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• Mysterious swap usage on EC2

  - by rusty

  We're in the middle of a project to move our infrastructure from a co-lo situation into Amazon EC2 and we've noticed some weird memory characteristics of the processes in our setup. Without going into too much detail about the specifics of our processes, we've noticed that on our EC2 instances "top" will show processes using a lot of swap space -- in fact, much greater than the amount of available swap or (if you add it all up) more than the available disk. Here's a sample top output: Mem: 7136868k total, 5272300k used, 1864568k free, 256876k buffers Swap: 1048572k total, 0k used, 1048572k free, 2526504k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ SWAP COMMAND 4121 jboss 20 0 5913m 603m 14m S 0.7 8.7 3:59.90 5.2g java 22730 root 20 0 2394m 4012 1976 S 2.0 0.1 4:20.57 2.3g PassengerHelper 20564 rails 20 0 2539m 220m 9828 S 0.3 3.2 0:23.58 2.3g java 1423 nscd 20 0 877m 1464 972 S 0.0 0.0 0:03.89 876m nscd You can see, for instance, that jboss is reportedly using 5.2 gigs of swap space which is definitely impossible since there's only 1G allocated and none is being used (probably because there's still 1.8G of RAM free). And here's the results of uname -a: Linux xxx.yyy.zzz 2.6.35.14-106.53.amzn1.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Jan 6 16:20:10 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux We're running an AMI based off of the default Amazon Linux AMI (Amazon Linux AMI release 2011.09, so some RHEL5 and RHEL 6) with not too many customizations and definitely no kernel-level customizations. Something here tells me that on this particular kernel/distribution, the reporting of swap or maybe even total memory usage isn't what it appears to be... Any help would be appreciated!

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• Skipping nginx PHP cache for certain areas of a site?

  - by DisgruntledGoat

  I have just set up a new server with nginx (which I am new to) and PHP. On my site there are essentially 3 different types of files: static content like CSS, JS, and some images (most images are on an external CDN) main PHP/MySQL database-driven website which essentially acts like a static site dynamic PHP/MySQL forum It is my understanding from this question and this page that the static files need no special treatment and will be served as fast as possible. I followed the answer from the above question to set up caching for PHP files and now I have a config like this: location ~ \.php$ { try_files $uri =404; fastcgi_cache one; fastcgi_cache_key $scheme$host$request_uri; fastcgi_cache_valid 200 302 304 30m; fastcgi_cache_valid 301 1h; include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params; fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fastcgi/php-fastcgi.socket; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /srv/www/example$fastcgi_script_name; fastcgi_param HTTPS off; } However, now I want to prevent caching on the forum (either for everyone or only for logged-in users - haven't checked if the latter is feasible with the forum software). I've heard that "if is evil" inside location blocks, so I am unsure how to proceed. With the if inside the location block I would probably add this in the middle: if ($request_uri ~* "^/forum/") { fastcgi_cache_bypass 1; } # or possible this, if I'm able to cache pages for anonymous visitors if ($request_uri ~* "^/forum/" && $http_cookie ~* "loggedincookie") { fastcgi_cache_bypass 1; } Will that work fine, or is there a better way to achieve this?

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• Can I use squid (or anything) to do this?

  - by user269334

  I have a really crappy VPS, and a really good computer at my office (with a really good internet connection), but behind a NAT. Is it possible to expose my good computer by doing this: 1. The good computer connects to the VPS (and keeps the connection alive) 2. The users connects to the VPS, and sends http(s) requests to the VPS. 3. The VPS just passes that http(s) requests to the good computer (including some identifications, so the servers can distinguish connections) 4. The good computer passes that http(s) response to the VPS 5. In turn, the VPS receives the http(s) response, and passes back to the client. Is it possible to do this? (btw, the VPS and the good computer are located in different countries) And also, is this "reverse proxy"? I heard that reverse proxy is for protecting the internal network by putting a middle server. And will this affect SSL configurations? (or make SSL impossible?) I'm intending to run nginx on the good computer. Thanks in advance : )

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• Why can't I connect to my home SSH (SFTP) server? What am I doing wrong?

  - by Rolo

  I am new to this topic of creating a SFTP server on one's computer. I would like to be able to access the folder on my Windows XP computer via SFTP from another computer or a phone. The following is what I have done so far: I have installed SSH Windows and everything is setup correctly because I can access it (the folder on my pc) via WinSCP. I however cannot access it from my phone. It doesn't connect. The phone can be on the same wireless network as the Windows XP computer, but I would prefer to be able to access this when not in the same network. Now, from what I have read and understood, the following is the information needed to connect: 1) Host Name: This would be my computer's ip address which I access by typing ipconfig in a cmd prompt (I access this easily on my computer because I simply put in localhost or 127.0.0.1) 2) Port Number: That would be port 22 (I have also added this to my router in the port forwarding section). 3) Username: This would be my Windows XP username. This however is my full name, including my middle initial followed by a period. I am wondering if this is maybe causing problems in accessing it from my phone, since the name has spaces and punctuation (the period). 4) Password: The password of my Windows XP computer Extra Info: When I say phone, I mean an Android phone and I am using an ftp / sftp app to access my pc via the phone's cellular network (I also tried the wireless, but that didn't work as well). I have tried more than one program. On one program it tells me Connection timed out and on another it tells me "timeout:socket is not established" Also, I know that I can use the site noip, but I prefer to connect this way first. Also, because I am new to this, I would like to look into what exactly noip is doing and if they would be seeing my files as they are transferred from phone to pc. Thanking you in advance for your help.

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• Windows 7: resizing the 'Save As' window

  - by Mark Miller

  I do not know whether my question is appropriate for this forum. Apologies if it is not. I am running Windows 7 Professional with Service Pack 1 on a Dell Vostro 460 PC. I am downloading journal articles from the internet and saving them as *.pdf files. Somehow I unintentionally clicked a button that resulted in the 'Save as' window filling the entire screen of my computer, except for the toolbar at the very bottom. How can I resize the 'Save as' window so it only fills perhaps somewhere around 25% of the computer screen, or whatever the default size for that window is? I have searched the internet extensively and found one or two threads about this problem, but no specific solutions were posted there. One suggestion was to grab the bottom of the window with the mouse and scroll upward until the window was the desired size. That does not appear to be possible in my case. Another suggestion was to click on the window with the middle mouse button before attempting to resize the window, but that does not appear to help in my case either. Thank you for any help. If I should post this question in a different forum here please let me know, or kindly migrate the question to the appropriate forum. If additional information is necessary before a solution can be attempted, please let me know that as well.

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• Non-volatile cache RAID controllers: what kind of protection is there against NVCACHE failure?

  - by astrostl

  The battery back-up (BBU) model: admin enables write-back cache with BBU writes are cached to the RAID controller's RAM (major performance benefit) the battery saves uncommitted and cached data in the event of a power loss (reliability) If I lose power and come back within a day or so, my data should be both complete and uncorrupted. The downside to this is that, if the battery is dead or low, OR EVEN IF IT IS IN A RELEARN CYCLE (drain/charge loops to ensure the battery's health), the controller reverts to write-through mode and performance will suffer. What's more, the relearn cycles are usually automated on a schedule which may or may not happen in the middle of big traffic. So, that has to be manually disabled and manually scheduled for off-hours if it's a concern. Annoying either way. NV caches have capacitors with a sufficient charge to commit any uncommitted-to-disk data to flash. Not only is that more survivable in longer loss situations, but you don't have to concern yourself with battery death, wear-out, or relearning. All of that sounds great to me. What doesn't sound great to me is the prospect of that flash module having an issue, though. What if it's completely hosed? What if it's only partially hosed? A bit corrupted at the edges? Relearn cycles can tell when something like a simple battery is failing, but is there a similar process to verify that the flash is functional? I'm just far more trusting of a battery, warts and all. I know the card's RAM can fail, the card itself can fail - that's common territory, though. In case you didn't guess, yeah, I've experienced a shocking-to-me amount of flash/SSD/etc. failure :)

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• "Permission denied" & 500 Internal Server error serving PHP in Mac OS X

  - by Abhic

  I just set up Web Sharing in Mac OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard. My httpd.conf allows for ExecCGI and all the folders and files are readable by everybody and even writable by me. I put a simple Hello World in index.php in my base site and yet my apache error log shows this: [Thu Mar 18 00:17:18 2010] [error] [client 192.168.11.135] (13)Permission denied: exec of '/Users/abhic/Sites/index.php' failed [Thu Mar 18 00:17:18 2010] [error] [client 192.168.11.135] Premature end of script headers: index.php <html> <head> <title> Hello </title> </head> <body> <?php echo "Hello"; ?> </body> </html> is what my index.php looks like placed in /Users/abhic/Sites My browser shows a 500 Internal Server Error Any help would do me good in the middle of the night. I have been trying to solve this for way too long. Thank you.

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• How do I disable DirectDraw and Direct3D acceleration on Windows 8? [closed]

  - by Favourite Chigozie Onwuemene

  Some old games that i would really like to play run slowly on some graphic drivers when direct3d acceleration is enabled. I have tried many suggestions but none seems to work. The only thing i have not tried is disabling direct3d acceleration. Is it possible to disable DirectDraw and Direct3D acceleration on my Windows 8 pc? There are certain bad versions of GeForce drivers that cause this problem. This is a problem in the drivers themselves and is unfortunately completely outside our control. The recommended way to fix this problem is to update your graphics card drivers (go to NVIDIA's web site for this). Alternatively, there is a workaround that alleviates or solves the slowdown problem altogether. Try this: Right-click on your desktop and select "Properties". Go to the "Settings" tab and click on "Advanced...". Click on the "Troubleshooting" tab and move the slider to the left until it says that all DirectDraw and Direct3D accelerations have been disabled (around the middle of the range). Finally, click on "OK". Note that this workaround might cause other games on your computer to slow down, so you may have to switch back and forth between settings, but it's certainly worth a try if you can't obtain an updated graphics driver. -source: interactionstudios

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• Create taskbar shortcut to website in Window 7

  - by BJ292

  I'd like to create a shortcut to a website in Windows 7 on the taskbar that is not pinned to the default web browser. Currently if I drag the favicon from the left end of the firefox address bar to the Win 7 taskbar it will pin a shortcut to the firefox browser icon. Similarly if I create a shortcut on the desktop to a website and drag it to the taskbar it will also end up pinned to the firefox icon. The problem with this is to get to that shortcut I have to right click on the firefox icon and then select the pinned shortcut. That is workable for me but I want to do this for a child - so the shortcut needs to be right there on the taskbar as a stand-alone item. There is a workaround that pretty much solves the problem - create a new folder somewhere safe - create the shortcut to the website in the new folder - right click the taskbar and select toolbars - new toolbar - then browse to the folder you created and select it as the new toolbar. The contents of the folder will now appear on the taskbar as shortcuts. You need to drag it from the right hand end of the taskbar into the middle - turn off show titles and show text and make the icon large. I'd call this a 75% solution. Anyone know how to make a web shortcut that looks and operates just like any of the other shortcuts on the taskbar?

