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• AGENT: The World's Smartest Watch

  - by Rob Chartier

  AGENT: The World's Smartest Watch by Secret Labs + House of Horology Disclaimer: Most if not all of this content has been gleaned from the comments on the Kickstarter project page and comments section. Any discrepancies between this post and any documentation on agentwatches.com, kickstarter.com, etc.., those official sites take precedence. Overview The next generation smartwatch with brand-new technology. World-class developer tools, unparalleled battery life, Qi wireless charging. Kickstarter Page, Comments Funding period : May 21, 2013 - Jun 20, 2013 MSRP : $249 Other Urls http://www.agentwatches.com/ https://www.facebook.com/agentwatches http://twitter.com/agentwatches http://pinterest.com/agentwatches/ http://paper.li/robchartier/1371234640 Developer Story The first official launch of the preview SDK and emulator will happen on 20-Jun-2013.  All development will be done in Visual Studio 2012, using the .NET Micro Framework SDK 2.3.  The SDK will ship with the first round of the expected API for developers along with an emulator. With that said, there is no need to wait for the SDK.  You can download the tooling now and get started with Apps and Faces immediately.  The only thing that you will not be able to work with is the API; but for example, watch faces, you can start building the basic face rendering with the Bitmap graphics drawing in the .NET Micro Framework.   Does it look good? Before we dig into any more of the gory details, here are a few photos of the current available prototype models.   The watch on the tiny QI Charter   If you wander too far away from your phone, your watch will let you know with a vibration and a message, all but one button will dismiss the message.   An app showing the premium weather data!   Nice stitching on the straps, leather and silicon will be available, along with a few lengths to choose from (short, regular, long lengths). On to those gory details…. Hardware Specs Processor 120MHz ARM Cortex-M4 processor (ATSAM4SD32) with secondary AVR co-processor Flash & RAM 2MB of onboard flash and 160KB of RAM 1/4 of the onboard flash will be used by the OS The flash is permanent (non-volatile) storage. Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.0 BD/EDR + LE Bluetooth 4.0 is backwards compatible with Bluetooth 2.1, so classic Bluetooth functions (BD/EDR, SPP/AVRCP/PBAP/etc.) will work fine. Sensors 3D Accelerometer (Motion) ST LSM303DLHC Ambient Light Sensor Hardware power metering Vibration Motor (You can pulse it to create vibration patterns, not sure about the vibration strength - driven with PWM) No piezo/speaker or microphone. Other QI Wireless Charging, no NFC, no wall adapter included Custom LED Backlight No GPS in the watch. It uses the GPS in your phone. AGENT watch apps are deployed and debugged wirelessly from your PC via Bluetooth. RoHS, Pb-free Battery Expected to use a CR2430-sized rechargeable battery – replaceable (Mouser, Amazon) Estimated charging time from empty is 2 hours with provided charger 7 Days typical with Bluetooth on, 30 days with Bluetooth off (watch-face only mode) The battery should last at least 2 years, with 100s of charge cycles. Physical dimensions Roughly 38mm top-to-bottom on the front face 35mm left-to-right on the front face and around 12mm in depth 22mm strap Two ~1/16" hex screws to attach the watch pin The top watchcase material candidates are PVD stainless steel, brushed matte ceramic, and high-quality polycarbonate (TBD). The glass lens is mineral glass, Anti-glare glass lens Strap options Leather and silicon straps will be available Expected to have three sizes Display 1.28" Sharp Memory Display The display stays on 100% of the time. Dimensions: 128x128 pixels Buttons Custom "Pusher" buttons, they will not make noise like a mouse click, and are very durable. The top-left button activates the backlight; bottom-left changes apps; three buttons on the right are up/select/down and can be used for custom purposes by apps. Backup reset procedure is currently activated by holding the home/menu button and the top-right user button for about ten seconds Device Support Android 2.3 or newer iPhone 4S or newer Windows Phone 8 or newer Heart Rate monitors - Bluetooth SPP or Bluetooth LE (GATT) is what you'll want the heart monitor to support. Almost limitless Bluetooth device support! Internationalization & Localization Full UTF8 Support from the ground up. AGENT's user interface is in English. Your content (caller ID, music tracks, notifications) will be in your native language. We have a plan to cover most major character sets, with Latin characters pre-loaded on the watch. Simplified Chinese will be available Feature overview Phone lost alert Caller ID Music Control (possible volume control) Wireless Charging Timer Stopwatch Vibrating Alarm (possibly custom vibrations for caller id) A few default watch faces Airplane mode (by demand or low power) Can be turned off completely Customizable 3rd party watch faces, applications which can be loaded over bluetooth. Sample apps that maybe installed Weather Sample Apps not installed Exercise App Other Possible Skype integration over Bluetooth. They will provide an AGENT app for your smartphone (iPhone, Android, Windows Phone). You'll be able to use it to load apps onto the watch.. You will be able to cancel phone calls. With compatible phones you can also answer, end, etc. They are adopting the standard hands-free profile to provide these features and caller ID.

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• Developer Dashboard in SharePoint 2010

  - by jcortez

  Introducing the Developer Dashboard As a SharePoint developer (or IT Professional), how many times have you had the pleasure of figuring out why a particular page on your site is taking too long to render? I'm sure one of the techniques you have employed in troubleshooting is the process of elimination - removing individual web parts from the page hoping to identify which web part is misbehaving. One of the new features of SharePoint 2010 is the Developer Dashboard. This dashboard provides tracing and performance information that can be useful when you are trying to troubleshoot pages that are loading too slow. The Developer Dashboard is turned off by default and I'll go over 3 different ways to display it. Here is a screenshot of what the Developer Dashboard looks like when displayed at the bottom of the page:   You can see on the left side the different events that fired during the page processing pipeline and how long these events took. This is where you will see individual web parts being processed and how long it took to complete (obviously the kind of processing depends on what the web part does). On the right side you would see the different database calls issued through the SharePoint Object Model to process the page. You will notice that each of these database queries are actually a hyperlink and clicking on it displays a pop-up window that shows the actual SQL Query Text, the Call Stack that triggered the database call, and the IO statistics of that query. Enabling the Developer Dashboard Option 1: Managed Code   The Developer Dashboard is a farm-wide setting and the code above won't work if it is used within a web part hosted on any non-Central Admin site. The SPDeveloperDashboardLevel enum has three possible values: On, Off, and OnDemand. Setting it to On will always display the Developer Dashboard at the bottom of the page. Setting it Off will hide the Developer Dashboard. Setting it to OnDemand will add an icon at the top right corner of the page (see screenshot below) where a Site Collection Admin can toggle the display of the Developer Dashboard for a particular site collection. In my opinion, OnDemand is the best setting when troubleshooting a page or during development since a Site Collection Admin can turn it on or off and for a particular site only. The first cool thing about this is that the Site Collection Admin that turned it on will be the only one to see the Developer Dashboard output. Everyday users won't see the Developer Dashboard output even if it was turned on by a Site Collection Admin. If you need more flexibility on who gets to see the Developer Dashboard output, you can set the SPDeveloperDashboardSettings.RequiredPermissions to control which group of users will have the permission to see the output. Option 2: Using stsadm Using stsadm, you can run the following command to configure the Developer Dashboard: STSADM –o setproperty –pn developer-dashboard –pv OnDemand To successfully execute this command, be sure you that are running as a Farm Admin. Option 3: Using PowerShell For all scripts in SharePoint 2010, I prefer writing them as PowerShell scripts. Though the stsadm command is less verbose, the PowerShell equivalent is pretty straightforward and uses the SharePoint Object Model: You can of course parameterized the value that gets assigned to the DisplayLevel property so you can turn it On, Off or OnDemand depending on the parameter. Events and the Developer Dashboard  Now, don't assume that all the code inside your web part or page will show up in the Developer Dashboard complete with all the great troubleshooting information. Only a finite set of events are monitored by default (for a web part it will events in the base web part class). Let's say you have a click event that could take some time, for example a web service call. And you want to include troubleshooting information for this event in the Developer Dashboard. Enter SPMonitoredScope which is also a new feature in SharePoint 2010. In SharePoint 2010, everything is executed within a "Monitored Scope". And each scope has a set of "Monitors" that measures and counts calls and timings which appears in the Developer Dashboard. Below is an example on how to get your custom code to get included in the Developer Dashboard by wrapping it inside a new monitored scope: The code above would include your new scope "My long web service call" into the Developer Dashboard and would log the time it took to complete processing. In my opinion, wrapping your custom code in a SPMonitoredScope is a SharePoint development best practice since it provides you visibility and a better understanding on the performance of your components.

