = catalog.itemid        INNER JOIN users          ON catalog.modifiedbyid = users.userid        INNER JOIN users AS users_1          ON catalog.createdbyid = users_1.userid WHERE  ( e.timestart > '03/31/2012' )        AND ( e.timestart <= '04/02/2012' )        AND  Datediff(mi, e.timestart, e.timeend) > 5        AND catalog.name <> '' ORDER  BY 'Minutes' DESC        I have used these queries to build SSRS reports that I can refer to quickly, and export to Excel if I need to report or quantify my findings.  I encourage you to look at the data in the ReportServerNative database on your report server to understand the queries and create some of your own.  For instance, you may want a query to determine which reports are using which shared data sources.  Work smarter, not harder!

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  • Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit

    - by Jim Duffy
    Now that you’ve had time to download and install Visual Studio 2010 its time to start learning about all the new features and capabilities. That’s where this post comes in. Microsoft released the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit on the same day Visual Studio 2010 became available to download. It contains presentations, hands-on labs, and demos on a variety of features and framework technologies including: C# 4 Visual Basic 10 F# Parallel Extensions Windows Communication Foundation Windows Workflow Windows Presentation Foundation ASP.NET 4 Windows 7 Entity Framework ADO.NET Data Services Managed Extensibility Framework Visual Studio Team System As you can see the Developer & Platform Evangelism group has gone the extra mile to make sure you have the resources you need to fully leverage the power of Microsoft’s latest version of Visual Studio. Have a day. :-|

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  • Adding a DLL to the GAC in Windows 7

    - by Jim Giercyk
    I recently created a DLL and I wanted to reference it from a project I was developing in Visual Studio.  In previous versions of Windows, doing so was simply a matter of dropping the DLL file in the C:\Windows\assembly folder.  That would add the DLL to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC) and make it accessible in Visual Studio.  However, as is often the case, Window 7 is different.  Even if you have Administrator privileges on your machine, you still do not have permission to drop a file in the assembly folder.  Undaunted, I thought about using the old DOS command line utility gacutil.exe.  Microsoft developed the tool as part of the .Net framework, and it is available in the Windows SDK Framework Tools.  If you have never used gacutil.exe before, you can find out everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ex0ss12c(v=vs.80).aspx .  Unfortunately, if you do not have the Windows SDK loaded on your development machine, you will need to install it to use gacutil, but it is relatively quick and painless, and the framework tools are very useful.  Look here for your latest SDK: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/search.aspx?q=Windows%20SDK .   After installing the SDK, I tried installing my DLL to the GAC by running gacutil from a DOS command line: That’s odd.  Microsoft is shipping a tool that cannot be executed even with Administrator rights?  Let me stop here and say that I am by no means a Windows security expert, so I actually did contact my system administrators, and they were not sure how to fix the problem….there must be a super administrator access level, but it isn’t available to your average developer in my company.  The solution outlined here is working within the boundaries of a normal windows Administrator. So, now the hacker in me bubbles to the surface.  What if I were to create a simple BAT file containing the gacutil command?  It’s so crazy it just might work!  Ugh!  I was starting to think this would never work, but then I realized that simply executing a batch program did not change my level of access.  Typically in Windows 7, you would select the “Run As Administrator” option to temporarily act as an administrator for the purpose of executing a process.  However, that option is not available for BAT files run from the command line.  SOLUTION: Create a desktop shortcut to execute the BAT file, which in turn will execute the line command…..are you still with me?  I created a shortcut and pointed it to my batch file.  Theoretically, all I need to do now is right-click on the shortcut and select “Run As Administrator” and we’re good, right?  Well, kinda.  If you notice the syntax of my BAT file, the name of the DLL is passed in as a parameter.  Therefore, I either have to hard-code the file name in the BAT program (YUCK!!), or I can leave the parameter and drag the DLL file to the shortcut and drop it.  Sweet, drag-and-drop works for me…..but if I use the drag-and-drop method, there is no way for me to right-click and select “Run As Administrator”.  That is not a problem…..I simply have to adjust the properties of the shortcut I created and I am in business.  I Right-clicked on the shortcut and select “Properties”.  Under the “Shortcut” tab there is an “Advanced” button…..I clicked it. All I needed to do was check the “Run As Administrator” box: In summary, what I have done is create a BAT file to execute a command line utility, gacutil.exe.  Then, rather than executing the BAT file from the command line, I created a desktop shortcut to run it and set the shortcut properties to “Run As Administrator”.  This will effectively mean I am executing the command line utility with Administrator privileges.  Pretty sneaky. Now, when I drag the DLL file  over to the shortcut, it starts the BAT file and adds the DLL to the assembly cache.  I created another BAT file to remove a DLL from the GAC in case the need should arise.  The code for that is: Give it a try.  I can’t imagine why updating the GAC has been made into such a chore in Windows 7.  Hopefully there is a service pack in the works that will give developers the functionality they had in Windows XP, but in the meantime, this workaround is extremely useful.

