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• Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for SQL Server

  - by SQLOS Team

  Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness and Capacity Assessment for Windows Server Machine Running SQL Server With the release of MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta, we have added a new scenario to assess your Windows Azure Virtual Machine Readiness. The MAP 8.0 Beta performs a comprehensive assessment of Windows Servers running SQL Server to determine you level of readiness to migrate an on-premise physical or virtual machine to Windows Azure Virtual Machines. The MAP Toolkit then offers suggested changes to prepare the machines for migration, such as upgrading the operating system or SQL Server. MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Now, let’s walk through the MAP Toolkit task for completing the Windows Azure Virtual Machine assessment and capacity planning. The tasks include the following: Perform an inventory View the Windows Azure VM Readiness results and report Collect performance data for determine VM sizing View the Windows Azure Capacity results and report Perform an inventory: 1. To perform an inventory against a single machine or across a complete environment, choose Perform an Inventory to launch the Inventory and Assessment Wizard as shown below: 2. After the Inventory and Assessment Wizard launches, select either the Windows computers or SQL Server scenario to inventory Windows machines. HINT: If you don’t care about completely inventorying a machine, just select the SQL Server scenario. Click Next to Continue. 3. On the Discovery Methods page, select how you want to discover computers and then click Next to continue. Description of Discovery Methods: Use Active Directory Domain Services -- This method allows you to query a domain controller via the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and select computers in all or specific domains, containers, or OUs. Use this method if all computers and devices are in AD DS. Windows networking protocols --  This method uses the WIN32 LAN Manager application programming interfaces to query the Computer Browser service for computers in workgroups and Windows NT 4.0–based domains. If the computers on the network are not joined to an Active Directory domain, use only the Windows networking protocols option to find computers. System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) -- This method enables you to inventory computers managed by System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM). You need to provide credentials to the System Center Configuration Manager server in order to inventory the managed computers. When you select this option, the MAP Toolkit will query SCCM for a list of computers and then MAP will connect to these computers. Scan an IP address range -- This method allows you to specify the starting address and ending address of an IP address range. The wizard will then scan all IP addresses in the range and inventory only those computers. Note: This option can perform poorly, if many IP addresses aren’t being used within the range. Manually enter computer names and credentials -- Use this method if you want to inventory a small number of specific computers. Import computer names from a files -- Using this method, you can create a text file with a list of computer names that will be inventoried. 4. On the All Computers Credentials page, enter the accounts that have administrator rights to connect to the discovered machines. This does not need to a domain account, but needs to be a local administrator. I have entered my domain account that is an administrator on my local machine. Click Next after one or more accounts have been added. NOTE: The MAP Toolkit primarily uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect hardware, device, and software information from the remote computers. In order for the MAP Toolkit to successfully connect and inventory computers in your environment, you have to configure your machines to inventory through WMI and also allow your firewall to enable remote access through WMI. The MAP Toolkit also requires remote registry access for certain assessments. In addition to enabling WMI, you need accounts with administrative privileges to access desktops and servers in your environment. 5. On the Credentials Order page, select the order in which want the MAP Toolkit to connect to the machine and SQL Server. Generally just accept the defaults and click Next. 6. On the Enter Computers Manually page, click Create to pull up at dialog to enter one or more computer names. 7. On the Summary page confirm your settings and then click Finish. After clicking Finish the inventory process will start, as shown below: Windows Azure Readiness results and report After the inventory progress has completed, you can review the results under the Database scenario. On the tile, you will see the number of Windows Server machine with SQL Server that were analyzed, the number of machines that are ready to move without changes and the number of machines that require further changes. If you click this Azure VM Readiness tile, you will see additional details and can generate the Windows Azure VM Readiness Report. After the report is generated, select View | Saved Reports and Proposals to view the location of the report. Open up WindowsAzureVMReadiness* report in Excel. On the Windows tab, you can see the results of the assessment. This report has a column for the Operating System and SQL Server assessment and provides a recommendation on how to resolve, if there a component is not supported. Collect Performance Data Launch the Performance Wizard to collect performance information for the Windows Server machines that you would like the MAP Toolkit to suggest a Windows Azure VM size for. Windows Azure Capacity results and report After the performance metrics are collected, the Azure VM Capacity title will display the number of Virtual Machine sizes that are suggested for the Windows Server and Linux machines that were analyzed. You can then click on the Azure VM Capacity tile to see the capacity details and generate the Windows Azure VM Capacity Report. Within this report, you can view the performance data that was collected and the Virtual Machine sizes.   MAP Toolkit 8.0 Beta is available for download here Your participation and feedback is very important to make the MAP Toolkit work better for you. We encourage you to participate in the beta program and provide your feedback at [email protected] or through one of our surveys. Useful References: Windows Azure Homepage How to guides for Windows Azure Virtual Machines Provisioning a SQL Server Virtual Machine on Windows Azure Windows Azure Pricing     Peter Saddow Senior Program Manager – MAP Toolkit Team

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• The blocking nature of aggregates

  - by Rob Farley

  I wrote a post recently about how query tuning isn’t just about how quickly the query runs – that if you have something (such as SSIS) that is consuming your data (and probably introducing a bottleneck), then it might be more important to have a query which focuses on getting the first bit of data out. You can read that post here.  In particular, we looked at two operators that could be used to ensure that a query returns only Distinct rows. and The Sort operator pulls in all the data, sorts it (discarding duplicates), and then pushes out the remaining rows. The Hash Match operator performs a Hashing function on each row as it comes in, and then looks to see if it’s created a Hash it’s seen before. If not, it pushes the row out. The Sort method is quicker, but has to wait until it’s gathered all the data before it can do the sort, and therefore blocks the data flow. But that was my last post. This one’s a bit different. This post is going to look at how Aggregate functions work, which ties nicely into this month’s T-SQL Tuesday. I’ve frequently explained about the fact that DISTINCT and GROUP BY are essentially the same function, although DISTINCT is the poorer cousin because you have less control over it, and you can’t apply aggregate functions. Just like the operators used for Distinct, there are different flavours of Aggregate operators – coming in blocking and non-blocking varieties. The example I like to use to explain this is a pile of playing cards. If I’m handed a pile of cards and asked to count how many cards there are in each suit, it’s going to help if the cards are already ordered. Suppose I’m playing a game of Bridge, I can easily glance at my hand and count how many there are in each suit, because I keep the pile of cards in order. Moving from left to right, I could tell you I have four Hearts in my hand, even before I’ve got to the end. By telling you that I have four Hearts as soon as I know, I demonstrate the principle of a non-blocking operation. This is known as a Stream Aggregate operation. It requires input which is sorted by whichever columns the grouping is on, and it will release a row as soon as the group changes – when I encounter a Spade, I know I don’t have any more Hearts in my hand. Alternatively, if the pile of cards are not sorted, I won’t know how many Hearts I have until I’ve looked through all the cards. In fact, to count them, I basically need to put them into little piles, and when I’ve finished making all those piles, I can count how many there are in each. Because I don’t know any of the final numbers until I’ve seen all the cards, this is blocking. This performs the aggregate function using a Hash Match. Observant readers will remember this from my Distinct example. You might remember that my earlier Hash Match operation – used for Distinct Flow – wasn’t blocking. But this one is. They’re essentially doing a similar operation, applying a Hash function to some data and seeing if the set of values have been seen before, but before, it needs more information than the mere existence of a new set of values, it needs to consider how many of them there are. A lot is dependent here on whether the data coming out of the source is sorted or not, and this is largely determined by the indexes that are being used. If you look in the Properties of an Index Scan, you’ll be able to see whether the order of the data is required by the plan. A property called Ordered will demonstrate this. In this particular example, the second plan is significantly faster, but is dependent on having ordered data. In fact, if I force a Stream Aggregate on unordered data (which I’m doing by telling it to use a different index), a Sort operation is needed, which makes my plan a lot slower. This is all very straight-forward stuff, and information that most people are fully aware of. I’m sure you’ve all read my good friend Paul White (@sql_kiwi)’s post on how the Query Optimizer chooses which type of aggregate function to apply. But let’s take a look at SQL Server Integration Services. SSIS gives us a Aggregate transformation for use in Data Flow Tasks, but it’s described as Blocking. The definitive article on Performance Tuning SSIS uses Sort and Aggregate as examples of Blocking Transformations. I’ve just shown you that Aggregate operations used by the Query Optimizer are not always blocking, but that the SSIS Aggregate component is an example of a blocking transformation. But is it always the case? After all, there are plenty of SSIS Performance Tuning talks out there that describe the value of sorted data in Data Flow Tasks, describing the IsSorted property that can be set through the Advanced Editor of your Source component. And so I set about testing the Aggregate transformation in SSIS, to prove for sure whether providing Sorted data would let the Aggregate transform behave like a Stream Aggregate. (Of course, I knew the answer already, but it helps to be able to demonstrate these things). A query that will produce a million rows in order was in order. Let me rephrase. I used a query which produced the numbers from 1 to 1000000, in a single field, ordered. The IsSorted flag was set on the source output, with the only column as SortKey 1. Performing an Aggregate function over this (counting the number of rows per distinct number) should produce an additional column with 1 in it. If this were being done in T-SQL, the ordered data would allow a Stream Aggregate to be used. In fact, if the Query Optimizer saw that the field had a Unique Index on it, it would be able to skip the Aggregate function completely, and just insert the value 1. This is a shortcut I wouldn’t be expecting from SSIS, but certainly the Stream behaviour would be nice. Unfortunately, it’s not the case. As you can see from the screenshots above, the data is pouring into the Aggregate function, and not being released until all million rows have been seen. It’s not doing a Stream Aggregate at all. This is expected behaviour. (I put that in bold, because I want you to realise this.) An SSIS transformation is a piece of code that runs. It’s a physical operation. When you write T-SQL and ask for an aggregation to be done, it’s a logical operation. The physical operation is either a Stream Aggregate or a Hash Match. In SSIS, you’re telling the system that you want a generic Aggregation, that will have to work with whatever data is passed in. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be possible to make a sometimes-blocking aggregation component in SSIS. A Custom Component could be created which could detect whether the SortKeys columns of the input matched the Grouping columns of the Aggregation, and either call the blocking code or the non-blocking code as appropriate. One day I’ll make one of those, and publish it on my blog. I’ve done it before with a Script Component, but as Script components are single-use, I was able to handle the data knowing everything about my data flow already. As per my previous post – there are a lot of aspects in which tuning SSIS and tuning execution plans use similar concepts. In both situations, it really helps to have a feel for what’s going on behind the scenes. Considering whether an operation is blocking or not is extremely relevant to performance, and that it’s not always obvious from the surface. In a future post, I’ll show the impact of blocking v non-blocking and synchronous v asynchronous components in SSIS, using some of LobsterPot’s Script Components and Custom Components as examples. When I get that sorted, I’ll make a Stream Aggregate component available for download.

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• migrating webclient to WCF; WCF client serializes parametername of method

  - by Wouter

  I'm struggling with migrating from webservice/webclient architecture to WCF architecture. The object are very complex, with lots of nested xsd's and different namespaces. Proxy classes are generated by adding a Web Reference to an original wsdl with 30+ webmethods and using xsd.exe for generating the missing SOAPFault objects. My pilot WCF Service consists of only 1 webmethod which matches the exact syntax of one of the original methods: 1 object as parameter, returning 1 other object as result value. I greated a WCF Interface using those proxy classes, using attributes: XMLSerializerFormat and ServiceContract on the interface, OperationContract on one method from original wsdl specifying Action, ReplyAction, all with the proper namespaces. I create incoming client messages using SoapUI; I generated a project from the original WSDL files (causing the SoapUI project to have 30+ methods) and created one new Request at the one implemented WebMethod, changed the url to my wcf webservice and send the message. Because of the specified (Reply-)Action in the OperationContractAttribute, the message is actually received and properly deserialized into an object. To get this far (40 hours of googling), a lot of frustration led me to using a custom endpoint in which the WCF 'wrapped tags' are removed, the namespaces for nested types are corrected, and the generated wsdl get's flattened (for better compatibility with other tools then MS VisualStudio). Interface code is this: [XmlSerializerFormat(Use = OperationFormatUse.Literal, Style = OperationFormatStyle.Document, SupportFaults = true)] [ServiceContract(Namespace = Constants.NamespaceStufZKN)] public interface IOntvangAsynchroon { [OperationContract(Action = Constants.NamespaceStufZKN + "/zakLk01", ReplyAction = Constants.NamespaceStufZKN + "/zakLk01", Name = "zakLk01")] [FaultContract(typeof(Fo03Bericht), Namespace = Constants.NamespaceStuf)] Bv03Bericht zakLk01([XmlElement("zakLk01", Namespace = Constants.NamespaceStufZKN)] ZAKLk01 zakLk011); When I use a Webclient in code to send a message, everything works. My problem is, when I use a WCF client. I use ChannelFactory< IOntvangAsynchroon to send a message. But the generated xml looks different: it includes the parametername of the method! It took me a lot of time to figure this one out, but here's what happens: Correct xml (stripped soap envelope): <soap:Body> <zakLk01 xmlns="http://www.egem.nl/StUF/sector/zkn/0310"> <stuurgegevens> <berichtcode xmlns="http://www.egem.nl/StUF/StUF0301">Bv01</berichtcode> <zender xmlns="http://www.egem.nl/StUF/StUF0301"> <applicatie>ONBEKEND</applicatie> </zender> </stuurgegevens> <parameters> </parameters> </zakLk01> </soap:Body> Bad xml: <soap:Body> <zakLk01 xmlns="http://www.egem.nl/StUF/sector/zkn/0310"> <zakLk011> <stuurgegevens> <berichtcode xmlns="http://www.egem.nl/StUF/StUF0301">Bv01</berichtcode> <zender xmlns="http://www.egem.nl/StUF/StUF0301"> <applicatie>ONBEKEND</applicatie> </zender> </stuurgegevens> <parameters> </parameters> </zakLk011> </zakLk01> </soap:Body> Notice the 'zakLk011' element? It is the name of the parameter of the method in my interface! So NOW it is zakLk011, but it when my parameter name was 'zakLk01', the xml seemed to contain some magical duplicate of the tag above, but without namespace. Of course, you can imagine me going crazy over what was happening before finding out it was the parametername! I know have actually created a WCF Service, at which I cannot send messages using a WCF Client anymore. For clarity: The method does get invoked using the WCF Client on my webservice, but the parameter object is empty. Because I'm using a custom endpoint to log the incoming xml, I can see the message is received fine, but just with the wrong syntax! WCF client code: ZAKLk01 stufbericht = MessageFactory.CreateZAKLk01(); ChannelFactory<IOntvangAsynchroon> factory = new ChannelFactory<IOntvangAsynchroon>(new BasicHttpBinding(), new EndpointAddress("http://localhost:8193/Roxit/Link/zkn0310")); factory.Endpoint.Behaviors.Add(new LinkEndpointBehavior()); IOntvangAsynchroon client = factory.CreateChannel(); client.zakLk01(stufbericht); I am not using a generated client, i just reference the webservice like i am lot's of times. Can anyone please help me? I can't google anything on this...

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• MERGE Bug with Filtered Indexes

  - by Paul White

  A MERGE statement can fail, and incorrectly report a unique key violation when: The target table uses a unique filtered index; and No key column of the filtered index is updated; and A column from the filtering condition is updated; and Transient key violations are possible Example Tables Say we have two tables, one that is the target of a MERGE statement, and another that contains updates to be applied to the target.  The target table contains three columns, an integer primary key, a single character alternate key, and a status code column.  A filtered unique index exists on the alternate key, but is only enforced where the status code is ‘a’: CREATE TABLE #Target ( pk integer NOT NULL, ak character(1) NOT NULL, status_code character(1) NOT NULL,   PRIMARY KEY (pk) );   CREATE UNIQUE INDEX uq1 ON #Target (ak) INCLUDE (status_code) WHERE status_code = 'a'; The changes table contains just an integer primary key (to identify the target row to change) and the new status code: CREATE TABLE #Changes ( pk integer NOT NULL, status_code character(1) NOT NULL,   PRIMARY KEY (pk) ); Sample Data The sample data for the example is: INSERT #Target (pk, ak, status_code) VALUES (1, 'A', 'a'), (2, 'B', 'a'), (3, 'C', 'a'), (4, 'A', 'd');   INSERT #Changes (pk, status_code) VALUES (1, 'd'), (4, 'a');          Target                     Changes +-----------------------+    +------------------+ ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦ status_code ¦    ¦ pk ¦ status_code ¦ ¦----+----+-------------¦    ¦----+-------------¦ ¦  1 ¦ A  ¦ a           ¦    ¦  1 ¦ d           ¦ ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦ a           ¦    ¦  4 ¦ a           ¦ ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦ a           ¦    +------------------+ ¦  4 ¦ A  ¦ d           ¦ +-----------------------+ The target table’s alternate key (ak) column is unique, for rows where status_code = ‘a’.  Applying the changes to the target will change row 1 from status ‘a’ to status ‘d’, and row 4 from status ‘d’ to status ‘a’.  The result of applying all the changes will still satisfy the filtered unique index, because the ‘A’ in row 1 will be deleted from the index and the ‘A’ in row 4 will be added. Merge Test One Let’s now execute a MERGE statement to apply the changes: MERGE #Target AS t USING #Changes AS c ON c.pk = t.pk WHEN MATCHED AND c.status_code <> t.status_code THEN UPDATE SET status_code = c.status_code; The MERGE changes the two target rows as expected.  The updated target table now contains: +-----------------------+ ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦ status_code ¦ ¦----+----+-------------¦ ¦  1 ¦ A  ¦ d           ¦ <—changed from ‘a’ ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦ a           ¦ ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦ a           ¦ ¦  4 ¦ A  ¦ a           ¦ <—changed from ‘d’ +-----------------------+ Merge Test Two Now let’s repopulate the changes table to reverse the updates we just performed: TRUNCATE TABLE #Changes;   INSERT #Changes (pk, status_code) VALUES (1, 'a'), (4, 'd'); This will change row 1 back to status ‘a’ and row 4 back to status ‘d’.  As a reminder, the current state of the tables is:          Target                        Changes +-----------------------+    +------------------+ ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦ status_code ¦    ¦ pk ¦ status_code ¦ ¦----+----+-------------¦    ¦----+-------------¦ ¦  1 ¦ A  ¦ d           ¦    ¦  1 ¦ a           ¦ ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦ a           ¦    ¦  4 ¦ d           ¦ ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦ a           ¦    +------------------+ ¦  4 ¦ A  ¦ a           ¦ +-----------------------+ We execute the same MERGE statement: MERGE #Target AS t USING #Changes AS c ON c.pk = t.pk WHEN MATCHED AND c.status_code <> t.status_code THEN UPDATE SET status_code = c.status_code; However this time we receive the following message: Msg 2601, Level 14, State 1, Line 1 Cannot insert duplicate key row in object 'dbo.#Target' with unique index 'uq1'. The duplicate key value is (A). The statement has been terminated. Applying the changes using UPDATE Let’s now rewrite the MERGE to use UPDATE instead: UPDATE t SET status_code = c.status_code FROM #Target AS t JOIN #Changes AS c ON t.pk = c.pk WHERE c.status_code <> t.status_code; This query succeeds where the MERGE failed.  The two rows are updated as expected: +-----------------------+ ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦ status_code ¦ ¦----+----+-------------¦ ¦  1 ¦ A  ¦ a           ¦ <—changed back to ‘a’ ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦ a           ¦ ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦ a           ¦ ¦  4 ¦ A  ¦ d           ¦ <—changed back to ‘d’ +-----------------------+ What went wrong with the MERGE? In this test, the MERGE query execution happens to apply the changes in the order of the ‘pk’ column. In test one, this was not a problem: row 1 is removed from the unique filtered index by changing status_code from ‘a’ to ‘d’ before row 4 is added.  At no point does the table contain two rows where ak = ‘A’ and status_code = ‘a’. In test two, however, the first change was to change row 1 from status ‘d’ to status ‘a’.  This change means there would be two rows in the filtered unique index where ak = ‘A’ (both row 1 and row 4 meet the index filtering criteria ‘status_code = a’). The storage engine does not allow the query processor to violate a unique key (unless IGNORE_DUP_KEY is ON, but that is a different story, and doesn’t apply to MERGE in any case).  This strict rule applies regardless of the fact that if all changes were applied, there would be no unique key violation (row 4 would eventually be changed from ‘a’ to ‘d’, removing it from the filtered unique index, and resolving the key violation). Why it went wrong The query optimizer usually detects when this sort of temporary uniqueness violation could occur, and builds a plan that avoids the issue.  I wrote about this a couple of years ago in my post Beware Sneaky Reads with Unique Indexes (you can read more about the details on pages 495-497 of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Internals or in Craig Freedman’s blog post on maintaining unique indexes).  To summarize though, the optimizer introduces Split, Filter, Sort, and Collapse operators into the query plan to: Split each row update into delete followed by an inserts Filter out rows that would not change the index (due to the filter on the index, or a non-updating update) Sort the resulting stream by index key, with deletes before inserts Collapse delete/insert pairs on the same index key back into an update The effect of all this is that only net changes are applied to an index (as one or more insert, update, and/or delete operations).  In this case, the net effect is a single update of the filtered unique index: changing the row for ak = ‘A’ from pk = 4 to pk = 1.  In case that is less than 100% clear, let’s look at the operation in test two again:          Target                     Changes                   Result +-----------------------+    +------------------+    +-----------------------+ ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦ status_code ¦    ¦ pk ¦ status_code ¦    ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦ status_code ¦ ¦----+----+-------------¦    ¦----+-------------¦    ¦----+----+-------------¦ ¦  1 ¦ A  ¦ d           ¦    ¦  1 ¦ d           ¦    ¦  1 ¦ A  ¦ a           ¦ ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦ a           ¦    ¦  4 ¦ a           ¦    ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦ a           ¦ ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦ a           ¦    +------------------+    ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦ a           ¦ ¦  4 ¦ A  ¦ a           ¦                            ¦  4 ¦ A  ¦ d           ¦ +-----------------------+                            +-----------------------+ From the filtered index’s point of view (filtered for status_code = ‘a’ and shown in nonclustered index key order) the overall effect of the query is:   Before           After +---------+    +---------+ ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦    ¦ pk ¦ ak ¦ ¦----+----¦    ¦----+----¦ ¦  4 ¦ A  ¦    ¦  1 ¦ A  ¦ ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦    ¦  2 ¦ B  ¦ ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦    ¦  3 ¦ C  ¦ +---------+    +---------+ The single net change there is a change of pk from 4 to 1 for the nonclustered index entry ak = ‘A’.  This is the magic performed by the split, sort, and collapse.  Notice in particular how the original changes to the index key (on the ‘ak’ column) have been transformed into an update of a non-key column (pk is included in the nonclustered index).  By not updating any nonclustered index keys, we are guaranteed to avoid transient key violations. The Execution Plans The estimated MERGE execution plan that produces the incorrect key-violation error looks like this (click to enlarge in a new window): The successful UPDATE execution plan is (click to enlarge in a new window): The MERGE execution plan is a narrow (per-row) update.  The single Clustered Index Merge operator maintains both the clustered index and the filtered nonclustered index.  The UPDATE plan is a wide (per-index) update.  The clustered index is maintained first, then the Split, Filter, Sort, Collapse sequence is applied before the nonclustered index is separately maintained. There is always a wide update plan for any query that modifies the database. The narrow form is a performance optimization where the number of rows is expected to be relatively small, and is not available for all operations.  One of the operations that should disallow a narrow plan is maintaining a unique index where intermediate key violations could occur. Workarounds The MERGE can be made to work (producing a wide update plan with split, sort, and collapse) by: Adding all columns referenced in the filtered index’s WHERE clause to the index key (INCLUDE is not sufficient); or Executing the query with trace flag 8790 set e.g. OPTION (QUERYTRACEON 8790). Undocumented trace flag 8790 forces a wide update plan for any data-changing query (remember that a wide update plan is always possible).  Either change will produce a successfully-executing wide update plan for the MERGE that failed previously. Conclusion The optimizer fails to spot the possibility of transient unique key violations with MERGE under the conditions listed at the start of this post.  It incorrectly chooses a narrow plan for the MERGE, which cannot provide the protection of a split/sort/collapse sequence for the nonclustered index maintenance. The MERGE plan may fail at execution time depending on the order in which rows are processed, and the distribution of data in the database.  Worse, a previously solid MERGE query may suddenly start to fail unpredictably if a filtered unique index is added to the merge target table at any point. Connect bug filed here Tests performed on SQL Server 2012 SP1 CUI (build 11.0.3321) x64 Developer Edition © 2012 Paul White – All Rights Reserved Twitter: @SQL_Kiwi Email: [email protected]