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• ASP.Net MVC2 CustomModelBinder not working... Changed from MVC1

  - by Ian

  (My apologies if this seems verbose - trying to provide all relevant code) I've just upgraded to VS2010, and am now having trouble trying to get a new CustomModelBinder working. In MVC1 I would have written something like public class AwardModelBinder: DefaultModelBinder { : public override object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) { // do the base binding to bind all simple types Award award = base.BindModel(controllerContext, bindingContext) as Award; // Get complex values from ValueProvider dictionary award.EffectiveFrom = Convert.ToDateTime(bindingContext.ValueProvider["Model.EffectiveFrom"].AttemptedValue.ToString()); string sEffectiveTo = bindingContext.ValueProvider["Model.EffectiveTo"].AttemptedValue.ToString(); if (sEffectiveTo.Length > 0) award.EffectiveTo = Convert.ToDateTime(bindingContext.ValueProvider["Model.EffectiveTo"].AttemptedValue.ToString()); // etc return award; } } Of course I'd register the custom binder in Global.asax.cs: protected void Application_Start() { RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); // register custom model binders ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(Voucher), new VoucherModelBinder(DaoFactory.UserInstance("EH1303"))); ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(AwardCriterion), new AwardCriterionModelBinder(DaoFactory.UserInstance("EH1303"), new VOPSDaoFactory())); ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(SelectedVoucher), new SelectedVoucherModelBinder(DaoFactory.UserInstance("IT0706B"))); ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(Award), new AwardModelBinder(DaoFactory.UserInstance("IT0706B"))); } Now, in MVC2, I'm finding that my call to base.BindModel returns an object where everything is null, and I simply don't want to have to iterate all the form fields surfaced by the new ValueProvider.GetValue() function. Google finds no matches for this error, so I assume I'm doing something wrong. Here's my actual code: My domain object (infer what you like about the encapsulated child objects - I know I'll need custom binders for those too, but the three "simple" fields (ie. base types) Id, TradingName and BusinessIncorporated are also coming back null): public class Customer { /// <summary> /// Initializes a new instance of the Customer class. /// </summary> public Customer() { Applicant = new Person(); Contact = new Person(); BusinessContact = new ContactDetails(); BankAccount = new BankAccount(); } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the unique customer identifier. /// </summary> public int Id { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the applicant details. /// </summary> public Person Applicant { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the customer's secondary contact. /// </summary> public Person Contact { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the trading name of the business. /// </summary> [Required(ErrorMessage = "Please enter your Business or Trading Name")] [StringLength(50, ErrorMessage = "A maximum of 50 characters is permitted")] public string TradingName { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the date the customer's business began trading. /// </summary> [Required(ErrorMessage = "You must supply the date your business started trading")] [DateRange("01/01/1900", "01/01/2020", ErrorMessage = "This date must be between {0} and {1}")] public DateTime BusinessIncorporated { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the contact details for the customer's business. /// </summary> public ContactDetails BusinessContact { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the customer's bank account details. /// </summary> public BankAccount BankAccount { get; set; } } My controller method: /// <summary> /// Saves a Customer object from the submitted application form. /// </summary> /// <param name="customer">A populate instance of the Customer class.</param> /// <returns>A partial view indicating success or failure.</returns> /// <httpmethod>POST</httpmethod> /// <url>/Customer/RegisterCustomerAccount</url> [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] public ActionResult RegisterCustomerAccount(Customer customer) { if (ModelState.IsValid) { // save the Customer // return indication of success, or otherwise return PartialView(); } else { ViewData.Model = customer; // load necessary reference data into ViewData ViewData["PersonTitles"] = new SelectList(ReferenceDataCache.Get("PersonTitle"), "Id", "Name"); return PartialView("CustomerAccountRegistration", customer); } } My custom binder: public class CustomerModelBinder : DefaultModelBinder { public override object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) { ValueProviderResult vpResult = bindingContext .ValueProvider.GetValue(bindingContext.ModelName); // vpResult is null // MVC2 - ValueProvider is now an IValueProvider, not dictionary based anymore if (bindingContext.ValueProvider.GetValue("Model.Applicant.Title") != null) { // works } Customer customer = base.BindModel(controllerContext, bindingContext) as Customer; // customer instanitated with null (etc) throughout return customer; } } My binder registration: /// <summary> /// Application_Start is called once when the web application is first accessed. /// </summary> protected void Application_Start() { RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); // register custom model binders ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(Customer), new CustomerModelBinder()); ReferenceDataCache.Populate(); } ... and a snippet from my view (could this be a prefix problem?) <div class="inputContainer"> <label class="above" for="Model_Applicant_Title" accesskey="t"><span class="accesskey">T</span>itle<span class="mandatoryfield">*</span></label> <%= Html.DropDownList("Model.Applicant.Title", ViewData["PersonTitles"] as SelectList, "Select ...", new { @class = "validate[required]" })%> <% Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Applicant.Title); %> </div> <div class="inputContainer"> <label class="above" for="Model_Applicant_Forename" accesskey="f"><span class="accesskey">F</span>orename / First name<span class="mandatoryfield">*</span></label> <%= Html.TextBox("Model.Applicant.Forename", Html.Encode(Model.Applicant.Forename), new { @class = "validate[required,custom[onlyLetter],length[2,20]]", title="Enter your forename", maxlength = 20, size = 20, autocomplete = "off", onkeypress = "return maskInput(event,re_mask_alpha);" })%> </div> <div class="inputContainer"> <label class="above" for="Model_Applicant_MiddleInitials" accesskey="i">Middle <span class="accesskey">I</span>nitial(s)</label> <%= Html.TextBox("Model.Applicant.MiddleInitials", Html.Encode(Model.Applicant.MiddleInitials), new { @class = "validate[optional,custom[onlyLetter],length[0,8]]", title = "Please enter your middle initial(s)", maxlength = 8, size = 8, autocomplete = "off", onkeypress = "return maskInput(event,re_mask_alpha);" })%> </div>

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• How to use Koala Facebook Graph API?

  - by reko

  I am a Rails newbie. I want to use Koala's Graph API. In my controller @graph = Koala::Facebook::API.new('myFacebookAccessToken') @hello = @graph.get_object("my.Name") When I do this, I get something like this { "id"=>"123456", "name"=>"First Middle Last", "first_name"=>"First", "middle_name"=>"Middle", "last_name"=>"Last", "link"=>"http://www.facebook.com/MyName", "username"=>"my.name", "birthday"=>"12/12/1212", "hometown"=>{"id"=>"115200305133358163", "name"=>"City, State"}, "location"=>{"id"=>"1054648928202133335", "name"=>"City, State"}, "bio"=>"This is my awesome Bio.", "quotes"=>"I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul. - William Ernest Henley\r\n\r\n"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.\" - Mark Twain", "work"=>[{"employer"=>{"id"=>"100751133333", "name"=>"Company1"}, "position"=>{"id"=>"105763693332790962", "name"=>"Position1"}, "start_date"=>"2010-08", "end_date"=>"2011-07"}], "sports"=>[{"id"=>"104019549633137", "name"=>"Sport1"}, {"id"=>"103992339636529", "name"=>"Sport2"}], "favorite_teams"=>[{"id"=>"105467226133353743", "name"=>"Fav1"}, {"id"=>"19031343444432369133", "name"=>"Fav2"}, {"id"=>"98027790139333", "name"=>"Fav3"}, {"id"=>"104055132963393331", "name"=>"Fav4"}, {"id"=>"191744431437533310", "name"=>"Fav5"}], "favorite_athletes"=>[{"id"=>"10836600585799922", "name"=>"Fava1"}, {"id"=>"18995689436787722", "name"=>"Fava2"}, {"id"=>"11156342219404022", "name"=>"Fava4"}, {"id"=>"11169998212279347", "name"=>"Fava5"}, {"id"=>"122326564475039", "name"=>"Fava6"}], "inspirational_people"=>[{"id"=>"16383141733798", "name"=>"Fava7"}, {"id"=>"113529011990793335", "name"=>"fava8"}, {"id"=>"112032333138809855566", "name"=>"Fava9"}, {"id"=>"10810367588423324", "name"=>"Fava10"}], "education"=>[{"school"=>{"id"=>"13478880321332322233663", "name"=>"School1"}, "type"=>"High School", "with"=>[{"id"=>"1401052755", "name"=>"Friend1"}]}, {"school"=>{"id"=>"11482777188037224", "name"=>"School2"}, "year"=>{"id"=>"138383069535219", "name"=>"2005"}, "type"=>"High School"}, {"school"=>{"id"=>"10604484633093514", "name"=>"School3"}, "year"=>{"id"=>"142963519060927", "name"=>"2010"}, "concentration"=>[{"id"=>"10407695629335773", "name"=>"c1"}], "type"=>"College"}, {"school"=>{"id"=>"22030497466330708", "name"=>"School4"}, "degree"=>{"id"=>"19233130157477979", "name"=>"c3"}, "year"=>{"id"=>"201638419856163", "name"=>"2011"}, "type"=>"Graduate School"}], "gender"=>"male", "interested_in"=>["female"], "relationship_status"=>"Single", "religion"=>"Religion1", "political"=>"Political1", "email"=>"[email protected]", "timezone"=>-8, "locale"=>"en_US", "languages"=>[{"id"=>"10605952233759137", "name"=>"English"}, {"id"=>"10337617475934611", "name"=>"L2"}, {"id"=>"11296944428713061", "name"=>"L3"}], "verified"=>true, "updated_time"=>"2012-02-24T04:18:05+0000" } How do I show this entire hash in the view in a good format? This is what I did from what ever I learnt.. In my view <% @hello.each do |key, value| %> <li><%=h "#{key.to_s} : #{value.to_s}" %></li> <% end %> This will get the entire thing converted to a list... It works awesome if its just one key.. but how to work with multiple keys and show only the information... something like when it outputs hometown : City, State rather than something like hometown : {"id"=>"115200305133358163", "name"=>"City, State"} Also for education if I just say education[school][name] to display list of schools attended? The error i get is can't convert String into Integer I also tried to do this in my controller, but I get the same error.. @fav_teams = @hello["favorite_teams"]["name"] Also, how can I save all these to the database.. something like just the list of all schools.. not their id no's? Update: The way I plan to save to my database is.. lets say for a user model, i want to save to database as :facebook_id, :facebook_name, :facebook_firstname, ...., :facebook_hometown .. here I only want to save name... when it comes to education.. I want to save.. school, concentration and type.. I have no idea on how to achieve this.. Looking forward for help! thanks!

