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  • How can I scale movement physics functions to frames per second (in a game engine)?

    - by Richard
    I am working on a game in Javascript (HTML5 Canvas). I implemented a simple algorithm that allows an object to follow another object with basic physics mixed in (a force vector to drive the object in the right direction, and the velocity stacks momentum, but is slowed by a constant drag force). At the moment, I set it up as a rectangle following the mouse (x, y) coordinates. Here's the code: // rectangle x, y position var x = 400; // starting x position var y = 250; // starting y position var FPS = 60; // frames per second of the screen // physics variables: var velX = 0; // initial velocity at 0 (not moving) var velY = 0; // not moving var drag = 0.92; // drag force reduces velocity by 8% per frame var force = 0.35; // overall force applied to move the rectangle var angle = 0; // angle in which to move // called every frame (at 60 frames per second): function update(){ // calculate distance between mouse and rectangle var dx = mouseX - x; var dy = mouseY - y; // calculate angle between mouse and rectangle var angle = Math.atan(dy/dx); if(dx < 0) angle += Math.PI; else if(dy < 0) angle += 2*Math.PI; // calculate the force (on or off, depending on user input) var curForce; if(keys[32]) // SPACE bar curForce = force; // if pressed, use 0.35 as force else curForce = 0; // otherwise, force is 0 // increment velocty by the force, and scaled by drag for x and y velX += curForce * Math.cos(angle); velX *= drag; velY += curForce * Math.sin(angle); velY *= drag; // update x and y by their velocities x += velX; y += velY; And that works fine at 60 frames per second. Now, the tricky part: my question is, if I change this to a different framerate (say, 30 FPS), how can I modify the force and drag values to keep the movement constant? That is, right now my rectangle (whose position is dictated by the x and y variables) moves at a maximum speed of about 4 pixels per second, and accelerates to its max speed in about 1 second. BUT, if I change the framerate, it moves slower (e.g. 30 FPS accelerates to only 2 pixels per frame). So, how can I create an equation that takes FPS (frames per second) as input, and spits out correct "drag" and "force" values that will behave the same way in real time? I know it's a heavy question, but perhaps somebody with game design experience, or knowledge of programming physics can help. Thank you for your efforts. jsFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/BadDB

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  • ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: New Features in ASP.NET MVC 3

    - by mbridge
    Razor View Engine The Razor view engine is a new view engine option for ASP.NET MVC that supports the Razor templating syntax. The Razor syntax is a streamlined approach to HTML templating designed with the goal of being a code driven minimalist templating approach that builds on existing C#, VB.NET and HTML knowledge. The result of this approach is that Razor views are very lean and do not contain unnecessary constructs that get in the way of you and your code. ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 only supports C# Razor views which use the .cshtml file extension. VB.NET support will be enabled in later releases of ASP.NET MVC 3. For more information and examples, see Introducing “Razor” – a new view engine for ASP.NET on Scott Guthrie’s blog. Dynamic View and ViewModel Properties A new dynamic View property is available in views, which provides access to the ViewData object using a simpler syntax. For example, imagine two items are added to the ViewData dictionary in the Index controller action using code like the following: public ActionResult Index() {          ViewData["Title"] = "The Title";          ViewData["Message"] = "Hello World!"; } Those properties can be accessed in the Index view using code like this: <h2>View.Title</h2> <p>View.Message</p> There is also a new dynamic ViewModel property in the Controller class that lets you add items to the ViewData dictionary using a simpler syntax. Using the previous controller example, the two values added to the ViewData dictionary can be rewritten using the following code: public ActionResult Index() {     ViewModel.Title = "The Title";     ViewModel.Message = "Hello World!"; } “Add View” Dialog Box Supports Multiple View Engines The Add View dialog box in Visual Studio includes extensibility hooks that allow it to support multiple view engines, as shown in the following figure: Service Location and Dependency Injection Support ASP.NET MVC 3 introduces improved support for applying Dependency Injection (DI) via Inversion of Control (IoC) containers. ASP.NET MVC 3 Preview 1 provides the following hooks for locating services and injecting dependencies: - Creating controller factories. - Creating controllers and setting dependencies. - Setting dependencies on view pages for both the Web Form view engine and the Razor view engine (for types that derive from ViewPage, ViewUserControl, ViewMasterPage, WebViewPage). - Setting dependencies on action filters. Using a Dependency Injection container is not required in order for ASP.NET MVC 3 to function properly. Global Filters ASP.NET MVC 3 allows you to register filters that apply globally to all controller action methods. Adding a filter to the global filters collection ensures that the filter runs for all controller requests. To register an action filter globally, you can make the following call in the Application_Start method in the Global.asax file: GlobalFilters.Filters.Add(new MyActionFilter()); The source of global action filters is abstracted by the new IFilterProvider interface, which can be registered manually or by using Dependency Injection. This allows you to provide your own source of action filters and choose at run time whether to apply a filter to an action in a particular request. New JsonValueProviderFactory Class The new JsonValueProviderFactory class allows action methods to receive JSON-encoded data and model-bind it to an action-method parameter. This is useful in scenarios such as client templating. Client templates enable you to format and display a single data item or set of data items by using a fragment of HTML. ASP.NET MVC 3 lets you connect client templates easily with an action method that both returns and receives JSON data. Support for .NET Framework 4 Validation Attributes and IvalidatableObject The ValidationAttribute class was improved in the .NET Framework 4 to enable richer support for validation. When you write a custom validation attribute, you can use a new IsValid overload that provides a ValidationContext instance. This instance provides information about the current validation context, such as what object is being validated. This change enables scenarios such as validating the current value based on another property of the model. The following example shows a sample custom attribute that ensures that the value of PropertyOne is always larger than the value of PropertyTwo: public class CompareValidationAttribute : ValidationAttribute {     protected override ValidationResult IsValid(object value,              ValidationContext validationContext) {         var model = validationContext.ObjectInstance as SomeModel;         if (model.PropertyOne > model.PropertyTwo) {            return ValidationResult.Success;         }         return new ValidationResult("PropertyOne must be larger than PropertyTwo");     } } Validation in ASP.NET MVC also supports the .NET Framework 4 IValidatableObject interface. This interface allows your model to perform model-level validation, as in the following example: public class SomeModel : IValidatableObject {     public int PropertyOne { get; set; }     public int PropertyTwo { get; set; }     public IEnumerable<ValidationResult> Validate(ValidationContext validationContext) {         if (PropertyOne <= PropertyTwo) {            yield return new ValidationResult(                "PropertyOne must be larger than PropertyTwo");         }     } } New IClientValidatable Interface The new IClientValidatable interface allows the validation framework to discover at run time whether a validator has support for client validation. This interface is designed to be independent of the underlying implementation; therefore, where you implement the interface depends on the validation framework in use. For example, for the default data annotations-based validator, the interface would be applied on the validation attribute. Support for .NET Framework 4 Metadata Attributes ASP.NET MVC 3 now supports .NET Framework 4 metadata attributes such as DisplayAttribute. New IMetadataAware Interface The new IMetadataAware interface allows you to write attributes that simplify how you can contribute to the ModelMetadata creation process. Before this interface was available, you needed to write a custom metadata provider in order to have an attribute provide extra metadata. This interface is consumed by the AssociatedMetadataProvider class, so support for the IMetadataAware interface is automatically inherited by all classes that derive from that class (notably, the DataAnnotationsModelMetadataProvider class). New Action Result Types In ASP.NET MVC 3, the Controller class includes two new action result types and corresponding helper methods. HttpNotFoundResult Action The new HttpNotFoundResult action result is used to indicate that a resource requested by the current URL was not found. The status code is 404. This class derives from HttpStatusCodeResult. The Controller class includes an HttpNotFound method that returns an instance of this action result type, as shown in the following example: public ActionResult List(int id) {     if (id < 0) {                 return HttpNotFound();     }     return View(); } HttpStatusCodeResult Action The new HttpStatusCodeResult action result is used to set the response status code and description. Permanent Redirect The HttpRedirectResult class has a new Boolean Permanent property that is used to indicate whether a permanent redirect should occur. A permanent redirect uses the HTTP 301 status code. Corresponding to this change, the Controller class now has several methods for performing permanent redirects: - RedirectPermanent - RedirectToRoutePermanent - RedirectToActionPermanent These methods return an instance of HttpRedirectResult with the Permanent property set to true. Breaking Changes The order of execution for exception filters has changed for exception filters that have the same Order value. In ASP.NET MVC 2 and earlier, exception filters on the controller with the same Order as those on an action method were executed before the exception filters on the action method. This would typically be the case when exception filters were applied without a specified order Order value. In MVC 3, this order has been reversed in order to allow the most specific exception handler to execute first. As in earlier versions, if the Order property is explicitly specified, the filters are run in the specified order. Known Issues When you are editing a Razor view (CSHTML file), the Go To Controller menu item in Visual Studio will not be available, and there are no code snippets.

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  • SQL SERVER – Retrieve and Explore Database Backup without Restoring Database – Idera virtual databas

    - by pinaldave
    I recently downloaded Idera’s SQL virtual database, and tested it. There are a few things about this tool which caught my attention. My Scenario It is quite common in real life that sometimes observing or retrieving older data is necessary; however, it had changed as time passed by. The full database backup was 40 GB in size, and, to restore it on our production server, it usually takes around 16 to 22 minutes, depending on the load server that is usually present. This range in time varies from one server to another as per the configuration of the computer. Some other issues we used to have are the following: When we try to restore a large 40-GB database, we needed at least that much space on our production server. Once in a while, we even had to make changes in the restored database, and use the said changed and restored database for our purpose, making it more time-consuming. My Solution I have heard a lot about the Idera’s SQL virtual database tool.. Well, right after we started to test this tool, we found out that it really delivers what it promises. Using this software was very easy and we were able to restore our database from backup in less than 2 minutes, sparing us from the usual longer time of 16–22 minutes. The needful was finished in a total of 10 minutes. Another interesting observation is that there is no need to have an additional space for restoring the database. For complete database restoration, the single additional MB on the drive is not required anymore. We can use the database in the same way as our regular database, and there is no need for any additional configuration and setup. Let us look at the most relevant points of this product based on my initial experience: Quick restoration of the database backup No additional space required for database restoration virtual database has no physical .MDF or .LDF The database which is restored is, in fact, the backup file converted in the virtual database. DDL and DML queries can be executed against this virtually restored database. Regular backup operation can be implemented against virtual database, creating a physical .bak file that can be used for future use. There was no observed degradation in performance on the original database as well the restored virtual database. Additional T-SQL queries can be let off on the virtual database. Well, this summarizes my quick review. And, as I was saying, I am very impressed with the product and I plan to explore it more. There are many features that I have noticed in this tool, which I think can be very useful if properly understood. I had taken a few screenshots using my demo database afterwards. Let us see what other things this tool can do besides the mentioned activities. I am surprised with its performance so I want to know how exactly this feature works, specifically in the matter of why it does not create any additional files and yet, it still allows update on the virtually restored database. I guess I will have to send an e-mail to the developers of Idera and try to figure this out from them. I think this tool is very useful, and it delivers a high level of performance way more than what I expected. Soon, I will write a review for additional uses of SQL virtual database.. If you are using SQL virtual database in your production environment, I am eager to learn more about it and your experience while using it. The ‘Virtual’ Part of virtual database When I set out to test this software, I thought virtual database had something to do with Hyper-V or visualization. In fact, the virtual database is a kind of database which shows up in your SQL Server Management Studio without actually restoring or even creating it. This tool creates a database in SSMS from the backup of the same database. The backup, however, works virtually the same way as original database. Potential Usage of virtual database: As soon as I described this tool to my teammate, I think his very first reaction was, “hey, if we have this then there is no need for log shipping.” I find his comment very interesting as log shipping is something where logs are moved to another server. In fact, there are no updates on the database from log; I would rather compare it with Snapshot Replication. In fact, whatever we use, snapshot replicated database can be similarly used and configured with virtual database. I totally believe that we can use it for reporting purpose. In fact, after this database was configured, I think the uses of this tool are unlimited. I will have to spend some more time studying it and will get back to you. Click on images to see larger images. virtual database Console Harddrive Space before virtual database Setup Attach Full Backup Screen Backup on Harddrive Attach Full Backup Screen with Settings virtual database Setup – less than 60 sec virtual database Setup – Online Harddrive Space after virtual database Setup Point in Time Recovery Option – Timeline View virtual database Summary No Performance Difference between Regular DB vs Virtual DB Please note that all SQL Server MVP gets free license of this software. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com), Idera (virtual database) Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Add-On, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Data Storage, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Idera

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  • TFS 2010 Build Custom Activity for Merging Assemblies

    - by Jakob Ehn
    *** The sample build process template discussed in this post is available for download from here: http://cid-ee034c9f620cd58d.office.live.com/self.aspx/BlogSamples/ILMerge.xaml ***   In my previous post I talked about library builds that we use to build and replicate dependencies between applications in TFS. This is typically used for common libraries and tools that several other application need to reference. When the libraries grow in size over time, so does the number of assemblies. So all solutions that uses the common library must reference all the necessary assemblies that they need, and if we for example do a refactoring and extract some code into a new assembly, all the clients must update their references to reflect these changes, otherwise it won’t compile. To improve on this, we use a tool from Microsoft Research called ILMerge (Download from here). It can be used to merge several assemblies into one assembly that contains all types. If you haven’t used this tool before, you should check it out. Previously I have implemented this in builds using a simple batch file that contains the full command, something like this: "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\microsoft\ilmerge\ilmerge.exe" /target:library /attr:ClassLibrary1.bl.dll /out:MyNewLibrary.dll ClassLibrary1.dll ClassLibrar2.dll ClassLibrary3.dll This merges 3 assemblies (ClassLibrary1, 2 and 3) into a new assembly called MyNewLibrary.dll. It will copy the attributes (file version, product version etc..) from ClassLibrary1.dll, using the /attr switch. For more info on ILMerge command line tool, see the above link. This approach works, but requires a little bit too much knowledge for the developers creating builds, therefor I have implemented a custom activity that wraps the use of ILMerge. This makes it much simpler to setup a new build definition and have the build automatically do the merging. The usage of the activity is then implemented as part of the Library Build process template mentioned in the previous post. For this article I have just created a simple build process template that only performs the ILMerge operation.   Below is the code for the custom activity. To make it compile, you need to reference the ILMerge.exe assembly. /// <summary> /// Activity for merging a list of assembies into one, using ILMerge /// </summary> public sealed class ILMergeActivity : BaseCodeActivity { /// <summary> /// A list of file paths to the assemblies that should be merged /// </summary> [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<IEnumerable<string>> InputAssemblies { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Full path to the generated assembly /// </summary> [RequiredArgument] public InArgument<string> OutputFile { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Which input assembly that the attibutes for the generated assembly should be copied from. /// Optional. If not specified, the first input assembly will be used /// </summary> public InArgument<string> AttributeFile { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Kind of assembly to generate, dll or exe /// </summary> public InArgument<TargetKindEnum> TargetKind { get; set; } // If your activity returns a value, derive from CodeActivity<TResult> // and return the value from the Execute method. protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context) { string message = InputAssemblies.Get(context).Aggregate("", (current, assembly) => current + (assembly + " ")); TrackMessage(context, "Merging " + message + " into " + OutputFile.Get(context)); ILMerge m = new ILMerge(); m.SetInputAssemblies(InputAssemblies.Get(context).ToArray()); m.TargetKind = TargetKind.Get(context) == TargetKindEnum.Dll ? ILMerge.Kind.Dll : ILMerge.Kind.Exe; m.OutputFile = OutputFile.Get(context); m.AttributeFile = !String.IsNullOrEmpty(AttributeFile.Get(context)) ? AttributeFile.Get(context) : InputAssemblies.Get(context).First(); m.SetTargetPlatform(RuntimeEnvironment.GetSystemVersion().Substring(0,2), RuntimeEnvironment.GetRuntimeDirectory()); m.Merge(); TrackMessage(context, "Generated " + m.OutputFile); } } [Browsable(true)] public enum TargetKindEnum { Dll, Exe } NB: The activity inherits from a BaseCodeActivity class which is an internal helper class which contains some methods and properties useful for moste custom activities. In this case, it uses the TrackeMessage method for writing to the build log. You either need to remove the TrackMessage method calls, or implement this yourself (which is not very hard… ) The custom activity has the following input arguments: InputAssemblies A list with the (full) paths to the assemblies to merge OutputFile The name of the resulting merged assembly AttributeFile Which assembly to use as the template for the attribute of the merged assembly. This argument is optional and if left blank, the first assembly in the input list is used TargetKind Decides what type of assembly to create, can be either a dll or an exe Of course, there are more switches to the ILMerge.exe, and these can be exposed as input arguments as well if you need it. To show how the custom activity can be used, I have attached a build process template (see link at the top of this post) that merges the output of the projects being built (CommonLibrary.dll and CommonLibrary2.dll) into a merged assembly (NewLibrary.dll). The build process template has the following custom process parameters:   The Assemblies To Merge argument is passed into a FindMatchingFiles activity to located all assemblies that are located in the BinariesDirectory folder after the compilation has been performed by Team Build. Here is the complete sequence of activities that performs the merge operation. It is located at the end of the Try, Compile, Test and Associate… sequence: It splits the AssembliesToMerge parameter and appends the full path (using the BinariesDirectory variable) and then enumerates the matching files using the FindMatchingFiles activity. When running the build, you can see that it merges two assemblies into a new one:     And the merged assembly (and associated pdb file) is copied to the drop location together with the rest of the assemblies:

