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• "From the Coal Face" - 1 - What ILDASM can reveal!

  - by TATWORTH

  In a place far, far away, there was a project where the Architect decided on using embedded TSQL in a Dot Net application, rather than use stored procedures. I located ILDASM.EXE (my Framework 3.5 version lives at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\bin on my home development PC) and created a shortcut to it in the SendTo folder. Now I could set about doing a simple demonstration to the Architect by taking one of the Dot Net EXE's with the embedded TSQL and sending it to ILDASM.  Since I had written most of the embedded TSQL, it was a matter of seconds before I located the embedded TSQL within the Exe. The TSQL that was supposed to be safely hidden within the EXE was easily located and and copied. (It should also be noted that we could have encrypted the stored procedures on loading them to the database.)

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• "Attach or Add an entity that is not new...loaded from another DataContext. This is not supported."

  - by sah302

  Similar error as other questions, but not quite the same, I am not trying to attach anything. What I am trying to do is insert a new row into a linking table, specifically UserAccomplishment. Relations are set in LINQ to User and Accomplishment Tables. I have a generic insert function: Public Function insertRow(ByVal entity As ImplementationType) As Boolean If entity IsNot Nothing Then Dim lcfdatacontext As New LCFDataContext() Try lcfdatacontext.GetTable(Of ImplementationType)().InsertOnSubmit(entity) lcfdatacontext.SubmitChanges() lcfdatacontext.Dispose() Return True Catch ex As Exception Return False End Try Else Return False End If End Function If you try and give UserAccomplishment the two appropriate objects this will naturally crap out if either the User or Accomplishment already exist. It only works when both user and accomplishment don't exist. I expected this behavior. What does work is simply giving the userAccomplishment object a user.id and accomplishment.id and populating the rest of the fields. This works but is kind of awkward to use in my app, it would be much easier to simply pass in both objects and have it work out what already exists and what doesn't. Okay so I made the following (please ignore the fact that this is horribly inefficient because I know it is): Public Class UserAccomplishmentDao Inherits EntityDao(Of UserAccomplishment) Public Function insertLinkerObjectRow(ByVal userAccomplishment As UserAccomplishment) Dim insertSuccess As Boolean = False If Not userAccomplishment Is Nothing Then Dim userDao As New UserDao() Dim accomplishmentDao As New AccomplishmentDao() Dim user As New User() Dim accomplishment As New Accomplishment() 'see if either object already exists in db' user = userDao.getOneByValueOfProperty("Id", userAccomplishment.User.Id) accomplishment = accomplishmentDao.getOneByValueOfProperty("Id", userAccomplishment.Accomplishment.Id) If user Is Nothing And accomplishment Is Nothing Then 'neither the user or the accomplishment exist, both are new so insert them both, typical insert' insertSuccess = Me.insertRow(userAccomplishment) ElseIf user Is Nothing And Not accomplishment Is Nothing Then 'user is new, accomplishment is not new, so just insert the user, and the relation in userAccomplishment' Dim userWithExistingAccomplishment As New UserAccomplishment(userAccomplishment.User, userAccomplishment.Accomplishment.Id, userAccomplishment.LastUpdatedBy) insertSuccess = Me.insertRow(userWithExistingAccomplishment) ElseIf Not user Is Nothing And accomplishment Is Nothing Then 'user is not new, accomplishment is new, so just insert the accomplishment, and the relation in userAccomplishment' Dim existingUserWithAccomplishment As New UserAccomplishment(userAccomplishment.UserId, userAccomplishment.Accomplishment, userAccomplishment.LastUpdatedBy) insertSuccess = Me.insertRow(existingUserWithAccomplishment) Else 'both are not new, just add the relation' Dim userAccomplishmentBothExist As New UserAccomplishment(userAccomplishment.User.Id, userAccomplishment.Accomplishment.Id, userAccomplishment.LastUpdatedBy) insertSuccess = Me.insertRow(userAccomplishmentBothExist) End If End If Return insertSuccess End Function End Class Alright, here I basically check if the supplied user and accomplishment already exists in the db, and if so call an appropriate constructor that will leave whatever already exists empty, but supply the rest of the information so the insert can succeed. However, upon trying an insert: Dim result As Boolean = Me.userAccomplishmentDao.insertLinkerObjectRow(userAccomplishment) In which the user already exists, but the accomplishment does not (the 99% typical scenario) I get the error: "An attempt has been made to Attach or Add an entity that is not new, perhaps having been loaded from another DataContext. This is not supported." I have debugged this multiple times now and am not sure why this is occuring, if either User or Accomplishment exist, I am not including it in the final object to try to insert. So nothing appears to be attempted to be added. Even in debug, upon insert, the object was set to empty. So the accomplishment is new and the user is empty. 1) Why is it still saying that and how can I fix it ..using my current structure 2) Pre-emptive 'use repository pattern answers' - I know this way kind of sucks in general and I should be using the repository pattern. However, I can't use that in the current project because I don't have time to refactor that due to my non existence knowledge of it and time constraints. The usage of the app is going to so small that the inefficient use of datacontext's and what have you won't matter so much. I can refactor it once it's up and running, but for now I just need to 'push through' with my current structure. Edit: I also just tested this when having both already exists, and only insert each object's IDs into the table, that works. So I guess I could manually insert whichever object doesn't exist as a single insert, then put the ids only into the linking table, but I still don't know why when one object exists, and I make it empty, it doens't work.

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• Design for complex ATG applications