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  • How do I install windows wireless driver for TP-Link TL-WN7200ND

    - by Jim
    I'm using the TP-Link TL-WN7200ND USB wireless adapter. I have downloaded the Windows drivers and updated Ubuntu to 10.10 by manually connecting the computer to the router. I also installed ndiswrapper-gtk. I get a Windows Wireless Drivers in my Administration menu, and I was able to get it to read the Windows 7 .inf file. The .inf for XP does not work. It adds it and the driver appears in the list with "Hardware: present". I set up the wireless connection information (ESSID and WPA2-Personal key). Problem: I don't see the network manager icon in the top right of the screen. I managed to manually start it manually using sudo services network-manager restart but it shows no connections in the menu, saying that there's nothing to manage. In my /etc/network/interfaces file I have an entry for the loopback and the standard two-liner for eth0 with dhcp. From memory, something like: iface eth0 auto eth0 dhcp I had read somewhere that 10.10 would have standard support for my wireless adapter (TL-WN7200ND) but that seems not to be the case. However, I don't ever remember having the network-manager icon in the top-right and it does not auto-start at the moment. This was originally an Ubuntu 9.10 install that I've upgraded over time. I also used to use pppoeconf to connect to the net, which might affect the /etc/network/interfaces file?

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  • Is Live Chat a valuable feature?

    - by Jim
    Does having a live chat feature on a website increase conversions enough to cover the cost administration? Most of the data I have found comes from companies selling live chat solutions and is unreliable in my opinion. Do users find this as a valuable feature or an annoyance? Personally, I'm annoyed by sites that use live chat especially when a little box pops up without my explicit request, but if users find this valuable then I should consider implementing it. Any concrete data is appreciated.

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  • Stuck on EULA screen when installing netflix-desktop

    - by Jim
    I am trying to install netflix-desktop on my laptop running 13.10. I followed the instructions here: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compolio sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install netflix-destop After a while, there is a EULA in my xterm that says I must agree to it to get the software. At the bottom of the screen there is ' I have hit , 'A', , typed 'OK' in that xterm but it never gets past that. The application is not available because if I try to launch netflix-desktop in another xterm, it doesn't know what I'm talking about and netflix isn't found on my system when I search search. Can anybody tell me what I'm supposed to do next or what I should have done so that I'm not in this situation next time? Thanks! Solution: I found out that I had to hit the down arrow several times till the lit up. Then I could hit to go to the next step. Then by using the arrow keys to highlight the proper respose(s), I was able to complete the installation. I haven't actually brought up Netflix yet, but it appears to be installing things as expected.

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  • How to handle lookup data in a C# ASP.Net MVC4 application?

