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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 22, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, October 22, 2011Popular ReleasesWatchersNET CKEditor™ Provider for DotNetNuke®: CKEditor Provider 1.12.17: Changes Added FilePath Length Check when Uploading Files. Fixed Issue #6550 Fixed Issue #6536 Fixed Issue #6525 Fixed Issue #6500 Fixed Issue #6401 Fixed Issue #6490DotNet.Framework.Common: DotNet.Framework.Common 4.0: ??????????，????????????XML Explorer: XML Explorer 4.0.5: Changes in 4.0.5: Added 'Copy Attribute XPath to Address Bar' feature. Added methods for decoding node text and value from Base64 encoded strings, and copying them to the clipboard. Added 'ChildNodeDefinitions' to the options, which allows for easier navigation of parent-child and ID-IDREF relationships. Discovery happens on-demand, as nodes are expanded and child nodes are added. Nodes can now have 'virtual' child nodes, defined by an xpath to select an identifier (usually relative to ...Media Companion: MC 3.419b Weekly: A couple of minor bug fixes, but the important fix in this release is to tackle the extremely long load times for users with large TV collections (issue #130). A note has been provided by developer Playos: "One final note, you will have to suffer one final long load and then it should be fixed... alternatively you can delete the TvCache.xml and rebuild your library... The fix was to include the file extension so it doesn't have to look for the video file (checking to see if a file exists is a...CODE Framework: 4.0.11021.0: This build adds a lot of our WPF components, including our MVVC and MVC components as well as a "Metro" and "Battleship" style.Manejo de tags - PHP sobre apache: tagqrphp: Primera version: Para que funcione el programa se debe primero obtener un id para desarrollo del tag eso lo entrega Microsoft registrandose en el sitio. http://tag.microsoft.com - En tagm.php que llama a la libreria Microsoft Tag PHP Library (Codigo que sirve para trabajar con PHP y Tag) - Llenamos los datos del formulario y ejecutamos para obtener el codigo tag de microsoft el cual apunte a la url que le indicamos en el formulario - Libreria MStag.php (tiene mucha explicación del funciona...GridLibre para Visual FoxPro: GridLibre para Visual FoxPro v3.5: GridLibre Para Visual FoxPro: esta herramienta ayudara a los usuarios y programadores en los manejos de los datos, como Filtrar, multiseleccion y el autoformato a las columnas como la asignacion del controlsource.Self-Tracking Entity Generator for WPF and Silverlight: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 0.9.9: Self-Tracking Entity Generator v 0.9.9 for Entity Framework 4.0Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 5.0 CMS Alpha 3: Umbraco 5 Alpha 3Umbraco 5 (aka Jupiter) will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out the Alpha of v5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video. What's Alpha 3?This is our third Alpha release. It's intended for developers looking to become familiar with the codebase & architecture, or for thos...Vkontakte WP: Vkontakte: source codeWay2Sms Applications for Android, Desktop/Laptop & Java enabled phones: Way2SMS Desktop App v2.0: 1. Fixed issue with sending messages due to changes to Way2Sms site 2. Updated the character limit to 160 from 140GART - Geo Augmented Reality Toolkit: 1.0.1: About Release 1.0.1 Release 1.0.1 is a service release that addresses several issues and improves performance. As always, check the Documentation tab for instructions on how to get started. If you don't have the Windows Phone SDK yet, grab it here. Breaking Change Please note: There is a breaking change in this release. As noted below, the WorldCalculationMode property of ARItem has been replaced by a user-definable function. ARItem is now automatically wired up with a function that perform...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.32: Fix for issue #16710 - string literals in "constant literal operations" which contain ASP.NET substitutions should not be considered "constant." Move the JS1284 error (Misplaced Function Declaration) so it only fires when in strict mode. I got a couple complaints that people didn't like that error popping up in their existing code when they could verify that the location of that function, although not strict JS, still functions as expected cross-browser.Naked Objects: Naked Objects Release 4.0.110.0: Corresponds to the packaged version 4.0.110.0 available via NuGet. Please note that the easiest way to install and run the Naked Objects Framework is via the NuGet package manager: just search the Official NuGet Package Source for 'nakedobjects'. It is only necessary to download the source code (from here) if you wish to modify or re-build the framework yourself. If you do wish to re-build the framework, consul the file HowToBuild.txt in the release. Documentation Please note that after ...myCollections: Version 1.5: New in this version : Added edit type for selected elements Added clean for selected elements Added Amazon Italia Added Amazon China Added TVDB Italia Added TVDB China Added Turkish language You can now manually add artist Added Order by Rating Improved Add by Media Improved Artist Detail Upgrade Sqlite engine View, Zoom, Grouping, Filter are now saved by category Added group by Artist Added CubeCover View BugFixingFacebook C# SDK: 5.3: This is a BETA release which adds new features and bug fixes to v5.2.1. removed dependency from Code Contracts enabled Task Parallel Support in .NET 4.0+ added support for early preview for .NET 4.5 added additional method overloads for .NET 4.5 to support IProgress<T> for upload progress added new CS-WinForms-AsyncAwait.sln sample demonstrating the use of async/await, upload progress report using IProgress<T> and cancellation support Query/QueryAsync methods uses graph api instead...IronPython: 2.7.1 RC: This is the first release candidate of IronPython 2.7.1. Like IronPython 54498, this release requires .NET 4 or Silverlight 4. This release will replace any existing IronPython installation. If there are no showstopping issues, this will be the only release candidate for 2.7.1, so please speak up if you run into any roadblocks. The highlights of 2.7.1 are: Updated the standard library to match CPython 2.7.2. Add the ast, csv, and unicodedata modules. Fixed several bugs. IronPython To...Rawr: Rawr 4.2.6: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...Home Access Plus+: v7.5: Change Log: New Booking System (out of Beta) New Help Desk (out of Beta) New My Files (Developer Preview) Token now saved into Cookie so the system doesn't TIMEOUT as much File Changes: ~/bin/hap.ad.dll ~/bin/hap.web.dll ~/bin/hap.data.dll ~/bin/hap.web.configuration.dll ~/bookingsystem/admin/default.aspx ~/bookingsystem/default.aspx REMOVED ~/bookingsystem/bookingpopup.ascx REMOVED ~/bookingsystem/daylist.ascx REMOVED ~/bookingsystem/new.aspx ~/helpdesk/default.aspx ...Visual Micro - Arduino for Visual Studio: Arduino for Visual Studio 2008 and 2010: Arduino for Visual Studio 2010 has been extended to support Visual Studio 2008. The same functionality and configuration exists between the two versions. The 2010 addin runs .NET4 and the 2008 addin runs .NET3.5, both are installed using a single msi and both share the same configuration settings. The only known issue in 2008 is that the button and menu icons are missing. Please logon to the visual micro forum and let us know if things are working or not. Read more about this Visual Studio ...New Projects#foo Core: Core functionality extensions of .NET used by all HashFoo projects.#foo Nhib: #foo NHibernate extensions.Aagust G: Hello all ! Its a free JQuery Image Slider....ACP Log Analyzer: ACP Log Analyzer provides a quick and easy mechanism for generating a report on your ACP-based astronomical observing activities. Developed in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 using C#, the .NET Framework version 4 and WPF.BlobShare Sample: TBDCompletedWorkflowCleanUp: This tool once executed on a list delete all completed workflow instancesCRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor is a tool for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 that lets you edit CRM ribbons. This ribbon editor shows a preview of the CRM ribbon as you are editing it and allows you to add ribbon buttons and groups without needing to fully understand the ribbon XML schema.GearMerge: Organizes Movies and TV Series files from one Hard Drive to another. I created it for myself to update external drives with movies and TV shows from my collection.Generic Object Storage Helper for WinRT: ObjectStorageHelper<T> is a Generic class that simplifies storage of data in WinRT applications.Government Sanctioned Espionage RPG: Government Sanctioned is a modern SRD-like espionage game server. Visit http://wiki.government-sanctioned.us:8040 for game design and play information or homepage http://www.government-sanctioned.us Government Sanctioned is an online, text-based espionage RPG (similar to a MUD/MOO) that takes place against the backdrop of a highly-secretive U.S. Government agency whose stated goals don't always match the dirty work the agents tend to find themselves in. - over 15 starting profession...GridLibre para Visual FoxPro: GridLibre Para Visual FoxPro: esta herramienta ayudara a los usuarios y programadores en los manejos de los datos, como Filtrar, multiseleccion y el autoformato a las columnas como la asignacion del controlsource.HTML5 Video Web Part for SharePoint 2010: A web part for SharePoint 2010 that enable users playing video into the page using the Ribbon bar.Jogo do Galo: JOGO DO GALO REGRAS •O tabuleiro é a matriz de três linhas em três colunas. •Dois jogadores escolhem três peças cada um. •Os jogadores jogam alternadamente, uma peça de cada vez, num espaço que esteja vazio. •O objectivo é conseguir três peças iguais em linha, quer horizontal, vKarol sie uczy silverlajta: on sie naprawde tego uczy!Manejo de tags - PHP sobre apache: Hago uso de la libreria Microsoft Tag PHP Library para que pueda funcionar la aplicación sobre Apache finalmente puede crear tag de micrsosoft desde el formulario creado. Modem based SMS Gateway: It is an easy to use modem based SMS server that provide easier solutions for SMS marketing or SMS based services. It is highly programmable and the easy to use API interface makes SMS integration very easy. Embedded SMS processor provides customized solution to many of your needs even without building any custom software.Mund Publishing Feture: Mund Publishing FeatureMyTFSTest: TestNHS HL7 CDA Document Developer: A project to demonstrate how templated HL7 CDA documents can be created by using a common API. The API is designed to be used in .NET applications. A number of examples are provided using C#OpenShell: OpenShell is an open source implementation of the Windows PowerShell engine. It is to make integrating PowerShell into standalone console programs simple.Powershell Script to Copy Lists in a Site Collection in MOSS 2007 and SPS 2010: Hi, This is a powershell script file that copies a list within the same site collection. This works in Sharepoint 2007 and Sharepoint 2010 as well. THis will flash the messages before taking the input values. This will in this way provide the clear ideas about the values to beSharePoint Desktop: SharePoint Desktop is a explorer-like webpart that makes it possible to drag and drop items (documents and folders), copy and paste items and explore all SharePoint document libraries in 1 place.SQL floating point compare function: Comparison of floating point values in SQL Server not always gives the expected result. With this function, comparison is only done on the first 15 significant digits. Since SQL Server only garantees a precision of 15 digits for float datatypes, this is expected to be secure.Stock Analyzer: It is a stock management software. It's main job is to store market realtime data on a database to be able to analyse it latter and create automatic systems that operate directly on the stock exchange market. It will have different modules to do this task: - Realtime data capture. - Realtime data analysis - Historic analysis. - Order execution. - Strategy test. - Strategy execution. It's developed in C# and with WPF.VB_Skype: VB_Skype utilizza la libreria Skype4COM per integrare i servizi Skype con un'applicazione Visual Basic (Windows Forms). L'applicazione comprende un progetto di controllo personalizzato che costituisce il "wrapper" verso la libreria Skype4COM e un progetto con una demo di utilizzo. Progetto che dovrebbe essere utilizzato nella mia sessione, come uno degli speaker della conferenza "WPC 2011" che si terrà ad Assago (MI) nei giorni 22-23-24 Novembre 2011. La mia sessione è in agenda per il 24...Word Template Generator: Custom Template Generator for Microsoft Word, developed in C#?????OA??: ?????OA??

