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

  - by Jim Rubenstein

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

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• Looking under the hood of SSRS

  - by Jim Giercyk

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

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

  - by Jim

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

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• Adding a DLL to the GAC in Windows 7

  - by Jim Giercyk

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

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• Is Live Chat a valuable feature?

  - by Jim

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

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• Stuck on EULA screen when installing netflix-desktop

  - by Jim

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

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

  - by Jim

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

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

  - by Jim Thio

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

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• Virtual Machine Storage Provisioning and best practises

  If you're using Virtualization technology, then at some point you'll have run out of (or will run out of) virtual disk space, & had to provision extra storage; are you confident that you know how to do that? Sean Duffy makes sure you're doing it right, sharing his recommendations and tips in this step-by-step guide to Virtual Machine Storage provisioning for VMware. Follow this advice, and you'll be a Virtualization Veteran in no time.

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• The Joy Of Hex

  - by Jim Giercyk

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

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• Happy New Year! Back to school :)

  - by Jim Wang

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

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

  - by Crazy JIm

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

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• Sprinkle Some Magik on that Java Virtual Machine

  - by Jim Connors

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

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• Display resolutions missing after upgrade to Ubuntu 12-10

  - by Jim Grover

  I recently upgraded my dual-boot HP laptop (dv7-3060us, 17.3" display) from ubuntu 12-4 to 12-10. After the upgrade, only three (3) resolutions are available (800x600, 1024x768, and 1152x864, all 4:3 resolutions), none of which are 16:9. Everything worked properly in 12-04. The display adapter is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4530. Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions about how to correct this problem? Thanks.

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

  - by Jim Rubenstein

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

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• Converting raw data type to enumerated type

  - by Jim Lahman

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

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• Inconsistent mouse cursor status while typing

  - by Jim

  I have noticed that when I type in some programs, Text Editor, Terminal, Bluefish, Gnome Baker, etc. the mouse cursor disappears while I am typing. In other programs like Firefox and LibreOffice, it does not. I am not an application programmer, but I imagined it has to do with their cross-platform nature and the way they are compiled or the toolkits they use. Then I noticed that Gnome-Do behaves the same way, the cursor stays on screen while typing. Why is there inconsistent handling of the mouse cursor, while typing, across different applications? Thank you.

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• Given a database table where multiple rows have the same values and only the most recent record is to be returned

  - by Jim Lahman

  I have a table where there are multiple records with the same value but varying creation dates.  A sample of the database columns is shown here:   1: select lot_num, to_char(creation_dts,'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS') as creation_date 2: from coil_setup 3: order by lot_num   LOT_NUM                        CREATION_DATE        ------------------------------ -------------------- 1435718.002                    24-NOV-2010 11:45:54 1440026.002                    17-NOV-2010 06:50:16 1440026.002                    08-NOV-2010 23:28:24 1526564.002                    01-DEC-2010 13:14:04 1526564.002                    08-NOV-2010 22:39:01 1526564.002                    01-NOV-2010 17:04:30 1605920.003                    29-DEC-2010 10:01:24 1945352.003                    14-DEC-2010 01:50:37 1945352.003                    09-DEC-2010 04:44:22 1952718.002                    25-OCT-2010 09:33:19 1953866.002                    20-OCT-2010 18:38:31 1953866.002                    18-OCT-2010 16:15:25   Notice that there are multiple instances of of the same lot number as shown in bold. To only return the most recent instance, issue this SQL statement: 1: select lot_num, to_char(creation_date,'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS') as creation_date 2: from 3: ( 4: select rownum r, lot_num, max(creation_dts) as creation_date 5: from coil_setup group by rownum, lot_num 6: order by lot_num 7: ) 8: where r < 100  LOT_NUM                        CREATION_DATE        ------------------------------ -------------------- 2019416.002                    01-JUL-2010 00:01:24 2022336.003                    06-OCT-2010 15:25:01 2067230.002                    01-JUL-2010 00:36:48 2093114.003                    02-JUL-2010 20:10:51 2093982.002                    02-JUL-2010 14:46:11 2093984.002                    02-JUL-2010 14:43:18 2094466.003                    02-JUL-2010 20:04:48 2101074.003                    11-JUL-2010 09:02:16 2103746.002                    02-JUL-2010 15:07:48 2103758.003                    11-JUL-2010 09:02:13 2104636.002                    02-JUL-2010 15:11:25 2106688.003                    02-JUL-2010 13:55:27 2106882.003                    02-JUL-2010 13:48:47 2107258.002                    02-JUL-2010 12:59:48 2109372.003                    02-JUL-2010 20:49:12 2110182.003                    02-JUL-2010 19:59:19 2110184.003                    02-JUL-2010 20:01:03

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• How does copyrights apply to source code header files?