  - by Glen Borkowski

  Overview Needless to say, some ATG applications are more complex than others.  Some ATG applications support a single site, single language, single catalog, single currency, have a single development staff, single business team, and a relatively simple business model.  The real complex applications have to support multiple sites, multiple languages, multiple catalogs, multiple currencies, a couple different development teams, multiple business teams, and a highly complex business model (and processes to go along with it).  While it's still important to implement a proper design for simple applications, it's absolutely critical to do this for the complex applications.  Why?  It's all about time and money.  If you are unable to manage your complex applications in an efficient manner, the cost of managing it will increase dramatically as will the time to get things done (time to market).  On the positive side, your competition is most likely in the same situation, so you just need to be more efficient than they are. This article is intended to discuss a number of key areas to think about when designing complex applications on ATG.  Some of this can get fairly technical, so it may help to get some background first.  You can get enough of the required background information from this post.  After reading that, come back here and follow along. Application Design Of all the various types of ATG applications out there, the most complex tend to be the ones in the telecommunications industry - especially the ones which operate in multiple countries.  To get started, let's assume that we are talking about an application like that.  One that has these properties: Operates in multiple countries - must support multiple sites, catalogs, languages, and currencies The organization is fairly loosely-coupled - single brand, but different businesses across different countries There is some common functionality across all sites in all countries There is some common functionality across different sites within the same country Sites within a single country may have some unique functionality - relative to other sites in the same country Complex product catalog (mostly in terms of bundles, eligibility, and compatibility) At this point, I'll assume you have read through the required reading and have a decent understanding of how ATG modules work... Code / configuration - assemble into modules When it comes to defining your modules for a complex application, there are a number of goals: Divide functionality between the modules in a way that maps to your business Group common functionality 'further down in the stack of modules' Provide a good balance between shared resources and autonomy for countries / sites Now I'll describe a high level approach to how you could accomplish those goals...  Let's start from the bottom and work our way up.  At the very bottom, you have the modules that ship with ATG - the 'out of the box' stuff.  You want to make sure that you are leveraging all the modules that make sense in order to get the most value from ATG as possible - and less stuff you'll have to write yourself.  On top of the ATG modules, you should create what we'll refer to as the Corporate Foundation Module described as follows: Sits directly on top of ATG modules Used by all applications across all countries and sites - this is the foundation for everyone Contains everything that is common across all countries / all sites Once established and settled, will change less frequently than other 'higher' modules Encapsulates as many enterprise-wide integrations as possible Will provide means of code sharing therefore less development / testing - faster time to market Contains a 'reference' web application (described below) The next layer up could be multiple modules for each country (you could replace this with region if that makes more sense).  We'll define those modules as follows: Sits on top of the corporate foundation module Contains what is unique to all sites in a given country Responsible for managing any resource bundles for this country (to handle multiple languages) Overrides / replaces corporate integration points with any country-specific ones Finally, we will define what should be a fairly 'thin' (in terms of functionality) set of modules for each site as follows: Sits on top of the country it resides in module Contains what is unique for a given site within a given country Will mostly contain configuration, but could also define some unique functionality as well Contains one or more web applications The graphic below should help to indicate how these modules fit together: Web applications As described in the previous section, there are many opportunities for sharing (minimizing costs) as it relates to the code and configuration aspects of ATG modules.  Web applications are also contained within ATG modules, however, sharing web applications can be a bit more difficult because this is what the end customer actually sees, and since each site may have some degree of unique look & feel, sharing becomes more challenging.  One approach that can help is to define a 'reference' web application at the corporate foundation layer to act as a solid starting point for each site.  Here's a description of the 'reference' web application: Contains minimal / sample reference styling as this will mostly be addressed at the site level web app Focus on functionality - ensure that core functionality is revealed via this web application Each individual site can use this as a starting point There may be multiple types of web apps (i.e. B2C, B2B, etc) There are some techniques to share web application assets - i.e. multiple web applications, defined in the web.xml, and it's worth investigating, but is out of scope here. Reference infrastructure In this complex environment, it is assumed that there is not a single infrastructure for all countries and all sites.  It's more likely that different countries (or regions) could have their own solution for infrastructure.  In this case, it will be advantageous to define a reference infrastructure which contains all the hardware and software that make up the core environment.  Specifications and diagrams should be created to outline what this reference infrastructure looks like, as well as it's baseline cost and the incremental cost to scale up with volume.  Having some consistency in terms of infrastructure will save time and money as new countries / sites come online.  Here are some properties of the reference infrastructure: Standardized approach to setup of hardware Type and number of servers Defines application server, operating system, database, etc... - including vendor and specific versions Consistent naming conventions Provides a consistent base of terminology and understanding across environments Defines which ATG services run on which servers Production Staging BCC / Preview Each site can change as required to meet scale requirements Governance / organization It should be no surprise that the complex application we're talking about is backed by an equally complex organization.  One of the more challenging aspects of efficiently managing a series of complex applications is to ensure the proper level of governance and organization.  Here are some ideas and goals to work towards: Establish a committee to make enterprise-wide decisions that affect all sites Representation should be evenly distributed Should have a clear communication procedure Focus on high level business goals Evaluation of feature / function gaps and how that relates to ATG release schedule / roadmap Determine when to upgrade & ensure value will be realized Determine how to manage various levels of modules Who is responsible for maintaining corporate / country / site layers Determine a procedure for controlling what goes in the corporate foundation module Standardize on source code control, database, hardware, OS versions, J2EE app servers, development procedures, etc only use tested / proven versions - this is something that should be centralized so that every country / site does not have to worry about compatibility between versions Create a innovation team Quickly develop new features, perform proof of concepts All teams can benefit from their findings Summary At this point, it should be clear why the topics above (design, governance, organization, etc) are critical to being able to efficiently manage a complex application.  To summarize, it's all about competitive advantage...  You will need to reduce costs and improve time to market with the goal of providing a better experience for your end customers.  You can reduce cost by reducing development time, time allocated to testing (don't have to test the corporate foundation module over and over again - do it once), and optimizing operations.  With an efficient design, you can improve your time to market and your business will be more flexible  and agile.  Over time, you'll find that you're becoming more focused on offering functionality that is new to the market (creativity) and this will be rewarded - you're now a leader. In addition to the above, you'll realize soft benefits as well.  Your staff will be operating in a culture based on sharing.  You'll want to reward efforts to improve and enhance the foundation as this will benefit everyone.  This culture will inspire innovation, which can only lend itself to your competitive advantage.

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• Reinforcement learning with neural networks

  - by Betamoo

  I am working on a project with RL & NN I need to determine the action vector structure which will be fed to a neural network.. I have 3 different actions (A & B & Nothing) each with different powers (e.g A100 A50 B100 B50) I wonder what is the best way to feed these actions to a NN in order to yield best results? 1- feed A/B to input 1, while action power 100/50/Nothing to input 2 2- feed A100/A50/Nothing to input 1, while B100/B50/Nothing to input 2 3- feed A100/A50 to input 1, while B100/B50 to input 2, while Nothing flag to input 3 4- Also to feed 100 & 50 or normalize them to 2 & 1 ? I need reasons why to choose one method Any suggestions are recommended Thanks

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• Official and unofficial apps in the iOS, WP7, and Android marketplaces