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• Portal And Content - Content Integration - Best Practices

  - by Stefan Krantz

  Lately we have seen an increase in projects that have failed to either get user friendly content integration or non satisfactory performance. Our intention is to mitigate any knowledge gap that our previous post might have left you with, therefore this post will repeat some recommendation or reference back to old useful post. Moreover this post will help you understand ground up how to design, architect and implement business enabled, responsive and performing portals with complex requirements on business centric information publishing. Design the Information Model The key to successful portal deployments is Information modeling, it's a key task to understand the use case you designing for, therefore I have designed a set of question you need to ask yourself or your customer: Question: Who will own the content, IT or Business? Answer: BusinessQuestion: Who will publish the content, IT or Business? Answer: BusinessQuestion: Will there be multiple publishers? Answer: YesQuestion: Are the publishers computer scientist?Answer: NoQuestion: How often do the information changes, daily, weekly, monthly?Answer: Daily, weekly If your answers to the questions matches at least 2, we strongly recommend you design your content with following principles: Divide your pages in to logical sections, where each section is marked with its purpose Assign capabilities to each section, does it contain text, images, formatting and/or is it static and is populated through other contextual information Select editor/design element type WYSIWYG - Rich Text Plain Text - non-format text Image - Image object Static List - static list of formatted informationDynamic Data List - assembled information from multiple data files through CMIS query The result of such design map could look like following below examples: Based on the outcome of the required elements in the design column 3 from the left you will now simply design a data model in WebCenter Content - Site Studio by creating a Region Definition structure matching your design requirements.For more information on how to create a Region definition see following post: Region Definition Post - note see instruction 7 for details. Each region definition can now be used to instantiate data files, a data file will hold the actual data for each element in the region definition. Another way you can see this is to compare the region definition as an extension to the metadata model in WebCenter Content for each data file item. Design content templates With a solid dependable information model we can now proceed to template creation and page design, in this phase focuses on how to place the content sections from the region definition on the page via a Content Presenter template. Remember by creating content presenter templates you will leverage the latest and most integrated technology WebCenter has to offer. This phase is much easier since the you already have the information model and design wire-frames to base the logic on, however there is still few considerations to pay attention to: Base the template on ADF and make only necessary exceptions to markup when required Leverage ADF design components for Tabs, Accordions and other similar components, this way the design in the content published areas will comply with other design areas based on custom ADF taskflows There is no performance impact when using meta data or region definition based data All data access regardless of type, metadata or xml data it can be accessed via the Content Presenter - Node. See below for applied examples on how to access data Access metadata property from Document - #{node.propertyMap['myProp'].value}myProp in this example can be for instance (dDocName, dDocTitle, xComments or any other available metadata) Access element data from data file xml - #{node.propertyMap['[Region Definition Name]:[Element name]'].asTextHtml}Region Definition Name is the expect region definition that the current data file is instantiatingElement name is the element value you like to grab from the data file I recommend you read following  useful post on content template topic:CMIS queries and template creation - note see instruction 9 for detailsStatic List template rendering For more information on templates:Single Item Content TemplateMulti Item Content TemplateExpression Language Internationalization Considerations When integrating content assets via content presenter you by now probably understand that the content item/data file is wired to the page, what is also pretty common at this stage is that the content item/data file only support one language since its not practical or business friendly to mix that into a complex structure. Therefore you will be left with a very common dilemma that you will have to either build a complete new portal for each locale, which is not an good option! However with little bit of information modeling and clear naming convention this can be addressed. Basically you can simply make sure that all content item/data file are named with a predictable naming convention like "Content1_EN" for the English rendition and "Content1_ES" for the Spanish rendition. This way through simple none complex customizations you will be able to dynamically switch the actual content item/data file just before rendering. By following proposed approach above you not only enable a simple mechanism for internationalized content you also preserve the functionality in the content presenter to support business accessible run-time publishing of information on existing and new pages. I recommend you read following useful post on Internationalization topics:Internationalize with Content Presenter Integrate with Review & Approval processes Today the Review and approval functionality and configuration is based out of WebCenter Content - Criteria Workflows. Criteria Workflows uses the metadata of the checked in document to evaluate if the document is under any review/approval process. So for instance if a Criteria Workflow is configured to force any documents with Version = "2" or "higher" and Content Type is "Instructions", any matching content item version on check in will now enter the workflow before getting released for general access. Few things to consider when configuring Criteria Workflows: Make sure to not trigger on version one for Content Items that are Data Files - if you trigger on version 1 you will not only approve an empty document you will also have a content presenter pointing to a none existing document - since the document will only be available after successful completion of the workflow Approval workflows sometimes requires more complex criteria, the recommendation if that is the case is that the meta data triggering such criteria is automatically populated, this can be achieved through many approaches including Content Profiles Criteria workflows are configured and managed in WebCenter Content Administration Applets where you can configure one or more workflows. When you configured Criteria workflows the Content Presenter will support the editors with the approval process directly inline in the "Contribution mode" of the portal. In addition to approve/reject and details of the task, the content presenter natively support the user to view the current and future version of the change he/she is approving. See below for example: Architectural recommendation To support review&approval processes - minimize the amount of data files per page Each CMIS query can consume significant time depending on the complexity of the query - minimize the amount of CMIS queries per page Use Content Presenter Templates based on ADF - this way you minimize the design considerations and optimize the usage of caching Implement the page in as few Data files as possible - simplifies publishing process, increases performance and simplifies release process Named data file (node) or list of named nodes when integrating to pages increases performance vs. querying for data Named data file (node) or list of named nodes when integrating to pages enables business centric page creation and publishing and reduces the need for IT department interaction Summary Just because one architectural decision solves a business problem it doesn't mean its the right one, when designing portals all architecture has to be in harmony and not impacting each other. For instance the most technical complex solution is not always the best since it will most likely defeat the business accessibility, performance or both, therefore the best approach is to first design for simplicity that even a non-technical user can operate, after that consider the performance impact and final look at the technology challenges these brings and workaround them first with out-of-the-box features, after that design and develop functions to complement the short comings.

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• Using SQL Execution Plans to discover the Swedish alphabet

  - by Rob Farley

  SQL Server is quite remarkable in a bunch of ways. In this post, I’m using the way that the Query Optimizer handles LIKE to keep it SARGable, the Execution Plans that result, Collations, and PowerShell to come up with the Swedish alphabet. SARGability is the ability to seek for items in an index according to a particular set of criteria. If you don’t have SARGability in play, you need to scan the whole index (or table if you don’t have an index). For example, I can find myself in the phonebook easily, because it’s sorted by LastName and I can find Farley in there by moving to the Fs, and so on. I can’t find everyone in my suburb easily, because the phonebook isn’t sorted that way. I can’t even find people who have six letters in their last name, because also the book is sorted by LastName, it’s not sorted by LEN(LastName). This is all stuff I’ve looked at before, including in the talk I gave at SQLBits in October 2010. If I try to find everyone who’s names start with F, I can do that using a query a bit like: SELECT LastName FROM dbo.PhoneBook WHERE LEFT(LastName,1) = 'F'; Unfortunately, the Query Optimizer doesn’t realise that all the entries that satisfy LEFT(LastName,1) = 'F' will be together, and it has to scan the whole table to find them. But if I write: SELECT LastName FROM dbo.PhoneBook WHERE LastName LIKE 'F%'; then SQL is smart enough to understand this, and performs an Index Seek instead. To see why, I look further into the plan, in particular, the properties of the Index Seek operator. The ToolTip shows me what I’m after: You’ll see that it does a Seek to find any entries that are at least F, but not yet G. There’s an extra Predicate in there (a Residual Predicate if you like), which checks that each LastName is really LIKE F% – I suppose it doesn’t consider that the Seek Predicate is quite enough – but most of the benefit is seen by its working out the Seek Predicate, filtering to just the “at least F but not yet G” section of the data. This got me curious though, particularly about where the G comes from, and whether I could leverage it to create the Swedish alphabet. I know that in the Swedish language, there are three extra letters that appear at the end of the alphabet. One of them is ä that appears in the word Västerås. It turns out that Västerås is quite hard to find in an index when you’re looking it up in a Swedish map. I talked about this briefly in my five-minute talk on Collation from SQLPASS (the one which was slightly less than serious). So by looking at the plan, I can work out what the next letter is in the alphabet of the collation used by the column. In other words, if my alphabet were Swedish, I’d be able to tell what the next letter after F is – just in case it’s not G. It turns out it is… Yes, the Swedish letter after F is G. But I worked this out by using a copy of my PhoneBook table that used the Finnish_Swedish_CI_AI collation. I couldn’t find how the Query Optimizer calculates the G, and my friend Paul White (@SQL_Kiwi) tells me that it’s frustratingly internal to the QO. He’s particularly smart, even if he is from New Zealand. To investigate further, I decided to do some PowerShell, leveraging the Get-SqlPlan function that I blogged about recently (make sure you also have the SqlServerCmdletSnapin100 snap-in added). I started by indicating that I was going to use Finnish_Swedish_CI_AI as my collation of choice, and that I’d start whichever letter cam straight after the number 9. I figure that this is a cheat’s way of guessing the first letter of the alphabet (but it doesn’t actually work in Unicode – luckily I’m using varchar not nvarchar. Actually, there are a few aspects of this code that only work using ASCII, so apologies if you were wanting to apply it to Greek, Japanese, etc). I also initialised my $alphabet variable. $collation = 'Finnish_Swedish_CI_AI'; $firstletter = '9'; $alphabet = ''; Now I created the table for my test. A single field would do, and putting a Clustered Index on it would suffice for the Seeks. Invoke-Sqlcmd -server . -data tempdb -query "create table dbo.collation_test (col varchar(10) collate $collation primary key);" Now I get into the looping. $c = $firstletter; $stillgoing = $true; while ($stillgoing) { I construct the query I want, seeking for entries which start with whatever $c has reached, and get the plan for it: $query = "select col from dbo.collation_test where col like '$($c)%';"; [xml] $pl = get-sqlplan $query "." "tempdb"; At this point, my $pl variable is a scary piece of XML, representing the execution plan. A bit of hunting through it showed me that the EndRange element contained what I was after, and that if it contained NULL, then I was done. $stillgoing = ($pl.ShowPlanXML.BatchSequence.Batch.Statements.StmtSimple.QueryPlan.RelOp.IndexScan.SeekPredicates.SeekPredicateNew.SeekKeys.EndRange -ne $null); Now I could grab the value out of it (which came with apostrophes that needed stripping), and append that to my $alphabet variable.   if ($stillgoing)   {  $c=$pl.ShowPlanXML.BatchSequence.Batch.Statements.StmtSimple.QueryPlan.RelOp.IndexScan.SeekPredicates.SeekPredicateNew.SeekKeys.EndRange.RangeExpressions.ScalarOperator.ScalarString.Replace("'","");     $alphabet += $c;   } Finally, finishing the loop, dropping the table, and showing my alphabet! } Invoke-Sqlcmd -server . -data tempdb -query "drop table dbo.collation_test;"; $alphabet; When I run all this, I see that the Swedish alphabet is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZÅÄÖ, which matches what I see at Wikipedia. Interesting to see that the letters on the end are still there, even with Case Insensitivity. Turns out they’re not just “letters with accents”, they’re letters in their own right. I’m sure you gave up reading long ago, and really aren’t that fazed about the idea of doing this using PowerShell. I chose PowerShell because I’d already come up with an easy way of grabbing the estimated plan for a query, and PowerShell does allow for easy navigation of XML. I find the most interesting aspect of this as the fact that the Query Optimizer uses the next letter of the alphabet to maintain the SARGability of LIKE. I’m hoping they do something similar for a whole bunch of operations. Oh, and the fact that you know how to find stuff in the IKEA catalogue. Footnote: If you are interested in whether this works in other languages, you might want to consider the following screenshot, which shows that in principle, it should work with Japanese. It might be a bit harder to run this in PowerShell though, as I’m not sure how it translates. In Hiragana, the Japanese alphabet starts ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ...