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• Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95

  - by Matthew Guay

  Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7.  Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s. In this demo, we’re running the first release of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950) in VMware Player 3.0 running on Windows 7 x64.  For fun, we ran the 95 upgrade on the 3.1 virtual machine we built last week. Windows 95 So let’s get started.  Here’s the first setup screen.  For the record, Windows 95 installed in about 15 minutes or less in VMware in our test. Strangely, Windows 95 offered several installation choices.  They actually let you choose what extra parts of Windows to install if you wished.  Oh, and who wants to run Windows 95 on your “Portable Computer”?  Most smartphones today are more powerful than the “portable computers” of 95. Your productivity may vastly increase if you run Windows 95.  Anyone want to switch? No, I don’t want to restart … I want to use my computer! Welcome to Windows 95!  Hey, did you know you can launch programs from the Start button? Our quick spin around Windows 95 reminded us why Windows got such a bad reputation in the ‘90’s for being unstable.  We didn’t even get our test copy fully booted after installation before we saw our first error screen.  Windows in space … was that the most popular screensaver in Windows 95, or was it just me? Hello Windows 3.1!  The UI was still outdated in some spots.   Ah, yes, Media Player before it got 101 features to compete with iTunes. But, you couldn’t even play CDs in Media Player.  Actually, CD player was one program I used almost daily in Windows 95 back in the day. Want some new programs?  This help file about new programs designed for Windows 95 lists a lot of outdated names in tech.    And, you really may want some programs.  The first edition of Windows 95 didn’t even ship with Internet Explorer.   We’ve still got Minesweeper, though! My Computer had really limited functionality, and by default opened everything in a new window.  Double click on C:, and it opens in a new window.  Ugh. But Explorer is a bit more like more modern versions. Hey, look, Start menu search!  If only it found the files you were looking for… Now I’m feeling old … this shutdown screen brought back so many memories … of shutdowns that wouldn’t shut down! But, you still have to turn off your computer.  I wonder how many old monitors had these words burned into them? So there’s yet another trip down Windows memory lane.  Most of us can remember using Windows 95, so let us know your favorite (or worst) memory of it!  At least we can all be thankful for our modern computers and operating systems today, right?  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Remember the Old-School SkiFree Game?Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7Stupid Geek Tricks: Select Multiple Windows on the TaskbarHow to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95

  - by Matthew Guay

  Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7.  Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s. In this demo, we’re running the first release of Windows 95 (version 4.00.950) in VMware Player 3.0 running on Windows 7 x64.  For fun, we ran the 95 upgrade on the 3.1 virtual machine we built last week. Windows 95 So let’s get started.  Here’s the first setup screen.  For the record, Windows 95 installed in about 15 minutes or less in VMware in our test. Strangely, Windows 95 offered several installation choices.  They actually let you choose what extra parts of Windows to install if you wished.  Oh, and who wants to run Windows 95 on your “Portable Computer”?  Most smartphones today are more powerful than the “portable computers” of 95. Your productivity may vastly increase if you run Windows 95.  Anyone want to switch? No, I don’t want to restart … I want to use my computer! Welcome to Windows 95!  Hey, did you know you can launch programs from the Start button? Our quick spin around Windows 95 reminded us why Windows got such a bad reputation in the ‘90’s for being unstable.  We didn’t even get our test copy fully booted after installation before we saw our first error screen.  Windows in space … was that the most popular screensaver in Windows 95, or was it just me? Hello Windows 3.1!  The UI was still outdated in some spots.   Ah, yes, Media Player before it got 101 features to compete with iTunes. But, you couldn’t even play CDs in Media Player.  Actually, CD player was one program I used almost daily in Windows 95 back in the day. Want some new programs?  This help file about new programs designed for Windows 95 lists a lot of outdated names in tech.    And, you really may want some programs.  The first edition of Windows 95 didn’t even ship with Internet Explorer.   We’ve still got Minesweeper, though! My Computer had really limited functionality, and by default opened everything in a new window.  Double click on C:, and it opens in a new window.  Ugh. But Explorer is a bit more like more modern versions. Hey, look, Start menu search!  If only it found the files you were looking for… Now I’m feeling old … this shutdown screen brought back so many memories … of shutdowns that wouldn’t shut down! But, you still have to turn off your computer.  I wonder how many old monitors had these words burned into them? So there’s yet another trip down Windows memory lane.  Most of us can remember using Windows 95, so let us know your favorite (or worst) memory of it!  At least we can all be thankful for our modern computers and operating systems today, right?  Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Geek Fun: Remember the Old-School SkiFree Game?Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11Stupid Geek Tricks: Tile or Cascade Multiple Windows in Windows 7Stupid Geek Tricks: Select Multiple Windows on the TaskbarHow to Delete a System File in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Enable Check Box Selection in Windows 7 OnlineOCR – Free OCR Service Betting on the Blind Side, a Vanity Fair article 30 Minimal Logo Designs that Say More with Less LEGO Digital Designer – Free Create a Personal Website Quickly using Flavors.me

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• Ask How-To Geek: Dropbox in the Start Menu, Understanding Symlinks, and Ripping TV Series DVDs

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  This week we take a look at how to incorporate Dropbox into your Windows Start Menu, understanding and using symbolic links, and how to rip your TV series DVDs right to unique and high-quality episode files. Once a week we dip into our reader mailbag and help readers solve their problems, sharing the useful solutions with you in the process. Read on to see our fixes for this week’s reader dilemmas. Add Drobox to Your Start Menu Dear How-To Geek, I use Dropbox all the time and would like to add it right onto my start menu along side the other major shortcuts like Documents, Pictures, etc. It seems like adding Dropbox into the menu should be part of the Dropbox installation package! Sincerely, Dropboxing in Des Moines Dear Dropboxing, We agree, it would be a nice installation option. As it stands you’re going to have to do a little simple hacking to get Dropbox nestled neatly into your start menu. The hack isn’t super elegant but when you’re done you’ll have the link you want and it’ll look like it was there all along. Check out this step-by-step guide here in order to take an existing Library shortcut and rework it to be a Dropbox link. Understanding and Using Symbolic Links Dear How-To Geek, I was talking to a coworker the other day about an issue I’d been having with a media center application I’m running. He suggested using symbolic links to better organize my media and make it easier for the application to access my collection. I had no idea what he was talking about and never got a chance to bug him about it later. Can you clear up this whole symbolic links business for me? I’ve been using computers for years and I’ve never even heard of it! Sincerely, Symbolic Who? Dear Symbolic, Symbolic links aren’t commonly used by many Windows users which is why you likely haven’t run into the concept. Symbolic links are essentially supercharged shortcuts—the newly introduced Windows library system is really just a type of symbolic link system. You can use symbolic links to do all sorts of neat stuff like link folders to your Dropbox folder, organize media, and more. The concept of symbolic links is pretty simple but the execution can be really tricky. We’d suggest reading over our guide to creating symbolic links in Windows 7, Windows XP, and Ubunutu to get a clearer idea what you’re getting into. Rip Your TV DVDs into Handy Episode Files Dear How-To Geek, My wife got me an iPod for Christmas and I still haven’t got around to filling it up. I have tons of entire TV show seasons on DVD and would like to get them on the iPod but I have absolutely no idea where to start. How do I get the shows off the discs? I thought it would be as easy to import the TV shows into iTunes as it is to import tracks off a CD but I was totally wrong. I tried downloading some applications to rip them but those didn’t work at all. Very frustrating! Surely there is an easy and/or automated way to do this, right? Sincerely, Free My DVDs Dear DVDs, Oh man is this a frustration we can relate to. It’s inordinately difficult to get movies and TV shows off physical media and into digital (and portable media player-friendly) formats. There are a multitude of ways to rip DVDs and quite a few applications out there (some good, some mediocre, and some outright malware). We’d recommend a two-part punch to solve your ripping woes. You’ll need a copy of DVDFab to strip away the protections on the discs and rip the disc and Handbrake to load the disc image and convert the files. It’s not quite as smooth as the CD-to-iTunes workflow but it’s still pretty easy. Check out all the steps and settings you’ll want to toggle here. Have a question you want to put before the How-To Geek staff? Shoot us an email at [email protected] and then keep an eye out for a solution in the Ask How-To Geek column. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines Google’s New Personal Blocklist Extension Kills Search Engine Spam KeyCounter Tracks Your Keystrokes and Mouse Clicks Add Custom LED Ambient Lighting to Your PC or Media Center The Trackor Monitors Amazon Prices; Integrates with Chrome, Firefox, and Safari Four Awesome TRON Legacy Themes for Chrome and Iron Anger is Illogical – Old School Style Instructional Video [Star Trek Mashup]

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• SQL SERVER – Database Dynamic Caching by Automatic SQL Server Performance Acceleration