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• Image Erosion for face detection in C#

  - by Chris Dobinson

  Hi, I'm trying to implement face detection in C#. I currently have a black + white outline of a photo with a face within it (Here). However i'm now trying to remove the noise and then dilate the image in order to improve reliability when i implement the detection. The method I have so far is here: unsafe public Image Process(Image input) { Bitmap bmp = (Bitmap)input; Bitmap bmpSrc = (Bitmap)input; BitmapData bmData = bmp.LockBits(new Rectangle(0, 0, bmp.Width, bmp.Height), ImageLockMode.ReadWrite, PixelFormat.Format24bppRgb); int stride = bmData.Stride; int stride2 = bmData.Stride * 2; IntPtr Scan0 = bmData.Scan0; byte* p = (byte*)(void*)Scan0; int nOffset = stride - bmp.Width * 3; int nWidth = bmp.Width - 2; int nHeight = bmp.Height - 2; var w = bmp.Width; var h = bmp.Height; var rp = p; var empty = CompareEmptyColor; byte c, cm; int i = 0; // Erode every pixel for (int y = 0; y < h; y++) { for (int x = 0; x < w; x++, i++) { // Middle pixel cm = p[y * w + x]; if (cm == empty) { continue; } // Row 0 // Left pixel if (x - 2 > 0 && y - 2 > 0) { c = p[(y - 2) * w + (x - 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } // Middle left pixel if (x - 1 > 0 && y - 2 > 0) { c = p[(y - 2) * w + (x - 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (y - 2 > 0) { c = p[(y - 2) * w + x]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 1 < w && y - 2 > 0) { c = p[(y - 2) * w + (x + 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 2 < w && y - 2 > 0) { c = p[(y - 2) * w + (x + 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } // Row 1 // Left pixel if (x - 2 > 0 && y - 1 > 0) { c = p[(y - 1) * w + (x - 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x - 1 > 0 && y - 1 > 0) { c = p[(y - 1) * w + (x - 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (y - 1 > 0) { c = p[(y - 1) * w + x]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 1 < w && y - 1 > 0) { c = p[(y - 1) * w + (x + 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 2 < w && y - 1 > 0) { c = p[(y - 1) * w + (x + 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } // Row 2 if (x - 2 > 0) { c = p[y * w + (x - 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x - 1 > 0) { c = p[y * w + (x - 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 1 < w) { c = p[y * w + (x + 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 2 < w) { c = p[y * w + (x + 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } // Row 3 if (x - 2 > 0 && y + 1 < h) { c = p[(y + 1) * w + (x - 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x - 1 > 0 && y + 1 < h) { c = p[(y + 1) * w + (x - 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (y + 1 < h) { c = p[(y + 1) * w + x]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 1 < w && y + 1 < h) { c = p[(y + 1) * w + (x + 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 2 < w && y + 1 < h) { c = p[(y + 1) * w + (x + 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } // Row 4 if (x - 2 > 0 && y + 2 < h) { c = p[(y + 2) * w + (x - 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x - 1 > 0 && y + 2 < h) { c = p[(y + 2) * w + (x - 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (y + 2 < h) { c = p[(y + 2) * w + x]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 1 < w && y + 2 < h) { c = p[(y + 2) * w + (x + 1)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } if (x + 2 < w && y + 2 < h) { c = p[(y + 2) * w + (x + 2)]; if (c == empty) { continue; } } // If all neighboring pixels are processed // it's clear that the current pixel is not a boundary pixel. rp[i] = cm; } } bmpSrc.UnlockBits(bmData); return bmpSrc; } As I understand it, in order to erode the image (and remove the noise), we need to check each pixel to see if it's surrounding pixels are black, and if so, then it is a border pixel and we need not keep it, which i believe my code does, so it is beyond me why it doesn't work. Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated Thanks, Chris

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• Optimizing a lot of Scanner.findWithinHorizon(pattern, 0) calls

  - by darvids0n

  I'm building a process which extracts data from 6 csv-style files and two poorly laid out .txt reports and builds output CSVs, and I'm fully aware that there's going to be some overhead searching through all that whitespace thousands of times, but I never anticipated converting about about 50,000 records would take 12 hours. Excerpt of my manual matching code (I know it's horrible that I use lists of tokens like that, but it was the best thing I could think of): public static String lookup(List<String> tokensBefore, List<String> tokensAfter) { String result = null; while(_match(tokensBefore)) { // block until all input is read if(id.hasNext()) { result = id.next(); // capture the next token that matches if(_matchImmediate(tokensAfter)) // try to match tokensAfter to this result return result; } else return null; // end of file; no match } return null; // no matches } private static boolean _match(List<String> tokens) { return _match(tokens, true); } private static boolean _match(List<String> tokens, boolean block) { if(tokens != null && !tokens.isEmpty()) { if(id.findWithinHorizon(tokens.get(0), 0) == null) return false; for(int i = 1; i <= tokens.size(); i++) { if (i == tokens.size()) { // matches all tokens return true; } else if(id.hasNext() && !id.next().matches(tokens.get(i))) { break; // break to blocking behaviour } } } else { return true; // empty list always matches } if(block) return _match(tokens); // loop until we find something or nothing else return false; // return after just one attempted match } private static boolean _matchImmediate(List<String> tokens) { if(tokens != null) { for(int i = 0; i <= tokens.size(); i++) { if (i == tokens.size()) { // matches all tokens return true; } else if(!id.hasNext() || !id.next().matches(tokens.get(i))) { return false; // doesn't match, or end of file } } return false; // we have some serious problems if this ever gets called } else { return true; // empty list always matches } } Basically wondering how I would work in an efficient string search (Boyer-Moore or similar). My Scanner id is scanning a java.util.String, figured buffering it to memory would reduce I/O since the search here is being performed thousands of times on a relatively small file. The performance increase compared to scanning a BufferedReader(FileReader(File)) was probably less than 1%, the process still looks to be taking a LONG time. I've also traced execution and the slowness of my overall conversion process is definitely between the first and last like of the lookup method. In fact, so much so that I ran a shortcut process to count the number of occurrences of various identifiers in the .csv-style files (I use 2 lookup methods, this is just one of them) and the process completed indexing approx 4 different identifiers for 50,000 records in less than a minute. Compared to 12 hours, that's instant. Some notes (updated): I don't necessarily need the pattern-matching behaviour, I only get the first field of a line of text so I need to match line breaks or use Scanner.nextLine(). All ID numbers I need start at position 0 of a line and run through til the first block of whitespace, after which is the name of the corresponding object. I would ideally want to return a String, not an int locating the line number or start position of the result, but if it's faster then it will still work just fine. If an int is being returned, however, then I would now have to seek to that line again just to get the ID; storing the ID of every line that is searched sounds like a way around that. Anything to help me out, even if it saves 1ms per search, will help, so all input is appreciated. Thankyou! Usage scenario 1: I have a list of objects in file A, who in the old-style system have an id number which is not in file A. It is, however, POSSIBLY in another csv-style file (file B) or possibly still in a .txt report (file C) which each also contain a bunch of other information which is not useful here, and so file B needs to be searched through for the object's full name (1 token since it would reside within the second column of any given line), and then the first column should be the ID number. If that doesn't work, we then have to split the search token by whitespace into separate tokens before doing a search of file C for those tokens as well. Generalised code: String field; for (/* each record in file A */) { /* construct the rest of this object from file A info */ // now to find the ID, if we can List<String> objectName = new ArrayList<String>(1); objectName.add(Pattern.quote(thisObject.fullName)); field = lookup(objectSearchToken, objectName); // search file B if(field == null) // not found in file B { lookupReset(false); // initialise scanner to check file C objectName.clear(); // not using the full name String[] tokens = thisObject.fullName.split(id.delimiter().pattern()); for(String s : tokens) objectName.add(Pattern.quote(s)); field = lookup(objectSearchToken, objectName); // search file C lookupReset(true); // back to file B } else { /* found it, file B specific processing here */ } if(field != null) // found it in B or C thisObject.ID = field; } The objectName tokens are all uppercase words with possible hyphens or apostrophes in them, separated by spaces. Much like a person's name. As per a comment, I will pre-compile the regex for my objectSearchToken, which is just [\r\n]+. What's ending up happening in file C is, every single line is being checked, even the 95% of lines which don't contain an ID number and object name at the start. Would it be quicker to use ^[\r\n]+.*(objectname) instead of two separate regexes? It may reduce the number of _match executions. The more general case of that would be, concatenate all tokensBefore with all tokensAfter, and put a .* in the middle. It would need to be matching backwards through the file though, otherwise it would match the correct line but with a huge .* block in the middle with lots of lines. The above situation could be resolved if I could get java.util.Scanner to return the token previous to the current one after a call to findWithinHorizon. I have another usage scenario. Will put it up asap.

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• NullPointerException, Collections not storing data?