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• How I do VCS

  - by Wes McClure

  After years of dabbling with different version control systems and techniques, I wanted to share some of what I like and dislike in a few blog posts.  To start this out, I want to talk about how I use VCS in a team environment.  These come in a series of tips or best practices that I try to follow.  Note: This list is subject to change in the future. Always use some form of version control for all aspects of software development. Development is an evolution.  Looking back at where we were is an invaluable asset in that process.  This includes data schemas and documentation. Reverting / reapplying changes is absolutely critical for efficient development. The tools I use: Code: Hg (preferred), SVN Database: TSqlMigrations Documents: Sometimes in code repository, also SharePoint with versioning Always tag a commit (changeset) with comments This is a quick way to describe to someone else (or your future self) what the changeset entails. Be brief but courteous. One or two sentences about the task, not the actual changes. Use precommit hooks or setup the central repository to reject changes without comments. Link changesets to documentation If your project management system integrates with version control, or has a way to externally reference stories, tasks etc then leave a reference in the commit.  This helps locate more information about the commit and/or related changesets. It’s best to have a precommit hook or system that requires this information, otherwise it’s easy to forget. Ability to work offline is required, including commits and history Yes this requires a DVCS locally but doesn’t require the central repository to be a DVCS.  I prefer to use either Git or Hg but if it isn’t possible to migrate the central repository, it’s still possible for a developer to push / pull changes to that repository from a local Hg or Git repository. Never lock resources (files) in a central repository… Rude! We have merge tools for a reason, merging sucked a long time ago, it doesn’t anymore… stop locking files! This is unproductive, rude and annoying to other team members. Always review everything in your commit. Never ever commit a set of files without reviewing the changes in each. Never add a file without asking yourself, deep down inside, does this belong? If you leave to make changes during a review, start the review over when you come back.  Never assume you didn’t touch a file, double check. This is another reason why you want to avoid large, infrequent commits. Requirements for tools Quickly show pending changes for the entire repository. Default action for a resource with pending changes is a diff. Pluggable diff & merge tool Produce a unified diff or a diff of all changes.  This is helpful to bulk review changes instead of opening each file. The central repository is not your own personal dump yard.  Breaking this rule is a sure fire way to get the F bomb dropped in front of your name, multiple times. If you turn on Visual Studio’s commit on closing studio option, I will personally break your fingers. By the way, the person(s) in charge of this feature should be fired and never be allowed near programming, ever again. Commit (integrate) to the central repository / branch frequently I try to do this before leaving each day, especially without a DVCS.  One never knows when they might need to work from remote the following day. Never commit commented out code If it isn’t needed anymore, delete it! If you aren’t sure if it might be useful in the future, delete it! This is why we have history. If you don’t know why it’s commented out, figure it out and then either uncomment it or delete it. Don’t commit build artifacts, user preferences and temporary files. Build artifacts do not belong in VCS, everything in them is present in the code. (ie: bin\*, obj\*, *.dll, *.exe) User preferences are your settings, stop overriding my preferences files! (ie: *.suo and *.user files) Most tools allow you to ignore certain files and Hg/Git allow you to version this as an ignore file.  Set this up as a first step when creating a new repository! Be polite when merging unresolved conflicts. Count to 10, cuss, grab a stress ball and realize it’s not a big deal.  Actually, it’s an opportunity to let you know that someone else is working in the same area and you might want to communicate with them. Following the other rules, especially committing frequently, will reduce the likelihood of this. Suck it up, we all have to deal with this unintended consequence at times.  Just be careful and GET FAMILIAR with your merge tool.  It’s really not as scary as you think.  I personally prefer KDiff3 as its merging capabilities rock. Don’t blindly merge and then blindly commit your changes, this is rude and unprofessional.  Make sure you understand why the conflict occurred and which parts of the code you want to keep.  Apply scrutiny when you commit a manual merge: review the diff! Make sure you test the changes (build and run automated tests) Become intimate with your version control system and the tools you use with it. Avoid trial and error as much as is possible, sit down and test the tool out, read some tutorials etc.  Create test repositories and walk through common scenarios. Find the most efficient way to do your work.  These tools will be used repetitively, so inefficiencies will add up. Sometimes this involves a mix of tools, both GUI and CLI. I like a combination of both Tortoise Hg and hg cli to get the job efficiently. Always tag releases Create a way to find a given release, whether this be in comments or an explicit tag / branch.  This should be readily discoverable. Create release branches to patch bugs and then merge the changes back to other development branch(es). If using feature branches, strive for periodic integrations. Feature branches often cause forked code that becomes irreconcilable.  Strive to re-integrate somewhat frequently with the branch this code will ultimately be merged into.  This will avoid merge conflicts in the future. Feature branches are best when they are mutually exclusive of active development in other branches. Use and abuse local commits , at least one per task in a story. This builds a trail of changes in your local repository that can be pushed to a central repository when the story is complete. Never commit a broken build or failing tests to the central repository. It’s ok for a local commit to break the build and/or tests.  In fact, I encourage this if it helps group the changes more logically.  This is one of the main reasons I got excited about DVCS, when I wanted more than one changeset for a set of pending changes but some files could be grouped into both changesets (like solution file / project file changes). If you have more than a dozen outstanding changed resources, there should probably be more than one commit involved. Exceptions when maintaining code bases that require shotgun surgery, in this case, it’s a design smell :) Don’t version sensitive information Especially usernames / passwords   There is one area I haven’t found a solution I like yet: versioning 3rd party libraries and/or code.  I really dislike keeping any assemblies in the repository, but seems to be a common practice for external libraries.  Please feel free to share your ideas about this below.    -Wes

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• UppercuT &ndash; Custom Extensions Now With PowerShell and Ruby

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Arguably, one of the most powerful features of UppercuT (UC) is the ability to extend any step of the build process with a pre, post, or replace hook. This customization is done in a separate location from the build so you can upgrade without wondering if you broke the build. There is a hook before each step of the build has run. There is a hook after. And back to power again, there is a replacement hook. If you don’t like what the step is doing and/or you want to replace it’s entire functionality, you just drop a custom replacement extension and UppercuT will perform the custom step instead. Up until recently all custom hooks had to be written in NAnt. Now they are a little sweeter because you no longer need to use NAnt to extend UC if you don’t want to. You can use PowerShell. Or Ruby.   Let that sink in for a moment. You don’t have to even need to interact with NAnt at all now. Extension Points On the wiki, all of the extension points are shown. The basic idea is that you would put whatever customization you are doing in a separate folder named build.custom. Each step Let’s take a look at all we can customize: The start point is default.build. It calls build.custom/default.pre.build if it exists, then it runs build/default.build (normal tasks) OR build.custom/default.replace.build if it exists, and finally build.custom/default.post.build if it exists. Every step below runs with the same extension points but changes on the file name it is looking for. NOTE: If you include default.replace.build, nothing else will run because everything is called from default.build.    * policyChecks.step    * versionBuilder.step NOTE: If you include build.custom/versionBuilder.replace.step, the items below will not run.      - svn.step, tfs.step, or git.step (the custom tasks for these need to go in build.custom/versioners)    * generateBuildInfo.step    * compile.step    * environmentBuilder.step    * analyze.step NOTE: If you include build.custom/analyze.replace.step, the items below will not run.      - test.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers) NOTE: If you include build.custom/analyzers/test.replace.step, the items below will not run.        + mbunit2.step, gallio.step, or nunit.step (the custom tasks for these need to go in build.custom/analyzers)      - ncover.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers)      - ndepend.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers)      - moma.step (the custom tasks for this need to go in build.custom/analyzers)    * package.step NOTE: If you include build.custom/package.replace.step, the items below will not run.      - deploymentBuilder.step Customize UppercuT Builds With PowerShell UppercuT can now be extended with PowerShell (PS). To customize any extension point with PS, just add .ps1 to the end of the file name and write your custom tasks in PowerShell. If you are not signing your scripts you will need to change a setting in the UppercuT.config file. This does impose a security risk, because this allows PS to now run any PS script. This setting stays that way on ANY machine that runs the build until manually changed by someone. I’m not responsible if you mess up your machine or anyone else’s by doing this. You’ve been warned. Now that you are fully aware of any security holes you may open and are okay with that, let’s move on. Let’s create a file called default.replace.build.ps1 in the build.custom folder. Open that file in notepad and let’s add this to it: write-host "hello - I'm a custom task written in Powershell!" Now, let’s run build.bat. You could get some PSake action going here. I won’t dive into that in this post though. Customize UppercuT Builds With Ruby If you want to customize any extension point with Ruby, just add .rb to the end of the file name and write your custom tasks in Ruby.  Let’s write a custom ruby task for UC. If you were thinking it would be the same as the one we just wrote for PS, you’d be right! In the build.custom folder, lets create a file called default.replace.build.rb. Open that file in notepad and let’s put this in there: puts "I'm a custom ruby task!" Now, let’s run build.bat again. That’s chunky bacon. UppercuT and Albacore.NET Just for fun, I wanted to see if I could replace the compile.step with a Rake task. Not just any rake task, Albacore’s msbuild task. Albacore is a suite of rake tasks brought about by Derick Bailey to make building .NET with Rake easier. It has quite a bit of support with developers that are using Rake to build code. In my build.custom folder, I drop a compile.replace.step.rb. I also put in a separate file that will contain my Albacore rake task and I call that compile.rb. What are the contents of compile.replace.step.rb? rake = 'rake' arguments= '-f ' + Dir.pwd + '/../build.custom/compile.rb' #puts "Calling #{rake} " + arguments system("#{rake} " + arguments) Since the custom extensions call ruby, we have to shell back out and call rake. That’s what we are doing here. We also realize that ruby is called from the build folder, so we need to back out and dive into the build.custom folder to find the file that is technically next to us. What are the contents of compile.rb? require 'rubygems' require 'fileutils' require 'albacore' task :default => [:compile] puts "Using Ruby to compile UppercuT with Albacore Tasks" desc 'Compile the source' msbuild :compile do |msb| msb.properties = { :configuration => :Release, :outputpath => '../../build_output/UppercuT' } msb.targets [:clean, :build] msb.verbosity = "quiet" msb.path_to_command = 'c:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v3.5/MSBuild.exe' msb.solution = '../uppercut.sln' end We are using the msbuild task here. We change the output path to the build_output/UppercuT folder. The output path has “../../” because this is based on every project. We could grab the current directory and then point the task specifically to a folder if we have projects that are at different levels. We want the verbosity to be quiet so we set that as well. So what kind of output do you get for this? Let’s run build.bat custom_tasks_replace:      [echo] Running custom tasks instead of normal tasks if C:\code\uppercut\build\..\build.custom\compile.replace.step exists.      [exec] (in C:/code/uppercut/build)      [exec] Using Ruby to compile UppercuT with Albacore Tasks      [exec] Microsoft (R) Build Engine Version 3.5.30729.4926      [exec] [Microsoft .NET Framework, Version 2.0.50727.4927]      [exec] Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 2007. All rights reserved. If you think this is awesome, you’d be right!   With this knowledge you shall build.

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• Rockmelt, the technology adoption model, and Facebook's spare internet

  - by Roger Hart

  Regardless of how good it is, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to make snide remarks about Rockmelt. After all, on the surface it looks a lot like some people spent two years building a browser instead of just bashing out a Chrome extension over a wet weekend. It probably does some more stuff. I don't know for sure because artificial scarcity is cool, apparently, so the "invitation" is still in the post*. I may in fact never know for sure, because I'm not wild about Facebook sign-in as a prerequisite for anything. From the video, and some initial reviews, my early reaction was: I have a browser, I have a Twitter client; what on earth is this for? The answer, of course, is "not me". Rockmelt is, in a way, quite audacious. Oh, sure, on launch day it's Bay Area bar-chat for the kids with no lenses in their retro specs and trousers that give you deep-vein thrombosis, but it's not really about them. Likewise,  Facebook just launched Google Wave, or something. And all the tech snobbery and scorn packed into describing it that way is irrelevant next to what they're doing with their platform. Here's something I drew in MS Paint** because I don't want to get sued: (see: The technology adoption lifecycle) A while ago in the Guardian, John Lanchester dusted off the idiom that "technology is stuff that doesn't work yet". The rest of the article would be quite interesting if it wasn't largely about MySpace, and he's sort of got a point. If you bolt on the sentiment that risk-averse businessmen like things that work, you've got the essence of Crossing the Chasm. Products for the mainstream market don't look much like technology. Think for  a second about early (1980s ish) hi-fi systems, with all the knobs and fiddly bits, their ostentatious technophile aesthetic. Then consider their sleeker and less (or at least less conspicuously) functional successors in the 1990s. The theory goes that innovators and early adopters like technology, it's a hobby in itself. The rest of the humans seem to like magic boxes with very few buttons that make stuff happen and never trouble them about why. Personally, I consider Apple's maddening insistence that iTunes is an acceptable way to move files around to be more or less morally unacceptable. Most people couldn't care less. Hence Rockmelt, and hence Facebook's continued growth. Rockmelt looks pointless to me, because I aggregate my social gubbins with Digsby, or use TweetDeck. But my use case is different and so are my enthusiasms. If I want to share photos, I'll use Flickr - but Facebook has photo sharing. If I want a short broadcast message, I'll use Twitter - Facebook has status updates. If I want to sell something with relatively little hassle, there's eBay - or Facebook marketplace. YouTube - check, FB Video. Email - messaging. Calendaring apps, yeah there are loads, or FB Events. What if I want to host a simple web page? Sure, they've got pages. Also Notes for blogging, and more games than I can count. This stuff is right there, where millions and millions of users are already, and for what they need it just works. It's not about me, because I'm not in the big juicy area under the curve. It's what 1990s portal sites could never have dreamed of achieving. Facebook is AOL on speed, crack, and some designer drugs it had specially imported from the future. It's a n00b-friendly gateway to the internet that just happens to serve up all the things you want to do online, right where you are. Oh, and everybody else is there too. The price of having all this and the social graph too is that you have all of this, and the social graph too. But plenty of folks have more incisive things to say than me about the whole privacy shebang, and it's not really what I'm talking about. Facebook is maintaining a vast, and fairly fully-featured training-wheels internet. And it makes up a large proportion of the online experience for a lot of people***. It's the entire web (2.0?) experience for the early and late majority. And sure, no individual bit of it is quite as slick or as fully-realised as something like Flickr (which wows me a bit every time I use it. Those guys are good at the web), but it doesn't have to be. It has to be unobtrusively good enough for the regular humans. It has to not feel like technology. This is what Rockmelt sort of is. You're online, you want something nebulously social, and you don't want to faff about with, say, Twitter clients. Wow! There it is on a really distracting sidebar, right in your browser. No effort! Yeah - fish nor fowl, much? It might work, I guess. There may be a demographic who want their social web experience more simply than tech tinkering, and who aren't just getting it from Facebook (or, for that matter, mobile devices). But I'd be surprised. Rockmelt feels like an attempt to grab a slice of Facebook-style "Look! It's right here, where you already are!", but it's still asking the mature market to install a new browser. Presumably this is where that Facebook sign-in predicate comes in handy, though it'll take some potent awareness marketing to make it fly. Meanwhile, Facebook quietly has the entire rest of the internet as a product management resource, and can continue to give most of the people most of what they want. Something that has not gone un-noticed in its potential to look a little sinister. But heck, they might even make Google Wave popular.     *This was true last week when I drafted this post. I got an invite subsequently, hence the screenshot. **MS Paint is no fun any more. It's actually good in Windows 7. Farewell ironically-shonky diagrams. *** It's also behind a single sign-in, lending a veneer of confidence, and partially solving the problem of usernames being crummy unique identifiers. I'll be blogging about that at some point.