  - by Jim McKeeth

  It seems I heard that header files are not considered copyrightable since they can only be written one way (like a list of ingredients or facts). So a header file for a specific DLL will always look the same when written in a given programming language. Unfortunately I can't find any resources to back this up. So if a vendor provides an SDK with headers in one programming language, and then those headers are translated into another programming language by a third party. Does the 3rd party need permission from the vendor to provide the header translation? Who owns the copyright on the translation? Isn't it a derivative work still owned by the vendor, or is there no copyright, like a list of ingredients? Does this vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction?

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• 12.04 boots fine, with graphical splash screen, but then Monitor "out of range"

  - by Jim Bednar

  I see dozens of posts from people whose monitors are saying "out of range" under Ubuntu; seems like there are some serious problems in Ubuntu with autodetection of monitor capabilities. :-( But none of the many, many suggestions I found have solved my problem, and right now I can't use anything graphical on this machine! History: I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my HP Proliant Microserver N40L, which worked reasonably at the default resolution across several reboots. At some point I noticed that the proprietary video driver was not in use, and tried to install one to get better window-drawing speeds, but it failed with some sort of error, and I gave up on that. A few weeks later when I next rebooted, it showed the usual BIOS screen and various boot loading screens (including GRUB), and then the usual purple Ubuntu splash screen with the dots showing that things were loading, but when it finished booting the monitor went black and eventually showed "Out of range" (with no other information). Given that there were several weeks between reboots (it's a server, after all), I've no idea if it was some system update, trying to install the proprietary drivers, or something else that caused the problem. Anyway, the system has booted fine, as I can do Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get a text prompt and can log in there. But Ctrl-Alt-F7 goes back to the out of range error. Some posters said to try Ctrl-Alt-- (minus) to cycle through resolutions until one works, but that didn't have any visible effect. Many, many others said it was a grub problem, which seems unlikely given that grub's screen looks fine, but I tried editing /etc/default/grub to set a particular resolution (trying many of them) and running update-grub, with no apparent effect. Rebooting into failsafe mode works the same as regular mode. Replacing xorg.conf with xorg.conf.failsafe works the same too. I'm at my wits' end! Isn't there anything I can do to convince Ubuntu to choose a mode that the monitor supports? E.g. the one that it is using for the splash screen? I don't need great resolution on this machine, just anything that works!!!!! Help!!!!!! Please!!!!

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• SSIS Debugging Tip: Using Data Viewers

  - by Jim Giercyk

  When you have an SSIS package error, it is often very helpful to see the data records that are causing the problem.  After all, if your input has 50,000 records and 1 of them has corrupt data, it can be a chore.  Your execution results will tell you which column contains the bad data, but not which record…..enter the Data Viewer. In this scenario I have created a truncation error.  The input length of [lastname] is 50, but the output table has a length of 15.  When it runs, at least one of the records causes the package to fail.     Now what?  We can tell from our execution results that there is a problem with [lastname], but we have no idea WHICH record?     Let’s identify the row that is actually causing the problem.  First, we grab the oft’ forgotten Row Count shape from our toolbar and connect it to the error output from our input query.  Remember that in order to intercept errors with the error output, you must redirect them.     The Row Count shape requires 1 integer variable.  For our purposes, we will not reference the variable, but it is still required in order for the package to run.  Typically we would use the variable to hold the number of rows in the table and refer back to it later in our process.  We are simply using the Row Count as a “Dead End” for errors.  I called my variable RowCounter.  To create a variable, with no shapes selected, right-click on the background and choose Variable.     Once we have setup the Row Count shape, we can right-click on the red line (error output) from the query, and select Data Viewers.  In the popup, we click the add button and we will see this:     There are other fancier options we can play with, but for now we just want to view the output in a grid.  WE select Grid, then click OK on all of the popup windows to shut them down.  We should now see a grid with a pair of glasses on the error output line.     So, we are ready to catch the error output in a grid and see that is causing the problem!  This time when we run the package, it does not fail because we directed the error to the Row Count.  We also get a popup window showing the error record in a grid.  If there were multiple errors we would see them all.     Indeed, the [lastname] column is longer than 15 characters.  Notice the last column in the grid, [Error Code – Description].  We knew this was a truncation error before we added the grid, but if you have worked with SSIS for any length of time, you know that some errors are much more obscure.  The description column can be very useful under those circumstances! Data viewers can be used any time we want to see the data that is actually in the pipeline;  they stop the package temporarily until we shut them.  Also remember that the Row Count shape can be used as a “Dead End”.  It is useful during development when we want to see the output from a dataflow, but don’t want to update a table or file with the data.  Data viewers are an invaluable tool for both development and debugging.  Just remember to REMOVE THEM before putting your package into production

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• Rails - How to use modal form to add object in one model, then reflect that change on main page?