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• Does Test Driven Development (TDD) improve Quality and Correctness? (Part 1)

  - by David V. Corbin

  Since the dawn of the computer age, various methodologies have been introduced to improve quality and reduce cost. In this posting, I will by sharing my experiences with Test Driven Development; both its benefits and limitations. To start this topic, we need to agree on what TDD is. The first is to define each of the three words as used in this context. Test - An item or action which measures something in some quantifiable form. Driven - The primary motivation or focus of a series of activities (process) Development - All phases of a software project/product from concept through delivery. The above are very simple definitions that result in the following: "TDD is a process where the primary focus is on measuring and quantifying all aspects of the creation of a (software) product." There are many places where TDD is used outside of software development, even though it is not known by this name. Consider the (conventional) education process that most of us grew up on. The focus was to get the best grades as measured by different tests. Many of these tests measured rote memorization and not understanding of the subject matter. The result of this that many people graduated with high scores but without "quality and correctness" in their ability to utilize the subject matter (of course, the flip side is true where certain people DID understand the material but were not very good at taking this type of test). Returning to software development, let us look at some common scenarios. While these items are generally applicable regardless of platform, language and tools; the remainder of this post will utilize Microsoft Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server (TFS) for examples. It should be realized that everyone does at least some aspect of TDD. At the most rudimentary level, getting a program to compile involves a "pass/fail" measurement (is the syntax valid) that drives their ability to proceed further (run the program). Other developers may create "Unit Tests" in the belief that having a test for every method/property of a class and good code coverage is the goal of TDD. These items may be helpful and even important, but really only address a small aspect of the overall effort. To see TDD in a bigger view, lets identify the various activities that are part of the Software Development LifeCycle. These are going to be presented in a Waterfall style for simplicity, but each item also occurs within Iterative methodologies such as Agile/Scrum. the key ones here are: Requirements Gathering Architecture Design Implementation Quality Assurance Can each of these items be subjected to a process which establishes metrics (quantified metrics) that reflect both the quality and correctness of each item? It should be clear that conventional Unit Tests do not apply to all of these items; at best they can verify that a local aspect (e.g. a Class/Method) of implementation matches the (test writers perspective of) the appropriate design document. So what can we do? For each of area, the goal is to create tests that are quantifiable and durable. The ability to quantify the measurements (beyond a simple pass/fail) is critical to tracking progress(eventually measuring the level of success that has been achieved) and for providing clear information on what items need to be addressed (along with the appropriate time to address them - in varying levels of detail) . Durability is important so that the test can be reapplied (ideally in an automated fashion) over the entire cycle. Returning for a moment back to our "education example", one must also be careful of how the tests are organized and how the measurements are taken. If a test is in a multiple choice format, there is a significant statistical probability that a correct answer might be the result of a random guess. Also, in many situations, having the student simply provide a final answer can obscure many important elements. For example, on a math test, having the student simply provide a numeric answer (rather than showing the methodology) may result in a complete mismatch between the process and the result. It is hard to determine which is worse: The student who makes a simple arithmetric error at one step of a long process (resulting in a wrong answer) or The student who (without providing the "workflow") uses a completely invalid approach, yet still comes up with the right number. The "Wrong Process"/"Right Answer" is probably the single biggest problem in software development. Even very simple items can suffer from this. As an example consider the following code for a "straight line" calculation....Is it correct? (for Integral Points)         int Solve(int m, int b, int x) { return m * x + b; }   Most people would respond "Yes". But let's take the question one step further... Is it correct for all possible values of m,b,x??? (no fair if you cheated by being focused on the bolded text!)  Without additional information regarding constrains on "the possible values of m,b,x" the answer must be NO, there is the risk of overflow/wraparound that will produce an incorrect result! To properly answer this question (i.e. Test the Code), one MUST be able to backtrack from the implementation through the design, and architecture all the way back to the requirements. And the requirement itself must be tested against the stakeholder(s). It is only when the bounding conditions are defined that it is possible to determine if the code is "Correct" and has "Quality". Yet, how many of us (myself included) have written such code without even thinking about it. In many canses we (think we) "know" what the bounds are, and that the code will be correct. As we all know, requirements change, "code reuse" causes implementations to be applied to different scenarios, etc. This leads directly to the types of system failures that plague so many projects. This approach to TDD is much more holistic than ones which start by focusing on the details. The fundamental concepts still apply: Each item should be tested. The test should be defined/implemented before (or concurrent with) the definition/implementation of the actual item. We also add concepts that expand the scope and alter the style by recognizing: There are many things beside "lines of code" that benefit from testing (measuring/evaluating in a formal way) Correctness and Quality can not be solely measured by "correct results" In the future parts, we will examine in greater detail some of the techniques that can be applied to each of these areas....

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 21, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, June 21, 2011Popular ReleasesESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit: June 2011 - v2.2: ESRI ArcGIS Silverlight Toolkit v2.2 New controls added: Attribution Control ScaleLine Control GpsLayer (WinPhone only)Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.4: Update June 21st World file will be stored in memory to minimize chances of Terraria writing to it while we read it. Different set of APIs allow the program to draw the world much quicker. Loading world information (world variables, chest list) won't cause the GUI to freeze at all anymore. Re-introduced the "Filter chests" checkbox: Allow disabling of chest filter/finder so all chest symbos are always drawn. First-time users will have a default world path suggested to them: C:\Users\U...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta7: ??AcDown???????????????，?????????????????????。????????????????????，??Acfun、Bilibili、???、???、?????，???????????、???????。 AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 AcDown???????C#??，?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDown?????"????????? ??v3.0 Beta7 ????????????? ???? ?? ????????????????? "??????"?????"?...BlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC: BlogEngine.NET Hosting - Click Here! 3 Months FREE – BlogEngine.NET Hosting – Click Here! This is a Release Candidate version for BlogEngine.NET 2.5. The most current, stable version of BlogEngine.NET is version 2.0. Find out more about the BlogEngine.NET 2.5 RC here. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. To get started, be sure to check out our installation documentation. If you are upgrading from a previous version, please take a look at ...Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: All-In-One Code Framework 2011-06-19: Alternatively, you can install Sample Browser or Sample Browser VS extension, and download the code samples from Sample Browser. Improved and Newly Added Examples:For an up-to-date code sample index, please refer to All-In-One Code Framework Sample Catalog. NEW Samples for Windows Azure Sample Description Owner CSAzureStartupTask The sample demonstrates using the startup tasks to install the prerequisites or to modify configuration settings for your environment in Windows Azure Rafe Wu ...Facebook C# SDK: 5.0.40: This is a RTW release which adds new features to v5.0.26 RTW. Support for multiple FacebookMediaObjects in one request. Allow FacebookMediaObjects in batch requests. Removes support for Cassini WebServer (visual studio inbuilt web server). Better support for unit testing and mocking. updated SimpleJson to v0.6 Refer to CHANGES.txt for details. For more information about this release see the following blog posts: Facebook C# SDK - Multiple file uploads in Batch Requests Faceb...NLog - Advanced .NET Logging: NLog 2.0 Release Candidate: Release notes for NLog 2.0 RC can be found at http://nlog-project.org/nlog-2-rc-release-notesPowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.3.5: Changes - VS SDK no longer required to be installed (a bug in v. 1.3.4).Gendering Add-In for Microsoft Office Word 2010: Gendering Add-In: This is the first stable Version of the Gendering Add-In. Unzip the package and start "setup.exe". The .reg file shows how to config an alternate path for suggestion table.Intelligent Enterprise Solution: Document for this project: Document for this projectTerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v3.1 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This version adds tool tips. Almost every picture box you mouse over will tell you what item is in that box. I have also cleaned up the GUI a little more to make things easier on my end. There are various bug fixes including ones associated with opening different characters in the same instance of the program. As always, please bring any bugs you find to my attention.Kinect Paint: KinectPaint V1.0: This is version 1.0 of Kinect Paint. To run it, follow the steps: Install the Kinect SDK for Windows (available at http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/kinectsdk/download.aspx) Connect your Kinect device to the computer and to the power. Download the Zip file. Unblock the Zip file by right clicking on it, and pressing the Unblock button in the file properties (if available). Extract the content of the Zip file. Run KinectPaint.exe.CommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET - 0.9.7 Beta: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 3.5 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars, Logging, Authentication, and much more. Samples in <root>\src\Lib\CommonLibrary.NET\Samples CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.7Documentation 6738 6503 New 6535 Enhancements 6583 6737DropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.2: Public sub-folders are now monitored for changes as well (thanks to mcm69) Automatic public sync folder detection (thanks to mcm69) Non-Latin and special characters encoded correctly in URLs Pop-ups are now slot-based (use first free slot and will never be overlapped — test it while previewing timeout) Public sync folder setting is hidden when auto-detected Timeout interval is displayed in popup previews A lot of major and minor code refactoring performed .NET Framework 4.0 Client...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.1.5 RC: Added Extended Dropdown allows a prompt item to be inserted as first element. RequiredAttribute, if present, trggers if no element is chosen Client side javascript function to set/get the values of DateTimeInput, TypedTextBox, TypedEditDisplay, and to bind/unbind a "change" handler The selected page in the pager is applied the attribute selected-page="selected" that can be used in the definition of CSS rules to style the selected page items controls now interpret a null value as an empr...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.0 CTP 1: Umbraco 5 Community Technology Preview Umbraco 5 will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out our first CTP of version 5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a quick low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video here. What's in the v5 CTP box? This is a preview version of version 5 and includes support for the following familiar Umbr...LevelZap: 1.0: Initial version. Zap away!Ribbon Browser for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Ribbon Browser (1.0.514.30): Initial releaseCoding4Fun Kinect Toolkit: Coding4Fun.Kinect Toolkit: Version 1.0Kinect Mouse Cursor: Kinect Mouse Cursor v1.0: The initial release of the Kinect Mouse Cursor project!New ProjectsBaffoHat Kinect: BaffHat is a game for fun with friends and drink a little.Bango Windows Phone 7 Application Analytics SDK: Bango application analytics is an analytics solution for mobile applications. This SDK provides a framework you can use in your application to add analytics capabilities to your mobile applications. It's developed in C#.NET (4.0) and targets the Windows Phone 7 operating system.C++ Winsock WebSocket server: A websockets server built in C++ using the C APIs Winsock and <windows.h>. Works with the current version of Chrome (13.0.782.24).Core.Cpp: CORE-CPPDataContractJson ValueProviderFactory: ValueProviderFactory for ASP.NET MVC that uses the DataContractJsonSerializer for JSON Serialization. This comes in handy when porting RESTful JSON Services from WCF to ASP.NET MVC.E4D CRM 2011 Ribbon Utility: E4D CRM 2011 Ribbon Utility helps you speed Dynamics CRM 2011 Ribbon customization. Ribbon customization tasks can be exhausting, as it require many iterations, mouse clicks and input. This utility does the heavy lifting for you: it will zip, upload and publish automatically!EASY: Eve Application Service for YoueGlass: eGlassGrove SMTP Mailer: Grove SMTP Mailer is a Simple and Open Source SMTP E-Mail Sender Written in Visual Basic by Hommerhart - Effect-7 Grove SMTP Mailer on SourceForge : https://sourceforge.net/projects/grovesmtpmailer/hoox: PHP/MySQL CMS focused on speed and simplicity over feature-diversity.Intelligent Enterprise Solution: An ERP source code,including sample,demo,tool.documentKinect Touch Device: A simple "WPF4 Touch Device" using Kinect with OpenNI & NITE (written in C#). This project makes it easy to transform your WPF4 touch application in "touch less" with the Kinect with little change : replace "Window" base class by "KinectWindow". Currently the Touch Down and Touch Up is determined by the distance of the hand from the Kinect. A possible change would be to detect if the hand is open or closed to enable the Touch Down or Touch Up.kinectPainter: kinect paint projectLiteQuery: Lite Query is an implementation of the Query Object Pattern that will help you to build the queries in the Frontend layer in a way that will be independent from the ORM used in Data Access. The object is translated in the language of the ORM framework using Query Translators. This version comes with translators for Entity Framework and NHibernate.octoInstall: octoInstall is a fast and easy to operate installer and updater utility. For updating it uses a binary compare techology, that creates very small update packages to patch software from one version to another and saves up to 99% of update size.P7T_Engine: P7T_Engine makes it easier for developers to develop advanced 2D game and also basic 3D games. You'll no longer have to write your own engine for 2D games or write large chunks of code to make your project happen. The entire engine is developed in C++. LUA scripting ability is something that we are looking forward to.Panning Tile Control for Windows Phone 7: The panning tile control mimics the functionality of the Windows Phone 7 music tile: Photos and text slowly pan, scroll and fade. It can be used inside of any WP7 Silverlight app.PerstDemo: This project is to show the large amount of data, which is in the format of XML file on Window Phone 7 using Perst Database for this we convert XML to Perst. Due to large data, it consumes a lot of time in conversion & also if fire queries on the database. So, what can be done to lessen the time consumed. Please, download the project http://perstdemo.codeplex.com/releases/view/68640 and have a look. Waiting for the response, ideas, suggestions....SimplePaxos: Implement a simple paxos protocolSOL Polar Converter: Create optimized polars for Bluewater Racing and Expedition from Sailonline races or text polar dataStructured Web Data Extraction: The dataset used in SIGIR 2011 paperSurveyTemplate: This is just for practising the use of culteInfo class in c#Task Unlocker: A site level feature that provides UI for unclocking tasks locked by workflow upgrade. Why tasks get locked : Explanation of cause http://blogs.code-counsel.net/Wouter/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=118 Inspiration for this feature : Workaround code http://geek.hubkey.com/2007/09/locked-workflow.html Test Project kobi: just for testWindows Azure CDN Helpers: This is a project that helps you quickly utilize the Windows Azure CDN from your ASP.NET MVC website. These helpers will work on sites hosted on and off Windows Azure.WPF Breakout: Remake of the classic Breakout game using WPF. WPFRadio: a WPF Radio Web Player ...