    - by Jim
    I am writing an MVC4 application to track documents we have on file for our clients. I'm using code first, and have created models for my objects (Company, Document, etc...). I am now faced with the topic of document expiration. Business logic dictates certain documents will expire a set number of days past the document date. For example, Document A might expire in 180 days, Document 2 in 365 days, etc... I have a class for my documents as shown below (simplified for this example). What is the best way for me to create a lookup for expiration values? I want to specify documents of type DocumentA expire in 30 days, type DocumentB expire in 75 days, etc... I can think of a few ways to do this: Lookup table in the database I can query New property in my class (DaysValidFor) which has a custom getter that returns different values based on the DocumentType A method that takes in the document type and returns the number of days and I'm sure there are other ways I'm not even thinking of. My main concern is a) not violating any best practices and b) maintainability. Are there any pros/cons I need to be aware of for the above options, or is this a case of "just pick one and run with it"? One last thought, right now the number of days is a value that does not need to be stored anywhere on a per-document basis -- however, it is possible that business logic will change this (i.e., DocumentA's are 30 days expiration by default, but this DocumentA associated with Company XYZ will be 60 days because we like them). In that case, is a property in the Document class the best way to go, seeing as I need to add that field to the DB? namespace Models { // Types of documents to track public enum DocumentType { DocumentA, DocumentB, DocumentC // etc... } // Document model public class Document { public int DocumentID { get; set; } // Foreign key to companies public int CompanyID { get; set; } public DocumentType DocumentType { get; set; } // Helper to translate enum's value to an integer for DB storage [Column("DocumentType")] public int DocumentTypeInt { get { return (int)this.DocumentType; } set { this.DocumentType = (DocumentType)value; } } [DataType(DataType.Date)] [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:MM-dd-yyyy}", ApplyFormatInEditMode = true)] public DateTime DocumentDate { get; set; } // Navigation properties public virtual Company Company { get; set; } } }

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  • What is really happening when we change encoding in a string?

    - by Jim Thio
    http://php.net/manual/en/function.mb-convert-encoding.php Say I do: $encoded = mb_convert_encoding ($original); That looks like simple enough. WHat I am imagining is the following $original has a pointer to the way the string is actually encoded. Something like char * kind of thing. And then there are things like what the character actually encoded. It's probably somewhere along UTF-64 kind of thing where each glyph is indeed a character. Now when we do $encoded = mb_convert_encoding ($original); several thing can happen: the original internal representation doesn't change however it is REINTERPRETED so that the code that show up differs the original string that it represent doesn't change however the ENCODING change. Which one is right?

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  • Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio 1.2 (June 2010)

    - by Jim Duffy
    I have good news! Microsoft has released the June 2010 Windows Azure Tools + SDK. These new tools extend Visual Studio (both VS 2010 & VS 2008) for Windows Azure development. With these tools you can create, configure, debug, build, run, and deploy scalable web apps on Windows Azure. At first glance what I see as some of the most interesting points of interest are the fact that Visual Studio 2010 RTM is fully supported as well as .NET 4 support. You can choose to build your apps with the .NET 3.5 or .NET 4 frameworks. Another area of interest that I’ll be digging into is the cloud storage explorer. It provides a read-only view of your Windows Azure tables and blob containers from within Visual Studio via the Server Explorer. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the Windows Azure Tools as I dig deeper… Have a day. :-|

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  • Free eBooks from Microsoft&ndash;We like free!

    - by Jim Duffy
    In a recent blog post I mentioned the availability of the Programming Windows Phone 7 ebook by Charles Petzold. Well I have good news, there are a number of additional FREE ebooks available from Microsoft to help you continue honing your tech skills. Moving to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions (Second Edition) First Look Microsoft Office 2010 Windows 7 troubleshooting tips Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2 Deploying Windows 7, Essential Guidance I, for one, appreciate Microsoft making these resources available for free. I think it demonstrates their interest making sure we as developers and I.T. professionals have the resources we need to effectively solve the business problems we encounter. Have a day.

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  • FREE Windows Azure Boot camp &ndash; Raleigh Wednesday June 23, 2010

    - by Jim Duffy
    Just want to be sure you don’t miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of some free Windows Azure training. Microsoft Developer Evangelist Brian Hitney and I will be presenting a one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC at the Microsoft RTP offices. For more information on content, what to bring, directions, etc. just click here to go to the information and registration page for the Raleigh event. To find other dates and locations for the Windows Azure boot camps  head over to the Windows Azure Boot Camp page. Brian and I hope to see you there! Have a day. :-|

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  • Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta Released!