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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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• 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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• 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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• Get Application Title from Windows Phone

  - by psheriff

  In a Windows Phone application that I am currently developing I needed to be able to retrieve the Application Title of the phone application. You can set the Deployment Title in the Properties of your Windows Phone Application, however getting to this value programmatically can be a little tricky. This article assumes that you have Visual Studio 2010 and the Windows Phone tools installed along with it. The Windows Phone tools must be downloaded separately and installed with Visual Studio2010. You may also download the free Visual Studio2010 Express for Windows Phone developer environment. The WMAppManifest.xml File First off you need to understand that when you set the Deployment Title in the Properties windows of your Windows Phone application, this title actually gets stored into an XML file located under the \Properties folder of your application. This XML file is named WMAppManifest.xml. A portion of this file is shown in the following listing. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Deployment  http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsphone/2009/deployment"http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsphone/2009/deployment"  AppPlatformVersion="7.0">  <App xmlns=""       ProductID="{71d20842-9acc-4f2f-b0e0-8ef79842ea53}"       Title="Mobile Time Track"       RuntimeType="Silverlight"       Version="1.0.0.0"       Genre="apps.normal"       Author="PDSA, Inc."       Description="Mobile Time Track"       Publisher="PDSA, Inc."> ... ...  </App></Deployment> Notice the “Title” attribute in the <App> element in the above XML document. This is the value that gets set when you modify the Deployment Title in your Properties Window of your Phone project. The only value you can set from the Properties Window is the Title. All of the other attributes you see here must be set by going into the XML file and modifying them directly. Note that this information duplicates some of the information that you can also set from the Assembly Information… button in the Properties Window. Why Microsoft did not just use that information, I don’t know. Reading Attributes from WMAppManifest I searched all over the namespaces and classes within the Windows Phone DLLs and could not find a way to read the attributes within the <App> element. Thus, I had to resort to good old fashioned XML processing. First off I created a WinPhoneCommon class and added two static methods as shown in the snippet below: public class WinPhoneCommon{  /// <summary>  /// Returns the Application Title   /// from the WMAppManifest.xml file  /// </summary>  /// <returns>The application title</returns>  public static string GetApplicationTitle()  {    return GetWinPhoneAttribute("Title");  }   /// <summary>  /// Returns the Application Description   /// from the WMAppManifest.xml file  /// </summary>  /// <returns>The application description</returns>  public static string GetApplicationDescription()  {    return GetWinPhoneAttribute("Description");  }   ... GetWinPhoneAttribute method here ...} In your Windows Phone application you can now simply call WinPhoneCommon.GetApplicationTitle() or WinPhone.GetApplicationDescription() to retrieve the Title or Description properties from the WMAppManifest.xml file respectively. You notice that each of these methods makes a call to the GetWinPhoneAttribute method. This method is shown in the following code snippet: /// <summary>/// Gets an attribute from the Windows Phone WMAppManifest.xml file/// To use this method, add a reference to the System.Xml.Linq DLL/// </summary>/// <param name="attributeName">The attribute to read</param>/// <returns>The Attribute's Value</returns>private static string GetWinPhoneAttribute(string attributeName){  string ret = string.Empty;   try  {    XElement xe = XElement.Load("WMAppManifest.xml");    var attr = (from manifest in xe.Descendants("App")                select manifest).SingleOrDefault();    if (attr != null)      ret = attr.Attribute(attributeName).Value;  }  catch  {    // Ignore errors in case this method is called    // from design time in VS.NET  }   return ret;} I love using the new LINQ to XML classes contained in the System.Xml.Linq.dll. When I did a Bing search the only samples I found for reading attribute information from WMAppManifest.xml used either an XmlReader or XmlReaderSettings objects. These are fine and work, but involve a little extra code. Instead of using these, I added a reference to the System.Xml.Linq.dll, then added two using statements to the top of the WinPhoneCommon class: using System.Linq;using System.Xml.Linq; Now, with just a few lines of LINQ to XML code you can read to the App element and extract the appropriate attribute that you pass into the GetWinPhoneAttribute method. Notice that I added a little bit of exception handling code in this method. I ignore the exception in case you call this method in the Loaded event of a user control. In design-time you cannot access the WMAppManifest file and thus an exception would be thrown. Summary In this article you learned how to retrieve the attributes from the WMAppManifest.xml file. I use this technique to grab information that I would otherwise have to hard-code in my application. Getting the Title or Description for your Windows Phone application is easy with just a little bit of LINQ to XML code. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "Get Application Title from Windows Phone" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free video on Silverlight entitled Silverlight XAML for the Complete Novice - Part 1.  

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• Can Google Employees See My Saved Google Chrome Passwords?

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Storing your passwords in your web browser seems like a great time saver, but are the passwords secure and inaccessible to others (even employees of the browser company) when squirreled away? Today’s Question & Answer session comes to us courtesy of SuperUser—a subdivision of Stack Exchange, a community-driven grouping of Q&A web sites. The Question SuperUser reader MMA is curious if Google employees have (or could have) access to the passwords he stores in Google Chrome: I understand that we are really tempted to save our passwords in Google Chrome. The likely benefit is two fold, You don’t need to (memorize and) input those long and cryptic passwords. These are available wherever you are once you log in to your Google account. The last point sparked my doubt. Since the password is available anywhere, the storage must in some central location, and this should be at Google. Now, my simple question is, can a Google employee see my passwords? Searching over the Internet revealed several articles/messages. Do you save passwords in Chrome? Maybe you should reconsider: Talks about your passwords being stolen by someone who has access to your computer account. Nothing mentioned about the central storage security and vulnerability. There is even a response from Chrome browser security tech lead about the first issue. Chrome’s insane password security strategy: Mostly along the same line. You can steal password from somebody if you have access to the computer account. How to Steal Passwords Saved in Google Chrome in 5 Simple Steps: Teaches you how to actually perform the act mentioned in the previous two when you have access to somebody else’s account. There are many more (including this one at this site), mostly along the same line, points, counter-points, huge debates. I refrain from mentioning them here, simply carry a search if you want to find them. Coming back to my original query, can a Google employee see my password? Since I can view the password using a simple button, definitely they can be unhashed (decrypted) even if encrypted. This is very different from the passwords saved in Unix-like OS’s where the saved password can never be seen in plain text. They use a one-way encryption algorithm to encrypt your passwords. This encrypted password is then stored in the passwd or shadow file. When you attempt to login, the password you type in is encrypted again and compared with the entry in the file that stores your passwords. If they match, it must be the same password, and you are allowed access. Thus, a superuser can change my password, can block my account, but he can never see my password. So are his concerns well founded or will a little insight dispel his worry? The Answer SuperUser contributor Zeel helps put his mind at ease: Short answer: No* Passwords stored on your local machine can be decrypted by Chrome, as long as your OS user account is logged in. And then you can view those in plain text. At first this seems horrible, but how did you think auto-fill worked? When that password field gets filled in, Chrome must insert the real password into the HTML form element – or else the page wouldn’t work right, and you could not submit the form. And if the connection to the website is not over HTTPS, the plain text is then sent over the internet. In other words, if chrome can’t get the plain text passwords, then they are totally useless. A one way hash is no good, because we need to use them. Now the passwords are in fact encrypted, the only way to get them back to plain text is to have the decryption key. That key is your Google password, or a secondary key you can set up. When you sign into Chrome and sync the Google servers will transmit the encrypted passwords, settings, bookmarks, auto-fill, etc, to your local machine. Here Chrome will decrypt the information and be able to use it. On Google’s end all that info is stored in its encrpyted state, and they do not have the key to decrypt it. Your account password is checked against a hash to log in to Google, and even if you let chrome remember it, that encrypted version is hidden in the same bundle as the other passwords, impossible to access. So an employee could probably grab a dump of the encrypted data, but it wouldn’t do them any good, since they would have no way to use it.* So no, Google employees can not** access your passwords, since they are encrypted on their servers. * However, do not forget that any system that can be accessed by an authorized user can be accessed by an unauthorized user. Some systems are easier to break than other, but none are fail-proof. . . That being said, I think I will trust Google and the millions they spend on security systems, over any other password storage solution. And heck, I’m a wimpy nerd, it would be easier to beat the passwords out of me than break Google’s encryption. ** I am also assuming that there isn’t a person who just happens to work for Google gaining access to your local machine. In that case you are screwed, but employment at Google isn’t actually a factor any more. Moral: Hit Win + L before leaving machine. While we agree with zeel that it’s a pretty safe bet (as long as your computer is not compromised) that your passwords are in fact safe while stored in Chrome, we prefer to encrypt all our logins and passwords in a LastPass vault. Have something to add to the explanation? Sound off in the the comments. Want to read more answers from other tech-savvy Stack Exchange users? Check out the full discussion thread here.     

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• Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Tips and Tricks&ndash;Part 1: Extensions