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• How to Achieve OC4J RMI Load Balancing

  - by fip

  This is an old, Oracle SOA and OC4J 10G topic. In fact this is not even a SOA topic per se. Questions of RMI load balancing arise when you developed custom web applications accessing human tasks running off a remote SOA 10G cluster. Having returned from a customer who faced challenges with OC4J RMI load balancing, I felt there is still some confusions in the field how OC4J RMI load balancing work. Hence I decide to dust off an old tech note that I wrote a few years back and share it with the general public. Here is the tech note: Overview A typical use case in Oracle SOA is that you are building web based, custom human tasks UI that will interact with the task services housed in a remote BPEL 10G cluster. Or, in a more generic way, you are just building a web based application in Java that needs to interact with the EJBs in a remote OC4J cluster. In either case, you are talking to an OC4J cluster as RMI client. Then immediately you must ask yourself the following questions: 1. How do I make sure that the web application, as an RMI client, even distribute its load against all the nodes in the remote OC4J cluster? 2. How do I make sure that the web application, as an RMI client, is resilient to the node failures in the remote OC4J cluster, so that in the unlikely case when one of the remote OC4J nodes fail, my web application will continue to function? That is the topic of how to achieve load balancing with OC4J RMI client. Solutions You need to configure and code RMI load balancing in two places: 1. Provider URL can be specified with a comma separated list of URLs, so that the initial lookup will land to one of the available URLs. 2. Choose a proper value for the oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance property, which, along side with the PROVIDER_URL property, is one of the JNDI properties passed to the JNDI lookup.(http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B31017_01/web.1013/b28958/rmi.htm#BABDGFBI) More details below: About the PROVIDER_URL The JNDI property java.name.provider.url's job is, when the client looks up for a new context at the very first time in the client session, to provide a list of RMI context The value of the JNDI property java.name.provider.url goes by the format of a single URL, or a comma separate list of URLs. A single URL. For example: opmn:ormi://host1:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName1 A comma separated list of multiple URLs. For examples:  opmn:ormi://host1:6003:oc4j_instanc1/appName, opmn:ormi://host2:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName, opmn:ormi://host3:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName When the client looks up for a new Context the very first time in the client session, it sends a query against the OPMN referenced by the provider URL. The OPMN host and port specifies the destination of such query, and the OC4J instance name and appName are actually the “where clause” of the query. When the PROVIDER URL reference a single OPMN server Let's consider the case when the provider url only reference a single OPMN server of the destination cluster. In this case, that single OPMN server receives the query and returns a list of the qualified Contexts from all OC4Js within the cluster, even though there is a single OPMN server in the provider URL. A context represent a particular starting point at a particular server for subsequent object lookup. For example, if the URL is opmn:ormi://host1:6003:oc4j_instance1/appName, then, OPMN will return the following contexts: appName on oc4j_instance1 on host1 appName on oc4j_instance1 on host2, appName on oc4j_instance1 on host3,  (provided that host1, host2, host3 are all in the same cluster) Please note that One OPMN will be sufficient to find the list of all contexts from the entire cluster that satisfy the JNDI lookup query. You can do an experiment by shutting down appName on host1, and observe that OPMN on host1 will still be able to return you appname on host2 and appName on host3. When the PROVIDER URL reference a comma separated list of multiple OPMN servers When the JNDI propery java.naming.provider.url references a comma separated list of multiple URLs, the lookup will return the exact same things as with the single OPMN server: a list of qualified Contexts from the cluster. The purpose of having multiple OPMN servers is to provide high availability in the initial context creation, such that if OPMN at host1 is unavailable, client will try the lookup via OPMN on host2, and so on. After the initial lookup returns and cache a list of contexts, the JNDI URL(s) are no longer used in the same client session. That explains why removing the 3rd URL from the list of JNDI URLs will not stop the client from getting the EJB on the 3rd server. About the oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance Property After the client acquires the list of contexts, it will cache it at the client side as “list of available RMI contexts”.  This list includes all the servers in the destination cluster. This list will stay in the cache until the client session (JVM) ends. The RMI load balancing against the destination cluster is happening at the client side, as the client is switching between the members of the list. Whether and how often the client will fresh the Context from the list of Context is based on the value of the  oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance. The documentation at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B31017_01/web.1013/b28958/rmi.htm#BABDGFBI list all the available values for the oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance. Value Description client If specified, the client interacts with the OC4J process that was initially chosen at the first lookup for the entire conversation. context Used for a Web client (servlet or JSP) that will access EJBs in a clustered OC4J environment. If specified, a new Context object for a randomly-selected OC4J instance will be returned each time InitialContext() is invoked. lookup Used for a standalone client that will access EJBs in a clustered OC4J environment. If specified, a new Context object for a randomly-selected OC4J instance will be created each time the client calls Context.lookup(). Please note the regardless of the setting of oracle.j2ee.rmi.loadBalance property, the “refresh” only occurs at the client. The client can only choose from the "list of available context" that was returned and cached from the very first lookup. That is, the client will merely get a new Context object from the “list of available RMI contexts” from the cache at the client side. The client will NOT go to the OPMN server again to get the list. That also implies that if you are adding a node to the server cluster AFTER the client’s initial lookup, the client would not know it because neither the server nor the client will initiate a refresh of the “list of available servers” to reflect the new node. About High Availability (i.e. Resilience Against Node Failure of Remote OC4J Cluster) What we have discussed above is about load balancing. Let's also discuss high availability. This is how the High Availability works in RMI: when the client use the context but get an exception such as socket is closed, it knows that the server referenced by that Context is problematic and will try to get another unused Context from the “list of available contexts”. Again, this list is the list that was returned and cached at the very first lookup in the entire client session.

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• C# Extension Methods - To Extend or Not To Extend...

  - by James Michael Hare

  I've been thinking a lot about extension methods lately, and I must admit I both love them and hate them. They are a lot like sugar, they taste so nice and sweet, but they'll rot your teeth if you eat them too much.   I can't deny that they aren't useful and very handy. One of the major components of the Shared Component library where I work is a set of useful extension methods. But, I also can't deny that they tend to be overused and abused to willy-nilly extend every living type.   So what constitutes a good extension method? Obviously, you can write an extension method for nearly anything whether it is a good idea or not. Many times, in fact, an idea seems like a good extension method but in retrospect really doesn't fit.   So what's the litmus test? To me, an extension method should be like in the movies when a person runs into their twin, separated at birth. You just know you're related. Obviously, that's hard to quantify, so let's try to put a few rules-of-thumb around them.   A good extension method should:     Apply to any possible instance of the type it extends.     Simplify logic and improve readability/maintainability.     Apply to the most specific type or interface applicable.     Be isolated in a namespace so that it does not pollute IntelliSense.     So let's look at a few examples in relation to these rules.   The first rule, to me, is the most important of all. Once again, it bears repeating, a good extension method should apply to all possible instances of the type it extends. It should feel like the long lost relative that should have been included in the original class but somehow was missing from the family tree.    Take this nifty little int extension, I saw this once in a blog and at first I really thought it was pretty cool, but then I started noticing a code smell I couldn't quite put my finger on. So let's look:       public static class IntExtensinos     {         public static int Seconds(int num)         {             return num * 1000;         }           public static int Minutes(int num)         {             return num * 60000;         }     }     This is so you could do things like:       ...     Thread.Sleep(5.Seconds());     ...     proxy.Timeout = 1.Minutes();     ...     Awww, you say, that's cute! Well, that's the problem, it's kitschy and it doesn't always apply (and incidentally you could achieve the same thing with TimeStamp.FromSeconds(5)). It's syntactical candy that looks cool, but tends to rot and pollute the code. It would allow things like:       total += numberOfTodaysOrders.Seconds();     which makes no sense and should never be allowed. The problem is you're applying an extension method to a logical domain, not a type domain. That is, the extension method Seconds() doesn't really apply to ALL ints, it applies to ints that are representative of time that you want to convert to milliseconds.    Do you see what I mean? The two problems, in a nutshell, are that a) Seconds() called off a non-time value makes no sense and b) calling Seconds() off something to pass to something that does not take milliseconds will be off by a factor of 1000 or worse.   Thus, in my mind, you should only ever have an extension method that applies to the whole domain of that type.   For example, this is one of my personal favorites:       public static bool IsBetween<T>(this T value, T low, T high)         where T : IComparable<T>     {         return value.CompareTo(low) >= 0 && value.CompareTo(high) <= 0;     }   This allows you to check if any IComparable<T> is within an upper and lower bound. Think of how many times you type something like:       if (response.Employee.Address.YearsAt >= 2         && response.Employee.Address.YearsAt <= 10)     {     ...     }     Now, you can instead type:       if(response.Employee.Address.YearsAt.IsBetween(2, 10))     {     ...     }     Note that this applies to all IComparable<T> -- that's ints, chars, strings, DateTime, etc -- and does not depend on any logical domain. In addition, it satisfies the second point and actually makes the code more readable and maintainable.   Let's look at the third point. In it we said that an extension method should fit the most specific interface or type possible. Now, I'm not saying if you have something that applies to enumerables, you create an extension for List, Array, Dictionary, etc (though you may have reasons for doing so), but that you should beware of making things TOO general.   For example, let's say we had an extension method like this:       public static T ConvertTo<T>(this object value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This lets you do more fluent conversions like:       double d = "5.0".ConvertTo<double>();     However, if you dig into Reflector (LOVE that tool) you will see that if the type you are calling on does not implement IConvertible, what you convert to MUST be the exact type or it will throw an InvalidCastException. Now this may or may not be what you want in this situation, and I leave that up to you. Things like this would fail:       object value = new Employee();     ...     // class cast exception because typeof(IEmployee) != typeof(Employee)     IEmployee emp = value.ConvertTo<IEmployee>();       Yes, that's a downfall of working with Convertible in general, but if you wanted your fluent interface to be more type-safe so that ConvertTo were only callable on IConvertibles (and let casting be a manual task), you could easily make it:         public static T ConvertTo<T>(this IConvertible value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This is what I mean by choosing the best type to extend. Consider that if we used the previous (object) version, every time we typed a dot ('.') on an instance we'd pull up ConvertTo() whether it was applicable or not. By filtering our extension method down to only valid types (those that implement IConvertible) we greatly reduce our IntelliSense pollution and apply a good level of compile-time correctness.   Now my fourth rule is just my general rule-of-thumb. Obviously, you can make extension methods as in-your-face as you want. I included all mine in my work libraries in its own sub-namespace, something akin to:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions { ... }     This is in a library called Shared.Core, so just referencing the Core library doesn't pollute your IntelliSense, you have to actually do a using on Shared.Core.Extensions to bring the methods in. This is very similar to the way Microsoft puts its extension methods in System.Linq. This way, if you want 'em, you use the appropriate namespace. If you don't want 'em, they won't pollute your namespace.   To really make this work, however, that namespace should only include extension methods and subordinate types those extensions themselves may use. If you plant other useful classes in those namespaces, once a user includes it, they get all the extensions too.   Also, just as a personal preference, extension methods that aren't simply syntactical shortcuts, I like to put in a static utility class and then have extension methods for syntactical candy. For instance, I think it imaginable that any object could be converted to XML:       namespace Shared.Core     {         // A collection of XML Utility classes         public static class XmlUtility         {             ...             // Serialize an object into an xml string             public static string ToXml(object input)             {                 var xs = new XmlSerializer(input.GetType());                   // use new UTF8Encoding here, not Encoding.UTF8. The later includes                 // the BOM which screws up subsequent reads, the former does not.                 using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())                 using (var xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, new UTF8Encoding()))                 {                     xs.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, input);                     return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());                 }             }             ...         }     }   I also wanted to be able to call this from an object like:       value.ToXml();     But here's the problem, if i made this an extension method from the start with that one little keyword "this", it would pop into IntelliSense for all objects which could be very polluting. Instead, I put the logic into a utility class so that users have the choice of whether or not they want to use it as just a class and not pollute IntelliSense, then in my extensions namespace, I add the syntactical candy:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions     {         public static class XmlExtensions         {             public static string ToXml(this object value)             {                 return XmlUtility.ToXml(value);             }         }     }   So now it's the best of both worlds. On one hand, they can use the utility class if they don't want to pollute IntelliSense, and on the other hand they can include the Extensions namespace and use as an extension if they want. The neat thing is it also adheres to the Single Responsibility Principle. The XmlUtility is responsible for converting objects to XML, and the XmlExtensions is responsible for extending object's interface for ToXml().

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• Optimizing AES modes on Solaris for Intel Westmere

  - by danx

  Optimizing AES modes on Solaris for Intel Westmere Review AES is a strong method of symmetric (secret-key) encryption. It is a U.S. FIPS-approved cryptographic algorithm (FIPS 197) that operates on 16-byte blocks. AES has been available since 2001 and is widely used. However, AES by itself has a weakness. AES encryption isn't usually used by itself because identical blocks of plaintext are always encrypted into identical blocks of ciphertext. This encryption can be easily attacked with "dictionaries" of common blocks of text and allows one to more-easily discern the content of the unknown cryptotext. This mode of encryption is called "Electronic Code Book" (ECB), because one in theory can keep a "code book" of all known cryptotext and plaintext results to cipher and decipher AES. In practice, a complete "code book" is not practical, even in electronic form, but large dictionaries of common plaintext blocks is still possible. Here's a diagram of encrypting input data using AES ECB mode: Block 1 Block 2 PlainTextInput PlainTextInput | | | | \/ \/ AESKey-->(AES Encryption) AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | | | | \/ \/ CipherTextOutput CipherTextOutput Block 1 Block 2 What's the solution to the same cleartext input producing the same ciphertext output? The solution is to further process the encrypted or decrypted text in such a way that the same text produces different output. This usually involves an Initialization Vector (IV) and XORing the decrypted or encrypted text. As an example, I'll illustrate CBC mode encryption: Block 1 Block 2 PlainTextInput PlainTextInput | | | | \/ \/ IV >----->(XOR) +------------->(XOR) +---> . . . . | | | | | | | | \/ | \/ | AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | | | | | | | | | \/ | \/ | CipherTextOutput ------+ CipherTextOutput -------+ Block 1 Block 2 The steps for CBC encryption are: Start with a 16-byte Initialization Vector (IV), choosen randomly. XOR the IV with the first block of input plaintext Encrypt the result with AES using a user-provided key. The result is the first 16-bytes of output cryptotext. Use the cryptotext (instead of the IV) of the previous block to XOR with the next input block of plaintext Another mode besides CBC is Counter Mode (CTR). As with CBC mode, it also starts with a 16-byte IV. However, for subsequent blocks, the IV is just incremented by one. Also, the IV ix XORed with the AES encryption result (not the plain text input). Here's an illustration: Block 1 Block 2 PlainTextInput PlainTextInput | | | | \/ \/ AESKey-->(AES Encryption) AESKey-->(AES Encryption) | | | | \/ \/ IV >----->(XOR) IV + 1 >---->(XOR) IV + 2 ---> . . . . | | | | \/ \/ CipherTextOutput CipherTextOutput Block 1 Block 2 Optimization Which of these modes can be parallelized? ECB encryption/decryption can be parallelized because it does more than plain AES encryption and decryption, as mentioned above. CBC encryption can't be parallelized because it depends on the output of the previous block. However, CBC decryption can be parallelized because all the encrypted blocks are known at the beginning. CTR encryption and decryption can be parallelized because the input to each block is known--it's just the IV incremented by one for each subsequent block. So, in summary, for ECB, CBC, and CTR modes, encryption and decryption can be parallelized with the exception of CBC encryption. How do we parallelize encryption? By interleaving. Usually when reading and writing data there are pipeline "stalls" (idle processor cycles) that result from waiting for memory to be loaded or stored to or from CPU registers. Since the software is written to encrypt/decrypt the next data block where pipeline stalls usually occurs, we can avoid stalls and crypt with fewer cycles. This software processes 4 blocks at a time, which ensures virtually no waiting ("stalling") for reading or writing data in memory. Other Optimizations Besides interleaving, other optimizations performed are Loading the entire key schedule into the 128-bit %xmm registers. This is done once for per 4-block of data (since 4 blocks of data is processed, when present). The following is loaded: the entire "key schedule" (user input key preprocessed for encryption and decryption). This takes 11, 13, or 15 registers, for AES-128, AES-192, and AES-256, respectively The input data is loaded into another %xmm register The same register contains the output result after encrypting/decrypting Using SSSE 4 instructions (AESNI). Besides the aesenc, aesenclast, aesdec, aesdeclast, aeskeygenassist, and aesimc AESNI instructions, Intel has several other instructions that operate on the 128-bit %xmm registers. Some common instructions for encryption are: pxor exclusive or (very useful), movdqu load/store a %xmm register from/to memory, pshufb shuffle bytes for byte swapping, pclmulqdq carry-less multiply for GCM mode Combining AES encryption/decryption with CBC or CTR modes processing. Instead of loading input data twice (once for AES encryption/decryption, and again for modes (CTR or CBC, for example) processing, the input data is loaded once as both AES and modes operations occur at in the same function Performance Everyone likes pretty color charts, so here they are. I ran these on Solaris 11 running on a Piketon Platform system with a 4-core Intel Clarkdale processor @3.20GHz. Clarkdale which is part of the Westmere processor architecture family. The "before" case is Solaris 11, unmodified. Keep in mind that the "before" case already has been optimized with hand-coded Intel AESNI assembly. The "after" case has combined AES-NI and mode instructions, interleaved 4 blocks at-a-time. « For the first table, lower is better (milliseconds). The first table shows the performance improvement using the Solaris encrypt(1) and decrypt(1) CLI commands. I encrypted and decrypted a 1/2 GByte file on /tmp (swap tmpfs). Encryption improved by about 40% and decryption improved by about 80%. AES-128 is slighty faster than AES-256, as expected. The second table shows more detail timings for CBC, CTR, and ECB modes for the 3 AES key sizes and different data lengths. » The results shown are the percentage improvement as shown by an internal PKCS#11 microbenchmark. And keep in mind the previous baseline code already had optimized AESNI assembly! The keysize (AES-128, 192, or 256) makes little difference in relative percentage improvement (although, of course, AES-128 is faster than AES-256). Larger data sizes show better improvement than 128-byte data. Availability This software is in Solaris 11 FCS. It is available in the 64-bit libcrypto library and the "aes" Solaris kernel module. You must be running hardware that supports AESNI (for example, Intel Westmere and Sandy Bridge, microprocessor architectures). The easiest way to determine if AES-NI is available is with the isainfo(1) command. For example, $ isainfo -v 64-bit amd64 applications pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov amd_sysc cx8 tsc fpu 32-bit i386 applications pclmulqdq aes sse4.2 sse4.1 ssse3 popcnt tscp ahf cx16 sse3 sse2 sse fxsr mmx cmov sep cx8 tsc fpu No special configuration or setup is needed to take advantage of this software. Solaris libraries and kernel automatically determine if it's running on AESNI-capable machines and execute the correctly-tuned software for the current microprocessor. Summary Maximum throughput of AES cipher modes can be achieved by combining AES encryption with modes processing, interleaving encryption of 4 blocks at a time, and using Intel's wide 128-bit %xmm registers and instructions. References "Block cipher modes of operation", Wikipedia Good overview of AES modes (ECB, CBC, CTR, etc.) "Advanced Encryption Standard", Wikipedia "Current Modes" describes NIST-approved block cipher modes (ECB,CBC, CFB, OFB, CCM, GCM)

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• The Data Scientist

  - by BuckWoody

  A new term - well, perhaps not that new - has come up and I’m actually very excited about it. The term is Data Scientist, and since it’s new, it’s fairly undefined. I’ll explain what I think it means, and why I’m excited about it. In general, I’ve found the term deals at its most basic with analyzing data. Of course, we all do that, and the term itself in that definition is redundant. There is no science that I know of that does not work with analyzing lots of data. But the term seems to refer to more than the common practices of looking at data visually, putting it in a spreadsheet or report, or even using simple coding to examine data sets. The term Data Scientist (as far as I can make out this early in it’s use) is someone who has a strong understanding of data sources, relevance (statistical and otherwise) and processing methods as well as front-end displays of large sets of complicated data. Some - but not all - Business Intelligence professionals have these skills. In other cases, senior developers, database architects or others fill these needs, but in my experience, many lack the strong mathematical skills needed to make these choices properly. I’ve divided the knowledge base for someone that would wear this title into three large segments. It remains to be seen if a given Data Scientist would be responsible for knowing all these areas or would specialize. There are pretty high requirements on the math side, specifically in graduate-degree level statistics, but in my experience a company will only have a few of these folks, so they are expected to know quite a bit in each of these areas. Persistence The first area is finding, cleaning and storing the data. In some cases, no cleaning is done prior to storage - it’s just identified and the cleansing is done in a later step. This area is where the professional would be able to tell if a particular data set should be stored in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), across a set of key/value pair storage (NoSQL) or in a file system like HDFS (part of the Hadoop landscape) or other methods. Or do you examine the stream of data without storing it in another system at all? This is an important decision - it’s a foundation choice that deals not only with a lot of expense of purchasing systems or even using Cloud Computing (PaaS, SaaS or IaaS) to source it, but also the skillsets and other resources needed to care and feed the system for a long time. The Data Scientist sets something into motion that will probably outlast his or her career at a company or organization. Often these choices are made by senior developers, database administrators or architects in a company. But sometimes each of these has a certain bias towards making a decision one way or another. The Data Scientist would examine these choices in light of the data itself, starting perhaps even before the business requirements are created. The business may not even be aware of all the strategic and tactical data sources that they have access to. Processing Once the decision is made to store the data, the next set of decisions are based around how to process the data. An RDBMS scales well to a certain level, and provides a high degree of ACID compliance as well as offering a well-known set-based language to work with this data. In other cases, scale should be spread among multiple nodes (as in the case of Hadoop landscapes or NoSQL offerings) or even across a Cloud provider like Windows Azure Table Storage. In fact, in many cases - most of the ones I’m dealing with lately - the data should be split among multiple types of processing environments. This is a newer idea. Many data professionals simply pick a methodology (RDBMS with Star Schemas, NoSQL, etc.) and put all data there, regardless of its shape, processing needs and so on. A Data Scientist is familiar not only with the various processing methods, but how they work, so that they can choose the right one for a given need. This is a huge time commitment, hence the need for a dedicated title like this one. Presentation This is where the need for a Data Scientist is most often already being filled, sometimes with more or less success. The latest Business Intelligence systems are quite good at allowing you to create amazing graphics - but it’s the data behind the graphics that are the most important component of truly effective displays. This is where the mathematics requirement of the Data Scientist title is the most unforgiving. In fact, someone without a good foundation in statistics is not a good candidate for creating reports. Even a basic level of statistics can be dangerous. Anyone who works in analyzing data will tell you that there are multiple errors possible when data just seems right - and basic statistics bears out that you’re on the right track - that are only solvable when you understanding why the statistical formula works the way it does. And there are lots of ways of presenting data. Sometimes all you need is a “yes” or “no” answer that can only come after heavy analysis work. In that case, a simple e-mail might be all the reporting you need. In others, complex relationships and multiple components require a deep understanding of the various graphical methods of presenting data. Knowing which kind of chart, color, graphic or shape conveys a particular datum best is essential knowledge for the Data Scientist. Why I’m excited I love this area of study. I like math, stats, and computing technologies, but it goes beyond that. I love what data can do - how it can help an organization. I’ve been fortunate enough in my professional career these past two decades to work with lots of folks who perform this role at companies from aerospace to medical firms, from manufacturing to retail. Interestingly, the size of the company really isn’t germane here. I worked with one very small bio-tech (cryogenics) company that worked deeply with analysis of complex interrelated data. So  watch this space. No, I’m not leaving Azure or distributed computing or Microsoft. In fact, I think I’m perfectly situated to investigate this role further. We have a huge set of tools, from RDBMS to Hadoop to allow me to explore. And I’m happy to share what I learn along the way.