    - by Jim Duffy
    Just thought I’d pass on the word that the Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 Beta is now available to download. VS2010 SP1 Beta ships with a go live license which means you can start using it for production work though I’m not sure I’m going to be that brave until I check it out a bit first. Jason Zanders has a blog post outlining the new features/fixes included in the beta. Here are a couple BREAKING news items you’ll want to TakeNote of… VS2010 SP1 Beta BREAKS ASP.NET MVC 3 RC Razor IntelliSense. A new ASP.NET MVC 3 RC2 installer will be released very soon that will allow you to upgrade in-place. VS2010 SP1 Beta BREAKS the Visual Studio Async CTP. A work around is being worked on but for now if you’re working with the Async CTP then stick with VS2010 RTM. Have a day.

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  • The Joy Of Hex

    - by Jim Giercyk
    While working on a mainframe integration project, it occurred to me that some basic computer concepts are slipping into obscurity. For example, just about anyone can tell you that a 64-bit processor is faster than a 32-bit processer. A grade school child could tell you that a computer “speaks” in ‘1’s and ‘0’s. Some people can even tell you that there are 8 bits in a byte. However, I have found that even the most seasoned developers often can’t explain the theory behind those statements. That is not a knock on programmers; in the age of IntelliSense, what reason do we have to work with data at the bit level? Many computer theory classes treat bit-level programming as a thing of the past, no longer necessary now that storage space is plentiful. The trouble with that mindset is that the world is full of legacy systems that run programs written in the 1970’s.  Today our jobs require us to extract data from those systems, regardless of the format, and that often involves low-level programming. Because it seems knowledge of the low-level concepts is waning in recent times, I thought a review would be in order.       CHARACTER: See Spot Run HEX: 53 65 65 20 53 70 6F 74 20 52 75 6E DECIMAL: 83 101 101 32 83 112 111 116 32 82 117 110 BINARY: 01010011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01010011 01110000 01101111 01110100 00100000 01010010 01110101 01101110 In this example, I have broken down the words “See Spot Run” to a level computers can understand – machine language.     CHARACTER:  The character level is what is rendered by the computer.  A “Character Set” or “Code Page” contains 256 characters, both printable and unprintable.  Each character represents 1 BYTE of data.  For example, the character string “See Spot Run” is 12 Bytes long, exclusive of the quotation marks.  Remember, a SPACE is an unprintable character, but it still requires a byte.  In the example I have used the default Windows character set, ASCII, which you can see here:  http://www.asciitable.com/ HEX:  Hex is short for hexadecimal, or Base 16.  Humans are comfortable thinking in base ten, perhaps because they have 10 fingers and 10 toes; fingers and toes are called digits, so it’s not much of a stretch.  Computers think in Base 16, with numeric values ranging from zero to fifteen, or 0 – F.  Each decimal place has a possible 16 values as opposed to a possible 10 values in base 10.  Therefore, the number 10 in Hex is equal to the number 16 in Decimal.  DECIMAL:  The Decimal conversion is strictly for us humans to use for calculations and conversions.  It is much easier for us humans to calculate that [30 – 10 = 20] in decimal than it is for us to calculate [1E – A = 14] in Hex.  In the old days, an error in a program could be found by determining the displacement from the entry point of a module.  Since those values were dumped from the computers head, they were in hex. A programmer needed to convert them to decimal, do the equation and convert back to hex.  This gets into relative and absolute addressing, a topic for another day.  BINARY:  Binary, or machine code, is where any value can be expressed in 1s and 0s.  It is really Base 2, because each decimal place can have a possibility of only 2 characters, a 1 or a 0.  In Binary, the number 10 is equal to the number 2 in decimal. Why only 1s and 0s?  Very simply, computers are made up of lots and lots of transistors which at any given moment can be ON ( 1 ) or OFF ( 0 ).  Each transistor is a bit, and the order that the transistors fire (or not fire) is what distinguishes one value from  another in the computers head (or CPU).  Consider 32 bit vs 64 bit processing…..a 64 bit processor has the capability to read 64 transistors at a time.  A 32 bit processor can only read half as many at a time, so in theory the 64 bit processor should be much faster.  There are many more factors involved in CPU performance, but that is the fundamental difference.    DECIMAL HEX BINARY 0 0 0000 1 1 0001 2 2 0010 3 3 0011 4 4 0100 5 5 0101 6 6 0110 7 7 0111 8 8 1000 9 9 1001 10 A 1010 11 B 1011 12 C 1100 13 D 1101 14 E 1110 15 F 1111   Remember that each character is a BYTE, there are 2 HEX characters in a byte (called nibbles) and 8 BITS in a byte.  I hope you enjoyed reading about the theory of data processing.  This is just a high-level explanation, and there is much more to be learned.  It is safe to say that, no matter how advanced our programming languages and visual studios become, they are nothing more than a way to interpret bits and bytes.  There is nothing like the joy of hex to get the mind racing.