  - by ToStringTheory

  I don’t know about you, but when it comes to development, I prefer my environment to be as free of clutter as possible.  It may surprise you to know that I have tried ReSharper, and did not like it, for the reason that I stated above.  In my opinion, it had too much clutter.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of features that I did like about it (inversion of if blocks, code feedback), but for the most part, I actually felt that it was slowing me down. Introduction Another large factor besides intrusiveness/speed in my choice to dislike ReSharper would probably be that I have become comfortable with my current setup and extensions.  I believe I have a good collection, and am quite happy with what I can accomplish in a short amount of time.  I figured that I would share some of my tips/findings regarding Visual Studio productivity here, and see what you had to say. The first section of things that I would like to cover, are Visual Studio Extensions.  In case you have been living under a rock for the past several years, Extensions are available under the Tools menu in Visual Studio: The extension manager enables integrated access to the Microsoft Visual Studio Gallery online with access to a few thousand different extensions.  I have tried many extensions, but for reasons of lack reliability, usability, or features, have uninstalled almost all of them.  However, I have come across several that I find I can not do without anymore: NuGet Package Manager (Microsoft) Perspectives (Adam Driscoll) Productivity Power Tools (Microsoft) Web Essentials (Mads Kristensen) Extensions NuGet Package Manager To be honest, I debated on whether or not to put this in here.  Most people seem to have it, however, there was a time when I didn’t, and was always confused when blogs/posts would say to right click and “Add Package Reference…” which with one of the latest updates is now “Manage NuGet Packages”.  So, if you haven’t downloaded the NuGet Package Manager yet, or don’t know what it is, I would highly suggest downloading it now! Features Simply put, the NuGet Package Manager gives you a GUI and command line to access different libraries that have been uploaded to NuGet. Some of its features include: Ability to search NuGet for packages via the GUI, with information in the detail bar on the right. Quick access to see what packages are in a solution, and what packages have updates available, with easy 1-click updating. If you download a package that requires references to work on other NuGet packages, they will be downloaded and referenced automatically. Productivity Tip If you use any type of source control in Visual Studio as well as using NuGet packages, be sure to right-click on the solution and click "Enable NuGet Package Restore". What this does is add a NuGet package to the solution so that it will be checked in along side your solution, as well as automatically grab packages from NuGet on build if needed. This is an extremely simple system to use to manage your package references, instead of having to manually go into TFS and add the Packages folder. Perspectives I can't stand developing with just one monitor. Especially if it comes to debugging. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010, is that all of the panels and windows are floatable, and can dock to other screens. The only bad thing is, I don't use the same toolset with everything that I am doing. By this, I mean that I don't use all of the same windows for debugging a web application, as I do for coding a WPF application. Only thing is, Visual Studio doesn't save the screen positions for all of the undocked windows. So, I got curious one day and decided to check and see if there was an extension to help out. This is where I found Perspectives. Features Perspectives gives you the ability to configure window positions across any or your monitors, and then to save the positions in a profile. Perspectives offers a Panel to manage different presets/favorites, and a toolbar to add to the toolbars at the top of Visual Studio. Ability to 'Favorite' a profile to add it to the perspectives toolbar. Productivity Tip Take the time to setup profiles for each of your scenarios - debugging web/winforms/xaml, coding, maintenance, etc. Try to remember to use the profiles for a few days, and at the end of a week, you may find that your productivity was never better. Productivity Power Tools Ah, the Productivity Power Tools... Quite possibly one of my most used extensions, if not my most used. The tool pack gives you a variety of enhancements ranging from key shortcuts, interface tweaks, and completely new features to Visual Studio 2010. Features I don't want to bore you with all of the features here, so here are my favorite: Quick Find - Unobtrusive search box in upper-right corner of the code window. Great for searching in general, especially in a file. Solution Navigator - The 'Solution Explorer' on steroids. Easy to search for files, see defined members/properties/methods in files, and my favorite feature is the 'set as root' option. Updated 'Add Reference...' Dialog - This is probably my favorite enhancement period... The 'Add Reference...' dialog redone in a manner that resembles the Extension/Package managers. I especially love the ability to search through all of the references. "Ctrl - Click" for Definition - I am still getting used to this as I usually try to use my keyboard for everything, but I love the ability to hold Ctrl and turn property/methods/variables into hyperlinks, that you click on to see their definitions. Great for travelling down a rabbit hole in an application to research problems. While there are other commands/utilities, I find these to be the ones that I lean on the most for the usefulness. Web Essentials If you have do any type of web development in ASP .Net, ASP .Net MVC, even HTML, I highly suggest grabbing the Web Essentials right NOW! This extension alone is great for productivity in web development, and greatly decreases my development time on new features. Features Some of its best features include: CSS Previews - I say 'previews' because of the multiple kinds of previews in CSS that you get font-family, color, background/background-image previews. This is great for just tweaking UI slightly in different ways and seeing how they look in the CSS window at a glance. Live Preview - One word - awesome! This goes well with my multi-monitor setup. I put the site on one monitor in a Live Preview panel, and then as I make changes to CSS/cshtml/aspx/html, the preview window will update with each save/build automatically. For CSS, you can even turn on live-update, so as you are tweaking CSS, the style changes in real time. Great for tweaking colors or font-sizes. Outlining - Small, but I like to be able to collapse regions/declarations that are in the way of new work, or are just distracting. Commenting Shortcuts - I don't know why it wasn't included by default, but it is nice to have the key shortcuts for commenting working in the CSS editor as well. Productivity Tip When working on a site, hit CTRL-ALT-ENTER to launch the Live Preview window. Dock it to another monitor. When you make changes to the document/css, just save and glance at the other monitor. No need to alt tab, then alt tab before continuing editing. Conclusion These extensions are only the most useful and least intrusive - ones that I use every day. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010 is the extensibility options that it gives developers to utilize. Have an extension that you use that isn't intrusive, but isn't listed here? Please, feel free to comment. I love trying new things, and am always looking for new additions to my toolset of the most useful. Finally, please keep an eye out for Part 2 on key shortcuts in Visual Studio. Also, if you are visiting my site (http://tostringtheory.com || http://geekswithblogs.net/tostringtheory) from an actual browser and not a feed, please let me know what you think of the new styling!

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• Alcatel-Lucent: Enterprise 2.0: The Top 5 Things I would Do Over

  - by Kellsey Ruppel

  Happy Monday! Does anyone else feel as if the weekend went entirely too quickly? At least for those of us in the United States, we have the 4th of July Holiday next week to look forward to This week on the blog, we are going to focus on "WebCenter by Example" and highlight best practices from customers and partners. I recently came across this article and I think this is a great example of how we can learn from one another when it comes to social collaboration adoption. Do you agree with Jem? What things or best practices have you learned in your organizations?  By Jem Janik, Enterprise community manager, Alcatel-Lucent  Not so long ago, Engage, the Alcatel-Lucent employee social network and collaboration platform, celebrated its third birthday. With more than 25,000 members actively interacting each month, Engage has been a big enough success that it’s been the subject of external articles, and often those of us who helped launch it will go out and speak about what aspects contributed to that success. Hindsight is still 20/20 and what it takes to successfully launch an enterprise 2.0 community is fairly well-known now.  Today I want to tell you what I suspect you really want to know about.  As the enterprise community manager for Engage, after three years in, what are the top 5 things I wish we (and I mostly mean me) could do over? #5 Define your analytics solution from the start There is so much to do when you launch a community and initially growing it without complete chaos is quite a task.  It doesn’t take too long to get to a point where you want to focus your continued efforts in growing company collaboration.  Do people truly talk across regional boundaries or have we shifted siloed conversations to a new platform.  Is there one organization that doesn’t interact with another? If you are lucky you’ll have someone in your community team well versed in the world of databases and SQL queries, but it takes time to figure out what backend analytics data actually means. Professional support can be expensive and it may be hard to justify later as it typically has the community manager as the only main customer.  Figure out what you think you’ll want to know and how to get it early on. The sooner the better even if it doesn’t seem that critical at the time. #4 Lobbies guide you to the right places One piece of feedback that comes up more and more as we keep growing Engage is it’s hard to find stuff, or new people are not sure where to start. Something we’re doing now is defining some general topic areas of interest to be like “lobbies” into the platform and some common hashtags to go with them. I liken this to walking into a large medical or professional building for the first time.  There are hundreds of offices, and you look to a sign in the lobby to get guided to the right place for you.  We’re building that sign for members now, but again we missed the boat as the majority of the company has had their initial Engage experience. #3 Clean up, clean up, clean up Knowledge work and folksonomies are messy! The day we opened the doors to Engage I would have said we should keep everything ever created in Engage with an argument that it was a window into our collective knowledge so nothing should go.  Well, 6000+ groups and 200,000+ pieces of content later, I’ve changed my mind.  As previously mentioned, with too much “stuff” the system can be overwhelming to new members and it makes it harder to get what you’re looking for.   Do we need that help document about a tool we no longer have? NO!  Do we need that group that had 1 document and 2 discussions in the last two years? NO! Should we only have one group about a given topic instead of 4?  YES! Last fall, Engage defined a cleanup process for groups not used for a long time.  We also formed a volunteer cleaning army who are extra eyes on the hunt for “stuff” that should be updated, merged, or deleted.  It’s better late than never, but in line with what’s becoming a theme I wish these efforts had started earlier. #2 Communications & local community management One of the most important aspects of my job is to make sure people who should be talking to each other are actually doing it.  Connecting people to the other people they should know, the groups they should join, a piece of content that shouldn’t be missed.   I have worked both inside and outside of communications teams, and they are the best informed people in your company.  They know when something big is coming, how it impacts employees, how it fits with strategy, who else knows more, etc.  Having communications professionals who are power users can help scale up community management because they are already so well connected.  They also need to have the platform skills to pay attention without suffering email overload, how to grab someone’s attention, etc.  I wish I’d had figured this out much earlier.  If I had I would have groomed more communications colleagues into advocates and power members right at the start. #1 Grooming advocates vs. natural advocates I’ve just alluded to this above already. The very best advocates are those who naturally embrace your platform and automatically start to see new ways to work within it.  Those advocates seem to come out of the woodwork naturally since some of them are early adopters.  Not surprisingly, our best advocates today are those same people who were willing to come kick the tires when the community was completely empty.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get a global spread of those natural advocates.  I did ask around when we first launched for other people who might be good candidates, but didn’t push too hard as there were so many other things to get ready.  That was a mistake.  If I could get a redo I would have formally asked for people to be assigned where there were gaps and groomed them into an advocate.  Today as we find new advocates to fill the gaps, people are hesitant as the initial set has three years of practice are ahead of the curve power members; it definitely would have been easier earlier on. As fairly early adopters to corporate scale enterprise collaboration, there hasn’t been a roadmap to follow as we’ve grown Engage, which is part of the fun! It’s clear a lot of issues are more easily tackled the earlier you identify and begin to correct them, and I’ve identified the main five I wish I could redo.  In the spirit of collaboration, I hope someone else learns from my mistakes! View the original article by Jem here. 

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• Right-Time Retail Part 1

  - by David Dorf

  This is the first in a three-part series. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Right-Time Revolution Technology enables some amazing feats in retail. I can order flowers for my wife while flying 30,000 feet in the air. I can order my groceries in the subway and have them delivered later that day. I can even see how clothes look on me without setting foot in a store. Who knew that a TV, diamond necklace, or even a car would someday be as easy to purchase as a candy bar? Can technology make a mattress an impulse item? Wake-up and your back is hurting, so you rollover and grab your iPad, then a new mattress is delivered the next day. Behind the scenes the many processes are being choreographed to make the sale happen. This includes moving data between systems with the least amount for friction, which in some cases is near real-time. But real-time isn’t appropriate for all the integrations. Think about what a completely real-time retailer would look like. A consumer grabs toothpaste off the shelf, and all systems are immediately notified so that the backroom clerk comes running out and pushes the consumer aside so he can replace the toothpaste on the shelf. Such a system is not only cost prohibitive, but it’s also very inefficient and ineffectual. Retailers must balance the realities of people, processes, and systems to find the right speed of execution. That’ what “right-time retail” means. Retailers used to sell during the day and count the money and restock at night, but global expansion and the Web have complicated that simplistic viewpoint. Our 24hr society demands not only access but also speed, which constantly pushes the boundaries of our IT systems. In the last twenty years, there have been three major technology advancements that have moved us closer to real-time systems. Networking is the first technology that drove the real-time trend. As systems became connected, it became easier to move data between them. In retail we no longer had to mail the daily business report back to corporate each day as the dial-up modem could transfer the data. That was soon replaced with trickle-polling, when sale transactions were occasionally sent from stores to corporate throughout the day, often through VSAT. Then we got terrestrial networks like DSL and Ethernet that allowed the constant stream of data between stores and corporate. When corporate could see the sales transactions coming from stores, it could better plan for replenishment and promotions. That drove the need for speed into the supply chain and merchandising, but for many years those systems were stymied by the huge volumes of data. Nordstrom has 150 million SKU/Store combinations when planning (RPAS); The Gap generates 110 million price changes during end-of-season (RPM); Argos does 1.78 billion calculations executed each day for replenishment planning (AIP). These areas are now being alleviated by the second technology, storage. The typical laptop disk drive runs at 5,400rpm with PCs stepping up to 7,200rpm and servers hitting 15,000rpm. But the platters can only spin so fast, so to squeeze more performance we’ve had to rely on things like disk striping. Then solid state drives (SSDs) were introduced and prices continue to drop. (Augmenting your harddrive with a SSD is the single best PC upgrade these days.) RAM continues to be expensive, but compressing data in memory has allowed more efficient use. So a few years back, Oracle decided to build a box that incorporated all these advancements to move us closer to real-time. This family of products, often categorized as engineered systems, combines the hardware and software so that they work together to provide better performance. How much better? If Exadata powered a 747, you’d go from New York to Paris in 42 minutes, and it would carry 5,000 passengers. If Exadata powered baseball, games would last only 18 minutes and Boston’s Fenway would hold 370,000 fans. The Exa-family enables processing more data in less time. So with faster networks and storage, that brings us to the third and final ingredient. If we continue to process data in traditional ways, we won’t be able to take advantage of the faster networks and storage. Enter what Harvard calls “The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century” – the data scientist. New technologies like the Hadoop-powered Oracle Big Data Appliance, Oracle Advanced Analytics, and Oracle Endeca Information Discovery change the way in which we organize data. These technologies allow us to extract actionable information from raw data at incredible speeds, often ad-hoc. So the foundation to support the real-time enterprise exists, but how does a retailer begin to take advantage? The most visible way is through real-time marketing, but I’ll save that for part 3 and instead begin with improved integrations for the assets you already have in part 2.

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• What steps can you take to ensure sane build environments when compiling software?