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• T-SQL Tuesday #31 - Logging Tricks with CONTEXT_INFO

  - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)

  This month's T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Aaron Nelson [b | t], fellow Atlantan (the city in Georgia, not the famous sunken city, or the resort in the Bahamas) and covers the topic of logging (the recording of information, not the harvesting of trees) and maintains the fine T-SQL Tuesday tradition begun by Adam Machanic [b | t] (the SQL Server guru, not the guy who fixes cars, check the spelling again, there will be a quiz later). This is a trick I learned from Fernando Guerrero [b | t] waaaaaay back during the PASS Summit 2004 in sunny, hurricane-infested Orlando, during his session on Secret SQL Server (not sure if that's the correct title, and I haven't used parentheses in this paragraph yet).  CONTEXT_INFO is a neat little feature that's existed since SQL Server 2000 and perhaps even earlier.  It lets you assign data to the current session/connection, and maintains that data until you disconnect or change it.  In addition to the CONTEXT_INFO() function, you can also query the context_info column in sys.dm_exec_sessions, or even sysprocesses if you're still running SQL Server 2000, if you need to see it for another session. While you're limited to 128 bytes, one big advantage that CONTEXT_INFO has is that it's independent of any transactions.  If you've ever logged to a table in a transaction and then lost messages when it rolled back, you can understand how aggravating it can be.  CONTEXT_INFO also survives across multiple SQL batches (GO separators) in the same connection, so for those of you who were going to suggest "just log to a table variable, they don't get rolled back":  HA-HA, I GOT YOU!  Since GO starts a new batch all variable declarations are lost. Here's a simple example I recently used at work.  I had to test database mirroring configurations for disaster recovery scenarios and measure the network throughput.  I also needed to log how long it took for the script to run and include the mirror settings for the database in question.  I decided to use AdventureWorks as my database model, and Adam Machanic's Big Adventure script to provide a fairly large workload that's repeatable and easily scalable.  My test would consist of several copies of AdventureWorks running the Big Adventure script while I mirrored the databases (or not). Since Adam's script contains several batches, I decided CONTEXT_INFO would have to be used.  As it turns out, I only needed to grab the start time at the beginning, I could get the rest of the data at the end of the process.   The code is pretty small: declare @time binary(128)=cast(getdate() as binary(8)) set context_info @time   ... rest of Big Adventure code ...   go use master; insert mirror_test(server,role,partner,db,state,safety,start,duration) select @@servername, mirroring_role_desc, mirroring_partner_instance, db_name(database_id), mirroring_state_desc, mirroring_safety_level_desc, cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime), datediff(s,cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime),getdate()) from sys.database_mirroring where db_name(database_id) like 'Adv%';   I declared @time as a binary(128) since CONTEXT_INFO is defined that way.  I couldn't convert GETDATE() to binary(128) as it would pad the first 120 bytes as 0x00.  To keep the CAST functions simple and avoid using SUBSTRING, I decided to CAST GETDATE() as binary(8) and let SQL Server do the implicit conversion.  It's not the safest way perhaps, but it works on my machine. :) As I mentioned earlier, you can query system views for sessions and get their CONTEXT_INFO.  With a little boilerplate code this can be used to monitor long-running procedures, in case you need to kill a process, or are just curious  how long certain parts take.  In this example, I added code to Adam's Big Adventure script to set CONTEXT_INFO messages at strategic places I want to monitor.  (His code is in UPPERCASE as it was in the original, mine is all lowercase): declare @msg binary(128) set @msg=cast('Altering bigProduct.ProductID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ALTER COLUMN ProductID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg1 binary(128) set @msg1=cast('Adding pk_bigProduct Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg1 go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigProduct PRIMARY KEY (ProductID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg2 binary(128) set @msg2=cast('Altering bigTransactionHistory.TransactionID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg2 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ALTER COLUMN TransactionID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg3 binary(128) set @msg3=cast('Adding pk_bigTransactionHistory Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg3 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigTransactionHistory PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED(TransactionID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg4 binary(128) set @msg4=cast('Creating IX_ProductId_TransactionDate Index' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg4 go CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_ProductId_TransactionDate ON bigTransactionHistory(ProductId,TransactionDate) INCLUDE(Quantity,ActualCost) GO set context_info 0x0   This doesn't include the entire script, only those portions that altered a table or created an index.  One annoyance is that SET CONTEXT_INFO requires a literal or variable, you can't use an expression.  And since GO starts a new batch I need to declare a variable in each one.  And of course I have to use CAST because it won't implicitly convert varchar to binary.  And even though context_info is a nullable column, you can't SET CONTEXT_INFO NULL, so I have to use SET CONTEXT_INFO 0x0 to clear the message after the statement completes.  And if you're thinking of turning this into a UDF, you can't, although a stored procedure would work. So what does all this aggravation get you?  As the code runs, if I want to see which stage the session is at, I can run the following (assuming SPID 51 is the one I want): select CAST(context_info as varchar(128)) from sys.dm_exec_sessions where session_id=51   Since SQL Server 2005 introduced the new system and dynamic management views (DMVs) there's not as much need for tagging a session with these kinds of messages.  You can get the session start time and currently executing statement from them, and neatly presented if you use Adam's sp_whoisactive utility (and you absolutely should be using it).  Of course you can always use xp_cmdshell, a CLR function, or some other tricks to log information outside of a SQL transaction.  All the same, I've used this trick to monitor long-running reports at a previous job, and I still think CONTEXT_INFO is a great feature, especially if you're still using SQL Server 2000 or want to supplement your instrumentation.  If you'd like an exercise, consider adding the system time to the messages in the last example, and an automated job to query and parse it from the system tables.  That would let you track how long each statement ran without having to run Profiler. #TSQL2sDay

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 13, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 13, 2012Popular ReleasesPublic Key Infrastructure PowerShell module: PowerShell PKI Module v1.8: Installation guide: Use default installation path to install this module for current user only. To install this module for all users — enable "Install for all users" check-box in installation UI Note: if previous module installations are detected, they are removed during upgrade. Note: PowerShell 3.0 RC is now supported. Note: Windows Server 2012 is partially supported (output formatting is not working for me). Release notes for version 1.8.0: Version 1.8 introduces a set of new .NET clas...Metodología General Ajustada - MGA: 02.07.02: Cambios Parmenio: Corrección para que se generen los objetivos en el formato PRO_F03. Se debe ejcutar el script en la BD. Cambios John: Soporte técnico telefónico y por correo electrónico. Integración de código fuente. Se ajustan los siguientes formatos para que no dupliquen los anexos al hacer clic dos veces en Actualizar: FORMATO ID 03 - ANALISIS DE PARTICIPANTES, FORMATO ID 05 - OBJETIVOS.Generación de instaladores: Conectado y Desconectado.BlackJumboDog: Ver5.6.4: 2012.06.13 Ver5.6.4 　(1) Web???????、???POST??????????????????Yahoo! UI Library: YUI Compressor for .Net: Version 2.0.0.0 - Ferret: - Merging both 3.5 and 2.0 codebases to a single .NET 2.0 assembly. - MSBuild Task. - NAnt Task.ExcelFileEditor: .CS File: nothingBizTalk Scheduled Task Adapter: Release 4.0: Works with BizTalk Server 2010. Compiled in .NET Framework 4.0. In this new version are available small improvements compared to the current version (3.0). We can highlight the following improvements or changes: 24 hours support in “start time” property. Previous versions had an issue with setting the start time, as it shown 12 hours watch but no AM/PM. Daily scheduler review. Solved a small bug on Daily Properties: unable to switch between “Every day” and “on these days” Installation e...Weapsy - ASP.NET MVC CMS: 1.0.0 RC: - Upgrade to Entity Framework 4.3.1 - Added AutoMapper custom version (by nopCommerce Team) - Added missed model properties and localization resources of Plugin Definitions - Minor changes - Fixed some bugsQTP FT Uninstaller: QTP FT Uninstaller v3: - KnowledgeInbox has made this tool open source - Converted to C# - Better scanning & cleaning mechanismWebSocket4Net: WebSocket4Net 0.7: Changes included in this release: updated ClientEngine added proper exception handling code added state support for callback added property AllowUnstrustedCertificate for JsonWebSocket added properties for sending ping automatically improved JsBridge fixed a uri compatibility issueXenta Framework - extensible enterprise n-tier application framework: Xenta Framework 1.8.0 Beta: Catalog and Publication reviews and ratings Store language packs in data base Improve reporting system Improve Import/Export system A lot of WebAdmin app UI improvements Initial implementation of the WebForum app DB indexes Improve and simplify architecture Less abstractions Modernize architecture Improve, simplify and unify API Simplify and improve testing A lot of new unit tests Codebase refactoring and ReSharpering Utilize Castle Windsor Utilize NHibernate ORM ...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.55: Properly handle IE extension to CSS3 grammar that allows for multiple parameters to functional pseudo-class selectors. add new switch -braces:(new|same) that affects where opening braces are placed in multi-line output. The default, "new" puts them on their own new line; "same" outputs them at the end of the previous line. add new optional values to the -inline switch: -inline:(force|noforce), which can be combined with the existing boolean value via comma-separators; value "force" (which...Microsoft Media Platform: Player Framework: MMP Player Framework 2.7 (Silverlight and WP7): Additional DownloadsSMFv2.7 Full Installer (MSI) - This will install everything you need in order to develop your own SMF player application, including the IIS Smooth Streaming Client. It only includes the assemblies. If you want the source code please follow the link above. Smooth Streaming Sample Player - This is a pre-built player that includes support for IIS Smooth Streaming. You can configure the player to playback your content by simplying editing a configuration file - no need to co...Liberty: v3.2.1.0 Release 10th June 2012: Change Log -Added -Liberty is now digitally signed! If the certificate on Liberty.exe is missing, invalid, or does not state that it was developed by "Xbox Chaos, Open Source Developer," your copy of Liberty may have been altered in some (possibly malicious) way. -Reach Mass biped max health and shield changer -Fixed -H3/ODST Fixed all of the glitches that users kept reporting (also reverted the changes made in 3.2.0.2) -Reach Made some tag names clearer and more consistent between m...AutoUpdaterdotNET : Autoupdate for VB.NET and C# Developer: AutoUpdater.NET 1.0: Everything seems perfect if you find any problem you can report to http://www.rbsoft.org/contact.htmlMedia Companion: Media Companion 3.503b: It has been a while, so it's about time we release another build! Major effort has been for fixing trailer downloads, plus a little bit of work for episode guide tag in TV show NFOs.Microsoft SQL Server Product Samples: Database: AdventureWorks Sample Reports 2008 R2: AdventureWorks Sample Reports 2008 R2.zip contains several reports include Sales Reason Comparisons SQL2008R2.rdl which uses Adventure Works DW 2008R2 as a data source reference. For more information, go to Sales Reason Comparisons report.Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 7: Fix - Fixed Metro build to pass Windows Application Certification Kit on Windows 8 Release Preview Fix - Fixed Metro build error caused by an anonymous type Fix - Fixed ItemConverter not being used when serializing dictionaries Fix - Fixed an incorrect object being passed to the Error event when serializing dictionaries Fix - Fixed decimal properties not being correctly ignored with DefaultValueHandlingLINQ Extensions Library: 1.0.3.0: New to release 1.0.3.0:Combinatronics: Combinations (unique) Combinations (with repetition) Permutations (unique) Permutations (with repetition) Convert jagged arrays to fixed multidimensional arrays Convert fixed multidimensional arrays to jagged arrays ElementAtMax ElementAtMin ElementAtAverage New set of array extension (1.0.2.8):Rotate Flip Resize (maintaing data) Split Fuse Replace Append and Prepend extensions (1.0.2.7) IndexOf extensions (1.0.2.7) Ne...????????API for .Net SDK: SDK for .Net ??? Release 1: 6?12????? ??? - ?????.net2.0?.net4.0????Winform?Web???????。 NET2 - .net 2.0?Winform?Web???? NET4 - .net 4.0?Winform?Web???? Libs - SDK ???，??2.0?4.0?SDK??? 6?11????? ??? - ?Entities???????????EntityBase，???ToString()???????json???，??????4.0???????。2.0?3.5???！ ??? - Request????????AccessToken??????source=appkey?????。????，????????，???????public_timeline?????????。 ?? - ???ClinetLogin??????????RefreshToken???????false???。 ?? - ???RepostTimeline????Statuses???null???。 ?? - Utility?Bui...Audio Pitch & Shift: Audio Pitch And Shift 4.5.0: Added Instruments tab for modules Open folder content feature Some bug fixesNew Projects4SQ - Foursquare for WP7: This is a public Foursquare App, designed for the COMMUNITY for WP7.Alert Management Web Part: Business Problem: In a Project management site, When new project sites created, Project Manager creates alerts for all team members in multiple Lists/Libraries. Pain point is: He need to manually create alerts by going to each and every list/library >> Alert Me >> and then adding users to keep them informed. Yes, Its a pain for them to add users one by one in all of the lists and libraries, Solution: we started creating Custom Alert Management web part which will solve this problem. K...An Un-sql SQL Database Installer: D.E.M.O.N SQL Database Installer is an Un-SQL(SQL means boring here) Database server installer for many types of Database :MySQL, SQLite and others.Aqzgf: android for qzgfbaoming: ????????????，???dbentry.net 4.2??????。Comdaybe 2012_knockoutjs examples: This is a visual studio 2012 project containing all the demo's of #comdaybe 2012. more information on: http://www.communityday.be/ETExplorer: This application is a replacement for the standard windows explorer. When I began working with Windows 7 I noticed that some of the features I liked from XP were missing. After trying many freeware replacements and not finding any of them having all the features I needed, I decided to develop my own explorer replacement.ExamAnalysis: Exam Analysis Website (building...)FizzBuzz: FizzBuzzImproved Dnn Event Log Email Notification provider: The email notifications for log events in Dnn are poor. This project aims to improve them through a new logging provider. The initial work uses the existing logging provider and just overrides the SendLogNotifications method. Over time hopefully this will be improved to enhance the email sending capabilities of Dnn.InfoMap: a framework for mapsiTextSharp MPL for Silverlight & Windows Phone: This is a port of the iText Sharp (4.2) that was the last version published under the Mozilla Public License for Silverlight and Windows Phone. You can use this version in a commercial application and it does not require your app to be released as open source. You do not need any kind of license from anyone to use this unless you want to change the publishing information (where it sets iText as the publisher)ModifyMimeTypes: In Exchange 2007 and 2010, the Content-Type encoding for MIME attachments is determined by a list which is stored in the Exchange Organization container in Active Directory within the msExchMimeTypes property. The list can be easily viewed in the Exchange Management Shell using: •(Get-OrganizationConfig).MimeTypes The list is order specific. So if two entries exist for the same attachment type, the one earlier in the list will be the one that is used. One example of this is the encod...Monitor Reporting Services with PowerPivot: PowerPivot workbook with a connection to Reporting Service log. Several built in reports are already created in the workbook. You will need to connect to the execution log 2 view in your report server database. Typically the report server Database is named ReportServer. The view to query is named is ExecutionLog2. You may need to add a where clause to the query in the workbook to limit the data you want to see. I already have a where cluase that limits it to only rendered reports. The Date...QCats: QCats put hearts into socail relationship.Rad sa bazom: Ovo je samo proba, brsem brzoREJS: An easy to use, easy to implement Razor preparser for CSS and JS with support for caching, external data, LESS and much more.RexSharp: RexSharp is a relatively new web framework, that can easily be integrated with ASP.NET. It is based largely on the Websharper framework, written in F# - but with significant additions and optimizations. Like Websharper, RexSharp aims to make web and mobile app development a lot more fun, with F#. This is a preliminary release - detailed instructions for using the framework will be made available in a short while. ShareDev.Webparts: Coming soon...SharePoint Common Framework: SharepointCommon is a framework for Microsoft SharePoint 2010© Server and Foundation. It allows to map list items to simple hand-writen POCO classes and perform actions by manipulate with entities.Solution Extender for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Solution Extender makes it easier for Dynamics CRM 2011 integrators to export/import components that can't be included in solutions. You will be able to export/import Duplicate detection rules, Saved views and more to come It's developed in C#.System Center 2012 - Orchestrator Integration Packs and Utilities: System Center 2012 - Orchestrator Integration Packs and UtilitiesTalkBack: A small library to enable decoupled communication between different components.Tomson Scattering for GDT: Tomson is a software used on Gas Dynamic Trap setup in Institute of Nuclear Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences for electron temperature calculation in plasma based on tomson scattering method measurements.tony first project: first projectVirtual Card Table: This is a classroom project for explaining TDD.WellFound Yachts: WellFound Yachts

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• FTP Publishing with the new Windows Azure Release

  - by Harish Ranganathan

  There is a good chance you might have stumbled upon the new Windows Azure Release that we made on June 6th.  Scott Guthrie’s Post quite summarizes the overall new features. One of my favorite features is the Windows Azure Websites and the ability to do publish files to Azure using your FTP Client. Windows Azure Websites offers low cost (free upto 10 websites) web hosting where you can deploy any website that can run on IIS 7.0, quickly. The earlier releases of Azure SDKs and the Azure platform support .NET 3.5 & above for running your applications.  This was a constraint for many since there are/were a lot of ASP.NET 2.0 applications built over time and simply to put it on Azure, many of you were skeptical to migrate it to .NET 4. Windows Azure Websites offer the flexibility of running IIS 7.0 supported .NET Versions which means you can run .NET 1.1, 2.0, 3.5 and .NET 4.  Not just that! You can also run classic ASP Applications. Windows Azure Websites don’t need you to go through the complexity of adding the Cloud Project Template and then publishing the Configuration Files.  Lets take a step by step understanding of Websites and publishing using FTP. I downloaded the Club Website Starter Kit from http://www.asp.net/downloads/starter-kits/club It also requires a database and I downloaded the SQL Scripts and created a SQL Server Database called Club. This installs a Web Site Project Template.  Note that I am running Windows 8 Release Preview and Visual Studio 2012 RC.  After installing the template, select File – New – Website and don’t forget to choose the Framework version as .NET 2.0 You can see the “Club Website Starter Kit” .  Once you select the Website gets created.  You would encounter a warning indicating that the Club Website Starter Kit uses SQL Express and the recommended database is LocalDB Express.  Click ok to continue.  Once the Website is created open up the Web.config and locate the “ClubSiteDB” connection string.  By default, it points to a SQL Express Database.  Instead configure it to use your local SQL Server. Also, open up Global.asax and comment out the following line if (!Roles.RoleExists("Administrators")) Roles.CreateRole("Administrators"); There seems to be an issue in the code that doesn’t create the role.  Post that, hit CTRL+F5 and you should be able to see the Website Running, as below So, now we have the Club Starter Kit site up running locally.  Moving to Azure Visit http://manage.windowsazure.com/ and sign up for a trial account.  This allows you to host up to 10 websites for free and a host of other benefits.  The free Websites can be extended to an year without any charge.  Once you have signed up, sign in to the portal using the Live ID used for sign up. After signing in, you would be presented with the “All Items” listing page which lists, Websites, Cloud Services, Databases etc.,  If this is the first time, you wouldn’t find anything. Click on the “Websites” link from the left menu.  Click on “New” in the bottom and it should show up a dialog.  In the same, select Website and click on “Quick Create” and in the URL Textbox, specify “MyFirstDemo” and click the “Create Web Site” link below. It should take a few seconds to create the Website.  Once the Website is created, click on the listing and it should open up the Dashboard.  Since we haven’t done anything yet, there shouldn’t be any statistics Click on the “Download publish profile” link in the right bottom.  This file has the FTP publishing settings. Also, if you scroll down you can see the FTP URL for this site.  It should typically start ftp://waws-xxxx-xxx-xxxx In the downloaded publish profile file, you can also find the ftp URL.  Pick the following from this file publishUrl (the 2nd one, the one that features after publishMethod =”FTP”) and the userName and userPWD that follows. Note that we have everything required to publish the files.  But since the Club Starter Kit uses Databases, we need to have the Database running on SQL Azure.  Go back to the Main Menu and click on “New” in the bottom but this time select “SQL Database” and provide “Club” as Database name for “Quick Create” If this is the first time a Server would be created.  Otherwise, it would pickup the existing server name. Once the database is created, you can use the SQL Azure Migration Wizard http://sqlazuremw.codeplex.com/ and provide the credentials to connect to local database and then the SQL Azure database for migrating the “Club” database.  The migration wizard UI hasn’t changed much and is the same as explained by me in one my posts earlier http://geekswithblogs.net/ranganh/archive/2009/09/29/taking-your-northwind-database-to-sql-azure-and-binding-it.aspx Once the database is migrated, come back to the main screen and click on the Database base in the Azure Management Portal.  It opens up the dashboard of the database.  Click on “Show connection Strings” and it would popup a list of connection string formats.  Choose the ADO.NET connection string and after editing the password with the password that you provided when creating the database server in the Azure Portal, paste it into the config file of the Club Starter Kit Website.  Just to reiterate, the connection string key is ClubSiteDB. Try running the Website once to ensure that the application though running locally could connect to the SQL Database running on Azure. Once you are able to run the website successfully, we are all set to do the FTP Publishing. Download your favorite FTP tool.  I use http://filezilla-project.org/ In the Host Textbox, paste the FTP URL that you picked up from the publish profile file and also paste the username and password.  Click on “QuickConnect”.  If everything is fine, you should be able to connect to the remote server.  If it is successfully connected, you can see the wwwroot folder of the Website, running in Azure Make sure on the “Local Site” in the left, you choose the path to the folder of your Website.  Open up the Website folder on the left such that it lists all the files and folders inside.  Select all of them and click select “Upload” or simply drag and drop all the files to the root folder that is listed above.  Once the publishing is done, you should be able to hit the SiteURL that you can find the dashboard page of the website.  In our case, it would be http://MyFirstDemo.azurewebsites.net That’s it, we have now done FTP publishing in Azure and that too we are running a .NET 2.0 Website on Azure. Cheers !!!