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  • Creating a dynamic proxy generator with c# – Part 2 – Interceptor Design

    - by SeanMcAlinden
    Creating a dynamic proxy generator – Part 1 – Creating the Assembly builder, Module builder and caching mechanism For the latest code go to http://rapidioc.codeplex.com/ Before getting too involved in generating the proxy, I thought it would be worth while going through the intended design, this is important as the next step is to start creating the constructors for the proxy. Each proxy derives from a specified type The proxy has a corresponding constructor for each of the base type constructors The proxy has overrides for all methods and properties marked as Virtual on the base type For each overridden method, there is also a private method whose sole job is to call the base method. For each overridden method, a delegate is created whose sole job is to call the private method that calls the base method. The following class diagram shows the main classes and interfaces involved in the interception process. I’ll go through each of them to explain their place in the overall proxy.   IProxy Interface The proxy implements the IProxy interface for the sole purpose of adding custom interceptors. This allows the created proxy interface to be cast as an IProxy and then simply add Interceptors by calling it’s AddInterceptor method. This is done internally within the proxy building process so the consumer of the API doesn’t need knowledge of this. IInterceptor Interface The IInterceptor interface has one method: Handle. The handle method accepts a IMethodInvocation parameter which contains methods and data for handling method interception. Multiple classes that implement this interface can be added to the proxy. Each method override in the proxy calls the handle method rather than simply calling the base method. How the proxy fully works will be explained in the next section MethodInvocation. IMethodInvocation Interface & MethodInvocation class The MethodInvocation will contain one main method and multiple helper properties. Continue Method The method Continue() has two functions hidden away from the consumer. When Continue is called, if there are multiple Interceptors, the next Interceptors Handle method is called. If all Interceptors Handle methods have been called, the Continue method then calls the base class method. Properties The MethodInvocation will contain multiple helper properties including at least the following: Method Name (Read Only) Method Arguments (Read and Write) Method Argument Types (Read Only) Method Result (Read and Write) – this property remains null if the method return type is void Target Object (Read Only) Return Type (Read Only) DefaultInterceptor class The DefaultInterceptor class is a simple class that implements the IInterceptor interface. Here is the code: DefaultInterceptor namespace Rapid.DynamicProxy.Interception {     /// <summary>     /// Default interceptor for the proxy.     /// </summary>     /// <typeparam name="TBase">The base type.</typeparam>     public class DefaultInterceptor<TBase> : IInterceptor<TBase> where TBase : class     {         /// <summary>         /// Handles the specified method invocation.         /// </summary>         /// <param name="methodInvocation">The method invocation.</param>         public void Handle(IMethodInvocation<TBase> methodInvocation)         {             methodInvocation.Continue();         }     } } This is automatically created in the proxy and is the first interceptor that each method override calls. It’s sole function is to ensure that if no interceptors have been added, the base method is still called. Custom Interceptor Example A consumer of the Rapid.DynamicProxy API could create an interceptor for logging when the FirstName property of the User class is set. Just for illustration, I have also wrapped a transaction around the methodInvocation.Coninue() method. This means that any overriden methods within the user class will run within a transaction scope. MyInterceptor public class MyInterceptor : IInterceptor<User<int, IRepository>> {     public void Handle(IMethodInvocation<User<int, IRepository>> methodInvocation)     {         if (methodInvocation.Name == "set_FirstName")         {             Logger.Log("First name seting to: " + methodInvocation.Arguments[0]);         }         using (TransactionScope scope = new TransactionScope())         {             methodInvocation.Continue();         }         if (methodInvocation.Name == "set_FirstName")         {             Logger.Log("First name has been set to: " + methodInvocation.Arguments[0]);         }     } } Overridden Method Example To show a taster of what the overridden methods on the proxy would look like, the setter method for the property FirstName used in the above example would look something similar to the following (this is not real code but will look similar): set_FirstName public override void set_FirstName(string value) {     set_FirstNameBaseMethodDelegate callBase =         new set_FirstNameBaseMethodDelegate(this.set_FirstNameProxyGetBaseMethod);     object[] arguments = new object[] { value };     IMethodInvocation<User<IRepository>> methodInvocation =         new MethodInvocation<User<IRepository>>(this, callBase, "set_FirstName", arguments, interceptors);          this.Interceptors[0].Handle(methodInvocation); } As you can see, a delegate instance is created which calls to a private method on the class, the private method calls the base method and would look like the following: calls base setter private void set_FirstNameProxyGetBaseMethod(string value) {     base.set_FirstName(value); } The delegate is invoked when methodInvocation.Continue() is called within an interceptor. The set_FirstName parameters are loaded into an object array. The current instance, delegate, method name and method arguments are passed into the methodInvocation constructor (there will be more data not illustrated here passed in when created including method info, return types, argument types etc.) The DefaultInterceptor’s Handle method is called with the methodInvocation instance as it’s parameter. Obviously methods can have return values, ref and out parameters etc. in these cases the generated method override body will be slightly different from above. I’ll go into more detail on these aspects as we build them. Conclusion I hope this has been useful, I can’t guarantee that the proxy will look exactly like the above, but at the moment, this is pretty much what I intend to do. Always worth downloading the code at http://rapidioc.codeplex.com/ to see the latest. There will also be some tests that you can debug through to help see what’s going on. Cheers, Sean.

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  • Tips on installing Visual Studio 2010 SP1

    - by Jon Galloway
    Visual Studio SP1 went up on MSDN downloads (here) on March 8, and will be released publicly on March 10 here. Release announcements: Soma: Visual Studio 2010 enhancements Jason Zander: Announcing Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 I started on this post with tips on installing VS2010 SP1 when I realized I’ve been writing these up for Visual Studio and .NET framework SP releases for a while (e.g. VS2008 / .NET 3.5 SP1 post, VS2005 SP1 post). Looking back the years of Visual Studio SP installs (and remembering when we’d get up to SP6 for a Visual Studio release), I’m happy to see that it just keeps getting easier. Service Packs are a lot less finicky about requiring beta software to be uninstalled, install more quickly, and are just generally a lot less scary. If I can’t have a jetpack, at least my future provided me faster, easier service packs. Disclaimer: These tips are just general things I've picked up over the years. I don't have any inside knowledge here. If you see anything wrong, be sure to let me know in the comments. You may want to check the readme file before installing - it's short, and it's in that new-fangled HTML format. On with the tips! Before starting, uninstall Visual Studio features you don't use Visual Studio service packs (and other Microsoft service packs as well) install patches for the specific features you’ve got installed. This is a big reason to always do a custom install when you first install Visual Studio, but it’s not difficult to update your existing installation. Here’s the quick way to do that: Tap the windows key and type “add or remove programs” and press enter (or click on the “Add or remove programs” link if you must).   Type “Visual Studio 2010” in the search box in the upper right corner, click on the Visual Studio program (the one with the VS infinity looking logo) and click on Uninstall/Change. Click on Add or Remove Features The next part’s up to you – what features do you actually use? I’ve been doing primarily ASP.NET MVC development in C# lately, so I selected Visual C# and Visual Web Developer. Remember that you can install features later if needed, and can also install the express versions if you want. Selecting everything just because it’s there - or you paid for it – means that you install updates for everything, every time. When you’ve made your changes, click on the Update button to uninstall unused features. Shut down all instances of Visual Studio It probably goes without saying that you should close a program down before installing it, partly to avoid the file-in-use-reboot-after-install horror. Additional "hunch / works on my machine" quality tip: On one computer I saw a note in the setup log about Visual Studio a prompt for user input to close Visual Studio, although I never saw the prompt. Just to  be sure, I'd personally open up Task Manager and kill any devenv.exe processes I saw running, as it couldn't hurt. Use the web installer I use the Web Installers whenever possible. There’s no point in downloading the DVD unless you’re doing multiple installs or won’t have internet access. The DVD IS is 1.5GB, since it needs to be able to service every possible supported installation option on both x86 and x64. The web installer is 776 KB (smaller than calc.exe), so you can start the installation right away. Like other web installers, the real benefit is that it only installs the updates you need (hence the reason for step 1 – uninstalling unused components). Instead of 1.5GB, my download was roughly 530MB. If you’re installing from MSDN (this link takes you right to the Visual Studio installs), select the first one on the list: The first step in the installation process is to analyze the machine configuration and tell you what needs to be installed. Since I've trimmed down my features, that's a pretty short list. The time's not far off where I may not install SQL Server on my dev machines, just using SQL Server Compact - that would shorten the list further. When I hit next, you can see that the download size has shrunk considerably. When I start the install, note that the installation begins while other components are downloading - another benefit of the web install. On my mid-range desktop machine, the install took 25 minutes. What if it takes longer? According to Heath Stewart (Visual Studio installer guru), average SP1 installs take roughly 45 minutes. An installation which takes hours to complete may be a sign of a problem: see his post Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 installing for over 2 hours could be a sign of a problem. Why so long? Yes, even 25 minutes is a while. Heath's got another blog post explaining why the update can take longer than the initial install (see: A patch may take as long or longer to install than the target product) which explains all the additional steps and complexities a patch needs to deal with, as well as some mitigation steps that deployment authors can take to mitigate the impact. Other things to know about Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Installs over Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Beta That's nice. Previous Visual Studio versions did a number of annoying things when you installed SP's over beta's - fail with weird errors, get part way through and tell you needed to cancel and uninstall first, etc. I've installed this on two machines that had random beta stuff installed without tears. That Readme file you didn't read I mentioned the readme file earlier (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=210711 ). Some interesting things I picked up in there: 2.1.3. Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 installation may fail when a USB drive or other removeable drive is connected 2.1.4. Visual Studio must be restarted after Visual Studio 2010 SP1 tooling for SQL Server Compact (Compact) 4.0 is installed 2.2.1. If Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 is uninstalled, Visual Studio 2010 must be reinstalled to restore certain components 2.2.2. If Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 is uninstalled, Visual Studio 2010 must be reinstalled before SP1 can be installed again 2.4.3.1. Async CTP If you installed the pre-SP1 version of Async CTP but did not uninstall it before you installed Visual Studio 2010 SP1, then your computer will be in a state in which the version of the C# compiler in the .NET Framework does not match the C# compiler in Visual Studio. To resolve this issue: After you install Visual Studio 2010 SP1, reinstall the SP1 version of the Async CTP from here. Hardware acceleration for Visual Studio is disabled on Windows XP Visual Studio 2010 SP1 disables hardware acceleration when running on Windows XP (only on XP). You can turn it back on in the Visual Studio options, under Environment / General, as shown below. See Jason Zander's post titled Performance Troubleshooting Article and VS2010 SP1 Change.