  - by Chris Adams

  Hi guys, I've been stuck with a compilation problem when building a standardised virtual machine on CentOS 5.4, and I'm in the dark here as to a) why this error is occurring, and b) how to fix it, and in the hope that someone else stumbles across this problem too, I'm hoping someone can help me find the solution here. I'm getting a configure: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! error when trying to compile Ruby Enterprise like below when I try to run the installer, and the solutions offered to on the forums (of checking the tine, and touching the files to update the time associated with them) don't seem to be helping here. What steps can I take to work out what the cause of this problem? [vagrant@vagrant-centos-5 ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10]$ sudo ./installer Welcome to the Ruby Enterprise Edition installer This installer will help you install Ruby Enterprise Edition 1.8.7-2009.10. Don't worry, none of your system files will be touched if you don't want them to, so there is no risk that things will screw up. You can expect this from the installation process: 1. Ruby Enterprise Edition will be compiled and optimized for speed for this system. 2. Ruby on Rails will be installed for Ruby Enterprise Edition. 3. You will learn how to tell Phusion Passenger to use Ruby Enterprise Edition instead of regular Ruby. Press Enter to continue, or Ctrl-C to abort. Checking for required software... * C compiler... found at /usr/bin/gcc * C++ compiler... found at /usr/bin/g++ * The 'make' tool... found at /usr/bin/make * Zlib development headers... found * OpenSSL development headers... found * GNU Readline development headers... found -------------------------------------------- Target directory Where would you like to install Ruby Enterprise Edition to? (All Ruby Enterprise Edition files will be put inside that directory.) [/opt/ruby-enterprise] : -------------------------------------------- Compiling and optimizing the memory allocator for Ruby Enterprise Edition In the mean time, feel free to grab a cup of coffee. ./configure --prefix=/opt/ruby-enterprise --disable-dependency-tracking checking build system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking host system type... i686-pc-linux-gnu checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c checking whether build environment is sane... configure: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! Check your system clock This is a virtual machine running on virtualbox, and the time of the host and the virtual machine are identical, and up to date. I've also tried running this after updating time with an ntp-client, so no avail. I tried this after reading this post here of someone having a similar problem [vagrant@vagrant-centos-5 ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10]$ date Tue Apr 27 08:09:05 BST 2010 The other approach I've tried is to touch the top level the files in the build folder like suggested here, but this hasn't worked either (an to be honest, I'm not sure why it would have worked either) [vagrant@vagrant-centos-5 ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10]$ sudo touch ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2009.10/* I'm not sure what I can do next here - the problem seems to be the bash configure script that returns this error error: newly created file is older than distributed files!, at line :2214 { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: checking whether build environment is sane" >&5 echo $ECHO_N "checking whether build environment is sane... $ECHO_C" >&6; } # Just in case sleep 1 echo timestamp > conftest.file # Do `set' in a subshell so we don't clobber the current shell's # arguments. Must try -L first in case configure is actually a # symlink; some systems play weird games with the mod time of symlinks # (eg FreeBSD returns the mod time of the symlink's containing # directory). if ( set X `ls -Lt $srcdir/configure conftest.file 2> /dev/null` if test "$*" = "X"; then # -L didn't work. set X `ls -t $srcdir/configure conftest.file` fi rm -f conftest.file if test "$*" != "X $srcdir/configure conftest.file" \ && test "$*" != "X conftest.file $srcdir/configure"; then # If neither matched, then we have a broken ls. This can happen # if, for instance, CONFIG_SHELL is bash and it inherits a # broken ls alias from the environment. This has actually # happened. Such a system could not be considered "sane". { { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: ls -t appears to fail. Make sure there is not a broken alias in your environment" >&5 echo "$as_me: error: ls -t appears to fail. Make sure there is not a broken alias in your environment" >&2;} { (exit 1); exit 1; }; } fi ### PROBLEM LINE #### # this line is the problem line - this is returned true, sometimes it isn't and I can't # see a pattern that that determines when this will test will pass or not. test "$2" = conftest.file ) then # Ok. : else { { echo "$as_me:$LINENO: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! Check your system clock" >&5 echo "$as_me: error: newly created file is older than distributed files! Check your system clock" >&2;} { (exit 1); exit 1; }; } fi the thing that makes this really frustrating is that this script works sometimes, when the VM has been running for an hour or so it works, but not at boot. There's nothing I see in the crontab that suggests any hourly tasks are run that might change the state of the system enough make a difference to this script working. I'm totally at a loss when it comes to debugging beyond here. What's the best approach to take here? Thanks

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• CSC folder data access AND roaming profiles issues (Vista with Server 2003, then 2008)

  - by Alex Jones

  I'm a junior sysadmin for an IT contractor that helps small, local government agencies, like little towns and the like. One of our clients, a public library with ~ 50 staff users, was recently migrated from Server 2003 Standard to Server 2008 R2 Standard in a very short timeframe; our senior employee, the only network engineer, had suddenly put in his two weeks notice, so management pushed him to do this project before quitting. A bit hasty on management's part? Perhaps. Could we do anything about that? Nope. Do I have to fix this all by myself? Pretty much. The network is set up like this: a) 50ish staff workstations, all running Vista Business SP2. All staff use MS Outlook, which uses RPC-over-HTTPS ("Outlook Anywhere") for cached Exchange access to an offsite location. b) One new (virtualized) Server 2008 R2 Standard instance, running atop a Server 2008 R2 host via Hyper-V. The VM is the domain's DC, and also the site's one and only file server. Let's call that VM "NEWBOX". c) One old physical Server 2003 Standard server, running the same roles. Let's call it "OLDBOX". It's still on the network and accessible, but it's been demoted, and its shares have been disabled. No data has been deleted. c) Gigabit Ethernet everywhere. The organization's only has one domain, and it did not change during the migration. d) Most users were set up for a combo of redirected folders + offline files, but some older employees who had been with the organization a long time are still on roaming profiles. To sum up: the servers in question handle user accounts and files, nothing else (eg, no TS, no mail, no IIS, etc.) I have two major problems I'm hoping you can help me with: 1) Even though all domain users have had their redirected folders moved to the new server, and loggin in to their workstations and testing confirms that the Documents/Music/Whatever folders point to the new paths, it appears some users (not laptops or anything either!) had been working offline from OLDBOX for a long time, and nobody realized it. Here's the ugly implication: a bunch of their data now lives only in their CSC folders, because they can't access the share on OLDBOX and sync with it finally. How do I get this data out of those CSC folders, and onto NEWBOX? 2) What's the best way to migrate roaming profile users to non-roaming ones, without losing vital data like documents, any lingering PSTs, etc? Things I've thought about trying: For problem 1: a) Reenable the documents share on OLDBOX, force an Offline Files sync for ALL domain users, then copy OLDBOX's share's data to the equivalent share on NEWBOX. Reinitialize the Offline Files cache for every user. With this: How do I safely force a domain-wide Offline Files sync? Could I lose data by reenabling the share on OLDBOX and forcing the sync? Afterwards, how can I reinitialize the Offline Files cache for every user, without doing it manually, workstation by workstation? b) Determine which users have unsynced changes to OLDBOX (again, how?), search each user's CSC folder domain-wide via workstation admin shares, and grab the unsynched data. Reinitialize the Offline Files cache for every user. With this: How can I detect which users have unsynched changes with a script? How can I search each user's CSC folder, when the ownership and permissions set for CSC folders are so restrictive? Again, afterwards, how can I reinitialize the Offline Files cache for every user, without doing it manually, workstation by workstation? c) Manually visit each workstation, copy the contents of the CSC folder, and manually copy that data onto NEWBOX. Reinitialize the Offline Files cache for every user. With this: Again, how do I 'break into' the CSC folder and get to its data? As an experiment, I took one workstation's HD offsite, imaged it for safety, and then tried the following with one of our shop PCs, after attaching the drive: grant myself full control of the folder (failed), grant myself ownership of the folder (failed), run chkdsk on the whole drive to make sure nothing's messed up (all OK), try to take full control of the entire drive (failed), try to take ownership of the entire drive (failed) MS KB articles and Googling around suggests there's a utility called CSCCMD that's meant for this exact scenario...but it looks like it's available for XP, not Vista, no? Again, afterwards, how can I reinitialize the Offline Files cache for every user, without doing it manually, workstation by workstation? For problem 2: a) Figure out which users are on roaming profiles, and where their profiles 'live' on the server. Create new folders for them in the redirected folders repository, migrate existing data, and disable the roaming. With this: Finding out who's roaming isn't hard. But what's the best way to disable the roaming itself? In AD Users and Computers, or on each user's workstation? Doing it centrally on the server seems more efficient; that said, all of the KB research I've done turns up articles on how to go from local to roaming, not the other way around, so I don't have good documentation on this. In closing: we have good backups of NEWBOX and OLDBOX, but not of the workstations themselves, so anything drastic on the client side would need imaging and testing for safety. Thanks for reading along this far! Hopefully you can help me dig us out of this mess.

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• How do i route TCP connections via TOR? [on hold]

  - by acidzombie24

  I was reading about torchat which is essentially an anonymous chat program. It sounded cool so i wanted to experiment with making my own. First i wrote a test to grab a webpage using Http. Sicne .NET doesnt support SOCKS4A/SOCKS5 i used privoxy and my app worked. Then i switch to a TCP echo test and privoxy doesnt support TCP so i searched and installed 6+ proxy apps (freecap, socat, freeproxy, delegate are the ones i can remember from the top of my head, i also played with putty bc i know it supports tunnels and SOCK5) but i couldnt successfully get any of them to work let alone get it running with my http test that privoxy easily and painlessly did. What may i use to get TCP connections going through TOR? I spent more then 2 hours without success. I don't know if i am looking for a relay, tunnel, forwarder, proxy or a proxychain which all came up in my search. I use the config below for .NET. I need TCP working but i am first testing with http since i know i had it working using privoxy. What apps and configs do i use to get TCP going through tor? <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <system.net> <defaultProxy enabled="true"> <proxy bypassonlocal="True" proxyaddress="http://127.0.0.1:8118"/> </defaultProxy> <settings> <httpWebRequest useUnsafeHeaderParsing="true"/> </settings> </system.net> </configuration> -edit- Thanks to Bernd i have a solution. Here is the code i ended up writing. It isn't amazing but its fair. static NetworkStream ConnectSocksProxy(string proxyDomain, short proxyPort, string host, short hostPort, TcpClient tc) { tc.Connect(proxyDomain, proxyPort); if (System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.IsMatch(host, @"[\:/\\]")) throw new Exception("Invalid Host name. Use FQDN such as www.google.com. Do not have http, a port or / in it"); NetworkStream ns = tc.GetStream(); var HostNameBuf = new ASCIIEncoding().GetBytes(host); var HostPortBuf = BitConverter.GetBytes(IPAddress.HostToNetworkOrder(hostPort)); if (true) //5 { var bufout = new byte[128]; var buflen = 0; ns.Write(new byte[] { 5, 1, 0 }, 0, 3); buflen = ns.Read(bufout, 0, bufout.Length); if (buflen != 2 || bufout[0] != 5 || bufout[1] != 0) throw new Exception(); var buf = new byte[] { 5, 1, 0, 3, (byte)HostNameBuf.Length }; var mem = new MemoryStream(); mem.Write(buf, 0, buf.Length); mem.Write(HostNameBuf, 0, HostNameBuf.Length); mem.Write(new byte[] { HostPortBuf[0], HostPortBuf[1] }, 0, 2); var memarr = mem.ToArray(); ns.Write(memarr, 0, memarr.Length); buflen = ns.Read(bufout, 0, bufout.Length); if (bufout[0] != 5 || bufout[1] != 0) throw new Exception(); } else //4a { var bufout = new byte[128]; var buflen = 0; var mem = new MemoryStream(); mem.WriteByte(4); mem.WriteByte(1); mem.Write(HostPortBuf, 0, 2); mem.Write(BitConverter.GetBytes(IPAddress.HostToNetworkOrder(1)), 0, 4); mem.WriteByte(0); mem.Write(HostNameBuf, 0, HostNameBuf.Length); mem.WriteByte(0); var memarr = mem.ToArray(); ns.Write(memarr, 0, memarr.Length); buflen = ns.Read(bufout, 0, bufout.Length); if (buflen != 8 || bufout[0] != 0 || bufout[1] != 90) throw new Exception(); } return ns; } Usage using (TcpClient client = new TcpClient()) using (var ns = ConnectSocksProxy("127.0.0.1", 9050, "website.com", 80, client)) {...}

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• Microsoft Enterprise Library Caching Application Block not thread safe?!