  - by pinaldave

  My second look at SafePeak’s new version (2.1) revealed to me few additional interesting features. For those of you who hadn’t read my previous reviews SafePeak and not familiar with it, here is a quick brief: SafePeak is in business of accelerating performance of SQL Server applications, as well as their scalability, without making code changes to the applications or to the databases. SafePeak performs database dynamic caching, by caching in memory result sets of queries and stored procedures while keeping all those cache correct and up to date. Cached queries are retrieved from the SafePeak RAM in microsecond speed and not send to the SQL Server. The application gets much faster results (100-500 micro seconds), the load on the SQL Server is reduced (less CPU and IO) and the application or the infrastructure gets better scalability. SafePeak solution is hosted either within your cloud servers, hosted servers or your enterprise servers, as part of the application architecture. Connection of the application is done via change of connection strings or adding reroute line in the c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file on all application servers. For those who would like to learn more on SafePeak architecture and how it works, I suggest to read this vendor’s webpage: SafePeak Architecture. More interesting new features in SafePeak 2.1 In my previous review of SafePeak new I covered the first 4 things I noticed in the new SafePeak (check out my article “SQLAuthority News – SafePeak Releases a Major Update: SafePeak version 2.1 for SQL Server Performance Acceleration”): Cache setup and fine-tuning – a critical part for getting good caching results Database templates Choosing which database to cache Monitoring and analysis options by SafePeak Since then I had a chance to play with SafePeak some more and here is what I found. 5. Analysis of SQL Performance (present and history): In SafePeak v.2.1 the tools for understanding of performance became more comprehensive. Every 15 minutes SafePeak creates and updates various performance statistics. Each query (or a procedure execute) that arrives to SafePeak gets a SQL pattern, and after it is used again there are statistics for such pattern. An important part of this product is that it understands the dependencies of every pattern (list of tables, views, user defined functions and procs). From this understanding SafePeak creates important analysis information on performance of every object: response time from the database, response time from SafePeak cache, average response time, percent of traffic and break down of behavior. One of the interesting things this behavior column shows is how often the object is actually pdated. The break down analysis allows knowing the above information for: queries and procedures, tables, views, databases and even instances level. The data is show now on all arriving queries, both read queries (that can be cached), but also any types of updates like DMLs, DDLs, DCLs, and even session settings queries. The stats are being updated every 15 minutes and SafePeak dashboard allows going back in time and investigating what happened within any time frame. 6. Logon trigger, for making sure nothing corrupts SafePeak cache data If you have an application with many parts, many servers many possible locations that can actually update the database, or the SQL Server is accessible to many DBAs or software engineers, each can access some database directly and do some changes without going thru SafePeak – this can create a potential corruption of the data stored in SafePeak cache. To make sure SafePeak cache is correct it needs to get all updates to arrive to SafePeak, and if a DBA will access the database directly and do some changes, for example, then SafePeak will simply not know about it and will not clean SafePeak cache. In the new version, SafePeak brought a new feature called “Logon Trigger” to solve the above challenge. By special click of a button SafePeak can deploy a special server logon trigger (with a CLR object) on your SQL Server that actually monitors all connections and informs SafePeak on any connection that is coming not from SafePeak. In SafePeak dashboard there is an interface that allows to control which logins can be ignored based on login names and IPs, while the rest will invoke cache cleanup of SafePeak and actually locks SafePeak cache until this connection will not be closed. Important to note, that this does not interrupt any logins, only informs SafePeak on such connection. On the Dashboard screen in SafePeak you will be able to see those connections and then decide what to do with them. Configuration of this feature in SafePeak dashboard can be done here: Settings -> SQL instances management -> click on instance -> Logon Trigger tab. Other features: 7. User management ability to grant permissions to someone without changing its configuration and only use SafePeak as performance analysis tool. 8. Better reports for analysis of performance using 15 minute resolution charts. 9. Caching of client cursors 10. Support for IPv6 Summary SafePeak is a great SQL Server performance acceleration solution for users who want immediate results for sites with performance, scalability and peak spikes challenges. Especially if your apps are packaged or 3rd party, since no code changes are done. SafePeak can significantly increase response times, by reducing network roundtrip to the database, decreasing CPU resource usage, eliminating I/O and storage access. SafePeak team provides a free fully functional trial www.safepeak.com/download and actually provides a one-on-one assistance during such trial. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Utility, T SQL, Technology

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• SQL Developer Data Modeler v3.3 Early Adopter: Collaborative Design via Excel?

  - by thatjeffsmith

  As you may have heard last week, we have a new version of Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler now available as an Early Adopter release. Version 3.3 has quite a few new features and I’ll be previewing them here. Today’s topic is our new Excel integration. It builds off of last week’s lesson: Search, so you may want to go read that first. They say it takes a village to raise a child. I say it takes a team to build a data model. You have your techie folks, your business folks, your in-betweeners, and your database geeks. Who gets to define how customers are represented and stored in your database? That data lives forever, so you better get it right from the beginning, or you’ll be living in a hacker’s paradise for years to come. Lots of good rantings, ravings, and advice on this topic in general on Karen Lopez’s (@datachick) blog. But let’s say you are the primary modeler on a project. You dutifully interview the business folks for their requirements. You sit down and start to model and think you’re pretty close. Now you need someone to confirm your assumptions and provide some feedback. Do you send your model over? Take a screenshot and blow it up on a whiteboard? Export to HTML and let them take a magic marker to their monitors? Or maybe you bite the bullet and install your modeling software on their desktops and take the hours or days required to train them up on how to use the the tool. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could just mark up their corrections in Excel and let you suck the updates back in? This is what we have started to build in Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler. Let’s say you have a new table called ‘UT_STARTUPS.’ It looks a little something like this: A table in Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler What I would like to do is have my team or co-worker review how I have defined those columns. Perhaps TIMESTAMP is overkill or maybe the column names themselves aren’t up to snuff. What I am going to do is now search for all the columns in my table, then export that to Excel. So do a search for UT_STARTUPS. Search, filter, then Report With the filter set to ‘Columns,’ if I do a report I’ll be only getting the columns that are resolving to my search term. So as long as my table name is unique in the model, I should get what I’m looking for. Here’s what I see when I click on the Report button: XLS or XLSX, either format is just fine I want to decide how the Column data is exported to Excel though, so I’m going to create a report template that I can use going forward. So click the ‘Manage’ button and setup a new template. I’m going to call mine ‘CollaborativeDevelopment.’ The templates allow me to define what properties are included in the reports. Once this is set, I’ll have the XLS file generated, and get to work Now let the Excel junkies do their stuff Note that not ALL of the report properties are update-able (yes, I made up a new word there) via Excel. We’ll have the full list of properties documented going forward, but in my Excel sheet, note that I can’t change the table name or the data types for the columns. I’m going to update some column names and supply ‘nice’ comments so the database users know what’s what. Here’s my input for the designer/architect/database dude: Be kind, please rew…use comments. Save the file, email it back to your modeler. Update the model from Excel That’s right, it’s a right mouse click from your model in the tree If everything goes right, you’ll see a nice confirmation message: It’s alive! Another to-do item on tap – making this dialog more informative. We’ll be showing exactly what in your model was updated from Excel. Let’s take another look at the model now Voila! Why are we doing this again? The goal is to reduce the number of round-trips from the modeler and the business process owner. One is used to working with Excel – why not allow them to mark up their changes in the tool they already know? This is an early adopter release and I anticipate this feature getting a good bit of tuning up before we release. Why don’t you download 3.3, give it a whirl, and let us know what you think?

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• Prevent Changing the Screen Saver and Wallpaper in Windows 7

  - by Mysticgeek

  Sometimes you might not want users to have the ability to change Screen Savers and Wallpaper on Windows 7 workstations. Today we look at how to prevent them from changing either one or both. You might administer computers in your home or small office and find it annoying when users continuously change the wallpaper and Screen Savers to something obnoxious. A lot of times they might be inexperienced users and download these so-called “wonderful and free” Screen Saver/Wallpaper packages from shady sites that include loads of Spyware. Preventing users from changing them is another helpful tool to avoid wasteful time spent switching things back. Prevent Changing Screensavers & Wallpaper Using Group Policy Editor  Note: This method uses Group Policy which is not available in Home versions on Windows 7. Open the Start Menu and enter gpedit.msc into the Search box and hit Enter. When Local Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Control Panel \ Personalization. Then in the right column double-click on Prevent changing desktop background. Now check the radio button next to Enabled, then click OK. Back on the Group Policy Screen, double-click on Prevent changing screen saver. In the next screen select the radio button next to Enable, click OK, then close out of Group Policy Editor. Now when a user goes into the Personalization section, the Desktop Background hyperlink is now grayed out and inactive. Notice the message One or more of the settings on this page has been disabled by the system administrator at the bottom of the section. If they click to change the Screen Saver, an error message will pop up letting them know the function is disabled. Prevent Changing Screensavers & Wallpaper Using a Registry Hack You can also make a couple Registry changes to prevent users from changing the Wallpaper & Screen Saver…which will work on Home versions of Windows 7. Before making any Registry changes make sure you back it up first. Open the Registry by typing regedit into the Search box in the Start menu and hit Enter. First we’ll start with the Wallpaper. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and create a new String Value and name it Wallpaper. Then modify the Value data to point to the location of the Wallpaper you want it to always be. Where in this example it’s our main wallpaper on our local drive…then click OK. Now let’s make sure they can’t change the Screen Saver. In the same Registry location, we need to make a new DWORD (32-bit) Value. Give it the Value name of NoDispScrSavPage and the value data of “1” and click OK. Close out of the Registry and restart the machine or simply log off then back on again for the changes to take effect. Results For the Wallpapers, a user can still go in and see the selections, however if they try to change it to something else… It will just go back to the Personalization screen and no changes will be made, as we set the value to only be the background we specified. If the user tries to make a change to the Screen Saver, the hyperlink will be grayed out and inactive, and the message One or more of the settings on this page has been disabled by the system administrator will be displayed at the bottom of the section. Conclusion If you’re tired of users changing the Wallpaper and Screen Saver, and want another way to help avoid Malware, locking down these settings can help a lot. Again, before making any changes to the Registry, make sure to back it up. These settings should work in Vista and XP as well. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Save 1-4% More Battery Life With Windows Vista Battery SaverCustomize Your Windows Vista Logon ScreenEnable "Ubuntu Style" Logons in Windows VistaManage the Delete Confirmation Dialog box in Windows 7Dual Monitors: Use a Different Wallpaper on Each Desktop TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows Fun with 47 charts and graphs Tomorrow is Mother’s Day Check the Average Speed of YouTube Videos You’ve Watched OutlookStatView Scans and Displays General Usage Statistics How to Add Exceptions to the Windows Firewall Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott

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• Understanding each other in web development