  - by Bil Simser

  The last few months have seen people complaining about the lack of "official" apps in the Windows Phone marketplace. In fact a couple of months ago I wrote about this very thing here and if we really needed these official apps or could get by with third-party solutions. Recently a list of "Top 100 Mobile Apps" crossed my desk and it was curious. 40 iPhone apps, 40 Android apps, 10 WP7 apps, and 10 BlackBerry apps. Really? 10 for WP7? So I wondered if the media was just playing this up and maybe continuing to do what I think most vendors are doing which is treating Windows Phone as the red-headed step-child you keep in the basement while all along there's nothing wrong with them. I put together the list and went digging to see how many of the top 40 iOS and Android apps were also on the Windows Phone platform (sorry BlackBerry, you should just shut your doors right now). Here's the results. Note, these are all *free* apps. There might be other pay apps that have official representation across all mobile devices, I just chose to hunt these ones down because I'm cheap. In the top 40, I easily plucked out 20 that had official apps on all three platforms. These were: Amazon Mobile, ESPN Score Centre, Evernote, Facebook, Foursquare, Google Search, IMDB, Kindle, Shazam, Skype (yes, I know, in beta on WP7), SlackerRadio, The Weather Channel, TripIt, Twitter, Yelp, Flixster, Netflix, TuneIn Radio, Dictionary.com, Angry Birds, and Groupon. Hey, that's pretty good IMHO. 20 or so apps, all free, and all fully functional and supported (and in some cases, even better looking on the Windows Phone platform than the other platforms). A dozen or so more apps had official apps on some platforms but not all, so yes, there are gaps here. Here's a rundown of the hangers-on: Adobe Photoshop Express This looks great on the iOS platform and there's even an official version on droid. Hope Adobe brings this to WP7. There are other photo editing programs though if you go looking (maybe we can get Paint.NET to be ported to the phone?) BBC News A few apps offer news feeds but nothing official on the Windows Phone. The feeds are good but without video this app needs some WP7 love. Dropbox Again Windows Phone looses out here with no official app. There are a few third party ones that will help you along and offer most of the functionality that you need but no integration that an official app might bring. Epicurious Droid seems to be the trailer here as there are apps for it but nothing official (from what I can tell). Both iOS and WP7 have them. Flipboard It's sad with Flipboard as it's such a great newsreader. The only offiical app is for iOS but frankly the iPhone version looks horrible so without a tablet the experience here isn't that hot. Maybe with WP8. Currently there's nothing even remotely similar to this on the other platforms. Google+ Is anyone still using this? No official app for WP7 but some clones. Apparently there's no API so people are just screen scraping. Ugh. Mint.com This app has all kinds of buzz and a lot of votes on the application requests site. Official apps for iOS and droid. No WP7 love (yet). TED Quite a few TED apps on WP7 but nothing official. I think the third party ones suffice and some are pretty nice looking, taking advantage of the Metro interface and making for a good show. WebMD There's a third party app on WP7 here but nothing official. It seems to contain all the same information and functionality the official apps do so not sure if an official one is needed but its here for inclusion. The other apps in the top 40 were either very specific to the platform (for example all three of them have a "Find my Phone" app). There are others that are missing out on the WP7 platform like ooVoo, Words With Friends, and some of the Google apps (Google Voice for example). Since you can integrate your GMail account right into the Windows Phone (via linked inboxes) I'm not sure if there's a need for an official GMail app here. Looking at the numbers Windows Phone still gets the worst of the deal here with half a dozen highly popular "offical" apps that exist on the other mobile platforms and in some cases, nothing even remotely similar to the official app to compare. This doesn't include things like Instagram, PInterest, and others (don't get me started on those). Still, with over 20+ highly popular free apps all represented on all three mobile platforms I don't think it's a bad place to be in. The Windows Phone platform could get a little more love from the vendors missing here, or at least open up your APIs so the third party crowd can step in and take up the slack. P.S. these are just my observations and I might have got a few items wrong. Feel free to chime in with missing or incorrect information. I am after all human. Well, most of me is.

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• using jquery to parse XML export in drupal

  - by gables20

  I need to use jquery to parse a drupal xml export that was created with views datasource module. The format of the xml export is shown below and on the browser, its access by entering, say for example, http://mydomain/test.xml, where test.xml represents the path of the xml export. <node> <node> <nothing> Lorem ipsum </nothing> </node> <node> The jquery to parse xml is shown below. But, it does nothing, which is kind of the main problem. $(document).ready(function(){ $.ajax({ type: "GET", url: "http://mydomain/test.xml", dataType: "xml", success: function(xml){ $(xml).find('node').each(function(){ var title = $(this).find('nothing').text(); $('#output').append($(this).find('nothing').text()); }); } }); });

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• VBScript: how to set values from recordset to string

  - by phill

  This is probably a beginner question, but how do you set a recordset to a string variable? Here is my code: Function getOffice (strname, uname) strEmail = uname WScript.Echo "email: " & strEmail Dim objRoot : Set objRoot = GetObject("LDAP://RootDSE") Dim objDomain : Set objDomain = GetObject("LDAP://" & objRoot.Get("defaultNamingContext")) Dim cn : Set cn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection") Dim cmd : Set cmd = CreateObject("ADODB.Command") cn.Provider = "ADsDSOObject" cn.Open "Active Directory Provider" Set cmd.ActiveConnection = cn cmd.CommandText = "SELECT physicalDeliveryOfficeName FROM '" & objDomain.ADsPath & "' WHERE mail='" & strEmail & "'" cmd.Properties("Page Size") = 1 cmd.Properties("Timeout") = 300 cmd.Properties("Searchscope") = ADS_SCOPE_SUBTREE Dim objRS : Set objRS = cmd.Execute WScript.Echo objRS.Fields(0) Set cmd = Nothing Set cn = Nothing Set objDomain = Nothing Set objRoot = Nothing Dim arStore Set getOffice = objRS.Fields(0) Set objRS = Nothing End function When I try to run the function, it throws an error "vbscript runtime error: Type mismatch" I presume this means it can't set the string variable with a recordset value. How do I fix this problem?

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• Active Directory Group Policy: Script Errors

  - by ToreTrygg

  Hello all. Anyone having issues with AD group policy script errors when enabling VMware Fusion's "Sharing" feature? I've run into this problem in version 2.0 and 3.0. I have a logon script applied on an AD OU. It works fine on all Windows client workstations and in VMware Fusion only when the "Sharing" feature is NOT enabled. Any ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks.

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• How to delete a file with a space at end of the name and hidden attributes?

  - by Dr. Zim

  We have a hidden file with a space at the end of the file name. Usually, I take ownership of the file, then use a command line rename with the 8.3 (dir/x) file name. However, rename doesn't acknowledge hidden or system files. Any ideas on how to remove it? The original creator cannot access the file. The system is a Windows 2003 server with NTFS and SMB file sharing (normal windows file sharing).