  - by AlanR

  Good aftenoon, I created a super simple console app to test out the Enterprise Library Caching Application Block, and the behavior is blaffling. I'm hoping I screwed something that's easy to fix in the setup. Have each item expire after 5 seconds for testing purposes. Basic setup -- "every second pick a number between 0 and 2. if the cache doesn't already have it, put it in there -- otherwise just grab it from the cache. Do this inside a LOCK statement to ensure thread safety. APP.CONFIG: <configuration> <configSections> <section name="cachingConfiguration" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.Configuration.CacheManagerSettings, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" /> </configSections> <cachingConfiguration defaultCacheManager="Cache Manager"> <cacheManagers> <add expirationPollFrequencyInSeconds="1" maximumElementsInCacheBeforeScavenging="1000" numberToRemoveWhenScavenging="10" backingStoreName="Null Storage" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.CacheManager, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" name="Cache Manager" /> </cacheManagers> <backingStores> <add encryptionProviderName="" type="Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.BackingStoreImplementations.NullBackingStore, Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching, Version=4.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" name="Null Storage" /> </backingStores> </cachingConfiguration> </configuration> C#: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common; using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching; using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Caching.Expirations; namespace ConsoleApplication1 { class Program { public static ICacheManager cache = CacheFactory.GetCacheManager("Cache Manager"); static void Main(string[] args) { while (true) { System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000); // sleep for one second. var key = new Random().Next(3).ToString(); string value; lock (cache) { if (!cache.Contains(key)) { cache.Add(key, key, CacheItemPriority.Normal, null, new SlidingTime(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5))); } value = (string)cache.GetData(key); } Console.WriteLine("{0} --> '{1}'", key, value); //if (null == value) throw new Exception(); } } } } OUPUT -- How can I prevent the cache to returning nulls? 2 --> '2' 1 --> '1' 2 --> '2' 0 --> '0' 2 --> '2' 0 --> '0' 1 --> '' 0 --> '0' 1 --> '1' 2 --> '' 0 --> '0' 2 --> '2' 0 --> '0' 1 --> '' 2 --> '2' 1 --> '1' Press any key to continue . . . Thanks in advance, -Alan.

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• MXMLC Ant task results in java.lang.OutOFMemoryError

  - by Mims H. Wright

  I'm making a change to a set of code for a Flex project that I didn't write and was set up to compile using ant tasks. I assume that the codebase was stable at the last checkin but I'm running into memory issues when trying to build a project using MXMLC and ant (see stack trace below). Before, I was just getting an out of memory error. I tried using a different machine and got this more verbose exception (including problems with the image fetcher). I've tried using various versions of the SDK, I've tried replacing the <mxmlc> tag with <exec executable="mxmlc"> with no luck. Here is my java version in case that has anything to do with it: » java -version java version "1.6.0_20" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_20-b02-279-10M3065) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 16.3-b01-279, mixed mode) Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! Buildfile: build.xml compileSWF: [echo] Compiling main.swf... [mxmlc] Loading configuration file /Applications/Adobe Flash Builder 4 Plug-in/sdks/4.0.0beta2/frameworks/flex-config.xml [mxmlc] Exception in thread "Image Fetcher 0" java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space [mxmlc] at java.awt.image.PixelGrabber.setDimensions(PixelGrabber.java:360) [mxmlc] at sun.awt.image.ImageDecoder.setDimensions(ImageDecoder.java:62) [mxmlc] at sun.awt.image.JPEGImageDecoder.sendHeaderInfo(JPEGImageDecoder.java:71) [mxmlc] at sun.awt.image.JPEGImageDecoder.readImage(Native Method) [mxmlc] at sun.awt.image.JPEGImageDecoder.produceImage(JPEGImageDecoder.java:119) [mxmlc] at sun.awt.image.InputStreamImageSource.doFetch(InputStreamImageSource.java:246) [mxmlc] at sun.awt.image.ImageFetcher.fetchloop(ImageFetcher.java:172) [mxmlc] at sun.awt.image.ImageFetcher.run(ImageFetcher.java:136) [mxmlc] /src/com/amtrak/components/map/MapAsset.mxml: Error: exception during transcoding: Failed to grab pixels for image /src/assets/embed_assets/images/zoomed_map_wide.jpg [mxmlc] [mxmlc] /src/com/amtrak/components/map/MapAsset.mxml: Error: Unable to transcode /assets/embed_assets/images/zoomed_map_wide.jpg. [mxmlc] [mxmlc] Error: Java heap space [mxmlc] [mxmlc] java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space [mxmlc] at java.util.ArrayList.<init>(ArrayList.java:112) [mxmlc] at macromedia.asc.util.ObjectList.<init>(ObjectList.java:30) [mxmlc] at macromedia.asc.parser.ArgumentListNode.<init>(ArgumentListNode.java:30) [mxmlc] at macromedia.asc.parser.NodeFactory.argumentList(NodeFactory.java:116) [mxmlc] at macromedia.asc.parser.NodeFactory.argumentList(NodeFactory.java:97) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationGenerator.generateBinding(ImplementationGenerator.java:563) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationGenerator.generateBindingsSetupFunction(ImplementationGenerator.java:864) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationGenerator.generateBindingsSetup(ImplementationGenerator.java:813) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationGenerator.generateInitializerSupportDefs(ImplementationGenerator.java:1813) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationGenerator.generateClassDefinition(ImplementationGenerator.java:1005) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationGenerator.<init>(ImplementationGenerator.java:201) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationCompiler.generateImplementationAST(ImplementationCompiler.java:498) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.ImplementationCompiler.parse1(ImplementationCompiler.java:196) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.mxml.MxmlCompiler.parse1(MxmlCompiler.java:168) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.CompilerAPI.parse1(CompilerAPI.java:2851) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.CompilerAPI.parse1(CompilerAPI.java:2804) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.CompilerAPI.batch2(CompilerAPI.java:446) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.CompilerAPI.batch(CompilerAPI.java:1274) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.CompilerAPI.compile(CompilerAPI.java:1488) [mxmlc] at flex2.compiler.CompilerAPI.compile(CompilerAPI.java:1375) [mxmlc] at flex2.tools.Mxmlc.mxmlc(Mxmlc.java:282) [mxmlc] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) [mxmlc] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) [mxmlc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [mxmlc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) [mxmlc] at flex.ant.FlexTask.executeInProcess(FlexTask.java:280) [mxmlc] at flex.ant.FlexTask.execute(FlexTask.java:225) [mxmlc] at org.apache.tools.ant.UnknownElement.execute(UnknownElement.java:288) [mxmlc] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) [mxmlc] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) [mxmlc] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) [mxmlc] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597) BUILD FAILED /src/build.xml:49: mxmlc task failed

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• Resons why I'm using php rather then asp.net [closed]

  - by spirytus

  I have basic idea of how asp .Net works, but finds all framework hard to use if you are a newbie. I found compiling, web applications vs websites and all that stuff you should know to program in asp .net a bit tedious and so personally I go with php to create small, to medium applications for my clients. There are couple of reasons for it: php is easy scripting language, top to bottom and you done. You still can create objects, classes and if you have idea of MVC its fairly easy to create basic structure yourself so you can keep you presentation layer "relatively" clean. Although I find myself still mixing basic logic in my view's, I am trying to stick to booleans, and for each loops. ASP .net keeps it cleaner as far as I know and I agree that this is great. Heaps of free stuff for php and lots of help everywhere Although choice of IDE's for php is very limited, I still don't have to be stuck with VisualStudio. Lets be honest.. you can program in whatever you like but does anyone uses anything else other than VS? For basic applications I create, Visual Studio doesn't come even close to notepad :) / phpEdit (or similar) combination. It lacks of many features I constantly use, although armies of developers are using it and it must be for good reason. Personally not a big fan of VS though. Being on the market for that long should make editing much easier. I know .Net comes with awesome set of controls, validators etc. which is truly awesome. For me the problem starts if I want my validator to behave slightly different way and lets say fade in/out error messages. I know its possible to extend it behavior, plug into lifecycle and output different JS to the client and so on. I just never see it happen in places I work, and honestly, I don't even think most of .net developers I worked with during last couple of years would know how to do that. In php I have to grab some plugin for jQuery and use it for validation, which is fairly easy task once you had done it before. Again I'm sure its easy for .net gurus, but for newbie like me its almost impossible. I found that many asp .net programmers are very limited in what they are able to do and basically whack together .net applications using same lame set of controls, not even bothering in looking into how it works and what if? Now I don't want to anger anyone :) I know there is huge number of excellent .Net developers who know their stuff and are able to extend controls and do all that magic in no time. I found it a bit annoying though that many of them stick to what is provided without even trying to make it better. Nothing against .net here, just a thought really :) I remember when asp.net came out the idea was that front-end people will not be able to screw anything up and do their fron-end stuff without worrying what happens behind. Now its never that easy and I always tend to get server side people to fix this and that during development. Things like ID's assigned to controls can very easily make your application break and if someone is pure HTML guy using VS its easy to break something. Thats my thoughs on php and .net and reasons why for my work I go with php. I know that once learned asp .net is awesome technology and summing all up php doesn't even come close to it. For someone like me however, individually developing small basic applications for clients, php seems to work much better. Please let me know your thoughts on the above :)

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• Silverlight 3.0 Custom Cursor in Chart

  - by Wonko the Sane

  Hello All, I'm probably overlooking something that will be obvious when I see the solution, but for now... I am attempting to use a custom cursor inside the chart area of a Toolkit chart. I have created a ControlTemplate for the chart, and a grid to contain the cursors. I show/hide the cursors, and attempt to move the containing Grid, using various Mouse events. The cursor is being displayed at the correct times, but I cannot get it to move to the correct position. Here is the ControlTemplate (the funky colors are just attempts to confirm what the different pieces of the template pertain to): <dataVisTK:Title Content="{TemplateBinding Title}" Style="{TemplateBinding TitleStyle}"/> <Grid Grid.Row="1"> <!-- Remove the Legend --> <!--<dataVisTK:Legend x:Name="Legend" Title="{TemplateBinding LegendTitle}" Style="{TemplateBinding LegendStyle}" Grid.Column="1"/>--> <chartingPrimitivesTK:EdgePanel x:Name="ChartArea" Background="#EDAEAE" Style="{TemplateBinding ChartAreaStyle}" Grid.Column="0"> <Grid Canvas.ZIndex="-1" Background="#2008AE" Style="{TemplateBinding PlotAreaStyle}"> </Grid> <Border Canvas.ZIndex="1" BorderBrush="#FF250010" BorderThickness="3" /> <Grid x:Name="gridHandCursors" Canvas.ZIndex="5" Width="32" Height="32" Visibility="Collapsed"> <Image x:Name="cursorGrab" Width="32" Source="Resources/grab.png" /> <Image x:Name="cursorGrabbing" Width="32" Source="Resources/grabbing.png" Visibility="Collapsed"/> </Grid> </chartingPrimitivesTK:EdgePanel> </Grid> </Grid> </Border> and here are the mouse events (in particular, the MouseMove): void TimelineChart_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { chartTimeline.UpdateLayout(); List<FrameworkElement> chartChildren = GetLogicalChildrenBreadthFirst(chartTimeline).ToList(); mChartArea = chartChildren.Where(element => element.Name.Equals("ChartArea")).FirstOrDefault() as Panel; if (mChartArea != null) { grabCursor = chartChildren.Where(element => element.Name.Equals("cursorGrab")).FirstOrDefault() as Image; grabbingCursor = chartChildren.Where(element => element.Name.Equals("cursorGrabbing")).FirstOrDefault() as Image; mGridHandCursors = chartChildren.Where(element => element.Name.Equals("gridHandCursors")).FirstOrDefault() as Grid; mChartArea.Cursor = Cursors.None; mChartArea.MouseMove += new MouseEventHandler(mChartArea_MouseMove); mChartArea.MouseLeftButtonDown += new MouseButtonEventHandler(mChartArea_MouseLeftButtonDown); mChartArea.MouseLeftButtonUp += new MouseButtonEventHandler(mChartArea_MouseLeftButtonUp); if (mGridHandCursors != null) { mChartArea.MouseEnter += (s, e2) => mGridHandCursors.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; mChartArea.MouseLeave += (s, e2) => mGridHandCursors.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; } } } void mChartArea_MouseLeftButtonUp(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { if (grabCursor != null) grabCursor.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; if (grabbingCursor != null) grabbingCursor.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; } void mChartArea_MouseLeftButtonDown(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) { if (grabCursor != null) grabCursor.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; if (grabbingCursor != null) grabbingCursor.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; } void mChartArea_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) { if (mGridHandCursors != null) { Point pt = e.GetPosition(null); mGridHandCursors.SetValue(Canvas.LeftProperty, pt.X); mGridHandCursors.SetValue(Canvas.TopProperty, pt.Y); } } Any help past this roadblock would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, wTs