  - by Pete Hotchkin

  During my career I have been lucky enough to work in several different roles within web development with many extremely talented people, from incredible designers who were passionate about the placement of every pixel right through to server administrators and DBAs who were always measuring the improvements they were making to their queries in the smallest possible unit. The problem I always faced was that more often than not I was stuck in the middle trying to mediate between these different functions and enable each side to understand the other’s point of view. The main areas of contention that there have always been between these functional groups in my experience have been at 2 key points: during the build phase and then when there is a problem post-build. During both of these times it is often easier for someone to pass the buck onto someone else than spend the time to understand the other person’s perspective. Below is a quick look at two upcoming tools that will not only speed up the build phase for each function, but  also help when it comes to the issues faced once a site has been pushed live. In my experience a web project goes through several phases of development. The first of these is design, generally handled as Photoshop files which are then passed onto a front-end developer. This is the first point at which heated discussions can arise. One problem I’ve seen several times is that the designer doesn’t fully understand the platform constraints that need to be considered, and as a result has designed something that does not translate very well or is simply not possible. Working at Red Gate, I am lucky enough to be able to meet some amazing people and this happened just the other day when I was introduced to Neil Kinnish and Pete Nelson, the creators of what I believe could be a great asset in this designer-developer relationship, Mixture. Mixture allows the front end developer to quickly prototype a web page with built-in frameworks such as bootstrap. It’s not an IDE however, it just sits there in the background and monitors the project files in the background so every time you save a file from your favorite IDE, it will compile things like LESS, compact your JavaScript and the automatically refresh your test browser so you can see the changes instantly. I think one of the best parts of this however is a single button that pushes the changed files up to the web so the designer can instantly see how far the developer has got and the problem that he is facing at that time without the need to spend time setting up a remote server. I can see this being a real asset to remote teams where there needs to be a compromise between the designer and the front-end developer, or just to allow the designer to see how the build is progressing and suggest small alterations. Once the design has been built into the front end the designer’s job is generally done and there are no other points of contention between the designer and the other functions involved in building these web projects. As the project moves into the stage of integrating it into the back end and deploying it to the production server other functions start to be pulled in and other issues arise such as the back-end developer understanding the frameworks that they are using such as the routes that are in place in an MVC application or the number of database calls that the ORM layer is actually making. There are many tools out there that can actually help with these problems such as mini profiler that gives you a quick snapshot of what is going on directly in the browser. For a slightly more in-depth look at what is happening and to gain a deeper understanding of an application you may be working on though, you may want to consider Glimpse. Created by Nik and Anthony, it is an application that sits at the bottom of your browser (installed via NuGet) which can show you information about how your application is pieced together and how the information on screen is being delivered as it happens. With a wealth of community-built plugins such as one for nHibernate and linq2SQL (full list of plugins on NuGet). It can be customized directly to your own setup to truly delve into the code to see what is happening, and can help to reduce the number of confusing moments about whether it is your code that is going wrong or whether there is something more sinister happening directly on the server. All the tools that I have mentioned in this post help to do one thing above all, and that is to ease the barrier of understanding between the different functions that are involved in building and maintaining a web application. In my experience it is very easy to say “Well, that’s not my problem”, simply because the two functions involved don’t truly understand the other’s point of view. Software should not only be seen as a way to streamline our own working process or as a debugging tool but also a communication aid to improve the entire lifecycle of a web project. Glimpse is actually the project that I am the designer on and I would love to get your feedback if you do decide to try it out or if you would like to share your own experiences of working on web projects please fill in your details at https://www.surveymk.com/s/joinGlimpse  or add a comment below and I will get in touch with you.

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• Monitoring almost anything with BizTalk 360

  - by Michael Stephenson

  When you work in an integration environment it is common that you will find yourself in a situation where you integrate with some unusual applications or have some unusual dependencies. That is the nature of integration. When you work with BizTalk one of the common problems is that BizTalk often is the place where problems with applications you integrate with are highlighted and these external applications may have poor monitoring solutions. Fortunately if you are a working with a customer who uses BizTalk 360 then it contains a feature called the "Web Endpoint Manager". Typically the web endpoint manager is used to monitor web services that you integrate with and will ping them at appropriate times to make sure they return the expected HTTP status code. When you have an usual situation where you want to monitor something which is key to the success to your solution but you find yourself having to consider a significant custom solution to monitor the external dependency then the Web Endpoint Manager could be your friend. The endpoint manager monitors a url and checks for a certain status code. This means that you can create your own aspx web page and then make BizTalk 360 monitor this web page. Behind the web page you could write any code you wished. An example of this is architecture is shown in the below diagram.     In the custom web page you would implement some custom code to do whatever it is that you want to monitor. In the below code snippet you can see how the Page_Load default method is doing some kind of check then depending on the result of the check it returns a certain HTTP code. protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { var result = CheckSomething();   if (result == "Success") Response.StatusCode = 202; else if (result == "DatabaseError") Response.StatusCode = 510; else if (result == "SystemError") Response.StatusCode = 512; else Response.StatusCode = 513;   }   In BizTalk 360 you would go into the Monitor and Notify tab and then to BizTalk Environment which gives you access to the Web Endpoint Manager. You need an alarm setup which configures how the endpoint will be checked. I'm not going to go through the details of creating the alarm as this is already documented in the BizTalk 360 documentation. One point to note is that in the example I am using I setup a threshold alarm which means that the url is checked about every minute and if there is an error that persists for a period of time then the alarm will raise the alert notification. In my example I configured the alarm to fire if the error persisted for 3 minutes. The below picture shows accessing the endpoint manager.   In the web endpoint manager you would then configure your endpoint to monitor and the HTTP response code which indicates all is working fine. The below picture shows this. I now have my endpoint monitoring setup and BizTalk 360 should be checking my custom endpoint to see that it is available. If I wanted to manually sanity check that the endpoints I have registered are working fine then clicking the Refresh button will show if they are all good or not. If my custom ASP.net page which is checking my dependency gets a problem you will see in the endpoint manager that the status code does not match the expected return code and your endpoints will display in red and you can see the problem. The below picture shows this. If I use specific HTTP response codes for the errors the custom ASP.net page might encounter I can easily interpret these to know what the problem is. Using the alarms and notifications with BizTalk 360 it means when your endpoint goes into an error state you can easily configure email or SMS notifications from BizTalk 360 to tell you that your endpoint is having problems and you can use BizTalk 360 to help correlate what the problem is to allow you to investigate further. Below you can see the email which tells me my endpoint is not working.   When everything returns to normal you will see the status is now fixed and you will see a situation like below where you can see the WebEndpoints are now green and the return code matches what is expected.   Conclusion As you can see it is really easy to plug your own custom ASP.net page into the BizTalk 360 web endpoint monitoring feature. This extension then gives you the power to really extend the monitoring to almost anything you want as long as you can write some .net code to check that the dependency is available and working. It would be interesting to hear of any ideas people have around things they would monitor with this extension. More details on the end point monitor can be found on the following link: http://www.biztalk360.com/tour/monitoring_notifications

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• NDepend 4 – First Steps

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Introduction Thanks to Patrick Smacchia I had the chance to test NDepend 4. I can only say: awesome! This will be the first of a series of posts on NDepend, where I will talk about my discoveries. Keep in mind that I am just starting to use it, so more experienced users may find these too basic, I just hope I don’t say anything foolish! I must say that I am in no way affiliated with NDepend and I never actually met Patrick. Installation No installation program – a curious decision, I’m not against it -, just unzip the files to a folder and run the executable. It will optionally register itself with Visual Studio 2008, 2010 and 11 as well as RedGate’s Reflector; also, it automatically looks for updates. NDepend can either be used as a stand-alone program (with or without a GUI) or from within Visual Studio or Reflector. Getting Started One thing that really pleases me is the Getting Started section of the stand-alone, with links to pages on NDepend’s web site, featuring detailed explanations, which usually include screenshots and small videos (<5 minutes). There’s also an How do I with hierarchical navigation that guides us to through the major features so that we can easily find what we want. Usage There are two basic ways to use NDepend: Analyze .NET solutions, projects or assemblies; Compare two versions of the same assembly. I have so far not used NDepend to compare assemblies, so I will first talk about the first option. After selecting a solution and some of its projects, it generates a single HTML page with an highly detailed report of the analysis it produced. This includes some metrics such as number of lines of code, IL instructions, comments, types, methods and properties, the calculation of the cyclomatic complexity, coupling and lots of others indicators, typically grouped by type, namespace and assembly. The HTML also includes some nice diagrams depicting assembly dependencies, type and method relative proportions (according to the number of IL instructions, I guess) and assembly analysis relating to abstractness and stability. Useful, I would say. Then there’s the rules; NDepend tests the target assemblies against a set of more than 120 rules, grouped in categories Code Quality, Object Oriented Design, Design, Architecture and Layering, Dead Code, Visibility, Naming Conventions, Source Files Organization and .NET Framework Usage. The full list can be configured on the application, and an explanation of each rule can be found on the web site. Rules can be validated, violated and violated in a critical manner, and the HTML will contain the violated rules, their queries – more on this later - and results. The HTML uses some nice JavaScript effects, which allow paging and sorting of tables, so its nice to use. Similar to the rules, there are some queries that display results for a number (about 200) questions grouped as Object Oriented Design, API Breaking Changes (for assembly version comparison), Code Diff Summary (also for version comparison) and Dead Code. The difference between queries and rules is that queries are not classified as passes, violated or critically violated, just present results. The queries and rules are expressed through CQLinq, which is a very powerful LINQ derivative specific to code analysis. All of the included rules and queries can be enabled or disabled and new ones can be added, with intellisense to help. Besides the HTML report file, the NDepend application can be used to explore all analysis results, compare different versions of analysis reports and to run custom queries. Comparison to Other Analysis Tools Unlike StyleCop, NDepend only works with assemblies, not source code, so you can’t expect it to be able to enforce brackets placement, for example. It is more similar to FxCop, but you don’t have the option to analyze at the IL level, that is, other that the number of IL instructions and the complexity. What’s Next In the next days I’ll continue my exploration with a real-life test case. References The NDepend web site is http://www.ndepend.com/. Patrick keeps an updated blog on http://codebetter.com/patricksmacchia/ and he regularly monitors StackOverflow for questions tagged NDepend, which you can find on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ndepend. The default list of CQLinq rules, queries and statistics can be found at http://www.ndepend.com/DefaultRules/webframe.html. The syntax itself is described at http://www.ndepend.com/Doc_CQLinq_Syntax.aspx and its features at http://www.ndepend.com/Doc_CQLinq_Features.aspx.