  - by Elliott

  Hi there, I posted this question earlier but not with the code in its entirety. The coe below also calls to other classes Background and Hydro which I have included at the bottom. I have a Nullpointerexception at the line indicate by asterisks. Which would suggest to me that the Collections are not storing data properly. Although when I check their size they seem correct. Thanks in advance. PS: If anyone would like to give me advice on how best to format my code to make it readable, it would be appreciated. Elliott package exam0607; import java.io.BufferedReader; import java.io.IOException; import java.io.InputStream; import java.io.InputStreamReader; import java.net.URL; import java.util.Collection; import java.util.Scanner; import java.util.Vector; import exam0607.Hydro; import exam0607.Background;// this may not be necessary???? FIND OUT public class HydroAnalysis { public static void main(String[] args) { Collection hydroList = null; Collection backList = null; try{hydroList = readHydro("http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/undergrad/3459/exam_data/2006-07/final/hd_data.dat");} catch (IOException e){ e.getMessage();} try{backList = readBackground("http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/undergrad/3459/exam_data/2006-07/final/hd_bgd.dat"); //System.out.println(backList.size()); } catch (IOException e){ e.getMessage();} for(int i =0; i <=14; i++ ){ String nameroot = "HJK"; String middle = Integer.toString(i); String hydroName = nameroot + middle + "X"; System.out.println(hydroName); ALGO_1(hydroName, backList, hydroList); } } public static Collection readHydro(String url) throws IOException { URL u = new URL(url); InputStream is = u.openStream(); InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is); BufferedReader b = new BufferedReader(isr); String line =""; Collection data = new Vector(); while((line = b.readLine())!= null){ Scanner s = new Scanner(line); String name = s.next(); System.out.println(name); double starttime = Double.parseDouble(s.next()); System.out.println(+starttime); double increment = Double.parseDouble(s.next()); System.out.println(+increment); double p = 0; double nterms = 0; while(s.hasNextDouble()){ p = Double.parseDouble(s.next()); System.out.println(+p); nterms++; System.out.println(+nterms); } Hydro SAMP = new Hydro(name, starttime, increment, p); data.add(SAMP); } return data; } public static Collection readBackground(String url) throws IOException { URL u = new URL(url); InputStream is = u.openStream(); InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is); BufferedReader b = new BufferedReader(isr); String line =""; Vector data = new Vector(); while((line = b.readLine())!= null){ Scanner s = new Scanner(line); String name = s.next(); //System.out.println(name); double starttime = Double.parseDouble(s.next()); //System.out.println(starttime); double increment = Double.parseDouble(s.next()); //System.out.println(increment); double sum = 0; double p = 0; double nterms = 0; while((s.hasNextDouble())){ p = Double.parseDouble(s.next()); //System.out.println(p); nterms++; sum += p; } double pbmean = sum/nterms; Background SAMP = new Background(name, starttime, increment, pbmean); //System.out.println(SAMP); data.add(SAMP); } return data; } public static void ALGO_1(String hydroName, Collection backgs, Collection hydros){ //double aMin = Double.POSITIVE_INFINITY; //double sum = 0; double intensity = 0; double numberPN_SIG = 0; double POSITIVE_PN_SIG =0; //int numberOfRays = 0; for(Hydro hd: hydros){ System.out.println(hd.H_NAME); for(Background back : backgs){ System.out.println(back.H_NAME); if(back.H_NAME.equals(hydroName)){//ERROR HERE double PN_SIG = Math.max(0.0, hd.PN - back.PBMEAN); numberPN_SIG ++; if(PN_SIG 0){ intensity += PN_SIG; POSITIVE_PN_SIG ++; } } } double positive_fraction = POSITIVE_PN_SIG/numberPN_SIG; if(positive_fraction < 0.5){ System.out.println( hydroName + "is faulty" ); } else{System.out.println(hydroName + "is not faulty");} System.out.println(hydroName + "has instensity" + intensity); } } } THE BACKGROUND CLASS package exam0607; public class Background { String H_NAME; double T_START; double DT; double PBMEAN; public Background(String name, double starttime, double increment, double pbmean) { name = H_NAME; starttime = T_START; increment = DT; pbmean = PBMEAN; }} AND THE HYDRO CLASS public class Hydro { String H_NAME; double T_START; double DT; double PN; public double n; public Hydro(String name, double starttime, double increment, double p) { name = H_NAME; starttime = T_START; increment = DT; p = PN; } }

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• Style Problem with Repeater Inside a Datalist

  - by Jepe d Hepe

  i've used a DataList (dlparent) control for one of my page. Inside that datalist is another Datalist (dlchild) that is being populated by itemdatabound event of the parent datalist. i've used css with dlchild. Databinding is ok and the required output shows great with mozilla and IE but not in netscape, safari and google chrome. dlchild is not showing. only item in dlparent appears. Here's the markup for the dlparent: <asp:DataList ID="SprintsWorkData" Style="float: left; padding-top: 10px;" runat="server" OnItemDataBound="SprintsWorkData_ItemDataBound"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:HiddenField ID="hiddenSprintId" runat="server" Value='<%# Eval("SprintId") %>' /> <div id="SprintNameSection"> <h4> <%# Eval("SprintName") %></h4> </div> <div id="HeaderSection_SelectAll"> <div style="padding-top: 3px; height: 23px; padding-left: 2px;"> <asp:CheckBox ID="isAllCheck" runat="server" onclick="checkAll(this)" /> <b> <asp:Label ID="sAll" Style="color: Black; text-indent: 1px;" Text="Select All" runat="server"></asp:Label> </b> </div> </div> <div class="HeaderSection_WorkedHours"> <b><asp:Literal ID="workedHours" runat="server" Text='<%$ Resources:LanguagePack, Worked_Hours %>'></asp:Literal></b></div> <div class="HeaderSection_BillableHours"> <b><asp:Literal ID="billableHours" runat="server" Text='<%$ Resources:LanguagePack, Billable_Hours %>'></asp:Literal></b></div> <div class="HeaderSection_Comments"> <b><asp:Literal ID="comments" runat="server" Text='<%$ Resources:LanguagePack, Comments %>'></asp:Literal></b></div> <asp:DataList ID="HoursWorkData" runat="server"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:HiddenField ID="hiddenTaskId" runat="server" Value='<%# Eval("BacklogId") %>' /> <div id="ItemSection_Task_Header"> <div style="vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-left: 2px; height: 18px;"> <asp:CheckBox ID="checkboxSub" runat="server" onclick="checkAllSub(this)" /> <b style="text-indent: 1px;"> <%# Eval("Title") %></b> </div> </div> <div id="ItemSection_WorkedHours_Header"> <%# Eval("WorkedHours")%>&nbsp;</div> <div id="ItemSection_BillableHours_Header"> <asp:Label ID="lblBillableHours_Header" Text='<%# Eval("BillableHours")%>' runat="server"></asp:Label>&nbsp;</div> <div id="ItemSection_Comments_Header"> </div> <asp:Repeater ID="repResourcesList" runat="server"> <ItemTemplate> <asp:HiddenField ID="hiddenReportId1" runat="server" Value='<%# Eval("ReportId") %>' /> <div id="ItemSection_Task_Item"> <div style="vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 2px; padding-top: 1px; height: 14px;"> <asp:CheckBox ID="CB" runat="server" onclick="checkItem(this)" /> <b style="text-indent: 1px;"> <%# Eval("EnteredbyName") %></b> </div> </div> <div id="ItemSection_WorkedHours_Item"> <asp:Label ID="lblWorkedHours_Item" Text='<%# Eval("WorkedHours")%>' runat="server"></asp:Label>&nbsp;</div> <div id="ItemSection_BillableHours_Item"> <asp:RegularExpressionValidator ValidationGroup="ApproveBillable" ID="RegularExpressionValidator1" runat="server" ErrorMessage="*" ValidationExpression="^(-)?\d+(\.\d\d)?$" ControlToValidate="txtBillableHours" Style="position: absolute;">*</asp:RegularExpressionValidator> <asp:TextBox ID="txtBillableHours" Style="text-align: right" runat="server" Font-Size="12px" Width="50px" Text='<%# Eval("BillableHours") %>'></asp:TextBox> </div> <div id="ItemSection_Comments_Item"> <asp:TextBox ID="txtComments" Font-Size="12px" Width="93px" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("Comment") %>'></asp:TextBox> </div> </ItemTemplate> </asp:Repeater> </ItemTemplate> <ItemStyle Height="24px" /> <SeparatorTemplate> <div id="divSeparator"> </div> </SeparatorTemplate> <FooterTemplate> <div id="Footer1"> TOTAL HOURS &nbsp; </div> <div id="Footer_WorkedHours"> <asp:Label ID="lblWorkedHours" runat="server" Text="0.00" Font-Size="12px" ForeColor="White"></asp:Label>&nbsp; </div> <div id="Footer_BillableHours"> <asp:Label ID="lblBillableHours_Footer" runat="server" Text="0.00" Font-Size="12px" ForeColor="White"></asp:Label>&nbsp; </div> <div id="Footer_Comments"> </div> </FooterTemplate> </asp:DataList> </ItemTemplate> <SeparatorTemplate> &nbsp; </SeparatorTemplate> </asp:DataList> What might be the problem?

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• What&rsquo;s New in ASP.NET 4.0 Part Two: WebForms and Visual Studio Enhancements