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• is access to samba share dependent on internet access

  - by Ravi

  Running Ubuntu 7.04. Samba is installed and running. Ubuntu server is connected to the internet thru an adsl modem. Rest of the network consists of windows-xp machines All xp machines can see the shared samba folders when internet access is on. If however , the internet access is interrupted , then the samba server cannot be viewed and no sharing occurs. Is samba folder sharing dependent on internet access ?

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• Windows Advanced Firewall (Command Line Interface)

  - by Bradford Fisher

  I'm wondering where to find detailed information regarding the Microsoft Advanced Windows Firewall command line settings. For instance, from reading a couple technet articles I've learned that I can run the following: netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”File and Printer Sharing” new enable=Yes The bit about 'group="File and Printer Sharing"' is the part I'm having trouble finding documentation for. Any help would be greatly appreciated. And, if possible, I'd rather a pointer to the docs than a simple listing of group names.

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• Share internet connection in OSX through existing wireless network?

  - by baloo

  It's easy to share your Internet with AirPort by checking "Internet Sharing" in the system preferences, but this option asumes you want to create a new wireless network. Is there an easy way to configure Internet sharing if you want to use an already existing network? I want my laptop to use the existing wireless AP and share its internet to other clients within this network. Tried manually running natd -interface ppp0 without luck

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• Enumerating all strings in resx

  - by Erik Hesselink

  We would like to enumerate all strings in a resource file in .NET (resx file). We want this to generate a javascript object containing all these key-value pairs. We do this now for satellite assemblies with code like this (this is VB.NET, but any example code is fine): Dim rm As ResourceManager rm = New ResourceManager([resource name], [your assembly]) Dim Rs As ResourceSet Rs = rm.GetResourceSet(Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture, True, True) For Each Kvp As DictionaryEntry In Rs [Write out Kvp.Key and Kvp.Value] Next However, we haven't found a way to do this for .resx files yet, sadly. How can we enumerate all localization strings in a resx file? UPDATE: Following Dennis Myren's comment and the ideas from here, I built a ResXResourceManager. Now I can do the same with .resx files as I did with the embedded resources. Here is the code. Note that Microsoft made a needed constructor private, so I use reflection to access it. You need full trust when using this. Imports System.Globalization Imports System.Reflection Imports System.Resources Imports System.Windows.Forms Public Class ResXResourceManager Inherits ResourceManager Public Sub New(ByVal BaseName As String, ByVal ResourceDir As String) Me.New(BaseName, ResourceDir, GetType(ResXResourceSet)) End Sub Protected Sub New(ByVal BaseName As String, ByVal ResourceDir As String, ByVal UsingResourceSet As Type) Dim BaseType As Type = Me.GetType().BaseType Dim Flags As BindingFlags = BindingFlags.NonPublic Or BindingFlags.Instance Dim Constructor As ConstructorInfo = BaseType.GetConstructor(Flags, Nothing, New Type() { GetType(String), GetType(String), GetType(Type) }, Nothing) Constructor.Invoke(Me, Flags, Nothing, New Object() { BaseName, ResourceDir, UsingResourceSet }, Nothing) End Sub Protected Overrides Function GetResourceFileName(ByVal culture As CultureInfo) As String Dim FileName As String FileName = MyBase.GetResourceFileName(culture) If FileName IsNot Nothing AndAlso FileName.Length > 10 Then Return FileName.Substring(0, FileName.Length - 10) & ".resx" End If Return Nothing End Function End Class

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• Source control products that support linked/shared files?

  - by Ian Boyd

  We're interested in moving from a source control system that supports the concept of shared or linked files. A shared file means: a file modified in one project, is automatically updated changed in every other project that uses that same file. It does this without a developer having to request it, reverse-integrate it, ask for it, or even want it. We're trying to see if any other commonly used source-control systems can meet our needs, and include linked or shared files. My limited research shows that: Team Foundation Server doesn't support sharing files Subversion doesn't support sharing files (including Externals) CVS doesn't support sharing files (including Modules) Anything else? (besides our current source control product, obviously) References Subversion and shared files across repositories/projects? How to share files between CVS projects? Will TFS ever support shared files for projects under source control?

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• Rijndael managed: plaintext length detction

  - by sheepsimulator

  I am spending some time learning how to use the RijndaelManaged library in .NET, and developed the following function to test encrypting text with slight modifications from the MSDN library: Function encryptBytesToBytes_AES(ByVal plainText As Byte(), ByVal Key() As Byte, ByVal IV() As Byte) As Byte() ' Check arguments. If plainText Is Nothing OrElse plainText.Length <= 0 Then Throw New ArgumentNullException("plainText") End If If Key Is Nothing OrElse Key.Length <= 0 Then Throw New ArgumentNullException("Key") End If If IV Is Nothing OrElse IV.Length <= 0 Then Throw New ArgumentNullException("IV") End If ' Declare the RijndaelManaged object ' used to encrypt the data. Dim aesAlg As RijndaelManaged = Nothing ' Declare the stream used to encrypt to an in memory ' array of bytes. Dim msEncrypt As MemoryStream = Nothing Try ' Create a RijndaelManaged object ' with the specified key and IV. aesAlg = New RijndaelManaged() aesAlg.BlockSize = 128 aesAlg.KeySize = 128 aesAlg.Mode = CipherMode.ECB aesAlg.Padding = PaddingMode.None aesAlg.Key = Key aesAlg.IV = IV ' Create a decrytor to perform the stream transform. Dim encryptor As ICryptoTransform = aesAlg.CreateEncryptor(aesAlg.Key, aesAlg.IV) ' Create the streams used for encryption. msEncrypt = New MemoryStream() Using csEncrypt As New CryptoStream(msEncrypt, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write) Using swEncrypt As New StreamWriter(csEncrypt) 'Write all data to the stream. swEncrypt.Write(plainText) End Using End Using Finally ' Clear the RijndaelManaged object. If Not (aesAlg Is Nothing) Then aesAlg.Clear() End If End Try ' Return the encrypted bytes from the memory stream. Return msEncrypt.ToArray() End Function Here's the actual code I am calling encryptBytesToBytes_AES() with: Private Sub btnEncrypt_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnEncrypt.Click Dim bZeroKey As Byte() = {&H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0, &H0} PrintBytesToRTF(encryptBytesToBytes_AES(bZeroKey, bZeroKey, bZeroKey)) End Sub However, I get an exception thrown on swEncrypt.Write(plainText) stating that the 'Length of the data to encrypt is invalid.' However, I know that the size of my key, iv, and plaintext are 16 bytes == 128 bits == aesAlg.BlockSize. Why is it throwing this exception? Is it because the StreamWriter is trying to make a String (ostensibly with some encoding) and it doesn't like &H0 as a value?