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• Surface and the Uphill Battle to Win Over iPad Users (Namely: Me)

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I went away this past weekend and decided to bring along the Windows 8 tablet from the Build conference last year – y’know, to give Windows 8 a try in a typical scenario. I also brought our iPad 2 along since I figured my wife would want to use that. I’d love to tell you how I found using my Windows 8 tablet but I can’t – I used the iPad exclusively the entire weekend. It was during this that I realized what Microsoft needs to do to win me over as an iPad user. As you’ll see, I’m left wondering what it is that Surface is meant to compete with: iPad and other tablets, or thin laptops like the MacBook Air or Ultrabooks. Device Size I really like the size of the iPad compared with the Build tablet. It’s not as long and the thinness/weight of the device makes it feel more like you’re holding a magazine than a computer. I’m pleased that Microsoft will be matching the thinness of the iPad with Surface, but I’m suspect as to what that actually means. The iPad’s edges slant inwards where the Surface has a thicker boxish look (similar to the iPhone 4S). So while they may have the same depth at the deepest part of both devices, I bet the iPad will come off feeling thinner. However, its not lost on me the number of external port options the Surface’s design provides over the iPad (Usb, etc.). With that said, I haven’t missed having a USB slot on my iPad. I’m not a fan of lengthening the Surface screen size to almost a full inch over the iPad, mainly because… Vertical Orientation Experience Did you notice at the announce event, in the images of the devices that have been released, and in any marketing for it, that the surface is always displayed in horizontal orientation. This is a huge beef I have with my Build tablet and why I prefer the iPad. Yes the iPad can do the wide-screenish mode, but the iPad is oriented to be vertical by nature. Don’t agree? Look at the button and camera placement – both on the shorter sides of the device. Compare that with the Surface, where the orientation for the button and camera is on the longer sides. To be fair, Blackberry and the horde of Android tablets out there haven’t gotten this either – since most monitors are widescreen nowadays tablets should be too right? Wrong. Widescreen is great for certain things, but tasks such as reading is not one of them – hence why monitor companies like Dell provide stands that allow you to flip your widescreen monitor to a vertical orientation. That Microsoft has chosen a horizontal orientation by default for Windows 8 is disappointing – hopefully hardware manufacturers will be given the option of a default vertical orientation. Fast Startup Time I like that I can turn off/turn on the iPad very quickly. Even from a true “off” mode and not just sleeping, the iPad boots up very quickly. Windows RT needs to have that same quick response. If I start finding that I’m waiting for the device to boot up for more than 30 seconds that could be a show stopper. No Heat I really hate that the Build tablet has fans that kick in to cool the procs, but its basically a slate computer and I get its part of that prototype build. For Surface, it needs to be the same type of experience as the iPad – no heat! I know Surface doesn’t have fans and uses some cool new vent system or something like that, but even then – I want to sit and read a book on my Surface without having to feel any heat coming from the device, which is the experience I have with the iPad now. What About Apps?! I am definitely not the target client when it comes to app stores. On my iPad I use: Safari Kindle Reader Twitter App Settlers of Catan TSN’s App And that’s it. So really, while its nice that some version of Office might be available, I’m not planning on utilizing a Surface for creating a PowerPoint or working on a Word document – that’s what my laptop is for. I want my tablet to be for information snacking or as an e-reader and occasionally an entertainment device. Surface vs iPad or Surface vs Air? The more that I read up on Surface, the more I wonder if it won’t be a touch-enabled MacBook Air competitor more than an iPad one. Also, I really question if Microsoft gets tablets – when one of your main selling features is a built-in physical keyboard it speaks more to a traditional laptop experience than a tablet one that’s entirely reliant on touch. Still, I really love the Windows Phone interface – way more than iOS – so I’m still very optimistic that the Metro experience on the tablet will be fantastic. I just worry that Microsoft has interpreted a tablet as a computer with a removable keyboard and a touch screen, and that’s not what tablet computing is about at all.

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• Inside Red Gate - Be Reasonable!

  - by Simon Cooper

  As I discussed in my previous posts, divisions and project teams within Red Gate are allowed a lot of autonomy to manage themselves. It's not just the teams though, there's an awful lot of freedom given to individual employees within the company as well. Reasonableness How Red Gate treats it's employees is embodied in the phrase 'You will be reasonable with us, and we will be reasonable with you'. As an employee, you are trusted to do your job to the best of you ability. There's no one looking over your shoulder, no one clocking you in and out each day. Everyone is working at the company because they want to, and one of the core ideas of Red Gate is that the company exists to 'let people do the best work of their lives'. Everything is geared towards that. To help you do your job, office services and the IT department are there. If you need something to help you work better (a third or fourth monitor, footrests, or a new keyboard) then ask people in Information Systems (IS) or Office Services and you will be given it, no questions asked. Everyone has administrator access to their own machines, and you can install whatever you want on it. If there's a particular bit of software you need, then ask IS and they will buy it. As an example, last year I wanted to replace my main hard drive with an SSD; I had a summer job at school working in a computer repair shop, so knew what to do. I went to IS and asked for 'an SSD, a SATA cable, and a screwdriver'. And I got it there and then, even the screwdriver. Awesome. I screwed it in myself, copied all my main drive files across, and I was good to go. Of course, if you're not happy doing that yourself, then IS will sort it all out for you, no problems. If you need something that the company doesn't have (say, a book off Amazon, or you need some specifications printing off & bound), then everyone has a expense limit of £100 that you can use without any sign-off needed from your managers. If you need a company credit card for whatever reason, then you can get it. This freedom extends to working hours and holiday; you're expected to be in the office 11am-3pm each day, but outside those times you can work whenever you want. If you need a half-day holiday on a days notice, or even the same day, then you'll get it, unless there's a good reason you're needed that day. If you need to work from home for a day or so for whatever reason, then you can. If it's reasonable, then it's allowed. Trust issues? A lot of trust, and a lot of leeway, is given to all the people in Red Gate. Everyone is expected to work hard, do their jobs to the best of their ability, and there will be a minimum of bureaucratic obstacles that stop you doing your work. What happens if you abuse this trust? Well, an example is company trip expenses. You're free to expense what you like; food, drink, transport, etc, but if you expenses are not reasonable, then you will never travel with the company again. Simple as that. Everyone knows when they're abusing the system, so simply don't do it. Along with reasonableness, another phrase used is 'Don't be a ***'. If you act like a ***, and abuse any of the trust placed in you, even if you're the best tester, salesperson, dev, or manager in the company, then you won't be a part of the company any more. From what I know about other companies, employee trust is highly variable between companies, all the way up to CCTV trained on employee's monitors. As a dev, I want to produce well-written & useful code that solves people's problems. Being able to get whatever I need - install whatever tools I need, get time off when I need to, obtain reference books within a day - all let me do my job, and so let Red Gate help other people do their own jobs through the tools we produce. Plus, I don't think I would like working for a company that doesn't allow admin access to your own machine and blocks Facebook!

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• Why does calling CreateDXGIFactory prevent my program from exiting?

  - by smoth190

  I'm using CreateDXGIFactory to get the graphics adapters and display modes. When I call it, it works fine and I get all the data. However, when I exit my program, the main Win32 thread exits, but something stays open because it keeps debugging. Does CreateDXGIFactory create an extra thread and I'm not closing it? I don't understand. The only thing I would suspect is that in the documentation it says it doesn't work if it's called from DllMain. It is in a DLL, but it's not called from DllMain. And it doesn't fail, either. I'm using DirectX 11. Here is the function that initializes DirectX. I haven't gotten past retrieving the refresh rate because of this problem. I commented everything out to pinpoint the problem. bool CGraphicsManager::InitDirectX(HWND hWnd, int width, int height) { HRESULT result; IDXGIFactory* factory; IDXGIOutput* output; IDXGIAdapter* adapter; DXGI_MODE_DESC* displayModes; DXGI_ADAPTER_DESC adapterDesc; unsigned int modeCount = 0; unsigned int refreshNum = 0; unsigned int refreshDen = 0; //First, we need to get the monitors refresh rater result = CreateDXGIFactory(__uuidof(IDXGIFactory), (void**)&factory); //if(FAILED(result)) //{ //MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to create DXGI factory\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); //return false; //} /*//Create a graphics card adapter result = factory->EnumAdapters(0, &adapter); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get graphics adapters\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } //Get the output result = adapter->EnumOutputs(0, &output); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get adapter output\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } //Get the modes result = output->GetDisplayModeList(DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM, DXGI_ENUM_MODES_INTERLACED, &modeCount, 0); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get mode count\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } displayModes = new DXGI_MODE_DESC[modeCount]; result = output->GetDisplayModeList(DXGI_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM, DXGI_ENUM_MODES_INTERLACED, &modeCount, displayModes); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get display modes\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } //Now we need to find one for our screen size for(unsigned int i = 0; i < modeCount; i++) { if(displayModes[i].Width == (unsigned int)width) { if(displayModes[i].Height == (unsigned int)height) { refreshNum = displayModes[i].RefreshRate.Numerator; refreshDen = displayModes[i].RefreshRate.Denominator; break; } } } //Store the video card data result = adapter->GetDesc(&adapterDesc); if(FAILED(result)) { MemoryUtil::MessageBoxError(TEXT("InitDirectX"), 0, 0, TEXT("Failed to get adapter description\nError:\n%s"), DXGetErrorDescription(result)); return false; } m_videoCard = new CVideoCard(); MemoryUtil::CreateGameObject(m_videoCard); m_videoCard->VideoCardMemory = (unsigned int)(adapterDesc.DedicatedVideoMemory); wcstombs_s(0, m_videoCard->VideoCardDescription, 128, adapterDesc.Description, 128);*/ //ReleaseCOM(output); //ReleaseCOM(adapter); ReleaseCOM(factory); //DeletePointerArray(displayModes); return true; } Also, I don't know if this means anything, but this is some of the output log when the function is commented out: //... 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msvcr100d.dll', Symbols loaded. 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\imm32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msctf.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\uxtheme.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\ink\tiptsf.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ole32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\oleaut32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\clbcatq.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\oleacc.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file The program '[6560] LostRock.exe: Native' has exited with code 0 (0x0). And when it isn't commented out... //... 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cfgmgr32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\devobj.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\wintrust.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\crypt32.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\msasn1.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Unloaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\setupapi.dll' 'LostRock.exe': Unloaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\devobj.dll' 'LostRock.exe': Unloaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cfgmgr32.dll' 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\clbcatq.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file 'LostRock.exe': Loaded 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\oleacc.dll', Cannot find or open the PDB file The thread 'Win32 Thread' (0xb94) has exited with code 0 (0x0). The program '[8096] LostRock.exe: Native' has exited with code 0 (0x0). //This is called when I click "Stop Debugging" P.S. I know it is CreateDXGIFactory because if I comment it out, the program exits correctly.