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  • Why would I want to install node.js in my Rails Application?

    - by Crazy JIm
    Okay guys, I'm super confused. I thought node.js was a sever side framwork, basically the js version of Ruby's Rails or PHP's Zend. However, I'm having some difficulty with turbolinks, and it seems to be the way to fix it is through installing node.js I mean, I don't understand this at all. How can two frameworks work together like this? Also, it's not a gem (that REALLY would have confused me), you have to install node.js it onto your local machine by running (in the case of Ubuntu) sudo apt-get install nodejs Firstly, how does this totally separate framwork have any bearing on rails? Secondly, surely this isn't fixing the problem forever? When you specify a gem in your gemfile, the server knows what external libraries to install. How does the server know to install nodejs?

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  • The Silverlight 4 Training Kit and Green Eggs &amp; Ham

    - by Jim Duffy
    Microsoft has released the Silverlight 4 Training Kit that steps you through the process of constructing Silverlight 4 business applications. “The Silverlight 4 Training Course includes a whitepaper explaining all of the new Silverlight 4 features, several hands-on-labs that explain the features, and a 8 unit course for building business applications with Silverlight 4. The business applications course includes 8 modules with extensive hands on labs as well as 25 accompanying videos that walk you through key aspects of building a business application with Silverlight. Key aspects in this course are working with numerous sandboxed and elevated out of browser features, the new RichTextBox control, implicit styling, webcam, drag and drop, multi touch, validation, authentication, MEF, WCF RIA Services, right mouse click, and much more!” What I think is pretty cool is that there are two ways to access this content, online and offline. Obviously the online version is great when you’re sitting at your desk and you’re connected to the web. What about when you don’t have a connection like when you’re located where you won’t eat green eggs & ham, like on a train or on plane perhaps? :-) You can download the offline version and hope that Sam I Am won’t be to distracting while you try to watch the videos or work your way through the labs. :-) Have a day. :-|

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  • Happy New Year! Back to school :)

    - by Jim Wang
    A brand new year is upon us and it’s time to get cracking with WebMatrix again…and go back to school :).  Last year we ran a successful product walkthrough for WebMatrix Beta 2 with our students from around the world, gathering awesome feedback for the final version of WebMatrix which is coming soon!  I’d like to take this chance to thank all the students who participated in this effort…you have really helped make the final product much better than it would have been otherwise. In 2011, we’re looking, as always, at bigger and better things.  One of the ideas that has been floating around is the concept of a WebMatrix college course that you could take for actual credit.  Of course, this is going to require coordination with college educators, but we think we’re up to the challenge :) If your school is still using an antiquated language to teach their web development 101 course, and you’d like to switch to WebMatrix, we’d like to hear your voice – better yet if you have contacts from your school and would like to be one of the first to give the program a try!  Comment on this post or email wptsdrext at microsoft.com.  We look forward to partnering with you guys ^^.

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  • Visual Studio 2010 Keyboard Shortcut Posters Available

    - by Jim Duffy
    I’m a firm believer in the productivity gains you experience when using keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio. If you’re not using keyboard shortcuts while coding then your productivity is suffering. Some of my favorites (omitting the obvious ones like F5 to start debugging) as are: Ctrl+K, C – Comment section of code Ctrl+K, U – Uncomment section of code Ctrl+K, D – Format the current document (indentation, etc.) Shift+Alt+C – Add new class to a project Shift+Alt+A – Add existing item to a project Ctrl+Shift+A – Add new item to a project The good news is all of these and a TON of others are all documented in the Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcut Posters (available as PDFs). The only problem is there are so many you need a printer capable of printing on larger paper because while you can read them all on 8 1/2 x 11 paper in landscape mode, for them to be a valuable quick reference on your cubicle wall you’re going to need to print them on large paper. If you don’t have a printer capable of producing large sized printouts head down to Office Depot, Staples, FedEx Office, or your favorite print shop and have them print one for you. Oh and one last thing, I’d really like Microsoft to take those people’s picture off them. Really? Do we need to look at these people when trying to improve our productivity? Have a day. :-|