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  • JMS Step 1 - How to Create a Simple JMS Queue in Weblogic Server 11g

    - by John-Brown.Evans
    JMS Step 1 - How to Create a Simple JMS Queue in Weblogic Server 11g ol{margin:0;padding:0} .c5{vertical-align:top;width:156pt;border-style:solid;border-color:#000000;border-width:1pt;padding:0pt 2pt 0pt 2pt} .c7{list-style-type:disc;margin:0;padding:0} .c4{background-color:#ffffff} .c14{color:#1155cc;text-decoration:underline} .c6{height:11pt;text-align:center} .c13{color:inherit;text-decoration:inherit} .c3{padding-left:0pt;margin-left:36pt} .c0{border-collapse:collapse} .c12{text-align:center} .c1{direction:ltr} .c8{background-color:#f3f3f3} .c2{line-height:1.0} .c11{font-style:italic} .c10{height:11pt} .c9{font-weight:bold} .title{padding-top:24pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#000000;font-size:36pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:bold;padding-bottom:6pt}.subtitle{padding-top:18pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666666;font-style:italic;font-size:24pt;font-family:"Georgia";padding-bottom:4pt} li{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial"} p{color:#000000;font-size:10pt;margin:0;font-family:"Arial"} h1{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:18pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h2{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:14pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h3{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h4{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-style:italic;font-size:11pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:0pt} h5{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:0pt} h6{padding-top:0pt;line-height:1.15;text-align:left;color:#666;font-style:italic;font-size:10pt;font-family:"Arial";padding-bottom:0pt} This example shows the steps to create a simple JMS queue in WebLogic Server 11g for testing purposes. For example, to use with the two sample programs QueueSend.java and QueueReceive.java which will be shown in later examples. Additional, detailed information on JMS can be found in the following Oracle documentation: Oracle® Fusion Middleware Configuring and Managing JMS for Oracle WebLogic Server 11g Release 1 (10.3.6) Part Number E13738-06 http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/web.1111/e13738/toc.htm 1. Introduction and Definitions A JMS queue in Weblogic Server is associated with a number of additional resources: JMS Server A JMS server acts as a management container for resources within JMS modules. Some of its responsibilities include the maintenance of persistence and state of messages and subscribers. A JMS server is required in order to create a JMS module. JMS Module A JMS module is a definition which contains JMS resources such as queues and topics. A JMS module is required in order to create a JMS queue. Subdeployment JMS modules are targeted to one or more WLS instances or a cluster. Resources within a JMS module, such as queues and topics are also targeted to a JMS server or WLS server instances. A subdeployment is a grouping of targets. It is also known as advanced targeting. Connection Factory A connection factory is a resource that enables JMS clients to create connections to JMS destinations. JMS Queue A JMS queue (as opposed to a JMS topic) is a point-to-point destination type. A message is written to a specific queue or received from a specific queue. The objects used in this example are: Object Name Type JNDI Name TestJMSServer JMS Server TestJMSModule JMS Module TestSubDeployment Subdeployment TestConnectionFactory Connection Factory jms/TestConnectionFactory TestJMSQueue JMS Queue jms/TestJMSQueue 2. Configuration Steps The following steps are done in the WebLogic Server Console, beginning with the left-hand navigation menu. 2.1 Create a JMS Server Services > Messaging > JMS Servers Select New Name: TestJMSServer Persistent Store: (none) Target: soa_server1  (or choose an available server) Finish The JMS server should now be visible in the list with Health OK. 2.2 Create a JMS Module Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select New Name: TestJMSModule Leave the other options empty Targets: soa_server1  (or choose the same one as the JMS server)Press Next Leave “Would you like to add resources to this JMS system module” unchecked and  press Finish . 2.3 Create a SubDeployment A subdeployment is not necessary for the JMS queue to work, but it allows you to easily target subcomponents of the JMS module to a single target or group of targets. We will use the subdeployment in this example to target the following connection factory and JMS queue to the JMS server we created earlier. Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select TestJMSModule Select the Subdeployments  tab and New Subdeployment Name: TestSubdeployment Press Next Here you can select the target(s) for the subdeployment. You can choose either Servers (i.e. WebLogic managed servers, such as the soa_server1) or JMS Servers such as the JMS Server created earlier. As the purpose of our subdeployment in this example is to target a specific JMS server, we will choose the JMS Server option. Select the TestJMSServer created earlier Press Finish 2.4  Create a Connection Factory Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select TestJMSModule  and press New Select Connection Factory  and Next Name: TestConnectionFactory JNDI Name: jms/TestConnectionFactory Leave the other values at default On the Targets page, select the Advanced Targeting  button and select TestSubdeployment Press Finish The connection factory should be listed on the following page with TestSubdeployment and TestJMSServer as the target. 2.5 Create a JMS Queue Services > Messaging > JMS Modules Select TestJMSModule  and press New Select Queue and Next Name: TestJMSQueueJNDI Name: jms/TestJMSQueueTemplate: NonePress Next Subdeployments: TestSubdeployment Finish The TestJMSQueue should be listed on the following page with TestSubdeployment and TestJMSServer. Confirm the resources for the TestJMSModule. Using the Domain Structure tree, navigate to soa_domain > Services > Messaging > JMS Modules then select TestJMSModule You should see the following resources The JMS queue is now complete and can be accessed using the JNDI names jms/TestConnectionFactory andjms/TestJMSQueue. In the following blog post in this series, I will show you how to write a message to this queue, using the WebLogic sample Java program QueueSend.java.

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  • SQLAuthority News – A Successful Community TechDays at Ahmedabad – December 11, 2010

    - by pinaldave
    We recently had one of the best community events in Ahmedabad. We were fortunate that we had SQL Experts from around the world to have presented at this event. This gathering was very special because besides Jacob Sebastian and myself, we had two other speakers traveling all the way from Florida (Rushabh Mehta) and Bangalore (Vinod Kumar).There were a total of nearly 170 attendees and the event was blast. Here are the details of the event. Pinal Dave Presenting at Community Tech Days On the day of the event, it seemed to be the coldest day in Ahmedabad but I was glad to see hundreds of people waiting for the doors to be opened some hours before. We started the day with hot coffee and cookies. Yes, food first; and it was right after my keynote. I could clearly see that the coffee did some magic right away; the hall was almost full after the coffee break. Jacob Sebastian Presenting at Community Tech Days Jacob Sebastian, an SQL Server MVP and a close friend of mine, had an unusual job of surprising everybody with an innovative topic accompanied with lots of question-and-answer portions. That’s definitely one thing to love Jacob, that is, the novelty of the subject. His presentation was entitled “Best Database Practices for the .Net”; it really created magic on the crowd. Pinal Dave Presenting at Community Tech Days Next to Jacob Sebastian, I presented “Best Database Practices for the SharePoint”. It was really fun to present Database with the perspective of the database itself. The main highlight of my presentation was when I talked about how one can speed up the database performance by 40% for SharePoint in just 40 seconds. It was fun because the most important thing was to convince people to use the recommendation as soon as they walk out of the session. It was really amusing and the response of the participants was remarkable. Pinal Dave Presenting at Community Tech Days My session was followed by the most-awaited session of the day: that of Rushabh Mehta. He is an international BI expert who traveled all the way from Florida to present “Self Service BI” session. This session was funny and truly interesting. In fact, no one knew BI could be this much entertaining and fascinating. Rushabh has an appealing style of presenting the session; he instantly got very much interaction from the audience. Rushabh Mehta Presenting at Community Tech Days We had a networking lunch break in-between, when we talked about many various topics. It is always interesting to get in touch with the Community and feel a part of it. I had a wonderful time during the break. Vinod Kumar Presenting at Community Tech Days After lunch was apparently the most difficult session for the presenter as during this time, many people started to fall sleep and get dizzy. This spot was requested by Microsoft SQL Server Evangelist Vinod Kumar himself. During our discussion he suggested that if he gets this slot he would make sure people are up and more interactive than during the morning session. Just like always, this session was one of the best sessions ever. Vinod is true to his word as he presented the subject of “Time Management for Developer”. This session was the biggest hit in the event because the subject was instilled in the mind of every participant. Vinod Kumar Presenting at Community Tech Days Vinod’s session was followed by his own small session. Due to “insistent public demand”, he presented an interesting subject, “Tricks and Tips of SQL Server“. In 20 minutes he has done another awesome job and all attendees wanted more of the tricks. Just as usual he promised to do that next time for us. Vinod’s session was succeeded by Prabhjot Singh Bakshi’s session. He presented an appealing Silverlight concept. Just the same, he did a great job and people cheered him. Prabhjot Presenting at Community Tech Days We had a special invited speaker, Dhananjay Kumar, traveling all the way from Pune. He always supports our cause to help the Community in empowering participants. He presented the topic about Win7 Mobile and SharePoint integration. This was something many did not even expect to be possible. Kudos to Dhananjay for doing a great job. Dhananjay Kumar Presenting at Community Tech Days All in all, this event was one of the best in the Community Tech Days series in Ahmedabad. We were fortunate that legends from the all over the world were present here to present to the Community. I’d say never underestimate the power of the Community and its influence over the direction of the technology. Vinod Kumar Presenting trophy to Pinal Dave Vinod Kumar Presenting trophy to Pinal Dave This event was a very special gathering to me personally because of your support to the vibrant Community. The following awards were won for last year’s performance: Ahmedabad SQL Server User Group (President: Jacob Sebastian; Leader: Pinal Dave) – Best Tier 2 User Group Best Development Community Individual Contributor – Pinal Dave Speakers I was very glad to receive the award for our entire Community. Attendees at Community Tech Days I want to say thanks to Rushabh Mehta, Vinod Kumar and Dhananjay Kumar for visiting the city and presenting various technology topics in Community Tech Days. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • Displaying an image on a LED matrix with a Netduino

    - by Bertrand Le Roy
    In the previous post, we’ve been flipping bits manually on three ports of the Netduino to simulate the data, clock and latch pins that a shift register expected. We did all that in order to control one line of a LED matrix and create a simple Knight Rider effect. It was rightly pointed out in the comments that the Netduino has built-in knowledge of the sort of serial protocol that this shift register understands through a feature called SPI. That will of course make our code a whole lot simpler, but it will also make it a whole lot faster: writing to the Netduino ports is actually not that fast, whereas SPI is very, very fast. Unfortunately, the Netduino documentation for SPI is severely lacking. Instead, we’ve been reliably using the documentation for the Fez, another .NET microcontroller. To send data through SPI, we’ll just need  to move a few wires around and update the code. SPI uses pin D11 for writing, pin D12 for reading (which we won’t do) and pin D13 for the clock. The latch pin is a parameter that can be set by the user. This is very close to the wiring we had before (data on D11, clock on D12 and latch on D13). We just have to move the latch from D13 to D10, and the clock from D12 to D13. The code that controls the shift register has slimmed down considerably with that change. Here is the new version, which I invite you to compare with what we had before: public class ShiftRegister74HC595 { protected SPI Spi; public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin) : this(latchPin, SPI.SPI_module.SPI1) { } public ShiftRegister74HC595(Cpu.Pin latchPin, SPI.SPI_module spiModule) { var spiConfig = new SPI.Configuration( SPI_mod: spiModule, ChipSelect_Port: latchPin, ChipSelect_ActiveState: false, ChipSelect_SetupTime: 0, ChipSelect_HoldTime: 0, Clock_IdleState: false, Clock_Edge: true, Clock_RateKHz: 1000 ); Spi = new SPI(spiConfig); } public void Write(byte buffer) { Spi.Write(new[] {buffer}); } } All we have to do here is configure SPI. The write method couldn’t be any simpler. Everything is now handled in hardware by the Netduino. We set the frequency to 1MHz, which is largely sufficient for what we’ll be doing, but it could potentially go much higher. The shift register addresses the columns of the matrix. The rows are directly wired to ports D0 to D7 of the Netduino. The code writes to only one of those eight lines at a time, which will make it fast enough. The way an image is displayed is that we light the lines one after the other so fast that persistence of vision will give the illusion of a stable image: foreach (var bitmap in matrix.MatrixBitmap) { matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, true); matrix.OnRow(row, bitmap, false); row++; } Now there is a twist here: we need to run this code as fast as possible in order to display the image with as little flicker as possible, but we’ll eventually have other things to do. In other words, we need the code driving the display to run in the background, except when we want to change what’s being displayed. Fortunately, the .NET Micro Framework supports multithreading. In our implementation, we’ve added an Initialize method that spins a new thread that is tied to the specific instance of the matrix it’s being called on. public LedMatrix Initialize() { DisplayThread = new Thread(() => DoDisplay(this)); DisplayThread.Start(); return this; } I quite like this way to spin a thread. As you may know, there is another, built-in way to contextualize a thread by passing an object into the Start method. For the method to work, the thread must have been constructed with a ParameterizedThreadStart delegate, which takes one parameter of type object. I like to use object as little as possible, so instead I’m constructing a closure with a Lambda, currying it with the current instance. This way, everything remains strongly-typed and there’s no casting to do. Note that this method would extend perfectly to several parameters. Of note as well is the return value of Initialize, a common technique to add some fluency to the API and enabling the matrix to be instantiated and initialized in a single line: using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) The “using” in the previous line is because we have implemented IDisposable so that the matrix kills the thread and clears the display when the user code is done with it: public void Dispose() { Clear(); DisplayThread.Abort(); } Thanks to the multi-threaded version of the matrix driver class, we can treat the display as a simple bitmap with a very synchronous programming model: matrix.Set(someimage); while (button.Read()) { Thread.Sleep(10); } Here, the call into Set returns immediately and from the moment the bitmap is set, the background display thread will constantly continue refreshing no matter what happens in the main thread. That enables us to wait or read a button’s port on the main thread knowing that the current image will continue displaying unperturbed and without requiring manual refreshing. We’ve effectively hidden the implementation of the display behind a convenient, synchronous-looking API. Pretty neat, eh? Before I wrap up this post, I want to talk about one small caveat of using SPI rather than driving the shift register directly: when we got to the point where we could actually display images, we noticed that they were a mirror image of what we were sending in. Oh noes! Well, the reason for it is that SPI is sending the bits in a big-endian fashion, in other words backwards. Now sure you could fix that in software by writing some bit-level code to reverse the bits we’re sending in, but there is a far more efficient solution than that. We are doing hardware here, so we can simply reverse the order in which the outputs of the shift register are connected to the columns of the matrix. That’s switching 8 wires around once, as compared to doing bit operations every time we send a line to display. All right, so bringing it all together, here is the code we need to write to display two images in succession, separated by a press on the board’s button: var button = new InputPort(Pins.ONBOARD_SW1, false, Port.ResistorMode.Disabled); using (var matrix = new LedMS88SR74HC595().Initialize()) { // Oh, prototype is so sad! var sad = new byte[] { 0x66, 0x24, 0x00, 0x18, 0x00, 0x3C, 0x42, 0x81 }; DisplayAndWait(sad, matrix, button); // Let's make it smile! var smile = new byte[] { 0x42, 0x18, 0x18, 0x81, 0x7E, 0x3C, 0x18, 0x00 }; DisplayAndWait(smile, matrix, button); } And here is a video of the prototype running: The prototype in action I’ve added an artificial delay between the display of each row of the matrix to clearly show what’s otherwise happening very fast. This way, you can clearly see each of the two images being displayed line by line. Next time, we’ll do no hardware changes, focusing instead on building a nice programming model for the matrix, with sprites, text and hardware scrolling. Fun stuff. By the way, can any of my reader guess where we’re going with all that? The code for this prototype can be downloaded here: http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/bleroy/Samples/NetduinoLedMatrixDriver.zip

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  • Securing an ASP.NET MVC 2 Application