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• Inside Red Gate - Be Reasonable!

  - by simonc

  As I discussed in my previous posts, divisions and project teams within Red Gate are allowed a lot of autonomy to manage themselves. It's not just the teams though, there's an awful lot of freedom given to individual employees within the company as well. Reasonableness How Red Gate treats it's employees is embodied in the phrase 'You will be reasonable with us, and we will be reasonable with you'. As an employee, you are trusted to do your job to the best of you ability. There's no one looking over your shoulder, no one clocking you in and out each day. Everyone is working at the company because they want to, and one of the core ideas of Red Gate is that the company exists to 'let people do the best work of their lives'. Everything is geared towards that. To help you do your job, office services and the IT department are there. If you need something to help you work better (a third or fourth monitor, footrests, or a new keyboard) then ask people in Information Systems (IS) or Office Services and you will be given it, no questions asked. Everyone has administrator access to their own machines, and you can install whatever you want on it. If there's a particular bit of software you need, then ask IS and they will buy it. As an example, last year I wanted to replace my main hard drive with an SSD; I had a summer job at school working in a computer repair shop, so knew what to do. I went to IS and asked for 'an SSD, a SATA cable, and a screwdriver'. And I got it there and then, even the screwdriver. Awesome. I screwed it in myself, copied all my main drive files across, and I was good to go. Of course, if you're not happy doing that yourself, then IS will sort it all out for you, no problems. If you need something that the company doesn't have (say, a book off Amazon, or you need some specifications printing off & bound), then everyone has a expense limit of £100 that you can use without any sign-off needed from your managers. If you need a company credit card for whatever reason, then you can get it. This freedom extends to working hours and holiday; you're expected to be in the office 11am-3pm each day, but outside those times you can work whenever you want. If you need a half-day holiday on a days notice, or even the same day, then you'll get it, unless there's a good reason you're needed that day. If you need to work from home for a day or so for whatever reason, then you can. If it's reasonable, then it's allowed. Trust issues? A lot of trust, and a lot of leeway, is given to all the people in Red Gate. Everyone is expected to work hard, do their jobs to the best of their ability, and there will be a minimum of bureaucratic obstacles that stop you doing your work. What happens if you abuse this trust? Well, an example is company trip expenses. You're free to expense what you like; food, drink, transport, etc, but if you expenses are not reasonable, then you will never travel with the company again. Simple as that. Everyone knows when they're abusing the system, so simply don't do it. Along with reasonableness, another phrase used is 'Don't be an a**hole'. If you act like an a**hole, and abuse any of the trust placed in you, even if you're the best tester, salesperson, dev, or manager in the company, then you won't be a part of the company any more. From what I know about other companies, employee trust is highly variable between companies, all the way up to CCTV trained on employee's monitors. As a dev, I want to produce well-written & useful code that solves people's problems. Being able to get whatever I need - install whatever tools I need, get time off when I need to, obtain reference books within a day - all let me do my job, and so let Red Gate help other people do their own jobs through the tools we produce. Plus, I don't think I would like working for a company that doesn't allow admin access to your own machine and blocks Facebook! Cross posted from Simple Talk.

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• Simple BizTalk Orchestration & Port Tutorial

  - by bosuch

  (This is a reference for a lunch & learn I'm giving at my company) This demo will create a BizTalk process that monitors a directory for an XML file, loads it into an orchestration, and drops it into a different directory. There’s no real processing going on (other than moving the file from one location to another), but this will introduce you to Messages, Orchestrations and Ports. To begin, create a new BizTalk Project names OrchestrationPortDemo: When the solution has been created, right-click the OrchestrationPortDemo solution name and select Add -> New Item. Add a BizTalk Orchestration named DemoOrchestration: Click Add and the orchestration will be created and displayed in the BizTalk Orchestration Designer. The designer allows you to visually create your business processes: Next, you will add a message (the basic unit of communication) to the orchestration. In the Orchestration View, right-click Messages and select New Message. In the message properties window, enter DemoMessage as the Identifier (the name), and select .NET Classes -> System.Xml.XmlDocument for Message Type. This indicates that we’ll be passing a standard Xml document in and out of the orchestration. Next, you will add Send and Receive shapes to the orchestration. From the toolbox, drag a Receive shape onto the orchestration (where it says “Drop a shape from the toolbox here”). Next, drag a Send shape directly below the Receive shape. For the properties of both shapes, select DemoMessage for Message – this indicates we’ll be passing around the message we created earlier. The Operation box will have a red exclamation mark next to it because no port has been specified. We will do this in a minute. On the Receive shape properties, you must be sure to select True for Activate. This indicates that the orchestration will be started upon receipt of a message, rather than being called by another orchestration. If you leave it set to false, when you try to build the application you’ll receive the error “You must specify at least one already-initialized correlation set for a non-activation receive that is on a non self-correlating port.” Now you’ll add ports to the orchestration. Ports specify how your orchestration will send and receive messages. Drag a port from the toolbox to the left-hand Port Surface, and the Port Configuration Wizard launches. For the first port (the receive port), enter the following information: Name: ReceivePort Select the port type to be used for this port: Create a new Port Type Port Type Name: ReceivePortType Port direction of communication: I’ll always be receiving <…> Port binding: Specify later By choosing “Specify later” you are choosing to bind the port (choose where and how it will send or receive its messages) at deployment time via the BizTalk Server Administration console. This allows you to change locations later without building and re-deploying the application. Next, drag a port to the right-hand Port Surface; this will be your send port. Configure it as follows: Name: SendPort Select the port type to be used for this port: Create a new Port Type Port Type Name: SendPortType Port direction of communication: I’ll always be sending <…> Port binding: Specify later Finally, drag the green arrow on the ReceivePort to the Receive_1 shape, and the green arrow on the SendPort to the Send_1 shape. Your orchestration should look like this: Now you have a couple final steps before building and deploying the application. In the Solution Explorer, right-click on OrchestrationPortDemo and select Properties. On the Signing tab, click “Sign the assembly”, and choose <New…> from the drop-down. Enter DemoKey as the Key file name, and deselect “Protect my key file with a password”. This will create the file DemoKey.snk in your solution. Signing the assembly gives it a strong name so that it can be deployed into the global assembly cache (GAC). Next, click the Deployment tab, and enter OrchestrationPortDemo as the Application Name. Save your solution. Click “Build OrchestrationPortDemo”. Your solution should (hopefully!) build with no errors. Click “Deploy OrchestrationPortDemo”. (Note – If you’re running Server 2008, Vista or Win7, you may get an error message. If so, close Visual Studio and run it as an administrator) That’s it! Your application is ready to be configured and fired up in the BizTalk Server Administration console, so stay tuned!