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• e-interview: SunSpace to WebCenter migration

  - by me

  I had the pleasure to do an e-interview with Ana Neves around the SunSpace to WebCenter migration project.  Below is the english version of the interview.  Enjoy   Peter, you joined Oracle in 2009 through the acquisition of Sun. Becoming a part of Oracle meant many changes. The internal collaboration platform was one of them, as per a post you wrote back in 2011. Sun had SunSpace. How would you describe SunSpace? SunSpace was the internal Community and Social Collaboration platform for the Sun's Global Sales and Services Organization. SunSpace served around 600 communities with a main focus around technology, products and services. SunSpace was a big success. Within 3 months of its launch SunSpace had over 20,000 users and it won the Atlassian "Not just another wiki" Award for the best use of Confluence (https://blogs.oracle.com/peterreiser/entry/goodbye_sunspace_hello_webcenter). What made SunSpace so special? 1. People centric versus  Web centric The main concept of SunSpace put the person in the middle of everything. All relevant information, resources  etc. where dynamically pushed to a person's  myProfile ( Facebook like interface) based on the person's interest and  needs.  2. Ease to use  SunSpace was really easy to use. We spent a lot of time on social interaction design to optimize the user experience.  Also we integrated some sophisticated technology to hide complexity from the user. As example - when a user added a document to SunSpace - we analyzed the content of the document and suggested related metadata and tags to the user based on a sophisticated algorithm which was integrated with the corporate taxonomy. Based on this metadata the document was automatically shared with the relevant communities.  3. Easy to find One of the main use cases for SunSpace was that  a user could quickly find the content and information they needed for their job.  The search implementation was based on:  optimized search engine algorithm using social value based ranking enhancements community facilitated search optimization  faceted search which recommended highly relevant  content like products, communities and experts 4. Social Adoption  - How to build vibrant communities You can deploy the coolest social technology but what if the users are not using it?   To drive user adoption we implemented two  complementary models: 4.1 Community Methodology  We developed a set of best practices on how to create, run and sustain communities including: community structure and types (e.g. Community of Practice, Community of Interest etc.) & tips and tricks on how to build a "vibrant " communities, Community Health check etc.  These best practices where constantly tuned and updated by the community of community drivers. 4.2. Social Value System To drive user adoption there is ONE key  question you  have to answer for each individual user: What's In It For Me (WIIFM) We developed a Social Value System called Community Equity which measures the social value flow between People, Content and Metadata. Based on this technology we added "Gamfication" techniques (although at that time this term did not exist ) to SunSpace to honor people for the active contribution and participation.  As example: All  social credentials a user earned trough active community participation where dynamically displayed on her/his myProfile. How would you describe WebCenter? Oracle WebCenter (@oraclewebcenter) is the Oracle's  user engagement platform for social business. It helps people work together more efficiently through contextual collaboration tools that optimize connections between people, information, and applications and ensures users have access to the right information in the context of the business process in which they are engaged. Oracle WebCenter can help your organization deliver contextual and targeted Web experiences to users and enable employees to access information and applications through intuitive portals, composite applications, and mash-ups. How does it compare to SunSpace in terms of functionality? Before I answer this question, I would like to point out some limitation we started to see with the current SunSpace implementation. Due to the massive growth of the user population (>20,000 users), we experienced  performance and scalability challenges with the current technology. Also at the time - Sun Internal Communications and SunIT planned to replace the entire Sun Intranet with SunSpace. We  kicked-off a project to evaluate the enterprise level technology which eventually would replace the good old static Intranet.  And then Oracle acquired Sun. We already had defined the functional requirements for the Intranet replacement with a Social Enterprise Stack and we just needed to evaluate the functional requirements against WebCenter   Below are the summary of this evaluation  MyProfile SunSpace WebCenter How WebCenter Works Home MyProfile: to access, click on your name at the top of any WebCenter page Your name, title, and reporting line are displayed.  Sub-tabs show your activity stream (Activities); people in your network (Connections); files you have uploaded (Documents); your contact information (Organization); and any personal information you wish to share (About).   Files MyFiles Allows you to upload, download and store documents or wiki pages within folders and subfolders.  The WebDav interface allows you to download / upload files / folders with a simple drag and drop to / from your local machine.  Tagging is supported and recommended. Network HomeMyConnections Home: displays the activity stream of individuals in your network.MyConnections: shows individuals in your network.  Click on a person's name to see their contact info and link to their profile. Status Updates MyProfle > Activties Add and displays  your recent activties and status updates. Watches Preferences > Subscriptions > Current Subscriptions Receive email notifications when  pages / spaces you watch are modified. Drafts N/A WebCenter does not support Drafts Settings Preferences: to access, click on 'Preferences' at the top of any WebCenter page Set your general preferences, as well as your WebCenter messaging, search and mail settings. MyCommunities MySpaces: to access, click on 'Spaces' at the top of any WebCenter page Displays MySpaces (communities you are a member of); and Recent Spaces (communities you have recently visited). Community SunSpace Webcenter How Webcenter Works Home Home Displays a community introduction and activity stream.  Members can add messages, links or documents via the Community Message Board. No Top Contributors widget. People Members Lists members of the community. The Mail All Members feature allows moderators and participants to send a message to all members of the community. Membership Management can be found under > Manage > Members News News Members can post and access latest community news and they can subscribe to news using an RSS reader Documents Documents Allows community members to upload, download and store documents or wiki pages within folders and subfolders.  The WebDav interface allows participants to download / upload files / folders with a simple drag and drop to / from your local machine.  Tagging is supported and recommended. Wiki Wiki Allows community members to create and update web pages with a WYSIWYG editor.  Note: WebCenter does not support macros or portlet embedding. Forum Forum Post community forum topics. Contribute to community forum conversations.  N/A Calendar Update and/or view the Community Calendar. N/A Analytics Displays detailed analytics data (views,downloads, unique users etc.) for Pages, Wiki, Documents, and Forum in a given community space. What is the adoption of WebCenter at Oracle? The entire Intranet serving around 100,000 users  is running on WebCenter Content.  For professional communities we use WebCenter Portal and Spaces. Currently we have around 6,000 community spaces with  around 40,000 members.  Does Oracle have any metrics to assess usage and impact of WebCenter? Can you give us some examples? Sure -  we have a lot of metrics   For the Intranet we use traditional metrics like pageviews, monthly unique visitors and unique visits.  For Communities we use the WebCenter Portal/Spaces analytics service which gives as a wealth of data. The key metrics we track are: Space traffic (PageViews, Unique Users) Wiki,Documents (views, downloads etc.) Forum (users, views, posts etc.) Registered members over time  Depending on the community we can filter/segment the metrics by User Properties e.g. Country, Organization, Job Role etc. What are you doing to improve usage and impact? 1. We  integrating the WebCenter social services/fabric into all  main business applications. As example The Fusion CRM deployment is seamless integrated with Oracle Social Network (OSN) and all conversation around an opportunity or customer engagement is  done in OSN (see youtube video). 2. We drive Social Best Practice trough a program called "Social Networking & Business Collaboration (SNBC) program" You worked both with WebCenter and SunSpace. Knowing what you know today, if you had the chance to choose between the two, which one would you choose? Why? That's a tricky question   In the early days of  the Social Enterprise implementation (we started SunSpace in 2006), we needed an agile and easy to deploy technology to keep up with the users requirements. Sometimes we pushed two releases per day  and we were in a permanent perpetual beta mode - SunSpace was perfect for that.  After the social implementation matured over time - community generated content became business critical and we saw a change in the  requirements from agile to stability, scalability and reliability  of the infrastructure.  WebCenter is the right choice for such an enterprise-level deployment.  You are a WebCenter Evangelist at Oracle. What do you do as part of that role? Our  role is to help position Oracle as one of the key thought leaders and solutions provider for Social Business. In addition we drive social innovation trough our Oracle Appslab  team. Is that a full time role? Yes  How many other Evangelists are there in Oracle? We are currently 5 people in the WebCenter evangelist team (@webcentervoices): Christian Finn (@cfinn) leads the team - Christian came from the Microsoft Sharepoint product management team and is a recognized expert in Social Business and Enterprise Collaboration. Noël Jaffré  (@noeljaffre) is our Web Experience Management (WEM) guru and came to Oracle via FatWire acquisition (now WebCenter Sites). Jake Kuramoto (@theapplab) is part of the Oracle AppsLab innovation  team - Jake is well known as  the driving force behind  http://theappslab.com  a blog around social and innovation.  Noel Portugal (@noelportugal) is a developer in the Oracle AppsLab innovation team - he is the inventor of OraTweet - Oracle's internal tweeting platform  Peter Reiser (@peterreiser) is  a Social Business guru and the inventor of SunSpace and Community Equity.  What area of the business do you and the rest of the Evangelists sit in? What area of the organisation is responsible for WebCenter? We are part of the WebCenter product management  organization.  Is WebCenter part of the Knowledge Management strategy? Oracle WebCenter is the Oracle's user engagement platform for social business. It brings together the most complete portfolio of portal, web experience management, content, social and collaboration technologies into a single product suite and is the product foundation of the Oracle Knowledge Management strategy.  I am aware Oracle also uses Beehive internally. How would you describe Beehive? Oracle Beehive provides an integrated set of communication and collaboration services built on a single scalable, secure, enterprise-class platform Beehive is  internally used for enterprise wide mail, calendar and real collaboration (Web conferencing) services.  Are Beehive and WebCenter connected? Historically Beehive and WebCenter Portal & Content had some overlap in functionally. (Hey - if  a company has an acquisition strategy to strengthen its product offering and accelerate  innovation, it's pretty normal that functional overlap exists  :- )) A key objective of the WebCenter strategy is  to combine all social and collaboration offerings under the WebCenter product family. That means that certain Beehive components  will be integrated into the overall WebCenter product offering.  Are there any other internal collaboration tools at Oracle? Which ones There here are two other main social tools which are widely used at Oracle  Oracle Connect was the first social tool the Oracle AppsLab team created in 2007 - see (Jake's blog post for details). It is still extensively used. ... and as a former Sun guy I like this quote from the blog post:  "Traffic to Connect peaked right after the Sun merger in 2010, when it served several hundred thousand pageviews each month; since then, traffic has subsided, but still averages tens of thousands of pageviews to several thousand users each month." Oratweet - Oracle internal microblogging platform has been used since June 2008 and it is still growing.  It's entirely written in Oracle Application Express (APEX) which is a rapid web application development tool for the Oracle database. Wanna try it out? Here you can download the code.  What is Oracle's strategy regarding (all these) collaboration tools? Pretty straight forward. The strategy is to seamless  integrate the WebCenter social & collaboration services into all Business Applications to help customers to socialize their enterprise. 

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• Packaging Swing apps with integrated JavaFX content

  - by igor

  JavaFX provides a lot of interesting capabilities for developing rich client applications in Java, but what if you are working on an existing Swing application and you want to take advantage of these new features?  Maybe you want to use one or two controls like the LineChart or a MediaView.  Maybe you want to embed a large Scene Graph as an initial step in porting your application to FX.  A hybrid Swing/FX application might just be the answer. Developing a hybrid Swing + JavaFX application is not terribly difficult, but until recently the deployment of hybrid applications has not simple as a "pure" JavaFX application.  The existing tools focused on packaging FX Applications, or Swing applications - they did not account for hybrid applications. But with JavaFX 2.2 the tools include support for this hybrid application use case.  Solution  In JavaFX 2.2 we extended the packaging ant tasks to greatly simplify deploying hybrid applications.  You now use the same deployment approach as you would for pure JavaFX applications.  Just bundle your main application jar with the fx:jar ant task and then generate html/jnlp files using fx:deploy.  The only difference is setting toolkit attribute for the fx:application tag as shown below: <fx:application id="swingFXApp" mainClass="${main.class}" toolkit="swing"/>  The value of ${main.class} in the example above is your application class which has a main method.  It does not need to extend JavaFX Application class. The resulting package provides support for the same set of execution modes as a package for a JavaFX application, although the packages which are created are not identical to the packages created for a pure FX application.  You will see two JNLP files generated in the case of a hybrid application - one for use from Swing applet and another for the webstart launch.  Note that these improvements do not alter the set of features available to Swing applications. The packaging tools just make it easier to use the advanced features of JavaFX in your Swing application. The same limits still apply, for example a Swing application can not use JavaFX Preloaders and code changes are necessary to support HTML splash screens. Why should I use the JavaFX ant tasks for packaging my Swing application?  While using FX packaging tool for a Swing application may seem like a mismatch at face value, there are some really good reasons to use this approach.  The primary justification for our packaging tools is to simplify the creation of your application artifacts, and to reduce manual errors.  Plus, no one should have to write JNLP by hand. Some specific benefits include: Your application jar will include a launcher program.  This improves your standalone launch by: checking for the JavaFX runtime guiding the user through any necessary installations setting the system proxy for Java The ant tasks will generate JNLP and HTML files for your swing app: avoids learning unnecessary details about JNLP, and eliminates the error-prone hand editing of JNLP files simplifies using advanced features like embedding JNLP and signing jars as BLOBs to improve launch performance.you can also embed the signing certificate details to improve the user's experience  allows the use of web page templates to inject the generated code directly into your actual web page instead of being forced to copy/paste the generated code snippets. What about native packing? Absolutely!  The very same ant task can generate a native bundle for a Swing application with JavaFX content.  Try running one of these sample native bundles for the "SwingInterop" FX example: exe and dmg.   I also used another feature on these examples: a click-through license agreement for .exe installers and OS X DMG drag installers. Small Caveat This packaging procedure is optimized around using the JavaFX packaging tools for your entire Swing application.  If you are trying to embed JavaFX content into existing project (with an existing build/packing process) then you may need to experiment in order to find the best way to integrate the JavaFX packaging steps into your existing build procedure. As long as you can use ant in your build process this should be a workable approach. It some cases solution could be less than ideal. For example, you need to use fx:jar to package your main jar file in order to produce a double-clickable jar or a native bundle.  The jar will be created from scratch, but you may already be creating the main jar file with a custom manifest.  This may lead to some redundant steps in your build process.  Hopefully the benefits will outweigh the problems. This is an area of ongoing development for the team, and we will continue to refine and improve both the tools and the process. Please share your experiences and suggestions with us.  You can comment here on the blog or file issues to JIRA. Sample code Here is the full ant code used to package SwingInterop.  You can grab latest JavaFX samples and try it yourself:  <target name="-post-jar"> <taskdef resource="com/sun/javafx/tools/ant/antlib.xml" uri="javafx:com.sun.javafx.tools.ant" classpath="${javafx.tools.ant.jar}"/> <!-- Mark application as Swing-based --> <fx:application id="swingFXApp" mainClass="${main.class}" toolkit="swing"/> <!-- Create doubleclickable jar file with embedded launcher --> <fx:jar destfile="${dist.jar}"> <fileset dir="${build.classes.dir}"/> <fx:application refid="swingFXApp" name="SwingInterop"/> <manifest> <attribute name="Implementation-Vendor" value="${application.vendor}"/> <attribute name="Implementation-Title" value="${application.title}"/> <attribute name="Implementation-Version" value="1.0"/> </manifest> </fx:jar> <!-- sign application jar. Use new self signed certificate --> <delete file="${build.dir}/test.keystore"/> <genkey alias="TestAlias" storepass="xyz123" keystore="${build.dir}/test.keystore" dname="CN=Samples, OU=JavaFX Dev, O=Oracle, C=US"/> <fx:signjar keystore="${build.dir}/test.keystore" alias="TestAlias" storepass="xyz123"> <fileset file="${dist.jar}"/> </fx:signjar> <!-- generate JNLPs, HTML and native bundles --> <fx:deploy width="960" height="720" includeDT="true" nativeBundles="all" outdir="${basedir}/${dist.dir}" embedJNLP="true" outfile="${application.title}"> <fx:application refId="swingFXApp"/> <fx:resources> <fx:fileset dir="${basedir}/${dist.dir}" includes="SwingInterop.jar"/> </fx:resources> <fx:permissions/> <info title="Sample app: ${application.title}" vendor="${application.vendor}"/> </fx:deploy> </target>

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• A Good Developer is So Hard to Find