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  • Sprinkle Some Magik on that Java Virtual Machine

    - by Jim Connors
    GE Energy, through its Smallworld subsidiary, has been providing geospatial software solutions to the utility and telco markets for over 20 years.  One of the fundamental building blocks of their technology is a dynamically-typed object oriented programming language called Magik.  Like Java, Magik source code is compiled down to bytecodes that run on a virtual machine -- in this case the Magik Virtual Machine. Throughout the years, GE has invested considerable engineering talent in the support and maintenance of this virtual machine.  At the same time vast energy and resources have been invested in the Java Virtual Machine. The question for GE has been whether to continue to make that investment on its own or to leverage massive effort provided by the Java community? Utilizing the Java Virtual Machine instead of maintaining its own virtual machine would give GE more opportunity to focus on application solutions.   At last count, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of examples of programming languages that have been hosted atop the Java Virtual Machine.  Prior to the release of Java 7, that effort, although certainly possible, was generally less than optimal for languages like Magik because of its dynamic nature.  Java, as a statically typed language had little use for this capability.  In the quest to be a more universal virtual machine, Java 7, via JSR-292, introduced a new bytecode called invokedynamic.  In short, invokedynamic affords a more flexible method call mechanism needed by dynamic languages like Magik. With this new capability GE Energy has succeeded in hosting their Magik environment on top of the Java Virtual Machine.  So you may ask, why would GE wish to do such a thing?  The benefits are many: Competitors to GE Energy claimed that the Magik environment was proprietary.  By utilizing the Java Virtual Machine, that argument gets put to bed.  JVM development is done in open source, where contributions are made world-wide by all types of organizations and individuals. The unprecedented wealth of class libraries and applications written for the Java platform are now opened up to Magik/JVM platform as first class citizens. In addition, the Magik/JVM solution vastly increases the developer pool to include the 9 million Java developers -- the largest developer community on the planet. Applications running on the JVM showed substantial performance gains, in some cases as much as a 5x speed up over the original Magik platform. Legacy Magik applications can still run on the original platform.  They can be seamlessly migrated to run on the JVM by simply recompiling the source code. GE can now leverage the huge Java community.  Undeniably the best virtual machine ever created, hundreds if not thousands of world class developers continually improve, poke, prod and scrutinize all aspects of the Java platform.  As enhancements are made, GE automatically gains access to these. As Magik has little in the way of support for multi-threading, GE will benefit from current and future Java offerings (e.g. lambda expressions) that aim to further facilitate multi-core/multi-threaded application development. As the JVM is available for many more platforms, it broadens the reach of Magik, including the potential to run on a class devices never envisioned just a few short years ago.  For example, Java SE compatible runtime environments are available for popular embedded ARM/Intel/PowerPC configurations that could theoretically host this software too. As compared to other JVM language projects, the Magik integration differs in that it represents a serious commercial entity betting a sizable part of its business on the success of this effort.  Expect to see announcements not only from General Electric, but other organizations as they realize the benefits of utilizing the Java Virtual Machine.

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  • Gems In The Visual Studio 2010 Training Kit - Introduction to ASP.NET MVC: Learning Labs

    - by Jim Duffy
    Following up on my prior “gems post” is another nugget I found in the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit. ASP.NET MVC has established quite a bit of momentum in the ASP.NET development community since it was introduced in early-ish 2009 though I’m sure there are many developers who haven’t had the time or opportunity to find out what it is, not to mention learn how to use it. If you’re one of those “I’ve heard of it but I’m not sure what it really is” developers then I suggest you start your research here. Ok, back to the gem. There are a number of fantastic MVC learning resources out there including the video tutorials on the ASP.NET MVC website. Another learning resource for your journey along the yellow brick road into ASP.NET MVC land are the hands-on learning labs contained in the Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 Training Kit. These hands-on exercises walk you through the process of creating the “M”, the “V”s, and the “C”s of ASP.NET MVC and help you gain a solid foothold into the details of creating and understanding ASP.NET MVC applications. Have a day. :-|