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• Windows Service HTTPListener Memory Issue

  - by crawshaws

  Hi all, Im a complete novice to the "best practices" etc of writing in any code. I tend to just write it an if it works, why fix it. Well, this way of working is landing me in some hot water. I am writing a simple windows service to server a single webpage. (This service will be incorperated in to another project which monitors the services and some folders on a group of servers.) My problem is that whenever a request is recieved, the memory usage jumps up by a few K per request and keeps qoing up on every request. Now ive found that by putting GC.Collect in the mix it stops at a certain number but im sure its not meant to be used this way. I was wondering if i am missing something or not doing something i should to free up memory. Here is the code: Public Class SimpleWebService : Inherits ServiceBase 'Set the values for the different event log types. Public Const EVENT_ERROR As Integer = 1 Public Const EVENT_WARNING As Integer = 2 Public Const EVENT_INFORMATION As Integer = 4 Public listenerThread As Thread Dim HTTPListner As HttpListener Dim blnKeepAlive As Boolean = True Shared Sub Main() Dim ServicesToRun As ServiceBase() ServicesToRun = New ServiceBase() {New SimpleWebService()} ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun) End Sub Protected Overrides Sub OnStart(ByVal args As String()) If Not HttpListener.IsSupported Then CreateEventLogEntry("Windows XP SP2, Server 2003, or higher is required to " & "use the HttpListener class.") Me.Stop() End If Try listenerThread = New Thread(AddressOf ListenForConnections) listenerThread.Start() Catch ex As Exception CreateEventLogEntry(ex.Message) End Try End Sub Protected Overrides Sub OnStop() blnKeepAlive = False End Sub Private Sub CreateEventLogEntry(ByRef strEventContent As String) Dim sSource As String Dim sLog As String sSource = "Service1" sLog = "Application" If Not EventLog.SourceExists(sSource) Then EventLog.CreateEventSource(sSource, sLog) End If Dim ELog As New EventLog(sLog, ".", sSource) ELog.WriteEntry(strEventContent) End Sub Public Sub ListenForConnections() HTTPListner = New HttpListener HTTPListner.Prefixes.Add("http://*:1986/") HTTPListner.Start() Do While blnKeepAlive Dim ctx As HttpListenerContext = HTTPListner.GetContext() Dim HandlerThread As Thread = New Thread(AddressOf ProcessRequest) HandlerThread.Start(ctx) HandlerThread = Nothing Loop HTTPListner.Stop() End Sub Private Sub ProcessRequest(ByVal ctx As HttpListenerContext) Dim sb As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder sb.Append("<html><body><h1>Test My Service</h1>") sb.Append("</body></html>") Dim buffer() As Byte = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(sb.ToString) ctx.Response.ContentLength64 = buffer.Length ctx.Response.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length) ctx.Response.OutputStream.Close() ctx.Response.Close() sb = Nothing buffer = Nothing ctx = Nothing 'This line seems to keep the mem leak down 'System.GC.Collect() End Sub End Class Please feel free to critisise and tear the code apart but please BE KIND. I have admitted I dont tend to follow the best practice when it comes to coding.

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• Facing Memory Leaks in AES Encryption Method.

  - by Mubashar Ahmad

  Can anyone please identify is there any possible memory leaks in following code. I have tried with .Net Memory Profiler and it says "CreateEncryptor" and some other functions are leaving unmanaged memory leaks as I have confirmed this using Performance Monitors. but there are already dispose, clear, close calls are placed wherever possible please advise me accordingly. its a been urgent. public static string Encrypt(string plainText, string key) { //Set up the encryption objects byte[] encryptedBytes = null; using (AesCryptoServiceProvider acsp = GetProvider(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(key))) { byte[] sourceBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(plainText); using (ICryptoTransform ictE = acsp.CreateEncryptor()) { //Set up stream to contain the encryption using (MemoryStream msS = new MemoryStream()) { //Perform the encrpytion, storing output into the stream using (CryptoStream csS = new CryptoStream(msS, ictE, CryptoStreamMode.Write)) { csS.Write(sourceBytes, 0, sourceBytes.Length); csS.FlushFinalBlock(); //sourceBytes are now encrypted as an array of secure bytes encryptedBytes = msS.ToArray(); //.ToArray() is important, don't mess with the buffer csS.Close(); } msS.Close(); } } acsp.Clear(); } //return the encrypted bytes as a BASE64 encoded string return Convert.ToBase64String(encryptedBytes); } private static AesCryptoServiceProvider GetProvider(byte[] key) { AesCryptoServiceProvider result = new AesCryptoServiceProvider(); result.BlockSize = 128; result.KeySize = 256; result.Mode = CipherMode.CBC; result.Padding = PaddingMode.PKCS7; result.GenerateIV(); result.IV = new byte[] { 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 }; byte[] RealKey = GetKey(key, result); result.Key = RealKey; // result.IV = RealKey; return result; } private static byte[] GetKey(byte[] suggestedKey, SymmetricAlgorithm p) { byte[] kRaw = suggestedKey; List<byte> kList = new List<byte>(); for (int i = 0; i < p.LegalKeySizes[0].MaxSize; i += 8) { kList.Add(kRaw[(i / 8) % kRaw.Length]); } byte[] k = kList.ToArray(); return k; }

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• TcpListener is queuing connections faster than I can clear them

  - by Matthew Brindley

  As I understand it, TcpListener will queue connections once you call Start(). Each time you call AcceptTcpClient (or BeginAcceptTcpClient), it will dequeue one item from the queue. If we load test our TcpListener app by sending 1,000 connections to it at once, the queue builds far faster than we can clear it, leading (eventually) to timeouts from the client because it didn't get a response because its connection was still in the queue. However, the server doesn't appear to be under much pressure, our app isn't consuming much CPU time and the other monitored resources on the machine aren't breaking a sweat. It feels like we're not running efficiently enough right now. We're calling BeginAcceptTcpListener and then immediately handing over to a ThreadPool thread to actually do the work, then calling BeginAcceptTcpClient again. The work involved doesn't seem to put any pressure on the machine, it's basically just a 3 second sleep followed by a dictionary lookup and then a 100 byte write to the TcpClient's stream. Here's the TcpListener code we're using: // Thread signal. private static ManualResetEvent tcpClientConnected = new ManualResetEvent(false); public void DoBeginAcceptTcpClient(TcpListener listener) { // Set the event to nonsignaled state. tcpClientConnected.Reset(); listener.BeginAcceptTcpClient( new AsyncCallback(DoAcceptTcpClientCallback), listener); // Wait for signal tcpClientConnected.WaitOne(); } public void DoAcceptTcpClientCallback(IAsyncResult ar) { // Get the listener that handles the client request, and the TcpClient TcpListener listener = (TcpListener)ar.AsyncState; TcpClient client = listener.EndAcceptTcpClient(ar); if (inProduction) ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(state => HandleTcpRequest(client, serverCertificate)); // With SSL else ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(state => HandleTcpRequest(client)); // Without SSL // Signal the calling thread to continue. tcpClientConnected.Set(); } public void Start() { currentHandledRequests = 0; tcpListener = new TcpListener(IPAddress.Any, 10000); try { tcpListener.Start(); while (true) DoBeginAcceptTcpClient(tcpListener); } catch (SocketException) { // The TcpListener is shutting down, exit gracefully CheckBuffer(); return; } } I'm assuming the answer will be related to using Sockets instead of TcpListener, or at least using TcpListener.AcceptSocket, but I wondered how we'd go about doing that? One idea we had was to call AcceptTcpClient and immediately Enqueue the TcpClient into one of multiple Queue<TcpClient> objects. That way, we could poll those queues on separate threads (one queue per thread), without running into monitors that might block the thread while waiting for other Dequeue operations. Each queue thread could then use ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem to have the work done in a ThreadPool thread and then move onto dequeuing the next TcpClient in its queue. Would you recommend this approach, or is our problem that we're using TcpListener and no amount of rapid dequeueing is going to fix that?

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• Do you still limit line length in code?

  - by Noldorin

  This is a matter on which I would like to gauge the opinion of the community: Do you still limit the length of lines of code to a fixed maximum? This was certainly a convention of the past for many languages; one would typically cap the number of characters per line to a value such as 80 (and more recnetly 100 or 120 I believe). As far as I understand, the primary reasons for limiting line length are: Readability - You don't have to scroll over horizontally when you want to see the end of some lines. Printing - Admittedly (at least in my experience), most code that you are working on does not get printed out on paper, but by limiting the number of characters you can insure that formatting doesn't get messed up when printed. Past editors (?) - Not sure about this one, but I suspect that at some point in the distant past of programming, (at least some) text editors may have been based on a fixed-width buffer. I'm sure there are points that I am still missing out, so feel free to add to these... Now, when I tend to observe C or C# code nowadays, I often see a number of different styles, the main ones being: Line length capped to 80, 100, or even 120 characters. As far as I understand, 80 is the traditional length, but the longer ones of 100 and 120 have appeared because of the widespread use of high resolutions and widescreen monitors nowadays. No line length capping at all. This tends to be pretty horrible to read, and I don't see it too often, though it's certainly not too rare either. Inconsistent capping of line length. The length of some lines are limited to a fixed maximum (or even a maximum that changes depending on the file/location in code), while others (possibly comments) are not at all. My personal preference here (at least recently) has been to cap the line length to 100 in the Visual Studio editor. This means that in a decently sized window (on a non-widescreen monitor), the ends of lines are still fully visible. I can however see a few disadvantages in this, especially when you end up writing code that's indented 3 or 4 levels and then having to include a long string literal - though I often take this as a sign to refactor my code! In particular, I am curious what the C and C# coders (or anyone who uses Visual Studio for that matter) think about this point, though I would be interested in hearing anyone's thoughts on the subject. Edit Thanks for the all answers - I appreciate the variety of opinions here, all presenting sound reasons. Consensus does seem to be tipping in the direction of always (or almost always) limit the line length. Interestingly, it seems to be in various coding standards to limit the line length. Judging by some of the answers, both the Python and Google CPP guidelines set the limit at 80 chars. I haven't seen anything similar regarding C# or VB.NET, but I would be curious to see if there are ones anywhere.