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• Android application chrashes after "share" intent

  - by Johe Green

  Hi, My app offers a "share/tell-a-friend" function. When the "share" button is pressed the following method is being called to open a list of apps, which can perform the action (Eg. Gmail, Twittroid, Facebook...): public void share() { Intent shareIntent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_SEND); shareIntent.setType("text/plain"); shareIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, getText(R.string.menu_share_subject)); shareIntent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, getText(R.string.menu_share_body)); startActivity(Intent.createChooser(shareIntent, getText(R.string.menu_share_intent))); } The sharing functionality works basically. But when the sharing app (Facebook, Twitter, ...) tries to return to my app, a force close is thrown. I guess that my app gets closed in the background during the sharing process... at least that is what the debugger sais... Any ideas?

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• install barnyard2 ubuntu 12.04

  - by Muhammad Ardiansyah

  I trying to install barnyard2 in ubuntu 12.04 32-bit I'm configure using syntax: ./configure --with-mysql-libraries=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu and when I trying to compile daq-1.1.1 using a makefile, I encountered the following errors: make[3]: Leaving directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/src' make[2]: Leaving directory/root/snortinstall/barnyard2/src' Making all in etc make[2]: Entering directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/etc' make[2]: Nothing to be done forall'. make[2]: Leaving directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/etc' Making all in doc make[2]: Entering directory/root/snortinstall/barnyard2/doc' make[2]: Nothing to be done for all'. make[2]: Leaving directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/doc' Making all in rpm make[2]: Entering directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/rpm' make[2]: Nothing to be done forall'. make[2]: Leaving directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/rpm' Making all in schemas make[2]: Entering directory/root/snortinstall/barnyard2/schemas' make[2]: Nothing to be done for all'. make[2]: Leaving directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/schemas' Making all in m4 make[2]: Entering directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/m4' make[2]: Nothing to be done forall'. make[2]: Leaving directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2/m4' make[2]: Entering directory /root/snortinstall/barnyard2' make[2]: Nothing to be done for all-am'. make[2]: Leaving directory/root/snortinstall/barnyard2' make[1]: Leaving directory `/root/snortinstall/barnyard2'

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• Exporting emails from outlook programtically with vba

  - by David

  I'm using this script to export email from outlook. My question is how do I export the body of the email without the html formatting ? Sub SaveItemsToExcel() On Error GoTo ErrorHandlerExit Dim oNameSpace As Outlook.NameSpace Dim oFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder Dim objFS As Scripting.FileSystemObject Dim objOutputFile As Scripting.TextStream Set objFS = New Scripting.FileSystemObject Set objOutputFile = objFS.OpenTextFile("C:\Temp\Export.csv", ForWriting, True) Set oNameSpace = Application.GetNamespace("MAPI") Set oFolder = oNameSpace.PickFolder If oFolder Is Nothing Then GoTo ErrorHandlerExit End If If oFolder.DefaultItemType <> olMailItem Then MsgBox "Folder does not contain mail messages" GoTo ErrorHandlerExit End If objOutputFile.WriteLine "From,Subject,Recived, Body" ProcessFolderItems oFolder, objOutputFile objOutputFile.Close Set oFolder = Nothing Set oNameSpace = Nothing Set objOutputFile = Nothing Set objFS = Nothing ErrorHandlerExit: Exit Sub End Sub Sub ProcessFolderItems(oParentFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder, ByRef objOutputFile As Scripting.TextStream) Dim oCount As Integer Dim oMail As Outlook.MailItem Dim oFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder oCount = oParentFolder.Items.Count For Each oMail In oParentFolder.Items If oMail.Class = olMail Then objOutputFile.WriteLine oMail.SenderEmailAddress & "," & Replace(oMail.Subject, ",", "") & "," & oMail.ReceivedTime End If Next oMail Set oMail = Nothing If (oParentFolder.Folders.Count > 0) Then For Each oFolder In oParentFolder.Folders ProcessFolderItems oFolder, objOutputFile Next End If End Sub

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• Which architectural certifications are available to a person having 12+ years of experience in progr

  - by devcoder

  I know Microsoft Certified Architect (too costly) and Sun Certified Enterprise Architect. But I have Microsoft Technology background. So am looking for something except these two.

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• Building The Right SharePoint Team For Your Organization