  - by James Michael Hare

  Let me start out by saying I want to damn the writers of the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever – 2. It is eating every last shred of my free time! But as I've been churning through each puzzle and marvelling at the brain teasers and trivia within, I began to think about interviewing developers and why it seems to be so hard to find good ones.  The problem is, it seems like no matter how hard we try to find the perfect way to separate the chaff from the wheat, inevitably someone will get hired who falls far short of expectations or someone will get passed over for missing a piece of trivia or a tricky brain teaser that could have been an excellent team member.   In shops that are primarily software-producing businesses or other heavily IT-oriented businesses (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) there often exists a much tighter bond between HR and the hiring development staff because development is their life-blood. Unfortunately, many of us work in places where IT is viewed as a cost or just a means to an end. In these shops, too often, HR and development staff may work against each other due to differences in opinion as to what a good developer is or what one is worth.  It seems that if you ask two different people what makes a good developer, often you will get three different opinions.   With the exception of those shops that are purely development-centric (you guys have it much easier!), most other shops have management who have very little knowledge about the development process.  Their view can often be that development is simply a skill that one learns and then once aquired, that developer can produce widgets as good as the next like workers on an assembly-line floor.  On the other side, you have many developers that feel that software development is an art unto itself and that the ability to create the most pure design or know the most obscure of keywords or write the shortest-possible obfuscated piece of code is a good coder.  So is it a skill?  An Art?  Or something entirely in between?   Saying that software is merely a skill and one just needs to learn the syntax and tools would be akin to saying anyone who knows English and can use Word can write a 300 page book that is accurate, meaningful, and stays true to the point.  This just isn't so.  It takes more than mere skill to take words and form a sentence, join those sentences into paragraphs, and those paragraphs into a document.  I've interviewed candidates who could answer obscure syntax and keyword questions and once they were hired could not code effectively at all.  So development must be more than a skill.   But on the other end, we have art.  Is development an art?  Is our end result to produce art?  I can marvel at a piece of code -- see it as concise and beautiful -- and yet that code most perform some stated function with accuracy and efficiency and maintainability.  None of these three things have anything to do with art, per se.  Art is beauty for its own sake and is a wonderful thing.  But if you apply that same though to development it just doesn't hold.  I've had developers tell me that all that matters is the end result and how you code it is entirely part of the art and I couldn't disagree more.  Yes, the end result, the accuracy, is the prime criteria to be met.  But if code is not maintainable and efficient, it would be just as useless as a beautiful car that breaks down once a week or that gets 2 miles to the gallon.  Yes, it may work in that it moves you from point A to point B and is pretty as hell, but if it can't be maintained or is not efficient, it's not a good solution.  So development must be something less than art.   In the end, I think I feel like development is a matter of craftsmanship.  We use our tools and we use our skills and set about to construct something that satisfies a purpose and yet is also elegant and efficient.  There is skill involved, and there is an art, but really it boils down to being able to craft code.  Crafting code is far more than writing code.  Anyone can write code if they know the syntax, but so few people can actually craft code that solves a purpose and craft it well.  So this is what I want to find, I want to find code craftsman!  But how?   I used to ask coding-trivia questions a long time ago and many people still fall back on this.  The thought is that if you ask the candidate some piece of coding trivia and they know the answer it must follow that they can craft good code.  For example:   What C++ keyword can be applied to a class/struct field to allow it to be changed even from a const-instance of that class/struct?  (answer: mutable)   So what do we prove if a candidate can answer this?  Only that they know what mutable means.  One would hope that this would infer that they'd know how to use it, and more importantly when and if it should ever be used!  But it rarely does!  The problem with triva questions is that you will either: Approve a really good developer who knows what some obscure keyword is (good) Reject a really good developer who never needed to use that keyword or is too inexperienced to know how to use it (bad) Approve a really bad developer who googled "C++ Interview Questions" and studied like hell but can't craft (very bad) Many HR departments love these kind of tests because they are short and easy to defend if a legal issue arrises on hiring decisions.  After all it's easy to say a person wasn't hired because they scored 30 out of 100 on some trivia test.  But unfortunately, you've eliminated a large part of your potential developer pool and possibly hired a few duds.  There are times I've hired candidates who knew every trivia question I could throw out them and couldn't craft.  And then there are times I've interviewed candidates who failed all my trivia but who I took a chance on who were my best finds ever.    So if not trivia, then what?  Brain teasers?  The thought is, these type of questions measure the thinking power of a candidate.  The problem is, once again, you will either: Approve a good candidate who has never heard the problem and can solve it (good) Reject a good candidate who just happens not to see the "catch" because they're nervous or it may be really obscure (bad) Approve a candidate who has studied enough interview brain teasers (once again, you can google em) to recognize the "catch" or knows the answer already (bad). Once again, you're eliminating good candidates and possibly accepting bad candidates.  In these cases, I think testing someone with brain teasers only tests their ability to answer brain teasers, not the ability to craft code. So how do we measure someone's ability to craft code?  Here's a novel idea: have them code!  Give them a computer and a compiler, or a whiteboard and a pen, or paper and pencil and have them construct a piece of code.  It just makes sense that if we're going to hire someone to code we should actually watch them code.  When they're done, we can judge them on several criteria: Correctness - does the candidate's solution accurately solve the problem proposed? Accuracy - is the candidate's solution reasonably syntactically correct? Efficiency - did the candidate write or use the more efficient data structures or algorithms for the job? Maintainability - was the candidate's code free of obfuscation and clever tricks that diminish readability? Persona - are they eager and willing or aloof and egotistical?  Will they work well within your team? It may sound simple, or it may sound crazy, but when I'm looking to hire a developer, I want to see them actually develop well-crafted code.

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #032

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Complete Series of Database Coding Standards and Guidelines SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Introduction SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 1 SQL SERVER – Database Coding Standards and Guidelines – Part 2 SQL SERVER Database Coding Standards and Guidelines Complete List Download Explanation and Example – SELF JOIN When all of the data you require is contained within a single table, but data needed to extract is related to each other in the table itself. Examples of this type of data relate to Employee information, where the table may have both an Employee’s ID number for each record and also a field that displays the ID number of an Employee’s supervisor or manager. To retrieve the data tables are required to relate/join to itself. Insert Multiple Records Using One Insert Statement – Use of UNION ALL This is very interesting question I have received from new developer. How can I insert multiple values in table using only one insert? Now this is interesting question. When there are multiple records are to be inserted in the table following is the common way using T-SQL. Function to Display Current Week Date and Day – Weekly Calendar Straight blog post with script to find current week date and day based on the parameters passed in the function.  2008 In my beginning years, I have almost same confusion as many of the developer had in their earlier years. Here are two of the interesting question which I have attempted to answer in my early year. Even if you are experienced developer may be you will still like to read following two questions: Order Of Column In Index Order of Conditions in WHERE Clauses Example of DISTINCT in Aggregate Functions Have you ever used DISTINCT with the Aggregation Function? Here is a simple example about how users can do it. Create a Comma Delimited List Using SELECT Clause From Table Column Straight to script example where I explained how to do something easy and quickly. Compound Assignment Operators SQL SERVER 2008 has introduced new concept of Compound Assignment Operators. Compound Assignment Operators are available in many other programming languages for quite some time. Compound Assignment Operators is operator where variables are operated upon and assigned on the same line. PIVOT and UNPIVOT Table Examples Here is a very interesting question – the answer to the question can be YES or NO both. “If we PIVOT any table and UNPIVOT that table do we get our original table?” Read the blog post to get the explanation of the question above. 2009 What is Interim Table – Simple Definition of Interim Table The interim table is a table that is generated by joining two tables and not the final result table. In other words, when two tables are joined they create an interim table as resultset but the resultset is not final yet. It may be possible that more tables are about to join on the interim table, and more operations are still to be applied on that table (e.g. Order By, Having etc). Besides, it may be possible that there is no interim table; sometimes final table is what is generated when the query is run. 2010 Stored Procedure and Transactions If Stored Procedure is transactional then, it should roll back complete transactions when it encounters any errors. Well, that does not happen in this case, which proves that Stored Procedure does not only provide just the transactional feature to a batch of T-SQL. Generate Database Script for SQL Azure When talking about SQL Azure the most common complaint I hear is that the script generated from stand-along SQL Server database is not compatible with SQL Azure. This was true for some time for sure but not any more. If you have SQL Server 2008 R2 installed you can follow the guideline below to generate a script which is compatible with SQL Azure. Convert IN to EXISTS – Performance Talk It is NOT necessary that every time when IN is replaced by EXISTS it gives better performance. However, in our case listed above it does for sure give better performance. You can read about this subject in the associated blog post. Subquery or Join – Various Options – SQL Server Engine Knows the Best Every single time whenever there is a performance tuning exercise, I hear the conversation from developer where some prefer subquery and some prefer join. In this two part blog post, I explain the same in the detail with examples. Part 1 | Part 2 Merge Operations – Insert, Update, Delete in Single Execution MERGE is a new feature that provides an efficient way to do multiple DML operations. In earlier versions of SQL Server, we had to write separate statements to INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE data based on certain conditions; however, at present, by using the MERGE statement, we can include the logic of such data changes in one statement that even checks when the data is matched and then just update it, and similarly, when the data is unmatched, it is inserted. 2011 Puzzle – Statistics are not updated but are Created Once Here is the quick scenario about my setup. Create Table Insert 1000 Records Check the Statistics Now insert 10 times more 10,000 indexes Check the Statistics – it will be NOT updated – WHY? Question to You – When to use Function and When to use Stored Procedure Personally, I believe that they are both different things - they cannot be compared. I can say, it will be like comparing apples and oranges. Each has its own unique use. However, they can be used interchangeably at many times and in real life (i.e., production environment). I have personally seen both of these being used interchangeably many times. This is the precise reason for asking this question. 2012 In year 2012 I had two interesting series ran on the blog. If there is no fun in learning, the learning becomes a burden. For the same reason, I had decided to build a three part quiz around SEQUENCE. The quiz was to identify the next value of the sequence. I encourage all of you to take part in this fun quiz. Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 1 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 2 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 3 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 4 Simple Example to Configure Resource Governor – Introduction to Resource Governor Resource Governor is a feature which can manage SQL Server Workload and System Resource Consumption. We can limit the amount of CPU and memory consumption by limiting /governing /throttling on the SQL Server. If there are different workloads running on SQL Server and each of the workload needs different resources or when workloads are competing for resources with each other and affecting the performance of the whole server resource governor is a very important task. Tricks to Replace SELECT * with Column Names – SQL in Sixty Seconds #017 – Video  Retrieves unnecessary columns and increases network traffic When a new columns are added views needs to be refreshed manually Leads to usage of sub-optimal execution plan Uses clustered index in most of the cases instead of using optimal index It is difficult to debug SQL SERVER – Load Generator – Free Tool From CodePlex The best part of this SQL Server Load Generator is that users can run multiple simultaneous queries again SQL Server using different login account and different application name. The interface of the tool is extremely easy to use and very intuitive as well. A Puzzle – Swap Value of Column Without Case Statement Let us assume there is a single column in the table called Gender. The challenge is to write a single update statement which will flip or swap the value in the column. For example if the value in the gender column is ‘male’ swap it with ‘female’ and if the value is ‘female’ swap it with ‘male’. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Adding proper THEAD sections to a GridView

  - by Rick Strahl

  I’m working on some legacy code for a customer today and dealing with a page that has my favorite ‘friend’ on it: A GridView control. The ASP.NET GridView control (and also the older DataGrid control) creates some pretty messed up HTML. One of the more annoying things it does is to generate all rows including the header into the page in the <tbody> section of the document rather than in a properly separated <thead> section. Here’s is typical GridView generated HTML output: <table class="tablesorter blackborder" cellspacing="0" rules="all" border="1" id="Table1" style="border-collapse:collapse;"> <tr> <th scope="col">Name</th> <th scope="col">Company</th> <th scope="col">Entered</th><th scope="col">Balance</th> </tr> <tr> <td>Frank Hobson</td><td>Hobson Inc.</td> <td>10/20/2010 12:00:00 AM</td><td>240.00</td> </tr> ... </table> Notice that all content – both the headers and the body of the table – are generated directly under the <table> tag and there’s no explicit use of <tbody> or <thead> (or <tfooter> for that matter). When the browser renders this the document some default settings kick in and the DOM tree turns into something like this: <table> <tbody> <tr> <-- header <tr> <—detail row <tr> <—detail row </tbody> </table> Now if you’re just rendering the Grid server side and you’re applying all your styles through CssClass assignments this isn’t much of a problem. However, if you want to style your grid more generically using hierarchical CSS selectors it gets a lot more tricky to format tables that don’t properly delineate headers and body content. Also many plug-ins and other JavaScript utilities that work on tables require a properly formed table layout, and many of these simple won’t work out of the box with a GridView. For example, one of the things I wanted to do for this app is use the jQuery TableSorter plug-in which – not surprisingly – requires to work of table headers in the DOM document. Out of the box, the TableSorter plug-in doesn’t work with GridView controls, because the lack of a <thead> section to work on. Luckily with a little help of some jQuery scripting there’s a real easy fix to this problem. Basically, if we know the GridView generated table has a header in it, code like the following will move the headers from <tbody> to <thead>: <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function () { // Fix up GridView to support THEAD tags $("#gvCustomers tbody").before("<thead><tr></tr></thead>"); $("#gvCustomers thead tr").append($("#gvCustomers th")); $("#gvCustomers tbody tr:first").remove(); $("#gvCustomers").tablesorter({ sortList: [[1, 0]] }); }); </script> And voila you have a table that now works with the TableSorter plug-in. If you use GridView’s a lot you might want something a little more generic so the following does the same thing but should work more generically on any GridView/DataGrid missing its <thead> tag: function fixGridView(tableEl) {            var jTbl = $(tableEl);         if(jTbl.find("tbody>tr>th").length > 0) {         jTbl.find("tbody").before("<thead><tr></tr></thead>");         jTbl.find("thead tr").append(jTbl.find("th"));         jTbl.find("tbody tr:first").remove();     } } which you can call like this: $(document).ready(function () { fixGridView( $("#gvCustomers") ); $("#gvCustomers").tablesorter({ sortList: [[1, 0]] }); }); Server Side THEAD Rendering [updated from comments 11/21/2010] Several commenters pointed out that you can also do this on the server side by using the GridView.HeaderRow.TableSection property to force rendering with a proper table header. I was unaware of this option actually – not exactly an easy one to discover. One issue here is that timing of this needs to happen during the databinding process so you need to use an event handler: this.gvCustomers.DataBound += (object o, EventArgs ev) => { gvCustomers.HeaderRow.TableSection = TableRowSection.TableHeader; }; this.gvCustomers.DataSource = custList; this.gvCustomers.DataBind(); You can apply the same logic for the FooterRow. It’s beyond me why this rendering mode isn’t the default for a GridView – why would you ever want to have a table that doesn’t use a THEAD section??? But I disgress :-) I don’t use GridViews much anymore – opting for more flexible approaches using ListViews or even plain code based views or other custom displays that allow more control over layout, but I still see a lot of old code that does use them old clunkers including my own :) (gulp) and this does make life a little bit easier especially if you’re working with any of the jQuery table related plug-ins that expect a proper table structure.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  jQuery  

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 15, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 15, 2012Popular Releases51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.4.9: One Click Install from NuGet Data ChangesIncludes 42 new browser properties in both the Lite and Premium data sets. Premium Data includes many new devices including Nokia Lumia 900, BlackBerry 9220 and HTC One, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 range and Samsung Galaxy S III. Lite data includes devices released in January 2012. Changes to Version 2.1.4.91. Added Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicModuleHelper back into Activator.cs to ensure redirection works when .NET 4 PreApplicationStart use...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.52: Make preprocessor comment-statements nestable; add the ///#IFNDEF statement. (Discussion #355785) Don't throw an error for old-school JScript event handlers, and don't rename them if they aren't global functions.DotNetNuke® Events: 06.00.00: This is a serious release of Events. DNN 6 form pattern - We have take the full route towards DNN6: most notably the incorporation of the DNN6 form pattern with streamlined UX/UI. We have also tried to change all formatting to a div based structure. A daunting task, since the Events module contains a lot of forms. Roger has done a splendid job by going through all the forms in great detail, replacing all table style layouts into the new DNN6 div class="dnnForm XXX" type of layout with change...LogicCircuit: LogicCircuit 2.12.5.15: Logic Circuit - is educational software for designing and simulating logic circuits. Intuitive graphical user interface, allows you to create unrestricted circuit hierarchy with multi bit buses, debug circuits behavior with oscilloscope, and navigate running circuits hierarchy. Changes of this versionThis release is fixing one but nasty bug. Two functions XOR and XNOR when used with 3 or more inputs were incorrectly evaluating their results. If you have a circuit that is using these functions...SharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8.1: Two fixes: Rar Decompression bug fixed. Error only occurred on some files Rar Decompression will throw an exception when another volume isn't found but one is expected.?????????? - ????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2012-05-14: http://download.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1codechs&DownloadId=216140 ???OneCode??????，??????????6????Microsoft OneCode Sample，????2?Data Platform Sample?4?WPF Sample。???????????。 ????，?????。http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 Data Platform Sample CSUseADO CppUseADO WPF Sample CSWPFMasterDetailBinding VBWPFMasterDetailBinding CSWPFThreading VBWPFThreading ....... ???????????blog： ??，??????MSD...ZXMAK2: Version 2.6.1.7: - fix tape bug: cannot select block 0 to playLINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.25: Supports .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, Silverlight 4.0, Windows Phone 7.1, Client Profile, and Windows 8. 100% Twitter API coverage. Also available via NuGet! Follow @JoeMayo.ASP.net MVC HTML5 Helpers Toolkit: ASP.net MVC HTML5 Toolkit: 14th May 2012 MVC HTML5 Helpers Toolkit .NET 4 - Binary – Source code and sample site Update 14/05/2012 - Updated demo project to use MVC4 and Twitter Bootstrap. Password input type has also been added to the list.GAC Explorer: GACExplorer_x86_Setup: Version 1.0 Features -> Copy assembly(s) to clipboard. -> Copy assembly(s) to local folder. -> Open assembly(s) folder location. -> Support Shortcut keysBlogEngine.NET: BlogEngine.NET 2.6: Get DotNetBlogEngine for 3 Months Free! Click Here for More Info BlogEngine.NET Hosting - 3 months free! Cheap ASP.NET Hosting - $4.95/Month - Click Here!! Click Here for More Info Cheap ASP.NET Hosting - $4.95/Month - Click Here! If you want to set up and start using BlogEngine.NET right away, you should download the Web project. If you want to extend or modify BlogEngine.NET, you should download the source code. If you are upgrading from a previous version of BlogEngine.NET, please take...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.6.2: 2012.05.07 Ver5.6.2 (1)　Web???????、????????·????????? (2)　Web???????、?????????? COMSPEC PATHEXT WINDIR SERVERADDR SERVERPORT DOCUMENTROOT SERVERADMIN REMOTE_PORT HTTPACCEPTCHRSET HTTPACCEPTLANGUAGE HTTPACCEPTEXCODINGGardens Point Parser Generator: Gardens Point Parser Generator version 1.5.0: ChangesVersion 1.5.0 contains a number of changes. Error messages are now MSBuild and VS-friendly. The default encoding of the *.y file is Unicode, with an automatic fallback to the previous raw-byte interpretation. The /report option has been improved, as has the automaton tracing facility. New facilities are included that allow multiple parsers to share a common token type. A complete change-log is available as a separate documentation file. The source project has been upgraded to Visual...Media Companion: Media Companion 3.502b: It has been a slow week, but this release addresses a couple of recent bugs: Movies Multi-part Movies - Existing .nfo files that differed in name from the first part, were missed and scraped again. Trailers - MC attempted to scrape info for existing trailers. TV Shows Show Scraping - shows available only in the non-default language would not show up in the main browser. The correct language can now be selected using the TV Show Selector for a single show. General Will no longer prompt for ...NewLife XCode ??????: XCode v8.5.2012.0508、XCoder v4.7.2012.0320: X????： 1，????For .Net 4.0?? XCoder????： 1，???????，????X????，?????? XCode????： 1，Insert/Update/Delete???????????????，???SQL???? 2，IEntityOperate?????? 3，????????IEntityTree 4，????????????????? 5，?????????? 6，??????????????Google Book Downloader: Google Books Downloader Lite 1.0: Google Books Downloader Lite 1.0Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.5 Alpha: We’re pleased to announce the release of Python Tools for Visual Studio 1.5 Alpha. Python Tools for Visual Studio (PTVS) is an open-source plug-in for Visual Studio which supports programming with the Python language. PTVS supports a broad range of features including: • Supports Cpython, IronPython, Jython and Pypy • Python editor with advanced member, signature intellisense and refactoring • Code navigation: “Find all refs”, goto definition, and object browser • Local and remote debugging...AD Gallery: AD Gallery 1.2.7: NewsFixed a bug which caused the current thumbnail not to be highlighted Added a hook to take complete control over how descriptions are handled, take a look under Documentation for more info Added removeAllImages()WebsitePanel: 1.2.2: This build is for Beta Testing only. DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION. The following work items has been fixed/closed in WebsitePanel 1.2.2.1: 225 135 59 96 23 29 191 72 48 240 245 244 160 16 65 7 156AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.11.6: ?? ●AcDown??????????、??、??????，????1M，????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown???????????????????????????，???，???????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ????????????? ??：????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? ??????????????，??????????： ??"AcDo...New ProjectsAspose.Words for Java Examples: This project contains example code for Aspose.Words for Java. Aspose.Words is a class library for generating, converting and rendering wordprocessing documents. Aspose.Words supports DOC, OOXML, RTF, HTML, MHTML, TXT, OpenDocument, PDF, XPS, EPUB, SWF, SVG, Image, printing and other formats.Bilingual Text Matching: This project is to extract bilingual sentence pairs from text. As an important basic module, it is widely applied in many different tasks in natural language process field(NLP), such as machine translation, search engine, language study and so on.bitboxx bbnews: The bitboxx bbnews module is a DNN module for collecting and providing news on your portal. It is able to collect news from a RSS/Atom feeds or from twitter. Alternativeliy you can write your own news. News display is full templated and could be provided as RSS feed too.BlackCat: Easy-to-use tool to check, create and generate encryption data. You can: - generate RSA Keypairs for keysize 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192 bytes. - generate MD5 String Hash - compare MD5 String Hash Checksums - generate MD5 and SHA1 File Hash - compare MD5 and SHA1 File Checksums That's it!BoardSpace.net Hive Games Reviewer (Ultimate Edition): BoardSpace.net Hive Games Reviewer (Ultimate Edition)Consistent Hash: Enterprise Consistent Hash (ECH) is a consistent hashing library written in C#. It is tested to be used at production level and supports N number of nodes (servers); while most of the hashing implement out there only support limited number of nodes in the hash space to achieve the required performance speed. ESH provide the following features: 1. High performance, it implements Fowler–Noll–Vo hash algorithm by overcoming all its weakness defined in the algorithm. This implementation might...Data Mining Add-Ins for Excel Sample Data (includes Call Center): Data Mining Add-Ins for Excel Sample Data (includes Call Center) sample workbook is an update to the sample workbook that is installed when you download and install the Data Mining Add-ins. The update includes additional data that supports the Goal Seek Analysis tool, and caElectronic Diary: Electronic DiaryFileZilla Server Config File Editor: A simple program for editing FileZilla Server config file. A co-worker manages a Filezilla FTP server on Windows Server 2008. He would like to give a few people the ability to add/delete users and to grant rights for various download subfolders. He showed me the steps he has to go through to perform the tasks listed above, and felt it could be error-prone for others. So he gave me the config file ("FileZilla Server.xml") as a template to build this application for him.FIM Ultimate File Connector: Project providing an Extensible Connectivity 2.0 (ECMA) File Connector (previously Management Agent). Just the basic File Connector supporting the following OOB file formats: *Attribute Value Pair (AVP) *Delimited *Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) *Fixed *LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) But has the following extra functionality: *Full Export that before ECMA had to be handled externally from FIM/ILM/MIIS *Files can be managed at FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP and File System ...GAC Explorer: This application can be used by DotNet Developers to download assembly(s) from Global Assembly Cache (GAC). It contains features like Copy Assembly(s) to Clipboard or Copy to some Folder in Local Machine. Best part it supports DotNet 4.0 GAC structure.GPX.NET: GPX.NET provides a set of C# classes for the GPX (GPS eXchange Format) standard. It offers a full implementation of the V1.1 standard in a clean and straightforward way using the native .NET XmlSerializer. Reading, writing and a programmatic document object model are supported.gscirc: IRC client for windows. Hard-ceded string finder: This project can help to C# developers move hard-coded string to resources file (in existing or newly generated by this program). Also it has ability to search duplicated string s in resources and source file.Image Popup Module dotnetnuke: Image Pop-up Module is a module to show image light-box pop ups in dotnetnuke websites Please Follow the steps to use this module 1 Install the module and drop on your page where you want to show the pop up 2 In your HTML module editor add the token "{imagepopup}" 3 In your HTML module editor add class="popup-img" in your images which you want to show in popup.Intercom: Intercom is a comprehensive C# API wrapper library for accessing the Intercom.IO APILakana - WPF Navigation Framework: A lightweight and powerful navigation framework for WPF.Mageris: MagerisMaLoRTLib: raytracer library used in the MaLoRT.SGP - SISTEMA DE GESTÃO PAROQUIAL: SGP - SISTEMA DE GESTÃO PAROQUIAL - VERSION 1.0Silva PeerChannel: This is a simple project using the new "Peer Channel" Technology provided by Microsoft it is an ideal project & sample for developers who wants to start developing in this area (Network) Some feature of this project: 1.Chat with unlimited clients (Chat room) 2.Send/Receive unlimited file between unlimited clients. (TCP) 3.Download files from internet 4.Search and select files to download (P2P) All the source of project is full of comments to understand every single line of code...Silver Desktop: SDSimple Hit Counter WebPart SharePoint 2010: HitCounterWebPart.wsp HitCounterWebPart Source CodeSimpleRX: SimpleRX is a educational project that shows a possible implementation of many rx commands. SimpleRX should stimulate a study with the reactive extensions. It is also a guard to extend the reactive extensions with custom commands. A introduction to simpleRX can be found at: netmatze.wordpress.com Skill Studio: Skill Studio is a Visual Code Generator for Unity. (http://unity3d.com/unity/) By now it can generate BehaviorTree and AnimationTree visually.TaskMgr2: TestTeam Foundation Server overview: This application basically just allows you to open several Team Foundation Server windows on your secondary monitor that you use a lot, so that you can enjoy task management the easy way.TongjiXuanke: An Hacker-programme for xuanke Platform of Tongji University (Shanghai,China) Visual C++ 2010 Directories Editor: Path editor of include, library, source and etc. foldersVisual Coder: VSCWirelessNetworkDetection: Project to find all your wireless access pointswith connected clients.X Window System for COSMOS: This is a project meant to provide a GUI for COSMOS. It is built upon version 89858 of COSMOS kernel and provided in .dll form that expose the most common methods to create dialog/modal windows with drag&drop, re-size, open/close facilities. This solution bases on a double-linked list principle, recursively parsing the hierarchy of windows in both ways. This allows dynamic allocation of memory for an infinite number of windows, screen refresh and active window sensitivity.