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• asp.net image aspect ratio help

  - by StealthRT

  Hey all, i am in need of some help with keeping an image aspect ratio in check. This is the aspx code that i have to resize and upload an image the user selects. <%@ Page Trace="False" Language="vb" aspcompat="false" debug="true" validateRequest="false"%> <%@ Import Namespace=System.Drawing %> <%@ Import Namespace=System.Drawing.Imaging %> <%@ Import Namespace=System %> <%@ Import Namespace=System.Web %> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript" runat="server"> const Lx = 500 ' max width for thumbnails const Ly = 60 ' max height for thumbnails const upload_dir = "/uptest/" ' directory to upload file const upload_original = "sample" ' filename to save original as (suffix added by script) const upload_thumb = "thumb" ' filename to save thumbnail as (suffix added by script) const upload_max_size = 512 ' max size of the upload (KB) note: this doesn't override any server upload limits dim fileExt ' used to store the file extension (saves finding it mulitple times) dim newWidth, newHeight as integer ' new width/height for the thumbnail dim l2 ' temp variable used when calculating new size dim fileFld as HTTPPostedFile ' used to grab the file upload from the form Dim originalimg As System.Drawing.Image ' used to hold the original image dim msg ' display results dim upload_ok as boolean ' did the upload work ? </script> <% randomize() ' used to help the cache-busting on the preview images upload_ok = false if lcase(Request.ServerVariables("REQUEST_METHOD"))="post" then fileFld = request.files(0) ' get the first file uploaded from the form (note:- you can use this to itterate through more than one image) if fileFld.ContentLength > upload_max_size * 1024 then msg = "Sorry, the image must be less than " & upload_max_size & "Kb" else try originalImg = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(fileFld.InputStream) ' work out the width/height for the thumbnail. Preserve aspect ratio and honour max width/height ' Note: if the original is smaller than the thumbnail size it will be scaled up If (originalImg.Width/Lx) > (originalImg.Width/Ly) Then L2 = originalImg.Width newWidth = Lx newHeight = originalImg.Height * (Lx / L2) if newHeight > Ly then newWidth = newWidth * (Ly / newHeight) newHeight = Ly end if Else L2 = originalImg.Height newHeight = Ly newWidth = originalImg.Width * (Ly / L2) if newWidth > Lx then newHeight = newHeight * (Lx / newWidth) newWidth = Lx end if End If Dim thumb As New Bitmap(newWidth, newHeight) 'Create a graphics object Dim gr_dest As Graphics = Graphics.FromImage(thumb) ' just in case it's a transparent GIF force the bg to white dim sb = new SolidBrush(System.Drawing.Color.White) gr_dest.FillRectangle(sb, 0, 0, thumb.Width, thumb.Height) 'Re-draw the image to the specified height and width gr_dest.DrawImage(originalImg, 0, 0, thumb.Width, thumb.Height) try fileExt = System.IO.Path.GetExtension(fileFld.FileName).ToLower() originalImg.save(Server.MapPath(upload_dir & upload_original & fileExt), originalImg.rawformat) thumb.save(Server.MapPath(upload_dir & upload_thumb & fileExt), originalImg.rawformat) msg = "Uploaded " & fileFld.FileName & " to " & Server.MapPath(upload_dir & upload_original & fileExt) upload_ok = true catch msg = "Sorry, there was a problem saving the image." end try ' Housekeeping for the generated thumbnail if not thumb is nothing then thumb.Dispose() thumb = nothing end if catch msg = "Sorry, that was not an image we could process." end try end if ' House Keeping ! if not originalImg is nothing then originalImg.Dispose() originalImg = nothing end if end if %> What i am looking for is a way to just have it go by the height of what i set it: const Ly = 60 ' max height for thumbnails And have the code for the width just be whatever. So if i had an image... say 600 x 120 (w h) and i used photoshop to change just the height, it would keep it in ratio and have it 300 x 60 (w x h). Thats what i am looking to do with this code here. However, i can not think of a way to do this (or to just leave a wildcard for the width setting. Any help would be great :o) David

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• Fade Out an <ul> and Fade In Info From DB

  - by NessDan

  On my portfolio page I have this setup: <div id="portfolio"> <ul id="sites"> <li> <h3><a href="#">MotorSomethin</a></h3> <img src="http://dummyimage.com/265x100/000/fff" /> <p> We tried going for a very dark but flashy look for this website. Hence the reason we used flash. </p> </li> <li> <h3><a href="#">MotorSomethin</a></h3> <img src="http://dummyimage.com/265x100/000/fff" /> <p> We tried going for a very dark but flashy look for this website. Hence the reason we used flash. </p> </li> <li> <h3><a href="#">MotorSomethin</a></h3> <img src="http://dummyimage.com/265x100/000/fff" /> <p> We tried going for a very dark but flashy look for this website. Hence the reason we used flash. </p> </li> <li> <h3><a href="#">MotorSomethin</a></h3> <img src="http://dummyimage.com/265x100/000/fff" /> <p> We tried going for a very dark but flashy look for this website. Hence the reason we used flash. </p> </li> <li> <h3><a href="#">MotorSomethin</a></h3> <img src="http://dummyimage.com/265x100/000/fff" /> <p> We tried going for a very dark but flashy look for this website. Hence the reason we used flash. </p> </li> </ul> </div> So imagine a grid, 2 sites per line. I want to use jQuery so that when I click the H3, the image, or the paragraph inside the LIE(which are all information about a certain site), it would fade out the entire UL, then grab info about that site from our database. I think this requires AJAX but I don't have much experience with it. I'm also confused on how to use jQuery to write the new HTML after the information is grabbed.

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• .NET Oracle Provider: Why will my stored proc not work?

  - by Matt

  I am using the Oracle .NET Provider and am calling a stored procedure in a package. The message I get back is "Wrong number or types in call". I have ensured that the order in which the parameters are being added are in the correct order and I have gone over the OracleDbType's thoroughly though I suspect that is where my problem is. Here is the code-behind: //setup intial stuff, connection and command string msg = string.Empty; string oraConnString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["OracleServer"].ConnectionString; OracleConnection oraConn = new OracleConnection(oraConnString); OracleCommand oraCmd = new OracleCommand("PK_MOVEMENT.INSERT_REC", oraConn); oraCmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure; try { //iterate the array //grab 3 items at a time and do db insert, continue until all items are gone. Will always be divisible by 3. for (int i = 0; i < theData.Length; i += 3) { //3 items hardcoded for now string millCenter = "0010260510"; string movementType = "RECEIPT"; string feedCode = null; string userID = "GRIMMETTM"; string inventoryType = "INGREDIENT"; //set to FINISHED for feed stuff string movementDate = theData[i + 0]; string ingCode = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.Match(theData[i + 1], @"^([0-9]*)").ToString(); string pounds = theData[i + 2].Replace(",", ""); //setup parameters OracleParameter p1 = new OracleParameter("A_MILL_CENTER", OracleDbType.NVarchar2, 10); p1.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p1.Value = millCenter; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p1); OracleParameter p2 = new OracleParameter("A_INGREDIENT_CODE", OracleDbType.NVarchar2, 50); p2.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p2.Value = ingCode; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p2); OracleParameter p3 = new OracleParameter("A_FEED_CODE", OracleDbType.NVarchar2, 30); p3.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p3.Value = feedCode; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p3); OracleParameter p4 = new OracleParameter("A_MOVEMENT_TYPE", OracleDbType.NVarchar2, 10); p4.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p4.Value = movementType; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p4); OracleParameter p5 = new OracleParameter("A_MOVEMENT_DATE", OracleDbType.NVarchar2, 10); p5.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p5.Value = movementDate; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p5); OracleParameter p6 = new OracleParameter("A_MOVEMENT_QTY", OracleDbType.Int64, 12); p6.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p6.Value = pounds; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p6); OracleParameter p7 = new OracleParameter("INVENTORY_TYPE", OracleDbType.NVarchar2, 10); p7.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p7.Value = inventoryType; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p7); OracleParameter p8 = new OracleParameter("A_CREATE_USERID", OracleDbType.NVarchar2, 20); p8.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; p8.Value = userID; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p8); OracleParameter p9 = new OracleParameter("A_RETURN_VALUE", OracleDbType.Int32, 10); p9.Direction = ParameterDirection.Output; oraCmd.Parameters.Add(p9); //open and execute oraConn.Open(); oraCmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); oraConn.Close(); } } catch (OracleException oraEx) { msg = "An error has occured in the database: " + oraEx.ToString(); } catch (Exception ex) { msg = "An error has occured: " + ex.ToString(); } finally { //close connection oraConn.Close(); } return msg;

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• BitBlt ignores CAPTUREBLT and seems to always capture a cached copy of the target...

  - by Jake Petroules

  I am trying to capture screenshots using the BitBlt function. However, every single time I capture a screenshot, the non-client area NEVER changes no matter what I do. It's as if it's getting some cached copy of it. The client area is captured correctly. If I close and then re-open the window, and take a screenshot, the non-client area will be captured as it is. Any subsequent captures after moving/resizing the window have no effect on the captured screenshot. Again, the client area will be correct. Furthermore, the CAPTUREBLT flag seems to do absolutely nothing at all. I notice no change with or without it. Here is my capture code: QPixmap WindowManagerUtils::grabWindow(WId windowId, GrabWindowFlags flags, int x, int y, int w, int h) { RECT r; switch (flags) { case WindowManagerUtils::GrabWindowRect: GetWindowRect(windowId, &r); break; case WindowManagerUtils::GrabClientRect: GetClientRect(windowId, &r); break; case WindowManagerUtils::GrabScreenWindow: GetWindowRect(windowId, &r); return QPixmap::grabWindow(QApplication::desktop()->winId(), r.left, r.top, r.right - r.left, r.bottom - r.top); case WindowManagerUtils::GrabScreenClient: GetClientRect(windowId, &r); return QPixmap::grabWindow(QApplication::desktop()->winId(), r.left, r.top, r.right - r.left, r.bottom - r.top); default: return QPixmap(); } if (w < 0) { w = r.right - r.left; } if (h < 0) { h = r.bottom - r.top; } #ifdef Q_WS_WINCE_WM if (qt_wince_is_pocket_pc()) { QWidget *widget = QWidget::find(winId); if (qobject_cast<QDesktopWidget*>(widget)) { RECT rect = {0,0,0,0}; AdjustWindowRectEx(&rect, WS_BORDER | WS_CAPTION, FALSE, 0); int magicNumber = qt_wince_is_high_dpi() ? 4 : 2; y += rect.top - magicNumber; } } #endif // Before we start creating objects, let's make CERTAIN of the following so we don't have a mess Q_ASSERT(flags == WindowManagerUtils::GrabWindowRect || flags == WindowManagerUtils::GrabClientRect); // Create and setup bitmap HDC display_dc = NULL; if (flags == WindowManagerUtils::GrabWindowRect) { display_dc = GetWindowDC(NULL); } else if (flags == WindowManagerUtils::GrabClientRect) { display_dc = GetDC(NULL); } HDC bitmap_dc = CreateCompatibleDC(display_dc); HBITMAP bitmap = CreateCompatibleBitmap(display_dc, w, h); HGDIOBJ null_bitmap = SelectObject(bitmap_dc, bitmap); // copy data HDC window_dc = NULL; if (flags == WindowManagerUtils::GrabWindowRect) { window_dc = GetWindowDC(windowId); } else if (flags == WindowManagerUtils::GrabClientRect) { window_dc = GetDC(windowId); } DWORD ropFlags = SRCCOPY; #ifndef Q_WS_WINCE ropFlags = ropFlags | CAPTUREBLT; #endif BitBlt(bitmap_dc, 0, 0, w, h, window_dc, x, y, ropFlags); // clean up all but bitmap ReleaseDC(windowId, window_dc); SelectObject(bitmap_dc, null_bitmap); DeleteDC(bitmap_dc); QPixmap pixmap = QPixmap::fromWinHBITMAP(bitmap); DeleteObject(bitmap); ReleaseDC(NULL, display_dc); return pixmap; } Most of this code comes from Qt's QWidget::grabWindow function, as I wanted to make some changes so it'd be more flexible. Qt's documentation states that: The grabWindow() function grabs pixels from the screen, not from the window, i.e. if there is another window partially or entirely over the one you grab, you get pixels from the overlying window, too. However, I experience the exact opposite... regardless of the CAPTUREBLT flag. I've tried everything I can think of... nothing works. Any ideas?

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