  - by Jim

  I'm working on a Rails app and I've come across a situation where I'm unsure of the cleanest way to proceed. I posted a question on SO with code samples and such - it has received no answers, and the more I think about the problem, the more I think I might be approaching this the wrong way. (See the SO question at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9521319/how-to-reference-form-when-rendering-partial-from-js-erb-file) So, in more of a generic architecture type question: Right now I have a form where a user can add a new recipe. The form also allows the user to select ingredients (it uses a collection_select which contains Ingredient.all). The catch is - I'd like the user to be able to add a new ingredient on the fly, without leaving the recipe form. Using a hidden div and some jQuery/AJAX, I have a link the user can click to popup a modal form containing ingredients/new.html.erb which is a simple form. When that form is submitted, I call ingredients/create.js.erb to validate the ingredient was saved and hide the modal div. Now I am back to my recipe form, but my collection_select hasn't updated. It seems I have a few choices here: try and re-render the collection_select portion of the form so it grabs a new list of ingredients. This was the method I was attempting when I wrote the SO question. The problem I run into is the partial I use for the collection_select needs the parent form passed in, and when I try and render from the JS file I don't know how to pass it the form object. Reload the recipe form. This works (the collection_select now contains the new ingredient), but the user loses any progress they made on the recipe form. I would need a way to persist the form data - I thought about manually passing the values back and forth, but that is sloppy and there has to be a better way... Try and manually insert the tags using jQuery - this would be simple, but because I'm allowing for multiple ingredients to be added, I can't be certain what ID to target. Now, I can't be the only person to have this issue - so is there an easier way I'm missing? I like option 2 above, but I don't know if there's an easy way to grab the entire params hash as if I had submitted the main recipes form. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction so I can find an answer to this... If this doesn't make any sense at all, let me know - I can post code samples if you want, but most of the pertinent code is up on the SO question. Thanks!

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• Usage of repository between EF model and code consumer

  - by jim

  I have binary data in my database that I'll have to convert to bitmap at some point. I was thinking whether or not it's appropriate to use a repository and do it there. My consumer, which is a presentation layer, will use this repository. For example: // This is a class I created for modeling the item as is. public class RealItem { public string Name { get; set; } public Bitmap Image { get; set; } } public abstract class BaseRepository { //using Unity (http://unity.codeplex.com) to inject the dependancy of entity context. [Dependency] public Context { get; set; } } public calss ItemRepository : BaseRepository { public List<Items> Select() { IEnumerable<Items> items = from item in Context.Items select item; List<RealItem> lst = new List<RealItem>(); foreach(itm in items) { MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(itm.Image); Bitmap image = (Bitmap)Image.FromStream(stream); RealItem ritem = new RealItem{ Name=item.Name, Image=image }; lst.Add(ritem); } return lst; } } Is this a correct way to use the repository pattern? I'm learning this pattern and I've seen a lot of examples online that are using a repository but when I looked at their source code... for example: public IQueryable<object> Select { return from q in base.Context select q; } as you can see no behavior is added to the system by their approach, so I was confused that maybe repository is something else and I got it all wrong. At the end there should be extra benifits of using them right?

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• The Great PST Migration

  Having recently been on the front lines of a massive PST import operation, Sean Duffy offers advice and points out pitfalls. More than anything, he wishes he had a simple tool with which to banish PST hell, and finishes with some hard-won guidelines.

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• Raspberry Pi and Java SE: A Platform for the Masses

  - by Jim Connors

  One of the more exciting developments in the embedded systems world has been the announcement and availability of the Raspberry Pi, a very capable computer that is no bigger than a credit card.  At $35 US, initial demand for the device was so significant, that very long back orders quickly ensued. After months of patiently waiting, mine finally arrived.  Those initial growing pains appear to have been fixed, so availability now should be much more reasonable. At a very high level, here are some of the important specs: Broadcom BCM2835 System on a chip (SoC) ARM1176JZFS, with floating point, running at 700MHz Videocore 4 GPU capable of BluRay quality playback 256Mb RAM 2 USB ports and Ethernet Boots from SD card Linux distributions (e.g. Debian) available So what's taking place taking place with respect to the Java platform and Raspberry Pi? A Java SE Embedded binary suitable for the Raspberry Pi is available for download (Arm v6/7) here.  Note, this is based on the armel architecture, a variety of Arm designed to support floating point through a compatibility library that operates on more platforms, but can hamper performance.  In order to use this Java SE binary, select the available Debian distribution for your Raspberry Pi. The more recent Raspbian distribution is based on the armhf (hard float) architecture, which provides for more efficient hardware-based floating point operations.  However armhf is not binary compatible with armel.  As of the writing of this blog, Java SE Embedded binaries are not yet publicly available for the armhf-based Raspbian distro, but as mentioned in Henrik Stahl's blog, an armhf release is in the works. As demonstrated at the just-completed JavaOne 2012 San Francisco event, the graphics processing unit inside the Raspberry Pi is very capable indeed, and makes for an excellent candidate for JavaFX.  As such, plans also call for a Pi-optimized version of JavaFX in a future release too. A thriving community around the Raspberry Pi has developed at light speed, and as evidenced by the packed attendance at Pi-specific sessions at Java One 2012, the interest in Java for this platform is following suit. So stay tuned for more developments...

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