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• Finding the closest object in proxmity to the mouse Coordinates

  - by Cam

  Hey there, i've been working on a problem for a while now, which involves targeting the closest movieClip in relation to the x y coords of the mouse, I've attached a nice little acompanying graphic. Each mc added to the stage has it's own sub-class (HotSpots) which uses Pythag to measure distance from mouse. At this stage i can determine the closest value from my Main class but can't figure out how to reference it back to the movieclip... hope this makes sense. Below are the two Classes. My Main Class which attachs the mcs, and monitors mouse movement and traces closest value package { import flash.display.*; import flash.text.*; import flash.events.*; public class Main extends MovieClip { var pos:Number = 50; var nodeArray:Array; public function Main(){ nodeArray = []; for(var i:int = 0; i < 4; i++) { var hotSpot_mc:HotSpots = new HotSpots; hotSpot_mc.x += pos; hotSpot_mc.y += pos; addChild(hotSpot_mc); nodeArray.push(hotSpot_mc); // set some pos pos += 70; } stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE,updateProxmity) } public function updateProxmity(e:MouseEvent):void { var tempArray:Array = new Array(); for(var i:int = 0; i < 4; i++) { this['tf'+[i]].text = String(nodeArray[i].dist); tempArray.push(nodeArray[i].dist); } tempArray.sort(Array.NUMERIC); var minValue:int = tempArray[0]; trace(minValue) } } } My HotSpots Class package { import flash.display.MovieClip; import flash.events.Event; import flash.text.TextField; public class HotSpots extends MovieClip { public var XSide:Number; public var YSide:Number; public var dist:Number = 0; public function HotSpots() { addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, textUp); } public function textUp(event:Event):void { XSide = this.x - MovieClip(root).mouseX; YSide = this.y - MovieClip(root).mouseY; dist = Math.round((Math.sqrt(XSide*XSide + YSide*YSide))); } } } thanks in advance

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• Direct show video renderers suck?

  - by Daniel

  So I've been looking into the world of media playback for windows and I've started making a C# Media Player using DirectShow. I started off using the VRM-7 windowed video renderer and it was brilliant except it had a couple of small problems (multi monitors, fullscreen). But after some research I found that it's deprecated and I should be using VRM9. So I changed it to use VRM9 windowless then found out that was an old post rofl _< so finally I'm using Vista/Win7 (or XP .net 3) Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR) which is apparently the most up to date Microsoft video renderer and has all the flashy performance/quality things added to it. (tbh I haven't noticed any difference but maybe I need a blue-ray or HQ video to notice it). With using EVR everything is working fine except resizing the video. Its really laggy/choppy/teary and problem something to do with its frame queueing mechanism. To demonstrate my problem open up windows media player classic. View - Options - Playback - output Chose the "EVR" DirectShow Video renderer Now restart wmp class and play a video, while it's playing click and drag a corner to resize it. You'll notice its horribly laggy. This is the exact same problem i am having. But if you chose "EVR Custom Pres. *" or EVR Sync *" resizing works beautifully! So i tried googling around for anything about EVR resizing issues and how to fix it but i couldn't believe how little i could find. I'm guessing "Custom Pres." stands for "Custom Presenter" which sounds like they made their own. Also you'll notice on the right hand size when you swap between EVR and the other EVR's the Resizer drop down on the right greys out. So basically I wan't to know how I can fix this retarded resizing problem and is there any decent documentation out there? There is a fair bit for VMR7/9 but not much for EVR. I downloaded the DirectX SDK which apparently has samples but it was a waste of 500mb of bandwidth as it had nothing relevant. Perhaps there is some way to force it not queueing up frames if that is the problem? If you want code say the word and I'll paste some in. But it's really quite simple and nothing much happens, i'm convinced it's a problem with the EVR renderer. EDIT: Oh and one other thing, what does VLC use? If you go into vlc options and change the renderer to anything but default, they all suck. So is it using VMR7? Or its own?

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• DirectShow EVR resizing window problem

  - by Daniel

  So I've been looking into the world of media playback for windows and I've started making a C# Media Player using DirectShow. I started off using the VRM-7 windowed video renderer and it was brilliant except it had a couple of small problems (multi monitors, fullscreen). But after some research I found that it's deprecated and I should be using VRM9. So I changed it to use VRM9 windowless then found out that was an old post rofl _< so finally I'm using Vista/Win7 (or XP .net 3) Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR) which is apparently the most up to date Microsoft video renderer and has all the flashy performance/quality things added to it. (tbh I haven't noticed any difference but maybe I need a blue-ray or HQ video to notice it). With using EVR everything is working fine except resizing the video. Its really laggy/choppy/teary and probably something to do with its frame queueing mechanism. To demonstrate my problem open up windows media player classic. View - Options - Playback - output Chose the "EVR" DirectShow Video renderer Now restart wmp class and play a video, while it's playing click and drag a corner to resize it. You'll notice its horribly laggy. This is the exact same problem i am having. But if you chose "EVR Custom Pres. *" or EVR Sync *" resizing works beautifully! So i tried googling around for anything about EVR resizing issues and how to fix it but i couldn't believe how little i could find. I'm guessing "Custom Pres." stands for "Custom Presenter" which sounds like they made their own. Also you'll notice on the right hand size when you swap between EVR and the other EVR's the Resizer drop down on the right greys out. So basically I wan't to know how I can fix this retarded resizing problem and is there any decent documentation out there? There is a fair bit for VMR7/9 but not much for EVR. I downloaded the DirectX SDK which apparently has samples but it was a waste of 500mb of bandwidth as it had nothing relevant. Perhaps there is some way to force it not queueing up frames if that is the problem? If you want code say the word and I'll paste some in. But it's really quite simple and nothing much happens, i'm convinced it's a problem with the EVR renderer. EDIT: Oh and one other thing, what does VLC use? If you go into vlc options and change the renderer to anything but default, they all suck. So is it using VMR7? Or its own?

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• Java app makes screen display unresponsive after 10 minutes of user idle time

  - by Ross

  I've written a Java app that allows users to script mouse/keyboard input (JMacro, link not important, only for the curious). I personally use the application to automate character actions in an online game overnight while I sleep. Unfortunately, I keep coming back to the computer in the morning to find it unresponsive. Upon further testing, I'm finding that my application causes the computer to become unresponsive after about 10 minutes of user idle time (even if the application itself it simulating user activity). I can't seem to pin-point the issue, so I'm hoping somebody else might have a suggestion of where to look or what might be causing the issue. The relevant symptoms and characteristics: Unresponsiveness occurs after user is idle for 10 minutes User can still move the mouse pointer around the screen Everything but the mouse appears frozen... mouse clicks have no effect and no applications update their displays, including the Windows 7 desktop I left the task manager up along the with the app overnight so I could see the last task manager image before the screen freezes... the Java app is at normal CPU/Memory usage and total CPU usage is only ~1% After moving the mouse (in other words, the user comes back from being idle), the screen image starts updating again within 30 minutes (this is very hit and miss... sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes no results after two hours) User can CTRL-ALT-DEL to get to Windows 7's CTRL-ALT-DEL screen (after a 30 second pause). User is still able to move mouse pointer, but clicking any of the button options causes the screen to appear to freeze again On some very rare occasions, the system never freezes, and I come back to it in the morning with full responsiveness The Java app automatically stops input scripting in the middle of the night, so Windows 7 detects "real" idleness and turns the monitors into Standby mode... which they successfully come out of upon manually moving the mouse in the morning when I wake up, even though the desktop display still appears frozen Given the symptoms and characteristics of the issue, it's as if the Java app is causing the desktop display of the logged in user to stop updating, including any running applications. Programming concepts and Java packages used: Multi-threading Standard out and err are rerouted to a javax.swing.JTextArea The application uses a Swing GUI awt.Robot (very heavily used) awt.PointerInfo awt.MouseInfo System Specs: Windows 7 Professional Java 1.6.0 u17 In conclusion, I should stress that I'm not looking for any specific solutions, as I'm not asking a very specific question. I'm just wondering if anybody has run into a similar problem when using the Java libraries that I'm using. I would also gladly appreciate any suggestions for things to try to attempt to further pinpoint what is causing my problem. Thanks! Ross PS, I'll post an update/answer if I manage to stumble across anything else while I continue to debug this.

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• C program using inotify to monitor multiple directories along with sub-directories?

  - by lakshmipathi

  I have program which monitors a directory (/test) and notify me. I want to improve this to monitor another directory (say /opt). And also how to monitor it's subdirectories , current i'll get notified if any changes made to files under /test . but i'm not getting any inotifcation if changes made sub-directory of /test, that is touch /test/sub-dir/files.txt .. Here my current code - hope this will help /* Simple example for inotify in Linux. inotify has 3 main functions. inotify_init1 to initialize inotify_add_watch to add monitor then inotify_??_watch to rm monitor.you the what to replace with ??. yes third one is inotify_rm_watch() */ #include <sys/inotify.h> int main(){ int fd,wd,wd1,i=0,len=0; char pathname[100],buf[1024]; struct inotify_event *event; fd=inotify_init1(IN_NONBLOCK); /* watch /test directory for any activity and report it back to me */ wd=inotify_add_watch(fd,"/test",IN_ALL_EVENTS); while(1){ //read 1024 bytes of events from fd into buf i=0; len=read(fd,buf,1024); while(i<len){ event=(struct inotify_event *) &buf[i]; /* check for changes */ if(event->mask & IN_OPEN) printf("%s :was opened\n",event->name); if(event->mask & IN_MODIFY) printf("%s : modified\n",event->name); if(event->mask & IN_ATTRIB) printf("%s :meta data changed\n",event->name); if(event->mask & IN_ACCESS) printf("%s :was read\n",event->name); if(event->mask & IN_CLOSE_WRITE) printf("%s :file opened for writing was closed\n",event->name); if(event->mask & IN_CLOSE_NOWRITE) printf("%s :file opened not for writing was closed\n",event->name); if(event->mask & IN_DELETE_SELF) printf("%s :deleted\n",event->name); if(event->mask & IN_DELETE) printf("%s :deleted\n",event->name); /* update index to start of next event */ i+=sizeof(struct inotify_event)+event->len; } } }

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