  - by Rick Strahl

  In the last installment I talked about the core changes in the ASP.NET runtime that I’ve been taking advantage of. In this column, I’ll cover the changes to the Web Forms engine and some of the cool improvements in Visual Studio that make Web and general development easier. WebForms The WebForms engine is the area that has received most significant changes in ASP.NET 4.0. Probably the most widely anticipated features are related to managing page client ids and of ViewState on WebForm pages. Take Control of Your ClientIDs Unique ClientID generation in ASP.NET has been one of the most complained about “features” in ASP.NET. Although there’s a very good technical reason for these unique generated ids - they guarantee unique ids for each and every server control on a page - these unique and generated ids often get in the way of client-side JavaScript development and CSS styling as it’s often inconvenient and fragile to work with the long, generated ClientIDs. In ASP.NET 4.0 you can now specify an explicit client id mode on each control or each naming container parent control to control how client ids are generated. By default, ASP.NET generates mangled client ids for any control contained in a naming container (like a Master Page, or a User Control for example). The key to ClientID management in ASP.NET 4.0 are the new ClientIDMode and ClientIDRowSuffix properties. ClientIDMode supports four different ClientID generation settings shown below. For the following examples, imagine that you have a Textbox control named txtName inside of a master page control container on a WebForms page. <%@Page Language="C#"      MasterPageFile="~/Site.Master"     CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="WebApplication1.WebForm2"  %> <asp:Content ID="content"  ContentPlaceHolderID="content"               runat="server"               ClientIDMode="Static" >       <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName" /> </asp:Content> The four available ClientIDMode values are: AutoID This is the existing behavior in ASP.NET 1.x-3.x where full naming container munging takes place. <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"        id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> This should be familiar to any ASP.NET developer and results in fairly unpredictable client ids that can easily change if the containership hierarchy changes. For example, removing the master page changes the name in this case, so if you were to move a block of script code that works against the control to a non-Master page, the script code immediately breaks. Static This option is the most deterministic setting that forces the control’s ClientID to use its ID value directly. No naming container naming at all is applied and you end up with clean client ids: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName"         type="text" id="txtName" /> Note that the name property which is used for postback variables to the server still is munged, but the ClientID property is displayed simply as the ID value that you have assigned to the control. This option is what most of us want to use, but you have to be clear on that because it can potentially cause conflicts with other controls on the page. If there are several instances of the same naming container (several instances of the same user control for example) there can easily be a client id naming conflict. Note that if you assign Static to a data-bound control, like a list child control in templates, you do not get unique ids either, so for list controls where you rely on unique id for child controls, you’ll probably want to use Predictable rather than Static. I’ll write more on this a little later when I discuss ClientIDRowSuffix. Predictable The previous two values are pretty self-explanatory. Predictable however, requires some explanation. To me at least it’s not in the least bit predictable. MSDN defines this value as follows: This algorithm is used for controls that are in data-bound controls. The ClientID value is generated by concatenating the ClientID value of the parent naming container with the ID value of the control. If the control is a data-bound control that generates multiple rows, the value of the data field specified in the ClientIDRowSuffix property is added at the end. For the GridView control, multiple data fields can be specified. If the ClientIDRowSuffix property is blank, a sequential number is added at the end instead of a data-field value. Each segment is separated by an underscore character (_). The key that makes this value a bit confusing is that it relies on the parent NamingContainer’s ClientID to build its own ClientID value. This effectively means that the value is not predictable at all but rather very tightly coupled to the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For my simple textbox example, if the ClientIDMode property of the parent naming container (Page in this case) is set to “Predictable” you’ll get this: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="content_txtName" /> which gives an id that based on walking up to the currently active naming container (the MasterPage content container) and starting the id formatting from there downward. Think of this as a semi unique name that’s guaranteed unique only for the naming container. If, on the other hand, the Page is set to “AutoID” you get the following with Predictable on txtName: <input name="ctl00$content$txtName" type="text"         id="ctl00_content_txtName" /> The latter is effectively the same as if you specified AutoID because it inherits the AutoID naming from the Page and Content Master Page control of the page. But again - predictable behavior always depends on the parent naming container and how it generates its id, so the id may not always be exactly the same as the AutoID generated value because somewhere in the NamingContainer chain the ClientIDMode setting may be set to a different value. For example, if you had another naming container in the middle that was set to Static you’d end up effectively with an id that starts with the NamingContainers id rather than the whole ctl000_content munging. The most common use for Predictable is likely to be for data-bound controls, which results in each data bound item getting a unique ClientID. Unfortunately, even here the behavior can be very unpredictable depending on which data-bound control you use - I found significant differences in how template controls in a GridView behave from those that are used in a ListView control. For example, GridView creates clean child ClientIDs, while ListView still has a naming container in the ClientID, presumably because of the template container on which you can’t set ClientIDMode. Predictable is useful, but only if all naming containers down the chain use this setting. Otherwise you’re right back to the munged ids that are pretty unpredictable. Another property, ClientIDRowSuffix, can be used in combination with ClientIDMode of Predictable to force a suffix onto list client controls. For example: <asp:GridView runat="server" ID="gvItems"              AutoGenerateColumns="false"             ClientIDMode="Static"              ClientIDRowSuffix="Id">     <Columns>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>             <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtName"                        Text='<%# Eval("Name") %>'                   ClientIDMode="Predictable"/>         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     <asp:TemplateField>         <ItemTemplate>         <asp:Label runat="server" id="txtId"                     Text='<%# Eval("Id") %>'                     ClientIDMode="Predictable" />         </ItemTemplate>     </asp:TemplateField>     </Columns>  </asp:GridView> generates client Ids inside of a column in the master page described earlier: <td>     <span id="txtName_0">Rick</span> </td> where the value after the underscore is the ClientIDRowSuffix field - in this case “Id” of the item data bound to the control. Note that all of the child controls require ClientIDMode=”Predictable” in order for the ClientIDRowSuffix to be applied, and the parent GridView controls need to be set to Static either explicitly or via Naming Container inheritance to give these simple names. It’s a bummer that ClientIDRowSuffix doesn’t work with Static to produce this automatically. Another real problem is that other controls process the ClientIDMode differently. For example, a ListView control processes the Predictable ClientIDMode differently and produces the following with the Static ListView and Predictable child controls: <span id="ctrl0_txtName_0">Rick</span> I couldn’t even figure out a way using ClientIDMode to get a simple ID that also uses a suffix short of falling back to manually generated ids using <%= %> expressions instead. Given the inconsistencies inside of list controls using <%= %>, ids for the ListView might not be a bad idea anyway. Inherit The final setting is Inherit, which is the default for all controls except Page. This means that controls by default inherit the parent naming container’s ClientIDMode setting. For more detailed information on ClientID behavior and different scenarios you can check out a blog post of mine on this subject: http://www.west-wind.com/weblog/posts/54760.aspx. ClientID Enhancements Summary The ClientIDMode property is a welcome addition to ASP.NET 4.0. To me this is probably the most useful WebForms feature as it allows me to generate clean IDs simply by setting ClientIDMode="Static" on either the page or inside of Web.config (in the Pages section) which applies the setting down to the entire page which is my 95% scenario. For the few cases when it matters - for list controls and inside of multi-use user controls or custom server controls) - I can use Predictable or even AutoID to force controls to unique names. For application-level page development, this is easy to accomplish and provides maximum usability for working with client script code against page controls. ViewStateMode Another area of large criticism for WebForms is ViewState. ViewState is used internally by ASP.NET to persist page-level changes to non-postback properties on controls as pages post back to the server. It’s a useful mechanism that works great for the overall mechanics of WebForms, but it can also cause all sorts of overhead for page operation as ViewState can very quickly get out of control and consume huge amounts of bandwidth in your page content. ViewState can also wreak havoc with client-side scripting applications that modify control properties that are tracked by ViewState, which can produce very unpredictable results on a Postback after client-side updates. Over the years in my own development, I’ve often turned off ViewState on pages to reduce overhead. Yes, you lose some functionality, but you can easily implement most of the common functionality in non-ViewState workarounds. Relying less on heavy ViewState controls and sticking with simpler controls or raw HTML constructs avoids getting around ViewState problems. In ASP.NET 3.x and prior, it wasn’t easy to control ViewState - you could turn it on or off and if you turned it off at the page or web.config level, you couldn’t turn it back on for specific controls. In short, it was an all or nothing approach. With ASP.NET 4.0, the new ViewStateMode property gives you more control. It allows you to disable ViewState globally either on the page or web.config level and then turn it back on for specific controls that might need it. ViewStateMode only works when EnableViewState="true" on the page or web.config level (which is the default). You can then use ViewStateMode of Disabled, Enabled or Inherit to control the ViewState settings on the page. If you’re shooting for minimal ViewState usage, the ideal situation is to set ViewStateMode to disabled on the Page or web.config level and only turn it back on particular controls: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"        ClientIDMode="Static"                ViewStateMode="Disabled"     EnableViewState="true"  %> <!-- this control has viewstate  --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName"  ViewStateMode="Enabled" />       <!-- this control has no viewstate - it inherits  from parent container --> <asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtAddress" /> Note that the EnableViewState="true" at the Page level isn’t required since it’s the default, but it’s important that the value is true. ViewStateMode has no effect if EnableViewState="false" at the page level. The main benefit of ViewStateMode is that it allows you to more easily turn off ViewState for most of the page and enable only a few key controls that might need it. For me personally, this is a perfect combination as most of my WebForm apps can get away without any ViewState at all. But some controls - especially third party controls - often don’t work well without ViewState enabled, and now it’s much easier to selectively enable controls rather than the old way, which required you to pretty much turn off ViewState for all controls that you didn’t want ViewState on. Inline HTML Encoding HTML encoding is an important feature to prevent cross-site scripting attacks in data entered by users on your site. In order to make it easier to create HTML encoded content, ASP.NET 4.0 introduces a new Expression syntax using <%: %> to encode string values. The encoding expression syntax looks like this: <%: "<script type='text/javascript'>" +     "alert('Really?');</script>" %> which produces properly encoded HTML: &lt;script type=&#39;text/javascript&#39; &gt;alert(&#39;Really?&#39;);&lt;/script&gt; Effectively this is a shortcut to: <%= HttpUtility.HtmlEncode( "<script type='text/javascript'>" + "alert('Really?');</script>") %> Of course the <%: %> syntax can also evaluate expressions just like <%= %> so the more common scenario applies this expression syntax against data your application is displaying. Here’s an example displaying some data model values: <%: Model.Address.Street %> This snippet shows displaying data from your application’s data store or more importantly, from data entered by users. Anything that makes it easier and less verbose to HtmlEncode text is a welcome addition to avoid potential cross-site scripting attacks. Although I listed Inline HTML Encoding here under WebForms, anything that uses the WebForms rendering engine including ASP.NET MVC, benefits from this feature. ScriptManager Enhancements The ASP.NET ScriptManager control in the past has introduced some nice ways to take programmatic and markup control over script loading, but there were a number of shortcomings in this control. The ASP.NET 4.0 ScriptManager has a number of improvements that make it easier to control script loading and addresses a few of the shortcomings that have often kept me from using the control in favor of manual script loading. The first is the AjaxFrameworkMode property which finally lets you suppress loading the ASP.NET AJAX runtime. Disabled doesn’t load any ASP.NET AJAX libraries, but there’s also an Explicit mode that lets you pick and choose the library pieces individually and reduce the footprint of ASP.NET AJAX script included if you are using the library. There’s also a new EnableCdn property that forces any script that has a new WebResource attribute CdnPath property set to a CDN supplied URL. If the script has this Attribute property set to a non-null/empty value and EnableCdn is enabled on the ScriptManager, that script will be served from the specified CdnPath. [assembly: WebResource(    "Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js",    "application/x-javascript",    CdnPath =  "http://mysite.com/scripts/ww.jquery.min.js")] Cool, but a little too static for my taste since this value can’t be changed at runtime to point at a debug script as needed, for example. Assembly names for loading scripts from resources can now be simple names rather than fully qualified assembly names, which make it less verbose to reference scripts from assemblies loaded from your bin folder or the assembly reference area in web.config: <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <Scripts>         <asp:ScriptReference          Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.ww.jquery.js"         Assembly="Westwind.Web" />     </Scripts>        </asp:ScriptManager> The ScriptManager in 4.0 also supports script combining via the CompositeScript tag, which allows you to very easily combine scripts into a single script resource served via ASP.NET. Even nicer: You can specify the URL that the combined script is served with. Check out the following script manager markup that combines several static file scripts and a script resource into a single ASP.NET served resource from a static URL (allscripts.js): <asp:ScriptManager runat="server" id="Id"          EnableCdn="true"         AjaxFrameworkMode="disabled">     <CompositeScript          Path="~/scripts/allscripts.js">         <Scripts>             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference                    Path="~/scripts/ww.jquery.js" />             <asp:ScriptReference            Name="Westwind.Web.Resources.editors.js"                 Assembly="Westwind.Web" />         </Scripts>     </CompositeScript> </asp:ScriptManager> When you render this into HTML, you’ll see a single script reference in the page: <script src="scripts/allscripts.debug.js"          type="text/javascript"></script> All you need to do to make this work is ensure that allscripts.js and allscripts.debug.js exist in the scripts folder of your application - they can be empty but the file has to be there. This is pretty cool, but you want to be real careful that you use unique URLs for each combination of scripts you combine or else browser and server caching will easily screw you up royally. The script manager also allows you to override native ASP.NET AJAX scripts now as any script references defined in the Scripts section of the ScriptManager trump internal references. So if you want custom behavior or you want to fix a possible bug in the core libraries that normally are loaded from resources, you can now do this simply by referencing the script resource name in the Name property and pointing at System.Web for the assembly. Not a common scenario, but when you need it, it can come in real handy. Still, there are a number of shortcomings in this control. For one, the ScriptManager and ClientScript APIs still have no common entry point so control developers are still faced with having to check and support both APIs to load scripts so that controls can work on pages that do or don’t have a ScriptManager on the page. The CdnUrl is static and compiled in, which is very restrictive. And finally, there’s still no control over where scripts get loaded on the page - ScriptManager still injects scripts into the middle of the HTML markup rather than in the header or optionally the footer. This, in turn, means there is little control over script loading order, which can be problematic for control developers. MetaDescription, MetaKeywords Page Properties There are also a number of additional Page properties that correspond to some of the other features discussed in this column: ClientIDMode, ClientTarget and ViewStateMode. Another minor but useful feature is that you can now directly access the MetaDescription and MetaKeywords properties on the Page object to set the corresponding meta tags programmatically. Updating these values programmatically previously required either <%= %> expressions in the page markup or dynamic insertion of literal controls into the page. You can now just set these properties programmatically on the Page object in any Control derived class on the page or the Page itself: Page.MetaKeywords = "ASP.NET,4.0,New Features"; Page.MetaDescription = "This article discusses the new features in ASP.NET 4.0"; Note, that there’s no corresponding ASP.NET tag for the HTML Meta element, so the only way to specify these values in markup and access them is via the @Page tag: <%@Page Language="C#"      CodeBehind="WebForm2.aspx.cs"     Inherits="Westwind.WebStore.WebForm2"      ClientIDMode="Static"                MetaDescription="Article that discusses what's                      new in ASP.NET 4.0"     MetaKeywords="ASP.NET,4.0,New Features" %> Nothing earth shattering but quite convenient. Visual Studio 2010 Enhancements for Web Development For Web development there are also a host of editor enhancements in Visual Studio 2010. Some of these are not Web specific but they are useful for Web developers in general. Text Editors Throughout Visual Studio 2010, the text editors have all been updated to a new core engine based on WPF which provides some interesting new features for various code editors including the nice ability to zoom in and out with Ctrl-MouseWheel to quickly change the size of text. There are many more API options to control the editor and although Visual Studio 2010 doesn’t yet use many of these features, we can look forward to enhancements in add-ins and future editor updates from the various language teams that take advantage of the visual richness that WPF provides to editing. On the negative side, I’ve noticed that occasionally the code editor and especially the HTML and JavaScript editors will lose the ability to use various navigation keys like arrows, back and delete keys, which requires closing and reopening the documents at times. This issue seems to be well documented so I suspect this will be addressed soon with a hotfix or within the first service pack. Overall though, the code editors work very well, especially given that they were re-written completely using WPF, which was one of my big worries when I first heard about the complete redesign of the editors. Multi-Targeting Visual Studio now targets all versions of the .NET framework from 2.0 forward. You can use Visual Studio 2010 to work on your ASP.NET 2, 3.0 and 3.5 applications which is a nice way to get your feet wet with the new development environment without having to make changes to existing applications. It’s nice to have one tool to work in for all the different versions. Multi-Monitor Support One cool feature of Visual Studio 2010 is the ability to drag windows out of the Visual Studio environment and out onto the desktop including onto another monitor easily. Since Web development often involves working with a host of designers at the same time - visual designer, HTML markup window, code behind and JavaScript editor - it’s really nice to be able to have a little more screen real estate to work on each of these editors. Microsoft made a welcome change in the environment. IntelliSense Snippets for HTML and JavaScript Editors The HTML and JavaScript editors now finally support IntelliSense scripts to create macro-based template expansions that have been in the core C# and Visual Basic code editors since Visual Studio 2005. Snippets allow you to create short XML-based template definitions that can act as static macros or real templates that can have replaceable values that can be embedded into the expanded text. The XML syntax for these snippets is straight forward and it’s pretty easy to create custom snippets manually. You can easily create snippets using XML and store them in your custom snippets folder (C:\Users\rstrahl\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Code Snippets\Visual Web Developer\My HTML Snippets and My JScript Snippets), but it helps to use one of the third-party tools that exist to simplify the process for you. I use SnippetEditor, by Bill McCarthy, which makes short work of creating snippets interactively (http://snippeteditor.codeplex.com/). Note: You may have to manually add the Visual Studio 2010 User specific Snippet folders to this tool to see existing ones you’ve created. Code snippets are some of the biggest time savers and HTML editing more than anything deals with lots of repetitive tasks that lend themselves to text expansion. Visual Studio 2010 includes a slew of built-in snippets (that you can also customize!) and you can create your own very easily. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to spend a little time examining your coding patterns and find the repetitive code that you write and convert it into snippets. I’ve been using CodeRush for this for years, but now you can do much of the basic expansion natively for HTML and JavaScript snippets. jQuery Integration Is Now Native jQuery is a popular JavaScript library and recently Microsoft has recently stated that it will become the primary client-side scripting technology to drive higher level script functionality in various ASP.NET Web projects that Microsoft provides. In Visual Studio 2010, the default full project template includes jQuery as part of a new project including the support files that provide IntelliSense (-vsdoc files). IntelliSense support for jQuery is now also baked into Visual Studio 2010, so unlike Visual Studio 2008 which required a separate download, no further installs are required for a rich IntelliSense experience with jQuery. Summary ASP.NET 4.0 brings many useful improvements to the platform, but thankfully most of the changes are incremental changes that don’t compromise backwards compatibility and they allow developers to ease into the new features one feature at a time. None of the changes in ASP.NET 4.0 or Visual Studio 2010 are monumental or game changers. The bigger features are language and .NET Framework changes that are also optional. This ASP.NET and tools release feels more like fine tuning and getting some long-standing kinks worked out of the platform. It shows that the ASP.NET team is dedicated to paying attention to community feedback and responding with changes to the platform and development environment based on this feedback. If you haven’t gotten your feet wet with ASP.NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010, there’s no reason not to give it a shot now - the ASP.NET 4.0 platform is solid and Visual Studio 2010 works very well for a brand new release. Check it out. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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• Advanced Data Source Engine coming to Telerik Reporting Q1 2010