    - by rajbk
    This post attempts to look at some of the methods that can be used to secure an ASP.NET MVC 2 Application called Northwind Traders Human Resources.  The sample code for the project is attached at the bottom of this post. We are going to use a slightly modified Northwind database. The screen capture from SQL server management studio shows the change. I added a new column called Salary, inserted some random salaries for the employees and then turned off AllowNulls.   The reporting relationship for Northwind Employees is shown below.   The requirements for our application are as follows: Employees can see their LastName, FirstName, Title, Address and Salary Employees are allowed to edit only their Address information Employees can see the LastName, FirstName, Title, Address and Salary of their immediate reports Employees cannot see records of non immediate reports.  Employees are allowed to edit only the Salary and Title information of their immediate reports. Employees are not allowed to edit the Address of an immediate report Employees should be authenticated into the system. Employees by default get the “Employee” role. If a user has direct reports, they will also get assigned a “Manager” role. We use a very basic empId/pwd scheme of EmployeeID (1-9) and password test$1. You should never do this in an actual application. The application should protect from Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF). For example, Michael could trick Steven, who is already logged on to the HR website, to load a page which contains a malicious request. where without Steven’s knowledge, a form on the site posts information back to the Northwind HR website using Steven’s credentials. Michael could use this technique to give himself a raise :-) UI Notes The layout of our app looks like so: When Nancy (EmpID 1) signs on, she sees the default page with her details and is allowed to edit her address. If Nancy attempts to view the record of employee Andrew who has an employeeID of 2 (Employees/Edit/2), she will get a “Not Authorized” error page. When Andrew (EmpID 2) signs on, he can edit the address field of his record and change the title and salary of employees that directly report to him. Implementation Notes All controllers inherit from a BaseController. The BaseController currently only has error handling code. When a user signs on, we check to see if they are in a Manager role. We then create a FormsAuthenticationTicket, encrypt it (including the roles that the employee belongs to) and add it to a cookie. private void SetAuthenticationCookie(int employeeID, List<string> roles) { HttpCookiesSection cookieSection = (HttpCookiesSection) ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.web/httpCookies"); AuthenticationSection authenticationSection = (AuthenticationSection) ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.web/authentication"); FormsAuthenticationTicket authTicket = new FormsAuthenticationTicket( 1, employeeID.ToString(), DateTime.Now, DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(authenticationSection.Forms.Timeout.TotalMinutes), false, string.Join("|", roles.ToArray())); String encryptedTicket = FormsAuthentication.Encrypt(authTicket); HttpCookie authCookie = new HttpCookie(FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName, encryptedTicket); if (cookieSection.RequireSSL || authenticationSection.Forms.RequireSSL) { authCookie.Secure = true; } HttpContext.Current.Response.Cookies.Add(authCookie); } We read this cookie back in Global.asax and set the Context.User to be a new GenericPrincipal with the roles we assigned earlier. protected void Application_AuthenticateRequest(Object sender, EventArgs e){ if (Context.User != null) { string cookieName = FormsAuthentication.FormsCookieName; HttpCookie authCookie = Context.Request.Cookies[cookieName]; if (authCookie == null) return; FormsAuthenticationTicket authTicket = FormsAuthentication.Decrypt(authCookie.Value); string[] roles = authTicket.UserData.Split(new char[] { '|' }); FormsIdentity fi = (FormsIdentity)(Context.User.Identity); Context.User = new System.Security.Principal.GenericPrincipal(fi, roles); }} We ensure that a user has permissions to view a record by creating a custom attribute AuthorizeToViewID that inherits from ActionFilterAttribute. public class AuthorizeToViewIDAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute{ IEmployeeRepository employeeRepository = new EmployeeRepository(); public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext) { if (filterContext.ActionParameters.ContainsKey("id") && filterContext.ActionParameters["id"] != null) { if (employeeRepository.IsAuthorizedToView((int)filterContext.ActionParameters["id"])) { return; } } throw new UnauthorizedAccessException("The record does not exist or you do not have permission to access it"); }} We add the AuthorizeToView attribute to any Action method that requires authorization. [HttpPost][Authorize(Order = 1)]//To prevent CSRF[ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Globals.EditSalt, Order = 2)]//See AuthorizeToViewIDAttribute class[AuthorizeToViewID(Order = 3)] [ActionName("Edit")]public ActionResult Update(int id){ var employeeToEdit = employeeRepository.GetEmployee(id); if (employeeToEdit != null) { //Employees can edit only their address //A manager can edit the title and salary of their subordinate string[] whiteList = (employeeToEdit.IsSubordinate) ? new string[] { "Title", "Salary" } : new string[] { "Address" }; if (TryUpdateModel(employeeToEdit, whiteList)) { employeeRepository.Save(employeeToEdit); return RedirectToAction("Details", new { id = id }); } else { ModelState.AddModelError("", "Please correct the following errors."); } } return View(employeeToEdit);} The Authorize attribute is added to ensure that only authorized users can execute that Action. We use the TryUpdateModel with a white list to ensure that (a) an employee is able to edit only their Address and (b) that a manager is able to edit only the Title and Salary of a subordinate. This works in conjunction with the AuthorizeToViewIDAttribute. The ValidateAntiForgeryToken attribute is added (with a salt) to avoid CSRF. The Order on the attributes specify the order in which the attributes are executed. The Edit View uses the AntiForgeryToken helper to render the hidden token: ......<% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%><%=Html.AntiForgeryToken(NorthwindHR.Models.Globals.EditSalt)%><%= Html.ValidationSummary(true, "Please correct the errors and try again.") %><div class="editor-label"> <%= Html.LabelFor(model => model.LastName) %></div><div class="editor-field">...... The application uses View specific models for ease of model binding. public class EmployeeViewModel{ public int EmployeeID; [Required] [DisplayName("Last Name")] public string LastName { get; set; } [Required] [DisplayName("First Name")] public string FirstName { get; set; } [Required] [DisplayName("Title")] public string Title { get; set; } [Required] [DisplayName("Address")] public string Address { get; set; } [Required] [DisplayName("Salary")] [Range(500, double.MaxValue)] public decimal Salary { get; set; } public bool IsSubordinate { get; set; }} To help with displaying readonly/editable fields, we use a helper method. //Simple extension method to display a TextboxFor or DisplayFor based on the isEditable variablepublic static MvcHtmlString TextBoxOrLabelFor<TModel, TProperty>(this HtmlHelper<TModel> htmlHelper, Expression<Func<TModel, TProperty>> expression, bool isEditable){ if (isEditable) { return htmlHelper.TextBoxFor(expression); } else { return htmlHelper.DisplayFor(expression); }} The helper method is used in the view like so: <%=Html.TextBoxOrLabelFor(model => model.Title, Model.IsSubordinate)%> As mentioned in this post, there is a much easier way to update properties on an object. Download Demo Project VS 2008, ASP.NET MVC 2 RTM Remember to change the connectionString to point to your Northwind DB NorthwindHR.zip Feedback and bugs are always welcome :-)

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  • Creating packages in code - Package Configurations

    Continuing my theme of building various types of packages in code, this example shows how to building a package with package configurations. Incidentally it shows you how to add a variable, and a connection too. It covers the five most common configurations: Configuration File Indirect Configuration File SQL Server Indirect SQL Server Environment Variable  For a general overview try the SQL Server Books Online Package Configurations topic. The sample uses a a simple helper function ApplyConfig to create or update a configuration, although in the example we will only ever create. The most useful knowledge is the configuration string (Configuration.ConfigurationString) that you need to set. Configuration Type Configuration String Description Configuration File The full path and file name of an XML configuration file. The file can contain one or more configuration and includes the target path and new value to set. Indirect Configuration File An environment variable the value of which contains full path and file name of an XML configuration file as per the Configuration File type described above. SQL Server A three part configuration string, with each part being quote delimited and separated by a semi-colon. -- The first part is the connection manager name. The connection tells you which server and database to look for the configuration table. -- The second part is the name of the configuration table. The table is of a standard format, use the Package Configuration Wizard to help create an example, or see the sample script files below. The table contains one or more rows or configuration items each with a target path and new value. -- The third and final part is the optional filter name. A configuration table can contain multiple configurations, and the filter is  literal value that can be used to group items together and act as a filter clause when configurations are being read. If you do not need a filter, just leave the value empty. Indirect SQL Server An environment variable the value of which is the three part configuration string as per the SQL Server type described above. Environment Variable An environment variable the value of which is the value to set in the package. This is slightly different to the other examples as the configuration definition in the package also includes the target information. In our ApplyConfig function this is the only example that actually supplies a target value for the Configuration.PackagePath property. The path is an XPath style path for the target property, \Package.Variables[User::Variable].Properties[Value], the equivalent of which can be seen in the screenshot below, with the object being our variable called Variable, and the property to set is the Value property of that variable object. The configurations as seen when opening the generated package in BIDS: The sample code creates the package, adds a variable and connection manager, enables configurations, and then adds our example configurations. The package is then saved to disk, useful for checking the package and testing, before finally executing, just to prove it is valid. There are some external resources used here, namely some environment variables and a table, see below for more details. namespace Konesans.Dts.Samples { using System; using Microsoft.SqlServer.Dts.Runtime; public class PackageConfigurations { public void CreatePackage() { // Create a new package Package package = new Package(); package.Name = "ConfigurationSample"; // Add a variable, the target for our configurations package.Variables.Add("Variable", false, "User", 0); // Add a connection, for SQL configurations // Add the SQL OLE-DB connection ConnectionManager connectionManagerOleDb = package.Connections.Add("OLEDB"); connectionManagerOleDb.Name = "SQLConnection"; connectionManagerOleDb.ConnectionString = "Provider=SQLOLEDB.1;Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=master;Integrated Security=SSPI;"; // Add our example configurations, first must enable package setting package.EnableConfigurations = true; // Direct configuration file, see sample file this.ApplyConfig(package, "Configuration File", DTSConfigurationType.ConfigFile, "C:\\Temp\\XmlConfig.dtsConfig", string.Empty); // Indirect configuration file, the emvironment variable XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable // contains the path to the configuration file, e.g. C:\Temp\XmlConfig.dtsConfig this.ApplyConfig(package, "Indirect Configuration File", DTSConfigurationType.IConfigFile, "XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable", string.Empty); // Direct SQL Server configuration, uses the SQLConnection package connection to read // configurations from the [dbo].[SSIS Configurations] table, with a filter of "SampleFilter" this.ApplyConfig(package, "SQL Server", DTSConfigurationType.SqlServer, "\"SQLConnection\";\"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]\";\"SampleFilter\";", string.Empty); // Indirect SQL Server configuration, the environment variable "SQLServerEnvironmentVariable" // contains the configuration string e.g. "SQLConnection";"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]";"SampleFilter"; this.ApplyConfig(package, "Indirect SQL Server", DTSConfigurationType.ISqlServer, "SQLServerEnvironmentVariable", string.Empty); // Direct environment variable, the value of the EnvironmentVariable environment variable is // applied to the target property, the value of the "User::Variable" package variable this.ApplyConfig(package, "EnvironmentVariable", DTSConfigurationType.EnvVariable, "EnvironmentVariable", "\\Package.Variables[User::Variable].Properties[Value]"); #if DEBUG // Save package to disk, DEBUG only new Application().SaveToXml(String.Format(@"C:\Temp\{0}.dtsx", package.Name), package, null); Console.WriteLine(@"C:\Temp\{0}.dtsx", package.Name); #endif // Execute package package.Execute(); // Basic check for warnings foreach (DtsWarning warning in package.Warnings) { Console.WriteLine("WarningCode : {0}", warning.WarningCode); Console.WriteLine(" SubComponent : {0}", warning.SubComponent); Console.WriteLine(" Description : {0}", warning.Description); Console.WriteLine(); } // Basic check for errors foreach (DtsError error in package.Errors) { Console.WriteLine("ErrorCode : {0}", error.ErrorCode); Console.WriteLine(" SubComponent : {0}", error.SubComponent); Console.WriteLine(" Description : {0}", error.Description); Console.WriteLine(); } package.Dispose(); } /// <summary> /// Add or update an package configuration. /// </summary> /// <param name="package">The package.</param> /// <param name="name">The configuration name.</param> /// <param name="type">The type of configuration</param> /// <param name="setting">The configuration setting.</param> /// <param name="target">The target of the configuration, leave blank if not required.</param> internal void ApplyConfig(Package package, string name, DTSConfigurationType type, string setting, string target) { Configurations configurations = package.Configurations; Configuration configuration; if (configurations.Contains(name)) { configuration = configurations[name]; } else { configuration = configurations.Add(); } configuration.Name = name; configuration.ConfigurationType = type; configuration.ConfigurationString = setting; configuration.PackagePath = target; } } } The following table lists the environment variables required for the full example to work along with some sample values. Variable Sample value EnvironmentVariable 1 SQLServerEnvironmentVariable "SQLConnection";"[dbo].[SSIS Configurations]";"SampleFilter"; XmlConfigFileEnvironmentVariable C:\Temp\XmlConfig.dtsConfig Sample code, package and configuration file. ConfigurationApplication.cs ConfigurationSample.dtsx XmlConfig.dtsConfig

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  • Interesting things – Twitter annotations and your phone as a web server

    - by jamiet
    I overheard/read a couple of things today that really made me, data junkie that I am, take a step back and think, “Hmmm, yeah, that could be really interesting” and I wanted to make a note of them here so that (a) I could bring them to the attention of anyone that happens to read this and (b) I can maybe come back here in a few years and see if either of these have come to fruition. Your phone as a web server While listening to Jon Udell’s (twitter) “Interviews with Innovators Podcast” today in which he interviewed Herbert Van de Sompel (twitter) about his Momento project. During the interview Jon and Herbert made the following remarks: Jon: [some people] really had this vision of a web of servers, the notion that every node on the internet, every connected entity, is potentially a server and a client…we can see where we’re getting to a point where these endpoint devices we have in our pockets are going to be massively capable and it may be in the not too distant future that significant chunks of the web archive will be cached all over the place including on your own machine… Herbert: wasn’t it Opera who at one point turned your browser into a server? That really got my brain ticking. We all carry a mobile phone with us and therefore we all potentially carry a mobile web server with us as well and to my mind the only thing really stopping that from happening is the capabilities of the phone hardware, the capabilities of the network infrastructure and the will to just bloody do it. Certainly all the standards required for addressing a web server on a phone already exist (to this uninitiated observer DNS and IPv6 seem to solve that problem) so why not? I tweeted about the idea and Rory Street answered back with “why would you want a phone to be a web server?”: Its a fair question and one that I would like to try and answer. Mobile phones are increasingly becoming our window onto the world as we use them to upload messages to Twitter, record our location on FourSquare or interact with our friends on Facebook but in each of these cases some other service is acting as our intermediary; to see what I’m thinking you have to go via Twitter, to see where I am you have to go to FourSquare (I’m using ‘I’ liberally, I don’t actually use FourSquare before you ask). Why should this have to be the case? Why can’t that data be decentralised? Why can’t we be masters of our own data universe? If my phone acted as a web server then I could expose all of that information without needing those intermediary services. I see a time when we can pass around URLs such as the following: http://jamiesphone.net/location/current - Where is Jamie right now? http://jamiesphone.net/location/2010-04-21 – Where was Jamie on 21st April 2010? http://jamiesphone.net/thoughts/current – What’s on Jamie’s mind right now? http://jamiesphone.net/blog – What documents is Jamie sharing with me? http://jamiesphone.net/calendar/next7days – Where is Jamie planning to be over the next 7 days? and those URLs get served off of the phone in our pockets. If we govern that data then we can control who has access to it and (crucially) how long its available for. Want to wipe yourself off the face of the web? its pretty easy if you’re in control of all the data – just turn your phone off. None of this exists today but I look forward to a time when it does. Opera really were onto something last June when they announced Opera Unite (admittedly Unite only works because Opera provide an intermediary DNS-alike system – it isn’t totally decentralised). Opening up Twitter annotations Last week Twitter held their first developer conference called Chirp where they announced an upcoming new feature called ‘Twitter Annotations’; in short this will allow us to attach metadata to a Tweet thus enhancing the tweet itself. Think of it as a richer version of hashtags. To think of it another way Twitter are turning their data into a humongous Entity-Attribute-Value or triple-tuple store. That alone has huge implications both for the web and Twitter as a whole – the ability to enrich that 140 characters data and thus make it more useful is indeed compelling however today I stumbled upon a blog post from Eugene Mandel entitled Tweet Annotations – a Way to a Metadata Marketplace? where he proposed the idea of allowing tweets to have metadata added by people other than the person who tweeted the original tweet. This idea really fascinated me especially when I read some of the potential uses that Eugene and his commenters suggested. They included: Amazon could attach an ISBN to a tweet that mentions a book. Specialist clients apps for book lovers could be built up around this metadata. Advertisers could pay to place adverts in metadata. The revenue generated from those adverts could be shared with the tweeter or people who add the metadata. Granted, allowing anyone to add metadata to a tweet has the potential to create a spam problem the like of which we haven’t even envisaged but spam hasn’t halted the growth of the web and neither should it halt the growth of data annotations either. The original tweeter should of course be able to determine who can add metadata and whether it should be moderated. As Eugene says himself: Opening publishing tweet annotations to anyone will open the way to a marketplace of metadata where client developers, data mining companies and advertisers can add new meaning to Twitter and build innovative businesses. What Eugene and his followers did not mention is what I think is potentially the most fascinating use of opening up annotations. Google’s success today is built on their page rank algorithm that measures the validity of a web page by the number of incoming links to it and the page rank of the sites containing those links – its a system built on reputation. Twitter annotations could open up a new paradigm however – let’s call it People rank- where reputation can be measured by the metadata that people choose to apply to links and the websites containing those links. Its not hard to see why Google and Microsoft have paid big bucks to get access to the Twitter firehose! Neither of these features, phones as a web server or the ability to add annotations to other people’s tweets, exist today but I strongly believe that they could dramatically enhance the web as we know it today. I hope to look back on this blog post in a few years in the knowledge that these ideas have been put into place. @Jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • Best WordPress Video Themes for a Video Blog