  - by Mark Rackley

  I see the question posted fairly often asking what kind SharePoint team an organization should have. How many people do I need? What roles do I need to fill? What is best for my organization? Well, just like every other answer in SharePoint, the correct answer is “it depends”. Do you ever get sick of hearing that??? I know I do… So, let me give you my thoughts and opinions based upon my experience and what I’ve seen and let you come to your own conclusions. What are the possible SharePoint roles? I guess the first thing you need to understand are the different roles that exist in SharePoint (and their are LOTS). Remember, SharePoint is a massive beast and you will NOT find one person who can do it all. If you are hoping to find that person you will be sorely disappointed. For the most part this is true in SharePoint 2007 and 2010. However, generally things are improved in 2010 and easier for junior individuals to grasp. SharePoint Administrator The absolutely positively only role that you should not be without no matter the size of your organization or SharePoint deployment is a SharePoint administrator. These guys are essential to keeping things running and figuring out what’s wrong when things aren’t running well. These unsung heroes do more before 10 am than I do all day. The bad thing is, when these guys are awesome, you don’t even know they exist because everything is running so smoothly. You should definitely invest some time and money here to make sure you have some competent if not rockstar help. You need an admin who truly loves SharePoint and will go that extra mile when necessary. Let me give you a real world example of what I’m talking about: We have a rockstar admin… and I’m sure she’s sick of my throwing her name around so she’ll just have to live with remaining anonymous in this post… sorry Lori… Anyway! A couple of weeks ago our Server teams came to us and said Hi Lori, I’m finalizing the MOSS servers and doing updates that require a restart; can I restart them? Seems like a harmless request from your server team does it not? Sure, go ahead and apply the patches and reboot during our scheduled maintenance window. No problem? right? Sounded fair to me… but no…. not to our fearless SharePoint admin… I need a complete list of patches that will be applied. There is an update that is out there that will break SharePoint… KB973917 is the patch that has been shown to cause issues. What? You mean Microsoft released a patch that would actually adversely affect SharePoint? If we did NOT have a rockstar admin, our server team would have applied these patches and then when some problem occurred in SharePoint we’d have to go through the fun task of tracking down exactly what caused the issue and resolve it. How much time would that have taken? If you have a junior SharePoint admin or an admin who’s not out there staying on top of what’s going on you could have spent days tracking down something so simple as applying a patch you should not have applied. I will even go as far to say the only SharePoint rockstar you NEED in your organization is a SharePoint admin. You can always outsource really complicated development projects or bring in a rockstar contractor every now and then to make sure you aren’t way off track in other areas. For your day-to-day sanity and to keep SharePoint running smoothly, you need an awesome Admin. Some rockstars in this category are: Ben Curry, Mike Watson, Joel Oleson, Todd Klindt, Shane Young, John Ferringer, Sean McDonough, and of course Lori Gowin. SharePoint Developer Another essential role for your SharePoint deployment is a SharePoint developer. Things do start to get a little hazy here and there are many flavors of “developers”. Are you writing custom code? using SharePoint Designer? What about SharePoint Branding?  Are all of these considered developers? I would say yes. Are they interchangeable? I’d say no. Development in SharePoint is such a large beast in itself. I would say that it’s not so large that you can’t know it all well, but it is so large that there are many people who specialize in one particular category. If you are lucky enough to have someone on staff who knows it all well, you better make sure they are well taken care of because those guys are ready-made to move over to a consulting role and charge you 3 times what you are probably paying them. :) Some of the all-around rockstars are Eric Shupps, Andrew Connell (go Razorbacks), Rob Foster, Paul Schaeflein, and Todd Bleeker SharePoint Power User/No-Code Solutions Developer These SharePoint Swiss Army Knives are essential for quick wins in your organization. These people can twist the out-of-the-box functionality to make it do things you would not even imagine. Give these guys SharePoint Designer, jQuery, InfoPath, and a little time and they will create views, dashboards, and KPI’s that will blow your mind away and give your execs the “wow” they are looking for. Not only can they deliver that wow factor, but they can mashup, merge, and really help make your SharePoint application usable and deliver an overall better user experience. Before you hand off a project to your SharePoint Custom Code developer, let one of these rockstars look at it and show you what they can do (in probably less time). I would say the second most important role you can fill in your organization is one of these guys. Rockstars in this category are Christina Wheeler, Laura Rogers, Jennifer Mason, and Mark Miller SharePoint Developer – Custom Code If you want to really integrate SharePoint into your legacy systems, or really twist it and make it bend to your will, you are going to have to open up Visual Studio and write some custom code.  Remember, SharePoint is essentially just a big, huge, ginormous .NET application, so you CAN write code to make it do ANYTHING, but do you really want to spend the time and effort to do so? At some point with every other form of SharePoint development you are going to run into SOME limitation (SPD Workflows is the big one that comes to mind). If you truly want to knock down all the walls then custom development is the way to go. PLEASE keep in mind when you are looking for a custom code developer that a .NET developer does NOT equal a SharePoint developer. Just SOME of the things these guys write are: Custom Workflows Custom Web Parts Web Service functionality Import data from legacy systems Export data to legacy systems Custom Actions Event Receivers Service Applications (2010) These guys are also the ones generally responsible for packaging everything up into solution packages (you are doing that, right?). Rockstars in this category are Phil Wicklund, Christina Wheeler, Geoff Varosky, and Brian Jackett. SharePoint Branding “But it LOOKS like SharePoint!” Somebody call the WAAAAAAAAAAAAHMbulance…   Themes, Master Pages, Page Layouts, Zones, and over 2000 styles in CSS.. these guys not only have to be comfortable with all of SharePoint’s quirks and pain points when branding, but they have to know it TWICE for publishing and non-publishing sites.  Not only that, but these guys really need to have an eye for graphic design and be able to translate the ramblings of business into something visually stunning. They also have to be comfortable with XSLT, XML, and be able to hand off what they do to your custom developers for them to package as solutions (which you are doing, right?). These rockstars include Heater Waterman, Cathy Dew, and Marcy Kellar SharePoint Architect SharePoint Architects are generally SharePoint Admins or Developers who have moved into more of a BA role? Is that fair to say? These guys really have a grasp and understanding for what SharePoint IS and what it can do. These guys help you structure your farms to meet your needs and help you design your applications the correct way. It’s always a good idea to bring in a rockstar SharePoint Architect to do a sanity check and make sure you aren’t doing anything stupid.  Most organizations probably do not have a rockstar architect on staff. These guys are generally brought in at the deployment of a farm, upgrade of a farm, or for large development projects. I personally also find architects very useful for sitting down with the business to translate their needs into what SharePoint can do. A good architect will be able to pick out what can be done out-of-the-box and what has to be custom built and hand those requirements to the development Staff. Architects can generally fill in as an admin or a developer when needed. Some rockstar architects are Rick Taylor, Dan Usher, Bill English, Spence Harbar, Neil Hodgkins, Eric Harlan, and Bjørn Furuknap. Other Roles / Specialties On top of all these other roles you also get these people who specialize in things like Reporting, BDC (BCS in 2010), Search, Performance, Security, Project Management, etc... etc... etc... Again, most organizations will not have one of these gurus on staff, they’ll just pay out the nose for them when they need them. :) SharePoint End User Everyone else in your organization that touches SharePoint falls into this category. What they actually DO in SharePoint is determined by your governance and what permissions you give these guys. Hopefully you have these guys on a fairly short leash and are NOT giving them access to tools like SharePoint Designer. Sadly end users are the ones who truly make your deployment a success by using it, but are also your biggest enemy in breaking it.  :)  We love you guys… really!!! Okay, all that’s fine and dandy, but what should MY SharePoint team look like? It depends! Okay… Are you just doing out of the box team sites with no custom development? Then you are probably fine with a great Admin team and a great No-Code Solution Development team. How many people do you need? Depends on how busy you can keep them. Sorry, can’t answer the question about numbers without knowing your specific needs. I can just tell you who you MIGHT need and what they will do for you. I’ll leave you with what my ideal SharePoint Team would look like for a particular scenario: Farm / Organization Structure Dev, QA, and 2 Production Farms. 5000 – 10000 Users Custom Development and Integration with legacy systems Team Sites, My Sites, Intranet, Document libraries and overall company collaboration Team Rockstar SharePoint Administrator 2-3 junior SharePoint Administrators SharePoint Architect / Lead Developer 2 Power User / No-Code Solution Developers 2-3 Custom Code developers Branding expert With a team of that size and skill set, they should be able to keep a substantial SharePoint deployment running smoothly and meet your business needs. This does NOT mean that you would not need to bring in contract help from time to time when you need an uber specialist in one area. Also, this team assumes there will be ongoing development for the life of your SharePoint farm. If you are just going to be doing sporadic custom development, it might make sense to partner with an awesome firm that specializes in that sort of work (I can give you the name of a couple if you are interested).  Again though, the size of your team depends on the number of requests you are receiving and how much active deployment you are doing. So, don’t bring in a team that looks like this and then yell at me because they are sitting around with nothing to do or are so overwhelmed that nothing is getting done. I do URGE you to take the proper time to asses your needs and determine what team is BEST for your organization. Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not skimp on the talent. When it comes to SharePoint you really do get what you pay for when it comes to employees, contractors, and software.  SharePoint can become absolutely critical to your business and because you skimped on hiring a developer he created a web part that brings down the farm because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, or you hire an admin who thinks it’s fine to stick everything in the same Content Database and then can’t figure out why people are complaining. SharePoint can be an enormous blessing to an organization or it’s biggest curse. Spend the time and money to do it right, or be prepared to spending even more time and money later to fix it.