  This is the final blog post from the pre-release series. In it we are going to share with you some of the updates coming to our reporting solution in Q1 2010. A new Declarative Data Source Engine will be added to Telerik Reporting, that will allow full control over data management, and deliver significant gains in rendering performance and memory consumption. Some of the engines new features will be: Data source parameters - those parameters will be used to limit data retrieved from the data source to just the data needed for the report. Data source parameters are processed on the data source side, however only queried data is fetched to the reporting engine, rather than the full data source. This leads to lower memory consumption, because data operations are performed on queried data only, rather than on all data. As a result, only the queried data needs to be stored in the memory vs. the whole dataset, which was the case with the old approach Support for stored procedures - they will assist in achieving a consistent implementation of logic across applications, and are especially practical for performing repetitive tasks. A stored procedure stores the SQL statements and logic, which can then be executed in different reports and/or applications. Stored Procedures will not only save development time, but they will also improve performance, because each stored procedure is compiled on the data base server once, and then is reutilized. In Telerik Reporting, the stored procedure will also be parameterized, where elements of the SQL statement will be bound to parameters. These parameterized SQL queries will be handled through the data source parameters, and are evaluated at run time. Using parameterized SQL queries will improve the performance and decrease the memory footprint of your application, because they will be applied directly on the database server and only the necessary data will be downloaded on the middle tier or client machine; Calculated fields through expressions - with the help of the new reporting engine you will be able to use field values in formulas to come up with a calculated field. A calculated field is a user defined field that is computed "on the fly" and does not exist in the data source, but can perform calculations using the data of the data source object it belongs to. Calculated fields are very handy for adding frequently used formulas to your reports; Improved performance and optimized in-memory OLAP engine - the new data source will come with several improvements in how aggregates are calculated, and memory is managed. As a result, you may experience between 30% (for simpler reports) and 400% (for calculation-intensive reports) in rendering performance, and about 50% decrease in memory consumption. Full design time support through wizards - Declarative data sources are a great advance and will save developers countless hours of coding. In Q1 2010, and true to Telerik Reportings essence, using the new data source engine and its features requires little to no coding, because we have extended most of the wizards to support the new functionality. The newly extended wizards are available in VS2005/VS2008/VS2010 design-time. More features will be revealed on the product's what's new page when the new version is officially released in a few days. Also make sure you attend the free webinar on Thursday, March 11th that will be dedicated to the updates in Telerik Reporting Q1 2010. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Performance and Optimization Isn’t Evil

  - by Reed

  Donald Knuth is a fairly amazing guy.  I consider him one of the most influential contributors to computer science of all time.  Unfortunately, most of the time I hear his name, I cringe.  This is because it’s typically somebody quoting a small portion of one of his famous statements on optimization: “premature optimization is the root of all evil.” I mention that this is only a portion of the entire quote, and, as such, I feel that Knuth is being quoted out of context.  Optimization is important.  It is a critical part of every software development effort, and should never be ignored.  A developer who ignores optimization is not a professional.  Every developer should understand optimization – know what to optimize, when to optimize it, and how to think about code in a way that is intelligent and productive from day one. I want to start by discussing my own, personal motivation here.  I recently wrote about a performance issue I ran across, and was slammed by multiple comments and emails that effectively boiled down to: “You’re an idiot.  Premature optimization is the root of all evil.  This doesn’t matter.”  It didn’t matter that I discovered this while measuring in a profiler, and that it was a portion of my code base that can take “many hours to complete.”  Even so, multiple people instantly jump to “it’s premature – it doesn’t matter.” This is a common thread I see.  For example, StackOverflow has many pages of posts with answers that boil down to (mis)quoting Knuth.  In fact, just about any question relating to a performance related issue gets this quote thrown at it immediately – whether it deserves it or not.  That being said, I did receive some positive comments and emails as well.  Many people want to understand how to optimize their code, approaches to take, tools and techniques they can use, and any other advice they can discover. First, lets get back to Knuth – I mentioned before that Knuth is being quoted out of context.  Lets start by looking at the entire quote from his 1974 paper Structured Programming with go to Statements: “We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%. A good programmer will not be lulled into complacency by such reasoning, he will be wise to look carefully at the critical code; but only after that code has been identified.” Ironically, if you read Knuth’s original paper, this statement was made in the middle of a discussion of how Knuth himself had changed how he approaches optimization.  It was never a statement saying “don’t optimize”, but rather, “optimizing intelligently provides huge advantages.”  His approach had three benefits: “a) it doesn’t take long” … “b) the payoff is real”, c) you can “be less efficient in the other parts of my programs, which therefore are more readable and more easily written and debugged.” Looking at Knuth’s premise here, and reading that section of his paper, really leads to a few observations: Optimization is important  “he will be wise to look carefully at the critical code” Normally, 3% of your code – three lines out of every 100 you write, are “critical code” and will require some optimization: “we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%” Optimization, if done well, should not be time consuming: “it doesn’t take long” Optimization, if done correctly, provides real benefits: “the payoff is real” None of this is new information.  People who care about optimization have been discussing this for years – for example, Rico Mariani’s Designing For Performance (a fantastic article) discusses many of the same issues very intelligently. That being said, many developers seem unable or unwilling to consider optimization.  Many others don’t seem to know where to start.  As such, I’m going to spend some time writing about optimization – what is it, how should we think about it, and what can we do to improve our own code.