    - by Matt
    WordPress has made blogging so easy & fun, there are plenty of video blog themes that you can pick from. However there is always rarity in quality. We at JustSkins have gathered some high quality, tested, tried video themes list. We tried to find some WordPress themes for vloggers, we knew all along that there are very few yet some of them are just brilliant premium wordpress themes. More on that later, let’s find out some themes which you can install on your vlog right now. On Demand 2.0 A fully featured video WordPress premium theme from Press75. Includes  theme options panel for personal customization and content management options, post thumbnails, drop down navigation menu, custom widgets and lots more. Demo | Price: $75 | DOWNLOAD VideoZoom An outstanding premium WordPress video theme from WPZoom featuring standard video integration plus additionally it lets you play any video from all the popular video websites. VideoZoom theme also includes a featured video slider on the homepage, multiple post layout options, theme options panel, WordPress 3.0 menus, backgrounds etc. Demo | Price Single: $69, Developer: $149 | DOWNLOAD Vidley Press75′s easy to use premium WordPress video theme. This theme is full of great features, it can be a perfect choice if you intend to make it a portal someday..it is scalable to shape like a news portal or portfolios. The Theme is widget ready. It has ability to place Featured Content and Featured Category section on homepage. The drop down menus on this theme are nifty! Demo | Price $75 |  DOWNLOAD Live A video premium WordPress theme designed for streaming video, and live event broadcasting. You can embed live video broadcasts from third party services like Ustream etc, and features a prominent timer counting down to the next broadcast, rotating bumper images, Facebook and twitter integration for viewer interaction, theme admin options panel and more make this theme one of its kind. Demo | Price: $99, Support License: $149| DOWNLOAD Groovy Video Woo Themes is pioneer in making beautiful wordpress themes,  One such theme that is built by keeping the video blogger in mind. The Groovy Theme is very colourful video blog premium WordPress theme. Creating video posts is quick and easy with just a copy / paste of the video’s embed code. The theme enables automatic video resizing, plenty of widgets. Also allows you to pick color of your choice. Price: Single Use $70, Developer Price : $150 | DOWNLOAD Video Flick Another exciting Video blogging theme by Press75 is the Video Flick theme. Video Flick is compatible with any video service that provides embed code, or if you want to host your own videos, Video Flick is also compatible with FLV (Flash Video) and Quicktime formats. This theme allows you to either keep standard Blog and/or have Video posts. You can pick a light or dark color option. Demo | Price : $75 | DOWNLOAD Woo Tube An excellent video premium WordPress theme from Woothemes, the WooTube theme is a very easy video blog platform, as it comes with  automatic video resizing, a completely widgetised sidebar and 7 different colour schemes to choose from. The theme  has the ability to be used as a normal blog or a gallery. A very wise choice! Price: Single Use $70, Developer Price : $150 | DOWNLOAD eVid Theme One of the nicest WordPress theme designed specifically for the video bloggers. Simple to integrate videos from video hosts such as Youtube, Vimeo, Veoh, MetaCafe etc. Demo | Price: $19 | DOWNLOAD Tubular A video premium WordPress theme from StudioPress which can also be used as a used a simple website or a blog. The theme is also available in a light color version. Demo | Price: $59.95 | DOWNLOAD Video Elements 2.0 Another beautiful video premium WordPress theme from Press75. Video Elements 2.0 has been re-designed to include the features you need to easily run and maintain a video blog on WordPress. Demo | Price: $75 | DOWNLOAD TV Elements 3.0 The theme includes a featured video carousel on the homepage which can display any number of videos, a featured category section which displays up to 12 channels, creates automatic thumbnails and a lots more… Demo | Price: $75 | DOWNLOAD Wave A beautiful premium video wordpress theme, Flexible & Super cool looking. The Design has very earthy feel to it. The theme has featured video area & latest listing on the homepage. All in all a simple design no fancy features. Demo | Price: $35 | Download

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  • The ASP.NET Daily Community Spotlight - How posts get there, and how to make it your Visual Studio Start Page

    - by Jon Galloway
    One really cool part of my job is selecting the articles for the Daily Community Spotlight, on the home page of the ASP.NET website. The spotlight highlights a new post about ASP.NET development every day from a member of the ASP.NET community. You can find it on the home page of the ASP.NET site, at http://asp.net These posts aren't automatically drawn from a pool of RSS feeds or anything - I pick a new post for each day of the year. How I pick the posts I have a few important selection criteria: Interesting to well rounded ASP.NET developers The ASP.NET website has a lot of material for all skill and experience levels, from download / get started to advanced. I try to select community spotlight posts to round that out with fresh and timely information that working ASP.NET developers can really use. Posts highlight solutions to common problems, clever projects and code that helps you leverage ASP.NET, and important announcements about things you can use today. As part of that, I try to mix between ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, and Web Pages (a.k.a. WebMatrix). As a professional developer, I want to keep on top of all of my options for ASP.NET development, and the common platform base they all share generally means that good ASP.NET code is good ASP.NET code. Exposing new and non-Microsoft community members as much as possible The exercise of selecting good ASP.NET community posts every day of the year has made me think about what the community is. Given the choice, I'll always favor non-Microsoft employees, but since Microsoft often hires ASP.NET community members and MVP's (myself included), I really think that the ASP.NET community includes developers who are using and writing about ASP.NET, both inside and outside of Microsoft. I'm especially excited about the opportunity to highlight new and lesser known bloggers. Usually being featured on the ASP.NET Community Spotlight gives a pretty good traffic bump, and I love being able to both provide great content to the community and encourage lesser known community members by giving them some (much deserved) attention. Announcements only when they're useful to working developers - not marketing Some of the posts are announcements about new releases, such as Scott Hanselman's post on ASP.NET Universal Providers for Session, Memebership, and Roles. I include those when I think they're interesting and of immediate use to you on projects. I occasionally get asked to link to new content from a team at Microsoft; if it's useful and timely content I'll ask them to point me to a blog post by an actual person rather than a faceless team. How the posts are managed This feed used to be managed by an internal spreadsheet on a Sharepoint site, which was painful for a lot of reasons. I took a cue from Jon Udell, who uses of a public Delicious feed feed for his Elm City project, and we moved the management of these posts over to a Delicious feed as well. You can hear more about Jon's use of Delicious in Elm City in our Herding Code interview - still one of my favorite interviews. We ended up with a simpler scenario, but Note: I watched the Yahoo/Delicious news over the past year and was happy to see that Delicious was recently acquired by the founders of YouTube. I investigated several other Delicious competitors, but am happy with Delicious for now. My Delicious feed here: http://www.delicious.com/jon_galloway You can also browse through this past year's ASP.NET Community Spotlight posts using the (pretty cool) Delicious Browse Bar Submitting articles I'm always on the lookout for new articles to feature. The best way to get them to me is to share them via Delicious. It's pretty easy - sign up for an account, then you can add a post and share it to me. Alternatively, you can send them to me via Twitter (@jongalloway) or e-mail (). If you do e-mail me, it helps to include a short description and your full name so I can credit you. Way too many developer blogs don't include names and pictures; if I can't find them I can't feature the post. Subscribing to the Community Spotlight feed The Community Spotlight is available as an RSS feed, so you might want to subscribe to it: http://www.asp.net/rss/spotlight Setting the ASP.NET Community Spotlight feed as your Visual Studio start page If you're an ASP.NET developer, you might consider setting the ASP.NET Community Spotlight as the content for your Visual Studio Start Page. It's really easy - here's how to do it in Visual Studio 2010: Display the Visual Studio Start Page if it's not already showing (View / Start Page) Click on the Latest News tab and enter the following RSS URL: http://www.asp.net/rss/spotlight If you didn't previously have RSS feeds enabled for your start page, click the Enable RSS Feed button Now, every time you start up Visual Studio you'll see great content from members of the ASP.NET community: You can also configure - and disable, if you'd like - the Visual Studio start page in the Tools / Options / Environment / Startup dialog. Credits I'll do a follow-up highlighting some places I commonly find great content for the feed, but I'd like to specifically point out two of them: Elijah Manor posts a lot of great content, which is available in his Twitter feed at @elijahmanor, on his Delicious feed, and on a dedicated website - Web Dev Tweets Chris Alcock's The Morning Brew is a must-read blog which highlights each day's best blog posts across the .NET community. He's an absolute machine, and no matter how obscure the post I find, I can guarantee he'll find it as well if he hasn't already. Did I say must read?

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  • Ich bin jetzt Oracle Certified Associate!

    - by britta.wolf
    Jan Peuker, Absolvent der Hochschule Augsburg und University of Melbourne, hat vor kurzem das Zertifikat Oracle Database 10g Administrator Certified Associate erworben. Er hat uns netterweise mit diesem kleinen Text versorgt: "Die Oracle Zertifizierung beginnt üblicherweise mit dem Oracle Certified Associate. Für diese Zertifizierung ist noch keine tiefgehende Praxiserfahrung notwendig. Um den Titel des Oracle Database 11g Administrator Certified Associate zu erlangen, muss man eine Prüfung zu SQL (z.B. 1Z0-051) sowie eine Prüfung zur Administration (1Z0-045) ablegen. Beide Prüfungen dauern 2 Stunden und haben ca. 80 Fragen von denen etwa drei Viertel richtig beantwortet werden müssen, um zu bestehen. Eine Note gibt es nicht. Die Prüfungen finden immer elektronisch statt, die Software erlaubt das Überspringen und Markieren von Fragen. Während meiner Arbeitszeit nach meinem ersten Studium hatte ich häufig mit dem Oracle Datenbanksystem zu tun. Als ich mein Aufbaustudium an der University of Melbourne absolvierte, wurde mir von der Studienberaterin vorgeschlagen, den Kurs „Advanced Database Administration" zu belegen. Dieser beruht vollständig auf den offiziellen Oracle Trainings-Unterlagen zur Prüfung in Oracle Administration und erlaubt daher die Teilnahme an der offiziellen Zertifizierung. Im Gegensatz zur SQL Prüfung, deren Inhalt man sich gut selbst aneignen kann, hilft bei der Administrator-Zertifizierung ein echter Kurs mit Seminar ungemein. Viele Konzepte lassen sich schwer aus einem Buch lernen. Die Bestandteile der SGA oder das Anlegen von Benutzern mögen leicht zugänglich sein, Redo- und Undo-Management sowie Backup und Recovery kann man nur verstehen, wenn man Beispiele hat und diese an einem Testsystem (keine "kleine" XE-Datenbank, sondern eine "richtige" Datenbank mit Enterprise Manager) ausprobieren kann. Übermäßig viel Zeit habe ich keinesfalls investiert, weil das Grundsystem sehr logisch ist. Für die weniger nachvollziehbaren Bereiche, besonders die neuen Features, habe ich mir Fachbegriffe auf Lernkarten geschrieben und die Trainingsunterlagen am System durchgespielt. Die Prüfung war für mich überraschend schwer, weil das einfache "Tagesgeschäft" deutlich unterrepräsentiert ist. In den Multiple-Choice-Fragen werden viele Besonderheiten und Use-Cases abgefragt (online findet man viele Beispielfragen). Da beide Tests in Englisch sind, sollte man nicht nur in der Terminologie des Oracle Datenbanksystems sondern auch in Fachbegriffen der Datenbankwelt allgemein bewandert sein. Oft machen einzelne Wörter (z.B. redundant oder synchronized, redo log oder redo log buffer) die richtige Antwort aus, ein signifikanter Anteil der Fragen beruht auf Zeichnungen oder Diagrammen, die beschrieben werden müssen. So muss man z.B. anhand eines Log-Auszugs beurteilen, warum die Datenbank nicht sauber geschlossen wurde. Allgemeines Wissen über Datenbanksysteme hilft leider nicht viel, da überproportional viele Fragen zu Oracle-spezifischen Themen gestellt werden, wie z.B. Optimierungs-Dienste (ADDM), Flashback, SQL Loader und ein wenig PL/SQL. Die SQL Prüfung ist dagegen sehr geradlinig - was aber nicht einfacher heißt. Hier kommt es mehr auf Auswendiglernen von Syntax an, was mir persönlich nicht liegt. Vor allem als Anwendungsprogrammierer kennt man oft proprietäre SQL-Funktionen nicht, es fällt schwer, sich einzelne Datumsberechnungsfunktionen, Typkonvertierungen, Namespaces oder krude Join-Methoden zu merken. Auf all dies wird in der Prüfung aber sehr viel Wert gelegt. Auch hier wird man wieder mit zweideutigen Multiple-Choice Fragen konfrontiert, bei denen sich z.B. nur die Reihenfolge der Parameter unterscheidet. Zudem sind die Parameter auch nicht ausgeschrieben, sondern in einem Entity-Relationship-Diagramm gegeben, wobei man auf die richtigen Datentypen achten muss. Mir persönlich war die Zeit fast zu knapp bemessen, weil man bei vielen Fragen erst ein Diagramm, einen Datenauszug oder einen längeren Text lesen muss, um dann die richtigen Statements zu finden. Hier helfen Lernkarten also nur bedingt - stattdessen üben, üben, üben. Durch den relativ niedrigen Pass-Score von 70% kann man es sich leisten, unsichere Fragen zuerst zu überspringen und erst nachdem alle sicheren beantwortet sind, zu überdenken. Die Prüfung ist auf jeden Fall fair. Ich habe durch das Oracle-Zertifizierungsprogramm viel gelernt. Die Datenbanken unter meiner Aufsicht laufen deutlich performanter und liefern höhere Verfügbarkeit, weil ich Probleme eliminieren konnte, die mir vorher nicht klar waren. Eine klassische Misskonfiguration, volle Archive Logs, weil diese mit zu lange gehaltenem Flashback-Speicher kollidieren, konnte ich bereits in einer der ersten Stunden meines Kurses an der Uni Melbourne mit Hilfe meines Professors klären. Beide Prüfungen waren problemlos parallel zu anderen Prüfungen zu absolvieren. Empfehlen kann ich eine gründliche Online-Recherche aber auch die Oracle Press-Bücher, welche mit Prüfungsfragen am Ende jedes Kapitels aufwarten. So spart man sich Zeit und ist trotzdem gut vorbereitet. Auch wenn ich keine Laufbahn als Administrator einschlagen werde, bin ich froh die zugrundeliegende Technologie vieler Anwendungen besser zu verstehen. Für meine tägliche Arbeit als Anwendungsentwickler hat es mir vor allem geholfen, Oracle-Konzepte z.B. im Bereich der Transaktionssteuerung und Wiederherstellung zu verstehen und damit viele Open Source Produkte jetzt sinnvoller bewerten und empfehlen zu können." Eine Übersicht der Zertifizierungspfade finden Sie auf der Oracle University Webseite (dann einfach "Deutschland""auswählen und anschließend auf den Punkt "Zertifizierungen" klicken).