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• [Silverlight] Suggestion – Move INotifyCollectionChanged from System.Windows.dll to System.dll

  - by Benjamin Roux

  I just submitted a suggestion on Microsoft Connect to move the INotifyCollectionChanged from System.Windows.dll to System.dll. You can review it here: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/560184/move-inotifycollectionchanged-from-system-windows-dll-to-system-dll Here’s the reason why I suggest that. Actually I wanted to take advantages of the new feature of Silverlight/Visual Studio 2010 for sharing assemblies (see http://blogs.msdn.com/clrteam/archive/2009/12/01/sharing-silverlight-assemblies-with-net-apps.aspx). Everything went fine until I try to share a custom collection (with custom business logic) implementing INotifyCollectionChanged. This modification has been made in the .NET Framework 4 (see https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/488607/move-inotifycollectionchanged-to-system-dll) so maybe it could be done in Silverlight too. If you think this is justifiable you can vote for it.

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• Best of "The Moth" 2010

  - by Daniel Moth

  It is the time again (like in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) to look back at my blog for the past year and identify areas of interest that seem to be more prominent than others. After doing so, representative posts follow in my top 5 list (in random order). 1. This was the year where I had to move for the first time since 2004 my blog engine (blogger.com –> dasBlog), host provider (zen –> godaddy), web server technology and OS (apache on Linux –> IIS on Windows Server). My goal was not to break any permalinks or the look and feel of this website. A series of posts covered how I achieved that goal, culminating in a tool for others to use if they wanted to do the same: Tool to convert blogger.com content to dasBlog. Going forward I aim to be sharing more small code utilities like that one… 2. At work I am known for being fairly responsive on email, and more importantly never dropping email balls on the floor. This is due to my email processing system, which I shared here: Processing Email in Outlook. I will be sharing more tips with regards to making the best of the Office products. 3. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the year people will remember as the one where Microsoft finally fights back in the mobile space. Even though the new platform means my Windows Mobile book sales will dwindle :-), I am ecstatic about Windows Phone 7 both as a consumer and as a developer. On the release day, to get you started I shared the top 10 Windows Phone 7 developer resources. I will be sharing my tips from my experience in writing code for and consuming this new platform… 4. For my HPC developer friends using Visual Studio, I shared Slides and code for MPI Cluster Debugger and also gave you all the links you need for getting started with Dryad and DryadLINQ from MSR. Expect more from me on cluster development in the coming year… 5. Still in the HPC space, but actually also in the game and even mainstream development, the big disruption and opportunity comes in the form of GPGPU and, on the Microsoft platform, (currently) DirectCompute. Expect more from me on gpgpu development in the coming year… Subscribe via the link on the left to stay tuned for 2011… I wish you a very Happy New Year (with whatever definition of happiness works for you)! Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• 12.04 on VirtualBox -No internet access on Guest OS

  - by Muzab

  I have Windows 7 as my Host OS which has wired Ethernet working. My guest OS on VirtualBox is Ubuntu 12.04. The problem is that I cannot browse. I have: Enabled sharing on Windows; Have used NAT, Bridged Adapter etc ( all possible combinations); With NAT, used PCnet-FAST II (Am79c973) combination. Ubuntu says "connected to wired ethernet1" but I cannot access websites. VirtualBox Host-Only Network in the Network and Sharing center shows that I don't have IPV4 and IPV6 connectivity. Meaning I don't have DHCP configured. Strangely I have DNS address correct in the Ubuntu properties.