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• Query Logging in Analysis Services

  - by MikeD

  On a project I work on, we capture the queries that get executed on our Analysis Services instance (SQL Server 2008 R2) and use the table for helping us to build aggregations and also we aggregate the query log daily into a data warehouse of operational data so we can track usage of our Analysis databases by users over time. We've learned a couple of helpful things about this logging that I'd like to share here.First off, the query log table automatically gets cleaned out by SSAS under a few conditions - schema changes to the analysis database and even regular data and aggregation processing can delete rows in the table. We like to keep these logs longer than that, so we have a trigger on the table that copies all rows into another table with the same structure:Here is our trigger code:CREATE TRIGGER [dbo].[SaveQueryLog] on [dbo].[OlapQueryLog] AFTER INSERT AS       INSERT INTO dbo.[OlapQueryLog_History] (MSOLAP_Database, MSOLAP_ObjectPath, MSOLAP_User, Dataset, StartTime, Duration)      SELECT MSOLAP_Database, MSOLAP_ObjectPath, MSOLAP_User, Dataset, StartTime, Duration FROM inserted Second, the query logging process is "best effort" - if SSAS cannot connect to the database listed in the QueryLogConnectionString in the Analysis Server properties, it just stops logging - it doesn't generate any errors to the client at all, which is a good thing. Once it stops logging, it doesn't retry later - an hour, a day, a week, or even a month later, so long as the service doesn't restart.That has burned us a couple of times, when we have made changes to the service account that is used for SSAS, and that account doesn't have access to the database we want to log to. The last time this happened, we noticed a while later that no logging was taking place, and I determined that the service account didn't have sufficient permissions, so I made the necessary changes to give that service account access to the logging database. I first tried just the db_datawriter role and that wasn't enough, so I granted the service account membership in the db_owner role. Yes, that's a much bigger set of permissions, but I didn't want to search out the specific permissions at the time. Once I determined that the service account had the appropriate permissions, I wanted to get query logging restarted from SSAS, and I wondered how to do that? Having just used a larger hammer than necessary with the db_owner role membership, I considered just restarting SSAS to get it logging again. However, this was a production server, and it was in the middle of business hours, and there were active users connecting to that SSAS instance, so I thought better of it.As I considered the options, I remembered that the first time I set up query logging, by putting in a valid connection string to the QueryLogConnectionString server property, logging started immediately after I saved the properties. I wondered if I could make some other change to the connection string so that the query logging would start again without restarting the service. I went into the connection string dialog, went to the All page, and looked at the properties I could change that wouldn't affect the actual connection. Aha! The Application Name property would do just nicely - I set it to "SSAS Query Logging" (it was previously blank) and saved the changes to the server properties. And the query logging started up right away. If I need to get this running again in the future, I could just make a small change in the Application Name property again, save it, and even change it back again if I wanted to.The other nice side effect of setting the Application Name property is that now I can see (and possibly filter for or filter out) the SQL activity in that database that is related to the query logging process in Profiler:  To sum up:The SSAS Query Logging process will automatically delete rows from the QueryLog table, so if you want to keep them longer, put a trigger on the table to copy the rows to another tableThe SSAS service account requires more than db_datawriter role membership (and probably less than db_owner) in the database specified in the QueryLogConnectionString server property to successfully insert log rows to the QueryLog  table.Query logging will stop quietly whenever it encounters an error. Make a change to the QueryLogConnectionString server property (such as the Application Name attribute) to get query logging to restart and you won't have to restart the service.

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• SQL SERVER – What is a Technology Evangelist?

  - by pinaldave

  When you hear that someone is an “evangelist” the first thing that might pop into your mind is the Christian church.  In fact, the term did come from Christianity, and basically means someone who spreads the news about their faith.  In the technology world, the same definition is true. Technology evangelists are individuals who, professionally or in their spare time, spread the news about the latest new products.  Sounds like a salesperson, right?  No they are absolutely different. Salespeople also keep up to date with a large number of people, and like to convince others to buy their product – and some will go to any lengths to sell!  An evangelist, on the other hand, is brutally honest about the product, even if sometimes it means not making a sale.  An evangelist is out there to tell the TRUTH.  A salesperson needs to make sales. An Evangelist offers a Solution independent of Technology used – a Salesperson offers Particular Technology. With this definition in mind, you can probably think of a few technology evangelists you already know.  Maybe it’s a relative or a neighbor, someone who loves keeping up with the latest trends and is always willing to tell you about them if you ask even the simplest question.  And, in fact, they probably are evangelists and don’t even know it.  For a long time, the work of technology evangelism was in the hands of community and community technology leaders. Luckily now various organizations have understood the importance of the community and helping community to reach their goals. This has lead them to create role of “Technology Evangelists”. Let me talk about one of the most famous Evangelist of the SQL Server technology. Technology Evangelist only belongs to technology and above any country, race, location or any other thing. They are dedicated to the technology. Vinod Kumar is such a man, who have given a lot to community. For years he was a Technology Evangelist for Microsoft, and maintained a blog that was dedicated to spreading his enthusiasm for his favorite products.  He is one of the most respected Evangelists in the field, and has done a lot of work to define the job for other professionals. Vinod’s career has since progressed to the Microsoft Technology Center (read his post), but he is continuing to be a strong presence in the evangelism community.  I have a lot of respect for Vinod.  He has done a lot for the community and technology evangelism.  Everybody has dream to serve community the way he does, and he is a great role model for evangelists everywhere. On his blog, Vinod created one of the best descriptions of a Technology Evangelist.  It defined the position and also made the distinction between evangelist and salesperson extremely clear.  I will include the highlights of that list here, because no one can say it better than Vinod: Bundle of energy – Passion is their middle name Wonderful Story tellers Empathy, Trust, Loyalty, Openness, Accessibility and Warmth Technology Enthusiast – Doers Love people, people and more people – Community oriented Unique Style and Leadership qualities !!! Self-Confident, Self-Motivated but a student (To read the full list, see: Evangelism Beyond Borders with Evangelists) His blog is a must-read for anyone interested in technology evangelism as a career or simply a hobby.  His advice about how to gain an audience and become a trusted advisor is the best in the business. I think there is an evangelist in everyone. I, too, consider myself a technology evangelist.  Regular readers of this blog will recognize that I am dedicated to bringing information to the masses, and that I pride myself on being both brutally and honest and giving every product fair consideration. I think there is no better way of saying following subject. “Once an Evangelist – Always an Evangelist!” Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)     Filed under: About Me, Database, MVP, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Evangelist

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• My Mother Bought a Droid

  - by Ben Griswold

  I converted to iPhone two years ago when I left my former employer and my Blackberry behind. The truth is I half-heartedly purchased my iPhone. It was a great looking device, but as far as I was concerned, it was a mere toy compared to my Blackberry.  I remember hiding the toy in my briefcase when attending business meetings because I didn’t consider it to be professional enough.  I’ve since owned all three generations of the iPhone and, well, iPhone seems to have caught on. I still miss the click of the Blackberry keyboard and the blinking red light letting me know that someone/something requires my attention, but I’m officially an iPhone fanboy now.  My mom called last weekend and asked if she should buy an iPhone. I talked her ear off about everything I love about iPhone. I went on for about twenty minutes. I couldn’t help myself. I mentioned everything from my podcast subscriptions to the application which manages my workouts.  I went as far as to say that someday all smart phones will be referred to as iPhones just like all tissues are referred to as Kleenex and all sodas are referred to as Cokes.  I was really on a roll and then I stopped. I had to…the call dropped.  There I was, strategically standing in the far corner of my backyard where I get the most reliable AT&T reception and the call drops in middle of my iPhone pitch.  Folks, I don’t care how good a salesperson you are, it’s tough to recover from a situation like this.   I dialed my mom back and jokingly asked if she was planning to make calls with her new phone. I explained that AT&T is bound to provide better service eventually but I’m not sure she should wait. After all, I have troubles with the network in San Diego and I can only image how bad it would be for her in Western Massachusetts. Mom called back a few days later exclaiming, “I bought a Droid! I love this phone! I haven’t done anything with it but make phone calls, but I love it.”  I had to laugh.  My mom made the right call (pun intended.)  The iPhone is an amazing device, but owners are constantly reminded that its core function (it’s a phone, remember?) is subpar.  If you love gadgets, you’re probably enthralled by iPhone’s many bells and whistles and, relatively speaking, the terrible phone service might not amount to much.  (Maybe it amounts to a rant on your blog.) The overall iPhone offering is so attractive that consumers are willing to wait for AT&T to straighten up their act or wait until Apple grants a choice of carriers.  But I don’t see either of these remedies coming soon. In the interim, I’m willing to take my iPhone for what it is and just continue to enjoy my favorite features while pretending that poor coverage isn’t a big deal. With any luck, more and more reasonable folks will recognize that Android Phones are legitimate players in the smart phone space, they will buy loads of them and there will become plenty of functional phones to borrow when my “phone” is showing zero bars.  Heck, I’m already covered when I visit my mom.