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  • SQL Developer at Oracle Open World 2012

    - by thatjeffsmith
    We have a lot going on in San Francisco this fall. One of the most personal exciting bits, for what will be my 4th or 5th Open World, is that this will be my FIRST as a member of Team Oracle. I’ve presented once before, but most years it was just me pressing flesh at the vendor booths. After 3-4 days of standing and talking, you’re ready to just go home and not do anything for a few weeks. This time I’ll have a chance to walk around and talk with our users and get a good idea of what’s working and what’s not. Of course it will be a great opportunity for you to find us and get to know your SQL Developer team! 3.4 miles across and back – thanks Ashley for signing me up for the run! This year is going to be a bit crazy. Work wise I’ll be presenting twice, working a booth, and proctoring several of our Hands-On Labs. The fun parts will be equally crazy though – running across the Bay Bridge (I don’t run), swimming the Bay (I don’t swim), having my wife fly out on Wednesday for the concert, and then our first WhiskyFest on Friday (I do drink whisky though.) But back to work – let’s talk about EVERYTHING you can expect from the SQL Developer team. Booth Hours We’ll have 2 ‘demo pods’ in the Exhibition Hall over at Moscone South. Look for the farm of Oracle booths, we’ll be there under the signs that say ‘SQL Developer.’ There will be several people on hand, mostly developers (yes, they still count as people), who can answer your questions or demo the latest features. Come by and say ‘Hi!’, and let us know what you like and what you think we can do better. Seriously. Monday 10AM – 6PM Tuesday 9:45AM – 6PM Wednesday 9:45AM – 4PM Presentations Stop by for an hour, pull up a chair, sit back and soak in all the SQL Developer goodness. You’ll only have to suffer my bad jokes for two of the presentations, so please at least try to come to the other ones. We’ll be talking about data modeling, migrations, source control, and new features in versions 3.1 and 3.2 of SQL Developer and SQL Developer Data Modeler. Day Time Event Monday 10:454:45 What’s New in SQL Developer Why Move to Oracle Application Express Listener Tueday 10:1511:455:00 Using Subversion in Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Oracle SQL Developer Tips & Tricks Database Design with Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler Wednesday 11:453:30 Migrating Third-Party Databases and Applications to Oracle Exadata 11g Enterprise Options and Management Packs for Developers Hands On Labs (HOLs) The Hands On Labs allow you to come into a classroom environment, sit down at a computer, and run through some exercises. We’ll provide the hardware, software, and training materials. It’s self-paced, but we’ll have several helpers walking around to answer questions and chat up any SQL Developer or database topic that comes to mind. If your employer is sending you to Open World for all that great training, the HOLs are a great opportunity to capitalize on that. They are only 60 minutes each, so you don’t have to worry about burning out. And there’s no homework! Of course, if you do want to take the labs home with you, many are already available via the Developer Day Hands-On Database Applications Developer Lab. You will need your own computer for those, but we’ll take care of the rest. Wednesday PL/SQL Development and Unit Testing with Oracle SQL Developer 10:15 Performance Tuning with Oracle SQL Developer 11:45 Thursday The Soup to Nuts of Data Modeling with Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 11:15 Some Parting Advice Always wanted to meet your favorite Oracle authors, speakers, and thought-leaders? Don’t be shy, walk right up to them and introduce yourself. Normal social rules still apply, but at the conference everyone is open and up for meeting and talking with attendees. Just understand if there’s a line that you might only get a minute or two. It’s a LONG conference though, so you’ll have plenty of time to catch up with everyone. If you’re going to be around on Tuesday evening, head on over to the OTN Lounge from 4:30 to 6:30 and hang out for our Tweet Meet. That’s right, all the Oracle nerds on Twitter will be there in one place. Be sure to put your Twitter handle on your name tag so we know who you are!

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  • Enterprise Manager Database Control Configuration - Recovering From Errors Due to CA Expiry on Oracle Database 10.2.0.4 or 10.2.0.5 from 31-Dec-2010 onwards

    - by jayatheertha.rao(at)oracle.com
    Description What is the Issue? In Enterprise Manager Database Control with Oracle Database 10.2.0.4 and 10.2.0.5, the root certificate used to secure communications via the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol will expire on 31-Dec-2010 00:00:00. The certificate expiration will cause errors if you attempt to configure Database Control on or after 31-Dec-2010. Existing Database Control configurations are not affected by this issue. Likelihood of Occurrence What Versions Are Affected? The issue impacts configuration of Database Control with Oracle Database 10.2.0.4 and 10.2.0.5 only. It does not impact database creation or upgrade. The issue does not impact existing Database Control configurations. What Happens During Database Control Configuration Failure? Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) and Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA) Errors Database Configuration Assistant (DBCA) and Database Upgrade Assistant (DBUA) will report the following error in the console: Could not complete the Enterprise Manager configuration.Enterprise manager configuration failed due to the following error -Error starting Database Control Enterprise Manager Configuration Assistant (EMCA) Errors Enterprise Manager Configuration Assistant (EMCA) will write errors similar to those below to the emca.log file: CONFIG: Securing Database Control completed successfully .Jan 2, 2011 7:22:47 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.ParamsManager getParamCONFIG: No value was set for the parameter ORACLE_HOSTNAME.Jan 2, 2011 7:22:47 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.DBControlUtil startOMSINFO: Starting Database Control (this may take a while) ...Jan 2, 2011 7:22:47 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.PlatformInterface addEnvVarToListCONFIG: Value for env var 'ORACLE_HOSTNAME' is '', discarding the sameCONFIG: Returning env array from cacheJan 2, 2011 7:22:47 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.PlatformInterface executeCommandCONFIG: Starting execution: /myhost/bin/emctl start dbconsoleJan 2, 2011 7:27:26 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.PlatformInterface executeCommandCONFIG: Exit value of 1Jan 2, 2011 7:27:26 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.PlatformInterface executeCommandCONFIG: Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control Release 10.2.0.4.0Copyright (c) 1996, 2007 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.https://myhost:5501/em/console/aboutApplicationStarting Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control............................................................................................. failed.------------------------------------------------------------------Logs are generated in directory /myhost/sysman/logJan 2, 2011 7:27:26 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.PlatformInterface executeCommandWARNING: Error executing /myhost/bin/emctl start dbconsoleJan 2, 2011 7:27:26 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.EMConfig performSEVERE: Error starting Database ControlRefer to the log file at /myhost/dbua/d4/upgrade/emConfig.log for more details.Jan 2, 2011 7:27:26 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.EMConfig performCONFIG: Stack Trace:oracle.sysman.emcp.exception.EMConfigException: Error starting Database Controlat oracle.sysman.emcp.EMDBPostConfig.performUpgrade(EMDBPostConfig.java:763)at oracle.sysman.emcp.EMDBPostConfig.invoke(EMDBPostConfig.java:232)at oracle.sysman.emcp.EMDBPostConfig.invoke(EMDBPostConfig.java:193)at oracle.sysman.emcp.EMConfig.perform(EMConfig.java:184)at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.em.EMConfiguration.run(EMConfiguration.java:436)at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.em.EMConfigStep.executeImpl(EMConfigStep.java:140)at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.step.BasicStep.execute(BasicStep.java:210)at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.step.BasicStep.callStep(BasicStep.java:251)at oracle.sysman.assistants.dbma.backend.EMConfigStep.executeStepImpl(EMConfigStep.java:104)at oracle.sysman.assistants.dbma.backend.SummarizableStep.executeImpl(SummarizableStep.java:175)at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.step.BasicStep.execute(BasicStep.java:210)at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.step.Step.execute(Step.java:140)at oracle.sysman.assistants.util.step.StepContext$ModeRunner.run(StepContext.java:2488)at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:534) The EMCA console will display output similar to the following: aime@myhost09 db_1]$ bin/emca -config dbcontrol db -repos recreate -clusterSTARTED EMCA at Jan 11, 2011 4:11:01 PMEM Configuration Assistant, Version 10.2.0.1.0 ProductionCopyright (c) 2003, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.Enter the following information:Database unique name: catestDatabase Control is already configured for the database catestYou have chosen to configure Database Control for managing the database catestThis will remove the existing configuration and the default settings and perform a fresh configurationDo you wish to continue? [yes(Y)/no(N)]: YListener port number: 1521Cluster name: myclusterPassword for SYS user:Password for DBSNMP user:Password for SYSMAN user:Email address for notifications (optional):Outgoing Mail (SMTP) server for notifications (optional):........Jan 11, 2011 4:18:05 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.DBControlUtil secureDBConsoleINFO: Securing Database Control (this may take a while) ...Jan 11, 2011 4:19:31 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.util.DBControlUtil startOMSINFO: Starting Database Control (this may take a while) ...Jan 11, 2011 4:28:38 PM oracle.sysman.emcp.EMConfig performSEVERE: Error starting Database ControlRefer to the log file at /myhost/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/cfgtoollogs/emca/catest/emca_2011-01-11_04-11-01-PM.log for more details.Could not complete the configuration. Refer to the log file at /myhost/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/cfgtoollogs/emca/catest/emca_2011-01-11_04-11-01-PM.log for more details. At the end of the database installation on non-Windows platforms, both Database Control and the Management Agent will be up and running, even though the status of both components will be shown as not running, because EMCTL will be unable to connect to the dbconsole process. In addition, Database Control will fail to connect to the Agent. Note for Windows Platform Only:On Windows, the dbconsole process will be stopped after the failed configuration attempt. Note that the tool used to perform Database Control configuration (DBUA, DBCA or EMCA) will also wait for 15 minutes for Database Control to start, then time out. The output of the "emctl status dbconsole" command incorrectly returns the status of Database Control, as shown below: $ ./emctl status dbconsoleOracle Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control Release 10.2.0.1.0Copyright (c) 1996, 2005 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.https://myhost:1158/em/console/aboutApplicationOracle Enterprise Manager 10g is not running. The output of the "emctl status agent" command incorrectly returns the status of the Agent, as shownbelow: $ ./emctl status agentOracle Enterprise Manager 10g Database Control Release 10.2.0.1.0Copyright (c) 1996, 2005 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.---------------------------------------------------------------Agent is Not Running   For Solution, refer to Note: 1222603.1 Note: 1217493.1

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  • Trace File Source Adapter

    The Trace File Source adapter is a useful addition to your SSIS toolbox.  It allows you to read 2005 and 2008 profiler traces stored as .trc files and read them into the Data Flow.  From there you can perform filtering and analysis using the power of SSIS. There is no need for a SQL Server connection this just uses the trace file. Example Usages Cache warming for SQL Server Analysis Services Reading the flight recorder Find out the longest running queries on a server Analyze statements for CPU, memory by user or some other criteria you choose Properties The Trace File Source adapter has two properties, both of which combine to control the source trace file that is read at runtime. SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 trace files are supported for both the Database Engine (SQL Server) and Analysis Services. The properties are managed by the Editor form or can be set directly from the Properties Grid in Visual Studio. Property Type Description AccessMode Enumeration This property determines how the Filename property is interpreted. The values available are: DirectInput Variable Filename String This property holds the path for trace file to load (*.trc). The value is either a full path, or the name of a variable which contains the full path to the trace file, depending on the AccessMode property. Trace Column Definition Hopefully the majority of you can skip this section entirely, but if you encounter some problems processing a trace file this may explain it and allow you to fix the problem. The component is built upon the trace management API provided by Microsoft. Unfortunately API methods that expose the schema of a trace file have known issues and are unreliable, put simply the data often differs from what was specified. To overcome these limitations the component uses  some simple XML files. These files enable the trace column data types and sizing attributes to be overridden. For example SQL Server Profiler or TMO generated structures define EventClass as an integer, but the real value is a string. TraceDataColumnsSQL.xml  - SQL Server Database Engine Trace Columns TraceDataColumnsAS.xml    - SQL Server Analysis Services Trace Columns The files can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents folder, e.g. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsSQL.xml" "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsAS.xml" If at runtime the component encounters a type conversion or sizing error it is most likely due to a discrepancy between the column definition as reported by the API and the actual value encountered. Whilst most common issues have already been fixed through these files we have implemented specific exception traps to direct you to the files to enable you to fix any further issues due to different usage or data scenarios that we have not tested. An example error that you can fix through these files is shown below. Buffer exception writing value to column 'Column Name'. The string value is 999 characters in length, the column is only 111. Columns can be overridden by the TraceDataColumns XML files in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\PipelineComponents\TraceDataColumnsAS.xml". Installation The component is provided as an MSI file which you can download and run to install it. This simply places the files on disk in the correct locations and also installs the assemblies in the Global Assembly Cache as per Microsoft’s recommendations. You may need to restart the SQL Server Integration Services service, as this caches information about what components are installed, as well as restarting any open instances of Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) / Visual Studio that you may be using to build your SSIS packages. Finally you will have to add the transformation to the Visual Studio toolbox manually. Right-click the toolbox, and select Choose Items.... Select the SSIS Data Flow Items tab, and then check the Trace File Source transformation in the Choose Toolbox Items window. This process has been described in detail in the related FAQ entry for How do I install a task or transform component? We recommend you follow best practice and apply the current Microsoft SQL Server Service pack to your SQL Server servers and workstations. Please note that the Microsoft Trace classes used in the component are not supported on 64-bit platforms. To use the Trace File Source on a 64-bit host you need to ensure you have the 32-bit (x86) tools available, and the way you execute your package is setup to use them, please see the help topic 64-bit Considerations for Integration Services for more details. Downloads Trace Sources for SQL Server 2005 -- Trace Sources for SQL Server 2008 Version History SQL Server 2008 Version 2.0.0.382 - SQL Sever 2008 public release. (9 Apr 2009) SQL Server 2005 Version 1.0.0.321 - SQL Server 2005 public release. (18 Nov 2008) -- Screenshots

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  • Book Review Charlene Li's New Book: Open Leadership