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  • Windows Azure Boot camp &ndash; Raleigh Wednesday June 23, 2010 * FREE*

    - by Jim Duffy
    Yes I know this is my second blog post about the free one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC. What can I say I don’t want anyone to miss out on an opportunity to take advantage of some free Windows Azure training. Microsoft Developer Evangelist Brian Hitney and I will be presenting a one-day Windows Azure boot camp on June 23rd in Raleigh, NC at the Microsoft RTP offices. For more information on content, what to bring, directions, etc. just click here to go to the information and registration page for the Raleigh event. To find other dates and locations for the Windows Azure boot camps  head over to the Windows Azure Boot Camp page. Brian and I hope to see you there! Have a day. :-|

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  • Node.JS testing with Jasmine, databases, and pre-existing code

    - by Jim Rubenstein
    I've recently built the start of a core system which is likely going turn into a monster product. I'm building the system with node.js, and decided after I got a small base built, that It'd be a great idea to start using some sort of automated test suite to test the application. I decided to use jasmine, as it seems pretty solid and has a lot of features for stubbing spying and mocking methods and classes. The application has a lot of external data stores and api access (kestrel, mysql, mongodb, facebook, and more). My issue is, I've got a good amount of code written that I want to start testing - as it represents the underpinnings of the application. What are the best practices for testing methods/classes that access external APIs that I may or may not have control over? As an example, I have a data structure that fetches a bunch of data from a MySQL database. I want to test the method that retrieves the data; and I'm not sure how to go about it. I could test the fetch method which is supposed to return an array of objects, but to isolate the method from the database, I need to define my own fixture data. So what I end up doing is stubbing the mysql execution, and returning a static dataset. So, I end up writing a function that returns the dataset that makes my test pass. That doesn't seem to actually test the code, other than verifying a method is being called. I know this is kind of abstract and vague, it seems that the idea of testing is very much abstract though, so hopefully someone has some experience and can guide me in the right direction. Any advice, or reading I can do is more than welcomed. Thanks in advance.

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  • Converting raw data type to enumerated type

    - by Jim Lahman
    There are times when an enumerated type is preferred over using the raw data type.  An example of using a scheme is when we need to check the health of x-ray gauges in use on a production line.  Rather than using a scheme like 0, 1 and 2, we can use an enumerated type: 1: /// <summary> 2: /// POR Healthy status indicator 3: /// </summary> 4: /// <remarks>The healthy status is for each POR x-ray gauge; each has its own status.</remarks> 5: [Flags] 6: public enum POR_HEALTH : short 7: { 8: /// <summary> 9: /// POR1 healthy status indicator 10: /// </summary> 11: POR1 = 0, 12: /// <summary> 13: /// POR2 healthy status indicator 14: /// </summary> 15: POR2 = 1, 16: /// <summary> 17: /// Both POR1 and POR2 healthy status indicator 18: /// </summary> 19: BOTH = 2 20: } By using the [Flags] attribute, we are treating the enumerated type as a bit mask.  We can then use bitwise operations such as AND, OR, NOT etc. . Now, when we want to check the health of a specific gauge, we would rather use the name of the gauge than the numeric identity; it makes for better reading and programming practice. To translate the numeric identity to the enumerated value, we use the Parse method of Enum class: POR_HEALTH GaugeHealth = (POR_HEALTH) Enum.Parse(typeof(POR_HEALTH), XrayMsg.Gauge_ID.ToString()); The Parse method creates an instance of the enumerated type.  Now, we can use the name of the gauge rather than the numeric identity: 1: if (GaugeHealth == POR_HEALTH.POR1 || GaugeHealth == POR_HEALTH.BOTH) 2: { 3: XrayHealthyTag.Name = Properties.Settings.Default.POR1XRayHealthyTag; 4: } 5: else if (GaugeHealth == POR_HEALTH.POR2) 6: { 7: XrayHealthyTag.Name = Properties.Settings.Default.POR2XRayHealthyTag; 8: }

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