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• Oracle's Global Single Schema

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Maximizing business process efficiencies in a heterogeneous environment is very difficult. The difficulty stems from the fact that the various applications across the Information Technology (IT) landscape employ different integration standards, different message passing strategies, and different workflow engines. Vendors such as Oracle and others are delivering tools to help IT organizations manage the complexities introduced by these differences. But the one remaining intractable problem impacting efficient operations is the fact that these applications have different definitions for the same business data. Business data is your business information codified for computer programs to use. A good data model will represent the way your organization does business. The computer applications your organization deploys to improve operational efficiency are built to operate on the business data organized into this schema.  If the schema does not represent how you do business, the applications on that schema cannot provide the features you need to achieve the desired efficiencies. Business processes span these applications. Data problems break these processes rendering them far less efficient than they need to be to achieve organization goals. Thus, the expected return on the investment in these applications is never realized. The success of all business processes depends on the availability of accurate master data.  Clearly, the solution to this problem is to consolidate all the master data an organization uses to run its business. Then clean it up, augment it, govern it, and connect it back to the applications that need it. Until now, this obvious solution has been difficult to achieve because no one had defined a data model sufficiently broad, deep and flexible enough to support transaction processing on all key business entities and serve as a master superset to all other operational data models deployed in heterogeneous IT environments. Today, the situation has changed. Oracle has created an operational data model (aka schema) that can support accurate and consistent master data across heterogeneous IT systems. This is foundational for providing a way to consolidate and integrate master data without having to replace investments in existing applications. This Global Single Schema (GSS) represents a revolutionary breakthrough that allows for true master data consolidation. Oracle has deep knowledge of applications dating back to the early 1990s.  It developed applications in the areas of Supply Chain Management (SCM), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Capital Management (HCM), Financials and Manufacturing. In addition, Oracle applications were delivered for key industries such as Communications, Financial Services, Retail, Public Sector, High Tech Manufacturing (HTM) and more. Expertise in all these areas drove requirements for GSS. The following figure illustrates Oracle's unique position that enabled the creation of the Global Single Schema. GSS Requirements Gathering GSS defines all the key business entities and attributes including Customers, Contacts, Suppliers, Accounts, Products, Services, Materials, Employees, Installed Base, Sites, Assets, and Inventory to name just a few. In addition, Oracle delivers GSS pre-integrated with a wide variety of operational applications.  Business Process Automation EBusiness is about maximizing operational efficiency. At the highest level, these 'operations' span all that you do as an organization.  The following figure illustrates some of these high-level business processes. Enterprise Business Processes Supplies are procured. Assets are maintained. Materials are stored. Inventory is accumulated. Products and Services are engineered, produced and sold. Customers are serviced. And across this entire spectrum, Employees do the procuring, supporting, engineering, producing, selling and servicing. Not shown, but not to be overlooked, are the accounting and the financial processes associated with all this procuring, manufacturing, and selling activity. Supporting all these applications is the master data. When this data is fragmented and inconsistent, the business processes fail and inefficiencies multiply. But imagine having all the data under these operational business processes in one place. ·            The same accurate and timely customer data will be provided to all your operational applications from the call center to the point of sale. ·            The same accurate and timely supplier data will be provided to all your operational applications from supply chain planning to procurement. ·            The same accurate and timely product information will be available to all your operational applications from demand chain planning to marketing. You would have a single version of the truth about your assets, financial information, customers, suppliers, employees, products and services to support your business automation processes as they flow across your business applications. All company and partner personnel will access the same exact data entity across all your channels and across all your lines of business. Oracle's Global Single Schema enables this vision of a single version of the truth across the heterogeneous operational applications supporting the entire enterprise. Global Single Schema Oracle's Global Single Schema organizes hundreds of thousands of attributes into 165 major schema objects supporting over 180 business application modules. It is designed for international operations, and extensibility.  The schema is delivered with a full set of public Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and an Integration Repository with modern Service Oriented Architecture interfaces to make data available as a services (DaaS) to business processes and enable operations in heterogeneous IT environments. ·         Key tables can be extended with unlimited numbers of additional attributes and attribute groups for maximum flexibility.  o    This enables model extensions that reflect business entities unique to your organization's operations. ·         The schema is multi-organization enabled so data manipulation can be controlled along organizational boundaries. ·         It uses variable byte Unicode to support over 31 languages. ·         The schema encodes flexible date and flexible address formats for easy localizations. No matter how complex your business is, Oracle's Global Single Schema can hold your business objects and support your global operations. Oracle's Global Single Schema identifies and defines the business objects an enterprise needs within the context of its business operations. The interrelationships between the business objects are also contained within the GSS data model. Their presence expresses fundamental business rules for the interaction between business entities. The following figure illustrates some of these connections.   Interconnected Business Entities Interconnecte business processes require interconnected business data. No other MDM vendor has this capability. Everyone else has either one entity they can master or separate disconnected models for various business entities. Higher level integrations are made available, but that is a weak architectural alternative to data level integration in this critically important aspect of Master Data Management.    

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• T-SQL Dynamic SQL and Temp Tables

  - by George

  It looks like #temptables created using dynamic SQL via the EXECUTE string method have a different scope and can't be referenced by "fixed" SQLs in the same stored procedure. However, I can reference a temp table created by a dynamic SQL statement in a subsequence dynamic SQL but it seems that a stored procedure does not return a query result to a calling client unless the SQL is fixed. A simple 2 table scenario: I have 2 tables. Let's call them Orders and Items. Order has a Primary key of OrderId and Items has a Primary Key of ItemId. Items.OrderId is the foreign key to identify the parent Order. An Order can have 1 to n Items. I want to be able to provide a very flexible "query builder" type interface to the user to allow the user to select what Items he want to see. The filter criteria can be based on fields from the Items table and/or from the parent Order table. If an Item meets the filter condition including and condition on the parent Order if one exists, the Item should be return in the query as well as the parent Order. Usually, I suppose, most people would construct a join between the Item table and the parent Order tables. I would like to perform 2 separate queries instead. One to return all of the qualifying Items and the other to return all of the distinct parent Orders. The reason is two fold and you may or may not agree. The first reason is that I need to query all of the columns in the parent Order table and if I did a single query to join the Orders table to the Items table, I would be repoeating the Order information multiple times. Since there are typically a large number of items per Order, I'd like to avoid this because it would result in much more data being transfered to a fat client. Instead, as mentioned, I would like to return the two tables individually in a dataset and use the two tables within to populate a custom Order and child Items client objects. (I don't know enough about LINQ or Entity Framework yet. I build my objects by hand). The second reason I would like to return two tables instead of one is because I already have another procedure that returns all of the Items for a given OrderId along with the parent Order and I would like to use the same 2-table approach so that I could reuse the client code to populate my custom Order and Client objects from the 2 datatables returned. What I was hoping to do was this: Construct a dynamic SQL string on the Client which joins the orders table to the Items table and filters appropriate on each table as specified by the custom filter created on the Winform fat-client app. The SQL build on the client would have looked something like this: TempSQL = " INSERT INTO #ItemsToQuery OrderId, ItemsId FROM Orders, Items WHERE Orders.OrderID = Items.OrderId AND /* Some unpredictable Order filters go here */ AND /* Some unpredictable Items filters go here */ " Then, I would call a stored procedure, CREATE PROCEDURE GetItemsAndOrders(@tempSql as text) Execute (@tempSQL) --to create the #ItemsToQuery table SELECT * FROM Items WHERE Items.ItemId IN (SELECT ItemId FROM #ItemsToQuery) SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE Orders.OrderId IN (SELECT DISTINCT OrderId FROM #ItemsToQuery) The problem with this approach is that #ItemsToQuery table, since it was created by dynamic SQL, is inaccessible from the following 2 static SQLs and if I change the static SQLs to dynamic, no results are passed back to the fat client. 3 around come to mind but I'm look for a better one: 1) The first SQL could be performed by executing the dynamically constructed SQL from the client. The results could then be passed as a table to a modified version of the above stored procedure. I am familiar with passing table data as XML. If I did this, the stored proc could then insert the data into a temporary table using a static SQL that, because it was created by dynamic SQL, could then be queried without issue. (I could also investigate into passing the new Table type param instead of XML.) However, I would like to avoid passing up potentially large lists to a stored procedure. 2) I could perform all the queries from the client. The first would be something like this: SELECT Items.* FROM Orders, Items WHERE Order.OrderId = Items.OrderId AND (dynamic filter) SELECT Orders.* FROM Orders, Items WHERE Order.OrderId = Items.OrderId AND (dynamic filter) This still provides me with the ability to reuse my client sided object-population code because the Orders and Items continue to be returned in two different tables. I have a feeling to, that I might have some options using a Table data type within my stored proc, but that is also new to me and I would appreciate a little bit of spoon feeding on that one. If you even scanned this far in what I wrote, I am surprised, but if so, I woul dappreciate any of your thoughts on how to accomplish this best.

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• Converting projects to use Automatic NuGet restore

  - by terje

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/terje/archive/2014/06/11/converting-projects-to-use-automatic-nuget-restore.aspxDownload tool In version 2.7 of NuGet automatic nuget restore was introduced, meaning you no longer need to distort your msbuild project files with nuget target information.   Visual Studio and TFS 2013 build have this enabled by default.  However, if your project was created before this was introduced, and/or if you have used the “Enable NuGet Package Restore” afterwards, you now have a series of unwanted things in your projects, and a series of project files that have been modified – and – you no longer neither want nor need this !  You might also get into some unwanted issues due to these modifications.  This is a MSBuild modification that was needed only before NuGet 2.7 ! So: DON’T USE THIS FUNCTION !!! There is an issue https://nuget.codeplex.com/workitem/4019 on this on the NuGet project site to get this function removed, renamed or at least moved farther away from the top level (please help vote it up!).  The response seems to be that it WILL BE removed, around version 3.0. This function does nothing you need after the introduction of NuGet 2.7.  What is also unfortunate is the naming of it – it implies that it is needed, it is not, and what is worse, there is no corresponding function to remove what it does ! So to fix this use the tool named IFix, that will fix this issue for you   - all free of course, and the code is open source.  Also report issues there:  https://github.com/OsirisTerje/IFix    IFix information DOWNLOAD HERE This command line tool installs using an MSI, and add itself to the system path.  If you work in a team, you will probably need to use the  tool multiple times.  Anyone in the team may at any time use the “Enable NuGet Package Restore” function and mess up your project again.  The IFix program can be run either in a  check modus, where it does not write anything back – it only checks if you have any issues, or in a Fix mode, where it will also perform the necessary fixes for you. The IFix program is used like this: IFix <command> [-c/--check] [-f/--fix]  [-v/--verbose] The command in this case is “nugetrestore”.  It will do a check from the location where it is being called, and run through all subfolders from that location. So  “IFix nugetrestore  --check” , will do the check ,  and “IFix nugetrestore  --fix”  will perform the changes, for all files and folders below the current working directory. (Note that --check  can be replaced with only –c, and --fix with –f, and so on. ) BEWARE: When you run the fix option, all solutions to be affected must be closed in Visual Studio ! So, if you just want to DO it, then: IFix nugetrestore --check to see if you have issues then IFix nugetrestore  --fix to fix them. How does it work IFix nugetrestore  checks and optionally fixes four issues that the older enabling of nuget restore did.  The issues are related to the MSBuild projess, and are: Deleting the nuget.targets file. Deleting the nuget.exe that is located under the .nuget folder Removing all references to nuget.targets in the solution file Removing all properties and target imports of nuget.targets inside the csproj files. IFix fixes these issues in the same sequence. The first step, removing the nuget.targets file is the most critical one, and all instances of the nuget.targets file within the scope of a solution has to be removed, and in addition it has to be done with the solution closed in Visual Studio.  If Visual Studio finds a nuget.targets file, the csproj files will be automatically messed up again. This means the removal process above might need to be done multiple times, specially when you’re working with a team, and that solution context menu still has the “Enable NuGet Package Restore” function.  Someone on the team might inadvertently do this at any time. It can be a good idea to add this check to a checkin policy – if you run TFS standard version control, but that will have no effect if you use TFS Git version control of course. So, better be prepared to run the IFix check from time to time. Or, even better, install IFix on your build servers, and add a call to IFix nugetrestore --check in the TFS Build script.    How does it look As a first example I have run the IFix program from the top of a set of git repositories, so it spans multiple repositories with multiple solutions. The result from the check option is as follows: We see the four red lines, there is one for each of the four checks we talked about in the previous section. The fact that they are red, means we have that particular issue. The first section (above the first red text line) is the nuget targets section.  Notice  No.1, it says it has found no paths to copy.  What IFix does here is to check if there are any defined paths to other nuget galleries.  If there are, then those are copied over to the nuget.config file, where is where it should be in version 2.7 and above.   No.2 says it has found the particular nuget.targets file,  No.3  states it HAS found some other nuget galleries defines in the targets file, which then it would like to copy to the config.file. No.4 is the section for nuget.exe files, and list those it has found, and which it would like to delete. No 5 states it has found a reference to nuget.targets in the solution file.  This reference comes from the fact that the .nuget folder is a solution folder, and the items within are described in the solution file. It then checks the csproj files, and as can be seen from the last red line, it ha found issues in 96 out of 198 csproj files.  There are two possible issues in a csproj files.  No.6 is the first one, and the most common and most important one, an “Import project” section.  This is the section that calls the nuget.targets files.  No.7 is another issue, which seems to sometimes be there, sometimes not, it is a RestorePackages property, which also should go away. Now, if we run the IFix nugetrestore –fix command, and then the check again after that, the result is: All green !