    - by david.talamelli
    A few weeks ago, I was surprised when I looked in our mail box. I had received an Advance Copy of Charlene Li's new book titled "Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead". Charlene sent a tweet a while back asking anyone interested in receiving the book to submit their details. I sent off my details and didn't think I would hear anything back, so it was a pleasant surprise. With that I almost feel bad that it has taken me 3 weeks to read her book. It took this long mainly because it has been hard to fit in some quality reading time for myself with work, the kids, volunteering, etc..... I am happy to report I have finished her book and wanted to run through my initial thoughts with you. I first came across Charlene Li after reading her book "Groundswell" a few years ago, her latest book "Open Leadership" is a follow on from Groundswell and to me it seems like a natural progression from the question "Ok the business landscape is changing, what do we do now?" For me these two books have a different writing style to them. Groundswell from memory spoke about broad social media concepts and adoption and alerted us to some of the changes taking place in the SM landscape. Open Leadership seems to be focussed on taking those broad concepts and finding ways to implement them into your environment. That is breaking broad concepts down into individual action items that can be measured and analysed. As the business world changes Leaders must change their approach and let go of control to more control. One of the things I love reading about is seeing real life examples of how people and organisations are making these things happen. In this book Charlene has collected some great collateral and case studies from companies such as Cisco, Best Buy, The Red Cross and The State Bank of India (as a side-note, I wish now that I submitted my input for the Leaders I work with here at Oracle - there are some great examples here of people who empower their staff). As society becomes more adept at using social media it is inevitable that Leaders must become open with their employees, clients and partners. From the book some of the key points I took away are (I actually took away a lot more from this book, this is just an overview) : 1) Organisations should encourage risk taking. Without being a "hacker", how can we improve ourselves, our processes, our business, etc... The old saying you only fail by not trying applies here. If Leaders create a culture where people are afraid to stick their neck out - how will you innovate? 2) Leaders need to lead by example - if you want to promote an open and transparent business, a Leader needs to exemplify the traits they would like to see out of their employees. 3) The definition of a Leader is changing, open leadership is about being a catalyst to change that uses networks to spread a vision as opposed to traditional leadership that is viewed as a role. 4) There is a cultural and business shift taking place. Information is more wide-spread and is being disseminated faster than any other time in the past. Leaders who are open and transparent will thrive in this new business environment. 5) Leadership is not defined by a title - it is defined by a person's actions. Also anyone can be a Leader or has Leadership potential in them- it is a matter of drawing that out of people. I found this book useful and I also found myself looking at my own actions and the actions of others around me (including my management) to see how open and transparent I am in my work. For me I am glad I read this book as it validated my own thoughts of the changes we are seeing take place. This book has certainly given me some new ideas and helped me push my own boundaries of what I can do. The book has a number of action plans at the end of some of the chapters such as "Conducting you Openness Audit" that I think have helped me take thoughts and ideas and turn them into concrete action items. I have included a link to the introduction of the book here if anyone wants to have a read of it. If anyone else has read this book, it would be great to hear your thoughts/comments/review. Leave your comments below. This article was originally posted on David Talamelli's Blog - David's Journal on Tap

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  • SQLAuthority News – Pluralsight Course Review – Practices for Software Startups – Part 2 of 2

    - by pinaldave
    This is the second part of the two part series of Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Please read the first part of this series over here. The course is written by Stephen Forte (Blog | Twitter). Stephen Forte is the Chief Strategy Officer of the venture backed company, Telerik. Personal Learning Schedule After these three sessions it was 6:30 am and time to do my own blog.  But for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about the course, and wanted to go back and finish.  I was wishing that I had woken up at 3 am so I could finish all at one go.  All day long I was digesting what I had learned.  At 10 pm, after my daughter had gone to bed, I sighed on again.  I was not disappointed by the long wait.  As I mentioned before, Stephen has started four to six companies, and all of them are very successful today. Here is the video I promised yesterday – it discusses the importance of Right Sizing Your Startup. The Heartbeat of Startup – Technology Stephen has combined all technology knowledge into one 30 minute session.  He discussed  how to start your project, how to deal with opinions, and how to deal with multiple ideas – every start up has multiple directions it can go. He spent a lot of time emphasized deciding which direction to go and how to decide which will be the best for you.  He called it a continuous development cycle. One of the biggest hazards for a start-up company is one person deciding the direction the company will go, until down the road another team member announces that there is a glitch in their part of the work and that everyone will have to start over.  Even though a team of two or five people can move quickly, often the decision has gone too long and cannot be easily fixed.   Stephen used an example from his own life:  he was biased for one type of technology, and his teammate for another.  In the end they opted for his teammate’s  choice , and in the end it was a good decision, even though he was unfamiliar with that particular program.  He argues that technology should not be a barrier to progress, that you cannot rely on your experience only.  This really spoke to me because I am a big fan of SQL, but I know there is more out there, and I should be more open to it.  I give my thanks to Stephen, I learned something in this module besides startups. Money, Success and Epic Win! The longest, but most interesting, the module was funding your start-up.  You need to fund the start-up right at the very beginning, if not done right you will run into trouble.  The good news is that a few years ago start-ups required a lot more money – think millions of dollars – but now start-ups can get off the ground for thousands.  Stephen used an example of a company that years ago would have needed a million dollars, but today could be started for $600.  It is true that things have changed, but you still need money.  For $600 you can start small and add dynamically, as needed.  But the truth is that if you have $600, $6000, or $6 million, it will be spent.  Don’t think of it as trying to save money, think of it as investing in your future.   You will need money, and you will need to (quickly) decide what you do with the money: shares, stakeholders, investing in a team, hiring a CEO.  This is so important because once you have money and start the company, the company IS your money.  It is your biggest currency – having a percentage of ownership in the company.  Investors will want percentages as repayment for their investment, and they will want a say in the business as well.  You will have to decide how far you will dilute your shares, and how the company will be divided, if at all.  If you don’t plan in advance, you will find that after gaining three or four investors, suddenly you are the minority owner in your own dream.  You need to understand funding carefully.  This single module is worth all the money you would have spent on the whole course alone.  I encourage everyone to listen to this single module even if they don’t watch any of the others.     Press End to Start the Game – Exists! The final module is exit strategies.  You did all this work, dealt with all political and legal issues.  What are you going to get out of it? The answer is simple: money.  Maybe you want your company to be bought out, for you talent to bring you a profit.  You can sell the company to someone and still head it.  Many options are available.  You could sell and still work as an employee but no longer own the company.  There are many exit strategies.  This is where all your hard work comes into play.  It is important not to feel fooled at any step.  There are so many good ideas that end up in the garbage because of poor planning, so that if you find yourself successful, you don’t want to blow it at this step!  The exit is important.  I thought that this aspect of the course was completely unique, and I loved Stephen’s point of view.  I was lost deep in thought after this module ended.  I actually took two hours worth of notes on this section alone – and it was only a three hour course.  I am planning on attending this course one more time next week, just to catch up on all the small bits of wisdom I’m sure I missed. Thank you Stephen for bringing your real world experience with us!  I recommend that everyone attends this course, even if they don’t want to begin their own start-up company. It was indeed a long day for me. Do not forget to read part 1 of this story and attend course Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • The Interaction between Three-Tier Client/Server Model and Three-Tier Application Architecture Model

    The three-tier client/server model is a network architectural approach currently used in modern networking. This approach divides a network in to three distinct components. Three-Tier Client/Server Model Components Client Component Server Component Database Component The Client Component of the network typically represents any device on the network. A basic example of this would be computer or another network/web enabled devices that are connected to a network. Network clients request resources on the network, and are usually equipped with a user interface for the presentation of the data returned from the Server Component. This process is done through the use of various software clients, and example of this can be seen through the use of a web browser client. The web browser request information from the Server Component located on the network and then renders the results for the user to process. The Server Components of the network return data based on specific client request back to the requesting client.  Server Components also inherit the attributes of a Client Component in that they are a device on the network and that they can also request information from other Server Components. However what differentiates a Client Component from a Server Component is that a Server Component response to requests from devices on the network. An example of a Server Component can be seen in a web server. A web server listens for new requests and then interprets the request, processes the web pages, and then returns the processed data back to the web browser client so that it may render the data for the user to interpret. The Database Component of the network returns unprocessed data from databases or other resources. This component also inherits attributes from the Server Component in that it is a device on a network, it can request information from other server components and database components, and it also listens for new requests so that it can return data when needed. The three-tier client/server model is very similar to the three-tier application architecture model, and in fact the layers can be mapped to one another. Three-Tier Application Architecture Model Presentation Layer/Logic Business Layer/Logic Data Layer/Logic The Presentation Layer including its underlying logic is very similar to the Client Component of the three-tiered model. The Presentation Layer focuses on interpreting the data returned by the Business Layer as well as presents the data back to the user.  Both the Presentation Layer and the Client Component focus primarily on the user and their experience. This allows for segments of the Business Layer to be distributable and interchangeable because the Presentation Layer is not directly integrated in with Business Layer. The Presentation Layer does not care where the data comes from as long as it is in the proper format. This allows for the Presentation Layer and Business Layer to be stored on one or more different servers so that it can provide a higher availability to clients requesting data. A good example of this is a web site that uses load balancing. When a web site decides to take on the task of load balancing they must obtain a network device that sits in front of a one or machines in order to distribute the request across multiple servers. When a user comes in through the load balanced device they are redirected to a specific server based on a few factors. Common Load Balancing Factors Current Server Availability Current Server Response Time Current Server Priority The Business Layer and corresponding logic are business rules applied to data prior to it being sent to the Presentation Layer. These rules are used to manipulate the data coming from the Data Access Layer, in addition to validating any data prior to being stored in the Data Access Layer. A good example of this would be when a user is trying to create multiple accounts under one email address. The Business Layer logic can prevent duplicate accounts by enforcing a unique email for every new account before the data is even stored in the Data Access Layer. The Server Component can be directly tied to this layer in that the server typically stores and process the Business Layer before it is returned to the end-user via the Presentation Layer. In addition the Server Component can also run automated process through the Business Layer on the data in the Data Access Layer so that additional business analysis can be derived from the data that has been already collected. The Data Layer and its logic are responsible for storing information so that it can be easily retrieved. Typical in most modern applications data is stored in a database management system however data can also be in the form of files stored on a file server. In addition a database can take on one of several forms. Common Database Formats XML File Pipe Delimited File Tab Delimited File Comma Delimited File (CSV) Plain Text File Microsoft Access Microsoft SQL Server MySql Oracle Sybase The Database component of the Networking model can be directly tied to the Data Layer because this is where the Data Layer obtains the data to return back the Business Layer. The Database Component basically allows for a place on the network to store data for future use. This enables applications to save data when they can and then quickly recall the saved data as needed so that the application does not have to worry about storing the data in memory. This prevents overhead that could be created when an application must retain all data in memory. As you can see the Three-Tier Client/Server Networking Model and the Three-Tiered Application Architecture Model rely very heavily on one another to function especially if different aspects of an application are distributed across an entire network. The use of various servers and database servers are wonderful when an application has a need to distribute work across the network. Network Components and Application Layers Interaction Database components will store all data needed for the Data Access Layer to manipulate and return to the Business Layer Server Component executes the Business Layer that manipulates data so that it can be returned to the Presentation Layer Client Component hosts the Presentation Layer that  interprets the data and present it to the user

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  • Does IntelliJ-Idea support Groovy 2.x?

    - by Freewind
    I just tried IntelliJ-Idea 11.x and 12.x (EPA), but when I use Groovy 2.0.1 or 2.0.5, the code can't be run and there are some errors out there. The Groovy plugin of idea has little information about which version of Groovy has been supported. Does idea support Groovy 2.x? I want to try the new @TypeChecked annotation of Groovy 2. UPDATE My groovy code: class X { def hello() { println("hello, groovy") } def static main(String[] args) { new X().hello() } } It uses groovy 2.0.5: And the error thrown: E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\bin\java -Didea.launcher.port=7532 "-Didea.launcher.bin.path=E:\java\IntelliJ IDEA 11.1.4\bin" -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -classpath "E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\charsets.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\deploy.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\javaws.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\jce.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\jsse.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\management-agent.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\plugin.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\resources.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\rt.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\ext\dcevm.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\ext\dnsns.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\ext\localedata.jar;E:\java\jdk1.6.0_29_x64\jre\lib\ext\sunjce_provider.jar;E:\WORKSPACE\TestGroovy2\out\production\TestGroovy2;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\ant-1.8.4.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\ant-antlr-1.8.4.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\ant-junit-1.8.4.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\ant-launcher-1.8.4.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\antlr-2.7.7.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\asm-4.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\asm-analysis-4.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\asm-commons-4.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\asm-tree-4.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\asm-util-4.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\bsf-2.4.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\commons-cli-1.2.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\commons-logging-1.1.1.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\gpars-1.0-beta-3.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-ant-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-bsf-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-console-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-docgenerator-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-groovydoc-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-groovysh-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-jmx-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-json-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-jsr223-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-servlet-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-sql-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-swing-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-templates-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-test-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-testng-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\groovy-xml-2.0.5.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\hamcrest-core-1.1.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\ivy-2.2.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\jansi-1.6.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\jcommander-1.12.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\jline-1.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\jsp-api-2.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\jsr166y-1.7.0.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\junit-4.10.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\qdox-1.12.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\servlet-api-2.4.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\testng-6.5.2.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\xmlpull-1.1.3.1.jar;E:\java\groovy-2.0.5\lib\xstream-1.4.2.jar;E:\java\IntelliJ IDEA 11.1.4\lib\idea_rt.jar" com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain X Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IncompatibleClassChangeError: Found interface org.objectweb.asm.MethodVisitor, but class was expected at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteGenerator.genConstructor(CallSiteGenerator.java:141) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteGenerator.genPogoMetaMethodSite(CallSiteGenerator.java:162) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteGenerator.compilePogoMethod(CallSiteGenerator.java:215) at org.codehaus.groovy.reflection.CachedMethod.createPogoMetaMethodSite(CachedMethod.java:228) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.PogoMetaMethodSite.createCachedMethodSite(PogoMetaMethodSite.java:212) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.PogoMetaMethodSite.createPogoMetaMethodSite(PogoMetaMethodSite.java:188) at groovy.lang.MetaClassImpl.createPogoCallSite(MetaClassImpl.java:3035) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteArray.createPogoSite(CallSiteArray.java:147) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteArray.createCallSite(CallSiteArray.java:161) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSiteArray.defaultCall(CallSiteArray.java:45) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.AbstractCallSite.call(AbstractCallSite.java:108) at org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.AbstractCallSite.call(AbstractCallSite.java:112) at X.main(sta.groovy:6) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:120) Process finished with exit code 1

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  • C# in Depth, Third Edition by Jon Skeet, Manning Publications Co. Book Review