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• That Escalated Quickly

  - by Jesse Taber

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2014/05/17/that-escalated-quickly.aspxI have been working remotely out of my home for over 4 years now. All of my coworkers during that time have also worked remotely. Lots of folks have written about the challenges inherent in facilitating communication on remote teams and strategies for overcoming them. A popular theme around this topic is the notion of “escalating communication”. In this context “escalating” means taking a conversation from one mode of communication to a different, higher fidelity mode of communication. Here are the five modes of communication I use at work in order of increasing fidelity: Email – This is the “lowest fidelity” mode of communication that I use. I usually only check it a few times a day (and I’m trying to check it even less frequently than that) and I only keep items in my inbox if they represent an item I need to take action on that I haven’t tracked anywhere else. Forums / Message boards – Being a developer, I’ve gotten into the habit of having other people look over my code before it becomes part of the product I’m working on. These code reviews often happen in “real time” via screen sharing, but I also always have someone else give all of the changes another look using pull requests. A pull request takes my code and lets someone else see the changes I’ve made side-by-side with the existing code so they can see if I did anything dumb. Pull requests can facilitate a conversation about the code changes in an online-forum like style. Some teams I’ve worked on also liked using tools like Trello or Google Groups to have on-going conversations about a topic or task that was being worked on. Chat & Instant Messaging  - Chat and instant messaging are the real workhorses for communication on the remote teams I’ve been a part of. I know some teams that are co-located that also use it pretty extensively for quick messages that don’t warrant walking across the office to talk with someone but reqire more immediacy than an e-mail. For the purposes of this post I think it’s important to note that the terms “chat” and “instant messaging” might insinuate that the conversation is happening in real time, but that’s not always true. Modern chat and IM applications maintain a searchable history so people can easily see what might have been discussed while they were away from their computers. Voice, Video and Screen sharing – Everyone’s got a camera and microphone on their computers now, and there are an abundance of services that will let you use them to talk to other people who have cameras and microphones on their computers. I’m including screen sharing here as well because, in my experience, these discussions typically involve one or more people showing the other participants something that’s happening on their screen. Obviously, this mode of communication is much higher-fidelity than any of the ones listed above. Scheduled meetings are typically conducted using this mode of communication. In Person – No matter how great communication tools become, there’s no substitute for meeting with someone face-to-face. However, opportunities for this kind of communcation are few and far between when you work on a remote team. When a conversation gets escalated that usually means it moves up one or more positions on this list. A lot of people advocate jumping to #4 sooner than later. Like them, I used to believe that, if it was possible, organizing a call with voice and video was automatically better than any kind of text-based communication could be. Lately, however, I’m becoming less convinced that escalating is always the right move. Working Asynchronously Last year I attended a talk at our local code camp given by Drew Miller. Drew works at GitHub and was talking about how they use GitHub internally. Many of the folks at GitHub work remotely, so communication was one of the main themes in Drew’s talk. During the talk Drew used the phrase, “asynchronous communication” to describe their use of chat and pull request comments. That phrase stuck in my head because I hadn’t heard it before but I think it perfectly describes the way in which remote teams often need to communicate. You don’t always know when your co-workers are at their computers or what hours (if any) they are working that day. In order to work this way you need to assume that the person you’re talking to might not respond right away. You can’t always afford to wait until everyone required is online and available to join a voice call, so you need to use text-based, persistent forms of communication so that people can receive and respond to messages when they are available. Going back to my list from the beginning of this post for a second, I characterize items #1-3 as being “asynchronous” modes of communication while we could call items #4 and #5 “synchronous”. When communication gets escalated it’s almost always moving from an asynchronous mode of communication to a synchronous one. Now, to the point of this post: I’ve become increasingly reluctant to escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication for two primary reasons: 1 – You can often find a higher fidelity way to convey your message without holding a synchronous conversation 2 - Asynchronous modes of communication are (usually) persistent and searchable. You Don’t Have to Broadcast Live Let’s start with the first reason I’ve listed. A lot of times you feel like you need to escalate to synchronous communication because you’re having difficulty describing something that you’re seeing in words. You want to provide the people you’re conversing with some audio-visual aids to help them understand the point that you’re trying to make and you think that getting on Skype and sharing your screen with them is the best way to do that. Firing up a screen sharing session does work well, but you can usually accomplish the same thing in an asynchronous manner. For example, you could take a screenshot and annotate it with some text and drawings to illustrate what it is you’re seeing. If a screenshot won’t work, taking a short screen recording while your narrate over it and posting the video to your forum or chat system along with a text-based description of what’s in the recording that can be searched for later can be a great way to effectively communicate with your team asynchronously. I Said What?!? Now for the second reason I listed: most asynchronous modes of communication provide a transcript of what was said and what decisions might have been made during the conversation. There have been many occasions where I’ve used the search feature of my team’s chat application to find a conversation that happened several weeks or months ago to remember what was decided. Unfortunately, I think the benefits associated with the persistence of communicating asynchronously often get overlooked when people decide to escalate to a in-person meeting or voice/video call. I’m becoming much more reluctant to suggest a voice or video call if I suspect that it might lead to codifying some kind of design decision because everyone involved is going to hang up the call and immediately forget what was decided. I recognize that you can record and archive these types of interactions, but without being able to search them the recordings aren’t terribly useful. When and How To Escalate I don’t mean to imply that communicating via voice/video or in person is never a good idea. I probably jump on a Skype call with a co-worker at least once a day to quickly hash something out or show them a bit of code that I’m working on. Also, meeting in person periodically is really important for remote teams. There’s no way around the fact that sometimes it’s easier to jump on a call and show someone my screen so they can see what I’m seeing. So when is it right to escalate? I think the simplest way to answer that is when the communication starts to feel painful. Everyone’s tolerance for that pain is different, but I think you need to let it hurt a little bit before jumping to synchronous communication. When you do escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication, there are a couple of things you can do to maximize the effectiveness of the communication: Takes notes – This is huge and yet I’ve found that a lot of teams don’t do this. If you’re holding a meeting with  > 2 people you should have someone taking notes. Taking notes while participating in a meeting can be difficult but there are a few strategies to deal with this challenge that probably deserve a short post of their own. After the meeting, make sure the notes are posted to a place where all concerned parties (including those that might not have attended the meeting) can review and search them. Persist decisions made ASAP – If any decisions were made during the meeting, persist those decisions to a searchable medium as soon as possible following the conversation. All the teams I’ve worked on used a web-based system for tracking the on-going work and a backlog of work to be done in the future. I always try to make sure that all of the cards/stories/tasks/whatever in these systems always reflect the latest decisions that were made as the work was being planned and executed. If held a quick call with your team lead and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to build real-time validation into that new UI you were working on, go and codify that decision in the story associated with that work immediately after you hang up. Even better, write it up in the story while you are both still on the phone. That way when the folks from your QA team pick up the story to test a few days later they’ll know why the real-time validation isn’t there without having to invoke yet another conversation about the work. Communicating Well is Hard At this point you might be thinking that communicating asynchronously is more difficult than having a live conversation. You’re right: it is more difficult. In order to communicate effectively this way you need to very carefully think about the message that you’re trying to convey and craft it in a way that’s easy for your audience to understand. This is almost always harder than just talking through a problem in real time with someone; this is why escalating communication is such a popular idea. Why wouldn’t we want to do the thing that’s easier? Easier isn’t always better. If you and your team can get in the habit of communicating effectively in an asynchronous manner you’ll find that, over time, all of your communications get less painful because you don’t need to re-iterate previously made points over and over again. If you communicate right the first time, you often don’t need to rehash old conversations because you can go back and find the decisions that were made laid out in plain language. You’ll also find that you get better at doing things like writing useful comments in your code, creating written documentation about how the feature that you just built works, or persuading your team to do things in a certain way.

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• My Message to the Software Craftsmanship Group

  - by Liam McLennan

  This is a message I posted to the software craftsmanship group, looking for a week-long, pairing / skill sharing opportunity in the USA. I am a journeyman software craftsman, currenlty living and working in Brisbane Australia. In April I am going to travel to the US to attend Alt.Net Seattle and Seattle codecamp. In between the two conferences I have five days in which I would like to undertake a craftsmanship mini-apprenticeship, pairing and skill sharing with your company. I do not require any compensation other than the opportunity to assist you and learn from you. Although my conferences are in Seattle I am happy to travel anywhere in the USA and Canada (excluding Hawaii :) ). Things I am good at: .NET web development, javascript, creating software that solves problems Things I am learning: Ruby, Rails, javascript If you are interested in having me as visiting craftsman from the 12th to the 16th of April please reply on this mailing list or contact me directly. Liam McLennan Now I wait…

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