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• Sensible Way to Pass Web Data in XML to a SQL Server Database

  - by Emtucifor

  After exploring several different ways to pass web data to a database for update purposes, I'm wondering if XML might be a good strategy. The database is currently SQL 2000. In a few months it will move to SQL 2005 and I will be able to change things if needed, but I need a SQL 2000 solution now. First of all, the database in question uses the EAV model. I know that this kind of database is generally highly frowned on, so for the purposes of this question, please just accept that this is not going to change. The current update method has the web server inserting values (that have all been converted first to their correct underlying types, then to sql_variant) to a temp table. A stored procedure is then run which expects the temp table to exist and it takes care of updating, inserting, or deleting things as needed. So far, only a single element has needed to be updated at a time. But now, there is a requirement to be able to edit multiple elements at once, and also to support hierarchical elements, each of which can have its own list of attributes. Here's some example XML I hand-typed to demonstrate what I'm thinking of. Note that in this database the Entity is Element and an ID of 0 signifies "create" aka an insert of a new item. <Elements> <Element ID="1234"> <Attr ID="221">Value</Attr> <Attr ID="225">287</Attr> <Attr ID="234"> <Element ID="99825"> <Attr ID="7">Value1</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value2</Attr> <Attr ID="9" Action="delete" /> </Element> <Element ID="99826" Action="delete" /> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value4</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value5</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value6</Attr> </Element> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value7</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value8</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value9</Attr> </Element> </Attr> <Rel ID="3827" Action="delete" /> <Rel ID="2284" Role="parent"> <Element ID="3827" /> <Element ID="3829" /> <Attr ID="665">1</Attr> </Rel> <Rel ID="0" Type="23" Role="child"> <Element ID="3830" /> <Attr ID="67" </Rel> </Element> <Element ID="0" Type="87"> <Attr ID="221">Value</Attr> <Attr ID="225">569</Attr> <Attr ID="234"> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value10</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value11</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value12</Attr> </Element> </Attr> </Element> <Element ID="1235" Action="delete" /> </Elements> Some Attributes are straight value types, such as AttrID 221. But AttrID 234 is a special "multi-value" type that can have a list of elements underneath it, and each one can have one or more values. Types only need to be presented when a new item is created, since the ElementID fully implies the type if it already exists. I'll probably support only passing in changed items (as detected by javascript). And there may be an Action="Delete" on Attr elements as well, since NULLs are treated as "unselected"--sometimes it's very important to know if a Yes/No question has intentionally been answered No or if no one's bothered to say Yes yet. There is also a different kind of data, a Relationship. At this time, those are updated through individual AJAX calls as things are edited in the UI, but I'd like to include those so that changes to relationships can be canceled (right now, once you change it, it's done). So those are really elements, too, but they are called Rel instead of Element. Relationships are implemented as ElementID1 and ElementID2, so the RelID 2284 in the XML above is in the database as: ElementID 2284 ElementID1 1234 ElementID2 3827 Having multiple children in one relationship isn't currently supported, but it would be nice later. Does this strategy and the example XML make sense? Is there a more sensible way? I'm just looking for some broad critique to help save me from going down a bad path. Any aspect that you'd like to comment on would be helpful. The web language happens to be Classic ASP, but that could change to ASP.Net at some point. A persistence engine like Linq or nHibernate is probably not acceptable right now--I just want to get this already working application enhanced without a huge amount of development time. I'll choose the answer that shows experience and has a balance of good warnings about what not to do, confirmations of what I'm planning to do, and recommendations about something else to do. I'll make it as objective as possible. P.S. I'd like to handle unicode characters as well as very long strings (10k +). UPDATE I have had this working for some time and I used the ADO Recordset Save-To-Stream trick to make creating the XML really easy. The result seems to be fairly fast, though if speed ever becomes a problem I may revisit this. In the meantime, my code works to handle any number of elements and attributes on the page at once, including updating, deleting, and creating new items all in one go. I settled on a scheme like so for all my elements: Existing data elements Example: input name e12345_a678 (element 12345, attribute 678), the input value is the value of the attribute. New elements Javascript copies a hidden template of the set of HTML elements needed for the type into the correct location on the page, increments a counter to get a new ID for this item, and prepends the number to the names of the form items. var newid = 0; function metadataAdd(reference, nameid, value) { var t = document.createElement('input'); t.setAttribute('name', nameid); t.setAttribute('id', nameid); t.setAttribute('type', 'hidden'); t.setAttribute('value', value); reference.appendChild(t); } function multiAdd(target, parentelementid, attrid, elementtypeid) { var proto = document.getElementById('a' + attrid + '_proto'); var instance = document.createElement('p'); target.parentNode.parentNode.insertBefore(instance, target.parentNode); var thisid = ++newid; instance.innerHTML = proto.innerHTML.replace(/{prefix}/g, 'n' + thisid + '_'); instance.id = 'n' + thisid; instance.className += ' new'; metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_p', parentelementid); metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_c', attrid); metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_t', elementtypeid); return false; } Example: Template input name _a678 becomes n1_a678 (a new element, the first one on the page, attribute 678). all attributes of this new element are tagged with the same prefix of n1. The next new item will be n2, and so on. Some hidden form inputs are created: n1_t, value is the elementtype of the element to be created n1_p, value is the parent id of the element (if it is a relationship) n1_c, value is the child id of the element (if it is a relationship) Deleting elements A hidden input is created in the form e12345_t with value set to 0. The existing controls displaying that attribute's values are disabled so they are not included in the form post. So "set type to 0" is treated as delete. With this scheme, every item on the page has a unique name and can be distinguished properly, and every action can be represented properly. When the form is posted, here's a sample of building one of the two recordsets used (classic ASP code): Set Data = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset") Data.Fields.Append "ElementID", adInteger, 4, adFldKeyColumn Data.Fields.Append "AttrID", adInteger, 4, adFldKeyColumn Data.Fields.Append "Value", adLongVarWChar, 2147483647, adFldIsNullable Or adFldMayBeNull Data.CursorLocation = adUseClient Data.CursorType = adOpenDynamic Data.Open This is the recordset for values, the other is for the elements themselves. I step through the posted form and for the element recordset use a Scripting.Dictionary populated with instances of a custom Class that has the properties I need, so that I can add the values piecemeal, since they don't always come in order. New elements are added as negative to distinguish them from regular elements (rather than requiring a separate column to indicate if it is new or addresses an existing element). I use regular expression to tear apart the form keys: "^(e|n)([0-9]{1,10})_(a|p|t|c)([0-9]{0,10})$" Then, adding an attribute looks like this. Data.AddNew ElementID.Value = DataID AttrID.Value = Integerize(Matches(0).SubMatches(3)) AttrValue.Value = Request.Form(Key) Data.Update ElementID, AttrID, and AttrValue are references to the fields of the recordset. This method is hugely faster than using Data.Fields("ElementID").Value each time. I loop through the Dictionary of element updates and ignore any that don't have all the proper information, adding the good ones to the recordset. Then I call my data-updating stored procedure like so: Set Cmd = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Command") With Cmd Set .ActiveConnection = MyDBConn .CommandType = adCmdStoredProc .CommandText = "DataPost" .Prepared = False .Parameters.Append .CreateParameter("@ElementMetadata", adLongVarWChar, adParamInput, 2147483647, XMLFromRecordset(Element)) .Parameters.Append .CreateParameter("@ElementData", adLongVarWChar, adParamInput, 2147483647, XMLFromRecordset(Data)) End With Result.Open Cmd ' previously created recordset object with options set Here's the function that does the xml conversion: Private Function XMLFromRecordset(Recordset) Dim Stream Set Stream = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Stream") Stream.Open Recordset.Save Stream, adPersistXML Stream.Position = 0 XMLFromRecordset = Stream.ReadText End Function Just in case the web page needs to know, the SP returns a recordset of any new elements, showing their page value and their created value (so I can see that n1 is now e12346 for example). Here are some key snippets from the stored procedure. Note this is SQL 2000 for now, though I'll be able to switch to 2005 soon: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[DataPost] @ElementMetaData ntext, @ElementData ntext AS DECLARE @hdoc int --- snip --- EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @hdoc OUTPUT, @ElementMetaData, '<xml xmlns:s="uuid:BDC6E3F0-6DA3-11d1-A2A3-00AA00C14882" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882" xmlns:rs="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:rowset" xmlns:z="#RowsetSchema" />' INSERT #ElementMetadata (ElementID, ElementTypeID, ElementID1, ElementID2) SELECT * FROM OPENXML(@hdoc, '/xml/rs:data/rs:insert/z:row', 0) WITH ( ElementID int, ElementTypeID int, ElementID1 int, ElementID2 int ) ORDER BY ElementID -- orders negative items (new elements) first so they begin counting at 1 for later ID calculation EXEC sp_xml_removedocument @hdoc --- snip --- UPDATE E SET E.ElementTypeID = M.ElementTypeID FROM Element E INNER JOIN #ElementMetadata M ON E.ElementID = M.ElementID WHERE E.ElementID >= 1 AND M.ElementTypeID >= 1 The following query does the correlation of the negative new element ids to the newly inserted ones: UPDATE #ElementMetadata -- Correlate the new ElementIDs with the input rows SET NewElementID = Scope_Identity() - @@RowCount + DataID WHERE ElementID < 0 Other set-based queries do all the other work of validating that the attributes are allowed, are the correct data type, and inserting, updating, and deleting elements and attributes. I hope this brief run-down is useful to others some day! Converting ADO Recordsets to an XML stream was a huge winner for me as it saved all sorts of time and had a namespace and schema already defined that made the results come out correctly. Using a flatter XML format with 2 inputs was also much easier than sticking to some ideal about having everything in a single XML stream.

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• WhatsApp &amp; Tasker for Android &ndash; Read &amp; Write messages

  - by Shaurya Anand

  So, I finally gave up on all my previous the Microsoft Mobile/Phone OS devices and made my switch to Android this year. I am using my Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000 with CyanogenMod 9.1.0 (http://get.cm/get/jenkins/7086/cm-9.1.0-n7000.zip) and ClockworkMod 6.0.1.2 (http://download2.clockworkmod.com/recoveries/recovery-clockwork-6.0.1.2-n7000.zip) since August this year and I am so happy with the performance and the flexibility it offers me. As a software developer by profession, I would expect most of my gadget to be highly customizable and programmable (one time or at intervals) to suit my needs as close as it can. I was introduced to Automation for Android – Tasker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en) via reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/tasker) and the word ‘automation’ was enough for me to dive right into this app. Only automation that I did earlier was switching profiles depending on location on there phones. And now, just imagine a complete set of possibilities that can be automate on the phone or via the phone. I did my research and found a couple of other tools that do the same/as close as what Tasker can do and few of them are even free. There’s one even by Microsoft called on{X} (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.onx.app&hl=en). Microsoft’s on{X} really caught my eye. You can write code for your phone on the web application by them, deploy it on your phone and even trace the flow all using your PC. Really brilliant, I love the fact that it’s all JavaScript. Here comes the but, it is still very very young and it’s policy of accessing my News Feed on Facebook is not something that I can not digest. On{X} is good, but as I said earlier, the API is not very mature and hence, I gave up on it. I bought Tasker, the best 5,00 € I spent in ages and I want to talk about it in this post. I am still a “noob” while operating this tool, but I tried my shot at automating WhatsApp (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp&hl=en), a popular messenger for various platform. The requirement for the automation is that, if I send a WhatsApp ‘wru’ message to the phone, it should respond back giving the location and battery level of my phone. It could be useful, if you like to locate your misplaced phone or automatically reply to your partner/friend, honestly, I don’t know what you will use it - through this post, I am just introducing automating WhatsApp using Tasker. Before we begin, the following script only works when your phone is rooted as we will be accessing the WhatsApp database and type some special characters like ‘:’. Let’s follow the code line by line: Profile:         Location request from XYZ. (12) // Name of your profile. Event:         Notification [ Owner Application:WhatsApp Title:* ] // When a new notification comes from WhatsApp, this event is fired. Read the end note, if you face problems with Chrome app after enabling Tasker accessibility. Enter:         A1: Run Shell [ Command:sqlite3 // We will access the WhatsApp database and check if the message comes from designated phone number or not. We mustn’t reply to every message.                 /data/data/com.whatsapp/databases/msgstore.db "SELECT _id, data FROM                  messages WHERE key_from_me='0' AND key_remote_jid LIKE '%XXXXXXXXXXX%' // Replace XXXXXXXXXXX with the phone number of your message sender.                 ORDER BY _id DESC LIMIT 1;" Timeout (Seconds):10 Use Root:On Store // I made a timeout for 10 seconds, if in case WhatsApp is busy accessing the database.                 Result In:%WHATSAPP_CURRREQ ] // Store the read Id and the last message on to the variable %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ         A2: If [ %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ ~R .*[wW][rR][uU].* ] // Check if the pattern of the message is correct and we are all set to send the location.                 A3: If [ %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ !~ %WHATSAPP_LASTREQ ] // Verify that the message is different from the last request. Remember every message has a unique Id.                         A4: Notify [ Title:WhatsApp location request... Text:Sending location // Just a notification that the location message is being prepared.                                 to Krati Gupta... Icon:<icon> Number:0 Permanent:On Priority:3 ] // Make a note it is a permanent notification, we will clear it later.                         A5: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Pattern Lock Disabled // I am disabling the pattern lock, that I use using the plugin Secure Settings.                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure // You can download the plugin from here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin&hl=en                                 Settings ]                         A6: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Keyguard Disabled // Disable the keygaurd, it is useful, when your phone is on lock and you want to automate everything, even the typing.                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A7: Secure Settings [ Configuration:GPS Enabled // Pretty clear, turn on the GPS and get location at A8                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A8: AutoShortcut [ Configuration:WhatsApp: Some One // I am using AutoShortcut plugin (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joaomgcd.autoshortcut) to start WhatsApp with the indented recipient.                                 Package:com.joaomgcd.autoshortcut Name:AutoShortcut ] // Replace Some One, actually choose it from the plugin, the right recipient.                         A9: Get Location [ Source:Any Timeout (Seconds):30 Continue Task // I am getting the location, timeout is 30 seconds, adjust it accordingly.                                 Immediately:Off Keep Tracking:Off ]                         A10: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Screen Dim // Now, this extension of the plugin Secure Settings, wakes your device so that you can type out the string on the WhatsApp app.                                 5 Seconds Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin                                 Name:Secure Settings ]                         A11: Run Shell [ Command:input text // Now, I am using the shell script to type the text to the window, because the ‘:’ while not be typed from the Type task in Tasker.                                 LOCATION:maps.google.com/maps?q=%LOC Timeout (Seconds):0 Use Root:On // And also, this is way faster, but remember you need root for this, not for the other way of typing.                                 Store Result In: ]                         A12: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ] // Focus the Send button                         A13: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ] // And press it.                         A14: Dpad [ Button:Left Repeat Times:1 ] // Get back to the typing box.                         A15: Run Shell [ Command:input text LOCATION_ACCURACY:%LOCACC Timeout                                 (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Result In: ]                         A16: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ]                         A17: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ]                         A18: Dpad [ Button:Left Repeat Times:1 ]                         A19: Run Shell [ Command:input text BATTERY_LEVEL:%BATT% Timeout // I am adding Battery level in my case as well.                                 (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Result In: ]                         A20: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ]                         A21: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ]                         A22: Variable Set [ Name:%WHATSAPP_LASTREQ To:%WHATSAPP_CURRREQ Do // And now, we say, request is done.                                 Maths:Off Append:Off ]                         A23: Button [ Button:Back ] // I am exiting the WhatsApp nicely and not killing it. If you are the murderer kind, kill it, just know, you don’t have any place in the heaven.                         A24: Button [ Button:Back ]                         A25: Notify Cancel [ Title: Warn Not Exist:Off ] // Remove the permanent notification.                         A26: Notify [ Title:WhatsApp location request Text:Location sent // Make a temporary notification, and say, location is sent.                                 successfully. Icon:<icon> Number:0 Permanent:Off Priority:3 ]                                                         A27: Secure Settings [ Configuration:GPS Disabled // Disable all the horrible things we turned on earlier.                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A28: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Pattern Lock Enabled                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A29: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Keyguard Enabled                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                 A30: End If         A31: End If Download this Task from here: http://db.tt/9vRmbhyb That’s it in the above small example – you can read/write messages from/to WhatsApp app. I am using n7000-cm9.1-cwr6. Oh yea, and if you are having the Talkback auto enabled for Chrome browser, you need to turn Off the Web scripts to run. Tasker is amazing, I have automated a lot of tasks using this tool. I will share a few none generic ones with you in my coming post here.

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• Library like ENet, but for TCP?

  - by Milo

  I'm not looking to use boost::asio, it is overly complex for my needs. I'm building a game that is cross platform, for desktop, iPhone and Android. I found a library called ENet which is pretty much what I need, but it uses UDP which does not seem to support encryption and a few other things. Given that the game is an event driven card game, TCP seems like the right fit. However, all I have found is WINSOCK / berkley sockets and bost::asio. Here is a sample client server application with ENet: #include <enet/enet.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string> #include <iostream> class Host { ENetAddress address; ENetHost * server; ENetHost* client; ENetEvent event; public: Host() :server(NULL) { enet_initialize(); setupServer(); } void setupServer() { if(server) { enet_host_destroy(server); server = NULL; } address.host = ENET_HOST_ANY; /* Bind the server to port 1234. */ address.port = 1721; server = enet_host_create (& address /* the address to bind the server host to */, 32 /* allow up to 32 clients and/or outgoing connections */, 2 /* allow up to 2 channels to be used, 0 and 1 */, 0 /* assume any amount of incoming bandwidth */, 0 /* assume any amount of outgoing bandwidth */); } void daLoop() { while(true) { /* Wait up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. */ while (enet_host_service (server, & event, 5000) > 0) { ENetPacket * packet; switch (event.type) { case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_CONNECT: printf ("A new client connected from %x:%u.\n", event.peer -> address.host, event.peer -> address.port); /* Store any relevant client information here. */ event.peer -> data = "Client information"; /* Create a reliable packet of size 7 containing "packet\0" */ packet = enet_packet_create ("packet", strlen ("packet") + 1, ENET_PACKET_FLAG_RELIABLE); /* Extend the packet so and append the string "foo", so it now */ /* contains "packetfoo\0" */ enet_packet_resize (packet, strlen ("packetfoo") + 1); strcpy ((char*)& packet -> data [strlen ("packet")], "foo"); /* Send the packet to the peer over channel id 0. */ /* One could also broadcast the packet by */ /* enet_host_broadcast (host, 0, packet); */ enet_peer_send (event.peer, 0, packet); /* One could just use enet_host_service() instead. */ enet_host_flush (server); break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_RECEIVE: printf ("A packet of length %u containing %s was received from %s on channel %u.\n", event.packet -> dataLength, event.packet -> data, event.peer -> data, event.channelID); /* Clean up the packet now that we're done using it. */ enet_packet_destroy (event.packet); break; case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_DISCONNECT: printf ("%s disconected.\n", event.peer -> data); /* Reset the peer's client information. */ event.peer -> data = NULL; } } } } ~Host() { if(server) { enet_host_destroy(server); server = NULL; } atexit (enet_deinitialize); } }; class Client { ENetAddress address; ENetEvent event; ENetPeer *peer; ENetHost* client; public: Client() :peer(NULL) { enet_initialize(); setupPeer(); } void setupPeer() { client = enet_host_create (NULL /* create a client host */, 1 /* only allow 1 outgoing connection */, 2 /* allow up 2 channels to be used, 0 and 1 */, 57600 / 8 /* 56K modem with 56 Kbps downstream bandwidth */, 14400 / 8 /* 56K modem with 14 Kbps upstream bandwidth */); if (client == NULL) { fprintf (stderr, "An error occurred while trying to create an ENet client host.\n"); exit (EXIT_FAILURE); } /* Connect to some.server.net:1234. */ enet_address_set_host (& address, "192.168.2.13"); address.port = 1721; /* Initiate the connection, allocating the two channels 0 and 1. */ peer = enet_host_connect (client, & address, 2, 0); if (peer == NULL) { fprintf (stderr, "No available peers for initiating an ENet connection.\n"); exit (EXIT_FAILURE); } /* Wait up to 5 seconds for the connection attempt to succeed. */ if (enet_host_service (client, & event, 20000) > 0 && event.type == ENET_EVENT_TYPE_CONNECT) { std::cout << "Connection to some.server.net:1234 succeeded." << std::endl; } else { /* Either the 5 seconds are up or a disconnect event was */ /* received. Reset the peer in the event the 5 seconds */ /* had run out without any significant event. */ enet_peer_reset (peer); puts ("Connection to some.server.net:1234 failed."); } } void daLoop() { ENetPacket* packet; /* Create a reliable packet of size 7 containing "packet\0" */ packet = enet_packet_create ("backet", strlen ("backet") + 1, ENET_PACKET_FLAG_RELIABLE); /* Extend the packet so and append the string "foo", so it now */ /* contains "packetfoo\0" */ enet_packet_resize (packet, strlen ("backetfoo") + 1); strcpy ((char*)& packet -> data [strlen ("backet")], "foo"); /* Send the packet to the peer over channel id 0. */ /* One could also broadcast the packet by */ /* enet_host_broadcast (host, 0, packet); */ enet_peer_send (event.peer, 0, packet); /* One could just use enet_host_service() instead. */ enet_host_flush (client); while(true) { /* Wait up to 1000 milliseconds for an event. */ while (enet_host_service (client, & event, 1000) > 0) { ENetPacket * packet; switch (event.type) { case ENET_EVENT_TYPE_RECEIVE: printf ("A packet of length %u containing %s was received from %s on channel %u.\n", event.packet -> dataLength, event.packet -> data, event.peer -> data, event.channelID); /* Clean up the packet now that we're done using it. */ enet_packet_destroy (event.packet); break; } } } } ~Client() { atexit (enet_deinitialize); } }; int main() { std::string a; std::cin >> a; if(a == "host") { Host host; host.daLoop(); } else { Client c; c.daLoop(); } return 0; } I looked at some socket tutorials and they seemed a bit too low level. I just need something that abstracts away the platform (eg, no WINSOCKS) and that has basic ability to keep track of connected clients and send them messages. Thanks

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