    - by Compudicted
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Compudicted/archive/2013/10/24/c-in-depth-third-edition-by-jon-skeet-manning-publications.aspx I started reading this ebook on September 28, 2013, the same day it was sent my way by Manning Publications Co. for review while it still being fresh off the press. So 1st thing – thanks to Manning for this opportunity and a free copy of this must have on every C# developer’s desk book! Several hours ago I finished reading this book (well, except a for a large portion of its quite lengthy appendix). I jumped writing this review right away while still being full of emotions and impressions from reading it thoroughly and running code examples. Before I go any further I would like say that I used to program on various platforms using various languages starting with the Mainframe and ending on Windows, and I gradually shifted toward dealing with databases more than anything, however it happened with me to program in C# 1 a lot when it was first released and then some C# 2 with a big leap in between to C# 5. So my perception and experience reading this book may differ from yours. Also what I want to tell is somewhat funny that back then, knowing some Java and seeing C# 1 released, initially made me drawing a parallel that it is a copycat language, how wrong was I… Interestingly, Jon programs in Java full time, but how little it was mentioned in the book! So more on the book: Be informed, this is not a typical “Recipes”, “Cookbook” or any set of ready solutions, it is rather targeting mature, advanced developers who do not only know how to use a number of features, but are willing to understand how the language is operating “under the hood”. I must state immediately, at the same time I am glad the author did not go into the murky depths of the MSIL, so this is a very welcome decision on covering a modern language as C# for me, thank you Jon! Frankly, not all was that rosy regarding the tone and structure of the book, especially the the first half or so filled me with several negative and positive emotions overpowering each other. To expand more on that, some statements in the book appeared to be bias to me, or filled with pre-justice, it started to look like it had some PR-sole in it, but thankfully this was all gone toward the end of the 1st third of the book. Specifically, the mention on the C# language popularity, Java is the #1 language as per https://sites.google.com/site/pydatalog/pypl/PyPL-PopularitY-of-Programming-Language (many other sources put C at the top which I highly doubt), also many interesting functional languages as Clojure and Groovy appeared and gained huge traction which run on top of Java/JVM whereas C# does not enjoy such a situation. If we want to discuss the popularity in general and say how fast a developer can find a new job that pays well it would be indeed the very Java, C++ or PHP, never C#. Or that phrase on language preference as a personal issue? We choose where to work or we are chosen because of a technology used at a given software shop, not vice versa. The book though it technically very accurate with valid code, concise examples, but I wish the author would give more concrete, real-life examples on where each feature should be used, not how. Another point to realize before you get the book is that it is almost a live book which started to be written when even C# 3 wasn’t around so a lot of ground is covered (nearly half of the book) on the pre-C# 3 feature releases so if you already have a solid background in the previous releases and do not plan to upgrade, perhaps half of the book can be skipped, otherwise this book is surely highly recommended. Alas, for me it was a hard read, most of it. It was not boring (well, only may be two times), it was just hard to grasp some concepts, but do not get me wrong, it did made me pause, on several occasions, and made me read and re-read a page or two. At times I even wondered if I have any IQ at all (LOL). Be prepared to read A LOT on generics, not that they are widely used in the field (I happen to work as a consultant and went thru a lot of code at many places) I can tell my impression is the developers today in best case program using examples found at OpenStack.com. Also unlike the Java world where having the most recent version is nearly mandated by the OSS most companies on the Microsoft platform almost never tempted to upgrade the .Net version very soon and very often. As a side note, I was glad to see code recently that included a nullable variable (myvariable? notation) and this made me smile, besides, I recommended that person this book to expand her knowledge. The good things about this book is that Jon maintains an active forum, prepared code snippets and even a small program (Snippy) that is happy to run the sample code saving you from writing any plumbing code. A tad now on the C# language itself – it sure enjoyed a wonderful road toward perfection and a very high adoption, especially for ASP development. But to me all the recent features that made this statically typed language more dynamic look strange. Don’t we have F#? Which supposed to be the dynamic language? Why do we need to have a hybrid language? Now the developers live their lives in dualism of the static and dynamic variables! And LINQ to SQL, it is covered in depth, but wasn’t it supposed to be dropped? Also it seems that very little is being added, and at a slower pace, e.g. Roslyn will come in late 2014 perhaps, and will be probably the only main feature. Again, it is quite hard to read this book as various chapters, C# versions mentioned every so often only if I only could remember what was covered exactly where! So the fact it has so many jumps/links back and forth I recommend the ebook format to make the navigations easier to perform and I do recommend using software that allows bookmarking, also make sure you have access to plenty of coffee and pizza (hey, you probably know this joke – who a programmer is) ! In terms of closing, if you stuck at C# 1 or 2 level, it is time to embrace the power of C# 5! Finally, to compliment Manning, this book unlike from any other publisher so far, was the only one as well readable (put it formatted) on my tablet as in Adobe Reader on a laptop.

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  • Building Great-Looking, Usable Apps: A two-day workshop applying Oracle’s best UX practices in ADF

    - by mvaughan
    By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User ExperienceI have been with Oracle for more than 12 years. It is a company that has granted me extraordinary creative freedom to help deliver compelling experiences for customers.I am beyond proud to talk about one of the experiences we just took for a test drive. Recently, we delivered a first-of-its-kind, three-team collaboration, train-the-trainer event in Reading, U.K., on building great-looking, usable apps based on Oracle Fusion Applications -- using the ADF tool kit. A new kind of workshopKevin Li, Platform Product Director, asked the Oracle Applications User Experience VP, Jeremy Ashley, if the team had anything to help partners and customers build applications that looked like Fusion. He was receiving this request from European partners and customers.Some quick conversations ensued, and the idea for the workshop was born: We would conduct an experiment.  We would work with feedback from the key Platform Technology Solutions (PTS) trainers under Andre Pavanello, Director, Platform Technology Solutions, in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. We would partner with the ADF team lead by Grant Ronald, Director of Product Management, title> and leverage the Applications UX expertise in Ashley’s team.The goal: Create a pilot workshop that in two days would explain to an ADF developer how to leverage the next-generation user experience best-practices developed for Fusion Apps. Why? Customers who need integrations with Oracle Fusion Applications, who are looking for custom applications that need to co-exist with Fusion, or who quite simply want a next-generation design for a custom app, need their solutions to reflect the next-generation research and design.Building an event for an ADF developerThe biggest hurdle was figuring out where to start.  How far into user experience country do you take an ADF developer? How far into ADF do you need to go if you are a UX professional?After some time in the UX kitchen, the workshop recipe looked like this: Mix equal parts: Fusion user experience design principles and functional design patterns The art and science behind UX How to wireframe designs that you can build in Fusion How to translate those designs into an ADF application Ultan O’Broin, Director of Global User Experience, explaining the trouble ticket wireframe design exerciseLynn Munsinger, Senior Group Product Manager, explaining the follow-on trouble ticket ADF coding exercise For spice, add:•    Debra Lilley, Fujitsu and ACE director, showcasing some of the latest ADF design work in the new face of Fusion Applications •    Partner show-and-tell of example apps they have built with FMW and ADF that are dynamic, beautiful, and interactive.Debra Lilley, Oracle ACE Director and Fujitsu Fusion Champion on the new face of Fusion built with ADF and Fusion extensibility with composers as a window into “the possible”?The taste testThis first go-round of the workshop was aimed squarely at ADF developers and partners.  We were privileged to have participation and feedback from:•    Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger S. A., Denmark•    John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, UK•    Josef Huber, Primus Delphi Group, Munich•    Thaddaus Weindl, Primus Delphi, Group , Munich•    Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Balaji Kamepalli, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Mexico•    Yannick Ongena, infoMENTUM, UK•    Jakub Ciszek, infoMENTUM, UK•    Mauro Flores, infoMENTUM, UK•    Matteo Formica, infoMENTUM, UKRichard Bingham, Oracle, Mauro Flores and Matteo Formica, infoMENTUMWhy is this so exciting?  Oracle has invested heavily in the research and development of the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. This investment has been and continues to be applied across the product lines. Now, we finally get to teach customers and partners how to take advantage of this investment for custom solutions.This event was a pilot to test-drive the content, as well as a train-the-trainer event that our EMEA colleagues will be using with partners who want to build with Fusion Apps design patterns.What did attendees think?"I liked most the science stuff, like eye-tracking, design patterns and best-practice (color, contrast),” Josef Huber said. “It was a very good introduction to UI design, and most developers and project managers are very bad in that.  So this course would be good for all developers and even project managers." Team Anonymous: John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, Flavius Sana, Oracle, Josef Huber, infoMENTUM, Mireille Duroussaud, Oracle. Winners of the wireframing design exercise.  Sten Vesterli, of Scott/Tiger, said he attended to learn techniques he could use in his own projects. He wants to ensure that his applications better meet the needs of his users, and he said sessions during the workshop on user interface design and wireframing were most useful to him.  “Go to this event to learn the art and science of good user interfaces from people who really know how to do it,” he said.Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger, Angelo Santagata, Oracle Plinio Arbizu said the workshop fulfilled his goals, thanks to the recommendations given in how to design user interfaces to facilitate the adoption of applications among the final users. “The workshop combined these recommendations with an exercise that improved the technical comprehension, permitting the usage of JDeveloper to set forth our solutions,” he said. He added: “The first session that I really enjoyed was the five Fusion design principles. It was incredible to discover how these simple principles were included in an inherit manner in Fusion Applications, and I had been using many of them applying only ADF components.  Another topic that I enjoyed a lot was the eight recommendations about the visual design of UIs. The issues that were raised in that lesson are unknown to the developers and of great value to achieve an attractive presentation layer to the end users.  Participate in this workshop, and include these usability features in your projects and in this manner not only to facilitate and improve the user productivity, but also to distinguish you as a professional who takes advantage fully of the functionalities offered by Oracle technology. Praveen Pillalamarri came to the workshop to learn about the difficulties faced in UI and UX development, and how this can be resolved with the help of ADF.  He also appreciated the opportunity to talk with other individuals who came to the workshop. Pillalmarri said, “The way we looked at things in terms of work and projects were sharpened.  UI and UX design knowledge shared by you was quite interesting, especially the minute things which we ignored in the UI or UX design.” Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, & Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS TechnologiesReady to spread the wordIn EMEA, Oracle customers and partners have access to three world-class trainers via Platform Technology Solutions: Mireille Duroussaud, Flavius Sana, and Angelo Santagata. Contact Andre Pavanello if you like to experience this workshop firsthand, or you have customers or partners who would benefit from the training.We are looking to bring the event to the U.S. in spring 2013. If you have interest in this kind of a workshop, leave a comment below. For those who want to follow the action, join the ADF Enterprise Methodology Group run by Oracle’s Chris Muir. Ask questions and continue with the conversation in this forum, or check blogs.oracle.com/usableapps for topics emerging from the workshop.

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  • Taking advantage of Windows Azure CDN and Dynamic Pages in ASP.NET - Caching content from hosted services

    - by Shawn Cicoria
    With the updates to Windows Azure CDN announced this week [1] I wanted to help illustrate the capability with a working sample that will serve up dynamic content from an ASP.NET site hosted in a WebRole. First, to get a good overview of the capability you can read the Overview of the Windows Azure CDN [2] content on MSDN. When you setup the ability to cache content from a hosted service, the requirement is to provide a path to your role’s DNS endpoint that ends in the path “/cdn”.  Additionally, you then map CDN to that service. What WAZ CDN does, is allow you to then map that through the CDN to your host.  The CDN will then make a request to your host on your client’s behalf. The requirement is still that your client, and any Url’s that are to be serviced through the CDN and this capability have to use the CDN DNS name and not your host – no different than what CDN does for Blog storage. The following 2 URL’s are samples of how the client needs to issue the requests. Windows Azure hosted service URL: http: //myHostedService.cloudapp.net/cdn/music.aspx   - for regular “dynamic” content Windows Azure CDN URL: http: //<identifier>.vo.msecnd.net/music.aspx   - for CDN “cachable” content. The first URL path’s the request direct to your host into the Azure datacenter.  The 2nd URL paths the request through the CDN infrastructure, where CDN will make the determination to request the content on behalf of the client to the Azure datacenter and your host on the /cdn path. The big advantage here is you can apply logic to your content creation.  What’s important is emitting the CDN friendly headers that allow CDN to request and re-request only when you designate based upon it’s rules of “staleness” as described in the overview page. With IIS7.5 there is an underlying issue when the Managed Module “OutputCache” is enabled that in order to emit a good header for your content, you’ll need to remove, and in my sample, helps provide CDN friendly headers.  You get IIS 7.5 when running under OS Family “2” in your service configuration. By default, and when the OutputCache managed module is loaded, if you use the HttpResponse.CachePolicy to set the Http Headers for “max-age” when the HttpCacheability is “Public”, you will NOT get the “max-age” emitted as part of the “Cache-control:” header.  Instead, the OutputCache module will remove “max-age” and just emit “public”.  It works ok when Cacheability is set to “private”. To work around the issue and ensure your code as follows emits the full max-age along with the public option, you need to remove as follows: <system.webServer>   <modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">     <remove name="OutputCache"/>   </modules> </system.webServer>   Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.Public); Response.Cache.SetMaxAge(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(rv));   In the attached solution, the way I approached it was to have a VirtualApplication under the root site that has it’s own web.config  - this VirtualApplication is the /cdn of the site and when deployed to Azure as a Web Role will surface as a distinct IIS Application – along with a separate AppDomain. The CDN Sample is a simple Web Forms site that the /default landing page contains 3 IFrames to host: 1. Content direct from the host @   http://xxxx.cloudapp.net/cdn 2. Content via the CDN @ http://azxxx.vo.msecnd.net  3. Simple list of recent requests – showing where the request came from.   When you run the sample the first time you hit the page, both the Host and the CDN will cause 2 initial requests to hit the host.  You won’t see the first requests in the list because of timing – but if you refresh, you’ll see that the list will show that you have 2 requests initially. 1. sourced direct from the Browser to the HOST 2. sourced via the CDN The picture above shows the call-outs of each of those requests – green rows showing requests coming direct to the HOST, yellow showing the CDN request.  The IP addresses of the green items are direct from the client, where the CDN is from the CDN data center. As you refresh the page (hit Ctrl+F5 to force a full refresh and avoid “304 – not changed”) you’ll see that the request to the HOST get’s processed direct; but the request to the CDN endpoint is serviced direct from the CDN and doesn’t incur any additional request back to the HOST. The following is the Headers from the CDN response (Status-Line) HTTP/1.1 200 OK Age 13 Cache-Control public, max-age=300 Connection keep-alive Content-Length 6212 Content-Type image/jpeg; charset=utf-8 Date Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:47:14 GMT Expires Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:52:01 GMT Last-Modified Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:47:02 GMT Server Microsoft-IIS/7.5 X-AspNet-Version 4.0.30319 X-Powered-By ASP.NET   The following are the Headers from the HOST response (Status-Line) HTTP/1.1 200 OK Cache-Control public, max-age=300 Content-Length 6189 Content-Type image/jpeg; charset=utf-8 Date Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:47:15 GMT Last-Modified Fri, 11 Mar 2011 20:47:02 GMT Server Microsoft-IIS/7.5 X-AspNet-Version 4.0.30319 X-Powered-By ASP.NET   You can see that with the CDN request, the countdown (age) starts for aging the content. The full sample is located here: CDNSampleSite.zip [1] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/03/09/now-available-updated-windows-azure-sdk-and-windows-azure-management-portal.aspx [2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff919703.aspx

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