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• SQLAuthority News – Windows Efficiency Tricks and Tips – Personal Technology Tip

  - by pinaldave

  This is the second post in my series about my favorite Technology Tips, and I wanted to focus on my favorite Microsoft product.  Choosing just one topic to cover was too hard, though.  There are so many interesting things I have to share that I am forced to turn this second installment into a five-part post.  My five favorite Windows tips and tricks. 1) You can open multiple applications using the task bar. With the new Windows 7 taskbar, you can start navigating with just one click.  For example, you can launch Word by clicking on the icon on your taskbar, and if you are using multiple different programs at the same time, you can simply click on the icon to return to Word.  However, what if you need to open another Word document, or begin a new one?  Clicking on the Word icon is just going to bring you back to your original program.  Just click on the Word icon again while holding down the shift key, and you’ll open up a new document. 2) Navigate the screen with the touch of a button – and not your mouse button. Yes, we live in a pampered age.  We have access to amazing technology, and it just gets better every year.  But have you ever found yourself wishing that right when you were in the middle of something, you didn’t have to interrupt your work flow be reaching for your mouse to navigate through the screen?  Yes, we have all been guilty of this pampered wish.  But Windows has delivered!  Now you can move your application window using your arrow keys. Lock the window to the left, right hand screen: Win+left Arrow and Win+right Arrow Maximize & minimize: Win+up arrow and Win+down arrow Minimize all items on screen: Win+M Return to your original folder, or browse through all open windows: Alt+up arrow, Alt+Left Arrow, or Alt+right arrow Close down or reopen all windows: win+home 3) Are you one of the few people who still uses Command Prompt? You know who you are, and you aren’t ashamed to still use this option that so many people have forgotten about it.  You can easily access it by holding down the shift key while RIGHT clicking on any folder. 4) Quickly select multiple files without using your mouse. We all know how to select multiple files or folders by Ctrl-clicking or Shift-clicking multiple items.  But all of us have tried this, and then accidentally released Ctrl, only to lose all our precious work.  Now there is a way to select only the files you want through a check box system.  First, go to Windows Explorer, click Organize, and then “Folder and Search Options.”  Go to the View tab, and under advanced settings, you can find a box that says “Use check boxes to select items.”  Once this has been selected, you will be able to hover your mouse over any file and a check box will appear.  This makes selecting multiple, random files quick and easy. 5) Make more out of remote access. If you work anywhere in the tech field, you are probably the go-to for computer help with friends and family, and you know the usefulness of remote access (ok, some of us use this extensively at work, as well, but we all have friends and family who rely on our skills!).  Often it is necessary to restart a computer, which is impossible in remote access as the computer will not show the shutdown menu.  To force the computer to do your wishes, we return to Command Prompt.  Open Command Prompt and type “shutdown /s” for shutdown, or “shutdown /r” for restart. I hope you will find above five tricks which I use in my daily use very important. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Personal Technology

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• Do NOT Change "Copy Local” project references to false, unless understand subsequences.

  - by Michael Freidgeim

  To optimize performance of visual studio build I've found multiple recommendations to change CopyLocal property for dependent dlls to false,e.g. From http://stackoverflow.com/questions/690033/best-practices-for-large-solutions-in-visual-studio-2008 CopyLocal? For sure turn this offhttp://stackoverflow.com/questions/280751/what-is-the-best-practice-for-copy-local-and-with-project-referencesAlways set the Copy Local property to false and enforce this via a custom msbuild stephttp://codebetter.com/patricksmacchia/2007/06/20/benefit-from-the-c-and-vb-net-compilers-perf/BenefitBenefitMy advice is to always set ‘Copy Local’ to falseSome time ago we've tried to change the setting to false, and found that it causes problem for deployment of top-level projects.Recently I've followed the suggestion and changed the settings for middle-level projects. It didn't cause immediate issues, but I was warned by Readify Consultant Colin Savage about possible errors during deploymentsI haven't undone the changes immediately and we found a few issues during testing.There are many scenarios, when you need to have Copy Local’ left to True.The concerns are highlighted in some stack overflow answers, but they have small number of votes.Top-level projects:  set copy local = true.First of all, it doesn't work correctly for top-level projects, i.e. executables or web sites.As pointed in the answer http://stackoverflow.com/a/6529461/52277for all the references in the one at the top set copy local = true.Alternatively you have to change output directory as it's described in http://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/.net-framework/partitioning-your-code-base-through-.net-assemblies-and-visual-studio-projects/If you set ‘ Copy Local = false’, VS will, unless you tell it otherwise, place each assembly alone in its own .\bin\Debugdirectory. Because of this, you will need to configure VS to place assemblies together in the same directory. To do so, for each VS project, go to VS > Project Properties > Build tab > Output path, and set the Ouput path to ..\bin\Debugfor debug configuration, and ..\bin\Release for release configuration.Second-level  dependencies:  set copy local = true.Another example when copylocal =false fails on run-time, is when top level assembly doesn't directly referenced one of indirect dependencies.E..g. Top-level assembly A has reference to assembly B with copylocal =true, but assembly B has reference to assembly C with copylocal =false. Most likely assembly C will be missing on runtime and will cause errors E.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/602765/when-should-copy-local-be-set-to-true-and-when-should-it-not?lq=1Copy local is important for deployment scenarios and tools. As a general rule you should use CopyLocal=True and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/602765/when-should-copy-local-be-set-to-true-and-when-should-it-not?lq=1 Unfortunately there are some quirks and CopyLocal won't necessary work as expected for assembly references in secondary assemblies structured as shown below.MainApp.exe MyLibrary.dll ThirdPartyLibrary.dll (if in the GAC CopyLocal won't copy to MainApp bin folder)This makes xcopy deployments difficult . .Reflection called DLLs  dependencies:  set copy local = true.E.g user can see error "ISystem.Reflection.ReflectionTypeLoadException: Unable to load one or more of the requested types. Retrieve the LoaderExceptions property for more information."The fix for the issue is recommended in http://stackoverflow.com/a/6200173/52277"I solved this issue by setting the Copy Local attribute of my project's references to true."In general, the problems with investigation of deployment issues may overweight the benefits of reduced build time. Setting the Copy Local to false without considering deployment issues is not a good idea.

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• Rendering Linear Gradients using the HTML5 Canvas

  - by dwahlin

  Related HTML5 Canvas Posts: Getting Started with the HTML5 Canvas Rendering Text with the HTML5 Canvas Creating a Line Chart using the HTML5 Canvas New Pluralsight Course: HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals Gradients are everywhere. They’re used to enhance toolbars or buttons and help add additional flare to a web page when used appropriately. In the past we’ve always had to rely on images to render gradients which works well, but isn’t necessarily the most efficient (although 1 pixel wide images do work well). CSS3 provides a great way to render gradients in modern browsers (see http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor for a nice online gradient generator tool) but it’s not the only option. If you’re working with charts, games, multimedia or other HTML5 Canvas applications you can also use gradients and render them on the client-side without relying on images. In this post I’ll introduce how to use linear gradients and discuss the different functions that can be used to create them.   Creating Linear Gradients Linear gradients can be created using the 2D context’s createLinearGradient function. The function takes the starting x,y coordinates and ending x,y coordinates of the gradient:   createLinearGradient(x1, y1, x2, y2);   By changing the start and end coordinates you can control the direction that the gradient renders. For example, adding the following coordinates causes the gradient to render from left to right since the y value stays at 0 for both points while the x value changes from 0 to 200. var lgrad = ctx.createLinearGradient(0, 0, 200, 0); Here’s an example of how changing the coordinates affects the gradient direction:   Once a linear gradient object has been created you can set color stops using the addColorStop() function. It takes the location where the color should appear in the gradient with 0 being the beginning and 1 being at the end (0.5 would be in the middle) as well as the color to display in the gradient. lgrad.addColorStop(0, 'white'); lgrad.addColorStop(1, 'gray');   An example of combining createLinearGradient() with addColorStop() is shown next:   Using createLinearGradient() var canvas = document.getElementById('myCanvas'); var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d'); var lgrad = ctx.createLinearGradient(0, 0, 200, 0); lgrad.addColorStop(0, 'white'); lgrad.addColorStop(1, 'gray'); ctx.fillStyle = lgrad; ctx.fillRect(0, 0, 200, 200); ctx.strokeRect(0, 0, 200, 200); This code renders a white to gray gradient as shown next: A live example of using createLinearGradient() is shown next. Click the Result tab to see the code in action.   In the next post on the HTML5 Canvas I’ll take a look at radial gradients and how they can be used. In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about the HTML5 Canvas and how it can be used in your Web or Windows 8 applications, check out my HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals course from Pluralsight. It has over 4 1/2 hours of canvas goodness packed in it.

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• How to prepare for an interview presentation!

  - by Tim Koekkoek

  During an interview process you might be asked to prepare a presentation as one of the steps in the recruitment process. Below, we want to give you some tips to help you prepare for what might be considered a daunting aspect of a recruitment process. Main purpose of the presentation Always keep in mind the main purpose of what the presentation is meant to convey. Generally speaking, an interview presentation is for the company to check if you have the ability to represent and sell the organization (and yourself), to the internal and external stakeholders in the position you are applying for. A presentation is often also part of the recruitment process to check whether you can structure and explain your experience and thoughts in a convincing manner. If you are unsure about the purpose of the presentation, feel free to ask your recruiter for more information. Preparation As with every task you do, preparation is key, so is the case with an interview presentation. It is important to know who your audience is. You have to adapt your presentation to your audience, ensuring that you are presenting the facts which they would want to hear. Furthermore, make sure you practice your presentation beforehand; this will make you more confident in your presenting skills. Also, estimate the length of your presentation as presentations or pitches during the recruitment process are often capped to a certain time limit. Structure Every presentation should have a beginning, middle and an end. Make sure you give an overview of your presentation and tell the audience what they can expect. Your presentation should have a logical order and a clear message. Always build up to your key message with strong arguments and evidence. When speaking about the topic, make sure you convey your points with conviction. Also be sure you believe the message you bring forward, if you don’t believe it yourself, then the audience definitely won’t! Delivery When you think back on successful presentations you have seen, the presenter was most likely always standing up. So if asked to do a presentation, follow this example and make sure you stand up as well. Standing up when you are doing your presentation shows confidence and control. Another important aspect in the delivery of the presentation is to relax and speak slowly and with enough volume for the audience to hear you. Speaking slowly allows the audience the time to absorb the information you are providing to them. Visual Using PowerPoint, or an equivalent, makes it very easy to have a visually attractive presentation. Make sure however that you take into account that the visual aids you use are there to support you, not for you to read word for word what is on the slides! Questions When starting your presentation, it is a good idea to tell your audience that you will deal with any questions they might have at the end of the presentation. This way it doesn’t interrupt your train of thought and the flow of your presentation. Answering questions at the end may give you additional opportunities to further expand on your facts in the topic. Some people might play the “devil’s advocate” role and confront you with opposing opinions, if this is the case, take your time to reiterate your points and remain professional in your response. A good way to deal with this is to start interacting with other members of the audience and ask for their opinions, so it will become a group discussion. This will also shows strong leadership skills, as you are open to discuss and ask for other opinions. If you are interested in more tips and tricks for your interview process, have a look at Competency Based Interview Tips and How to prepare for a Telephone Interview. For more information about Oracle and our vacancies, please visit our Facebook community and our careers website.

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