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• How do I swallow the dropdown behavior inside an Expander.Header?

  - by Peter Seale

  Hello, I would like to prevent an Expander from expanding/collapsing when users click inside the header area. This is basically the same question as Q 1396153, but I'd appreciate a more favorable answer :) Is there a non-invasive way to do this? I am not sure exactly how to attach behavior to the Expander.Header content to prevent mouseclicks. I'm willing to float in content outside the expander itself via a fixed grid layout, but I'm not keen on the solution. Ideas? XamlPad sample XAML: <Page xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:sys="clr-namespace:System;assembly=mscorlib" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" > <Expander> <Expander.Header><TextBlock>When I click this text, I don't want to trigger expansion/collapse! Only when I click the expander button do I want to trigger an expand/collapse!</TextBlock></Expander.Header> <Grid Background="Red" Height="100" Width="100" > </Grid> </Expander> </Page>

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• need to change TextBox.Text inside TextChanged, something forces form close

  - by Istrebitel

  I am making a TextBox behave like if it could store a null value. In order to do that, i have a variable NullMode that indicates wether the value is stored is Null, and in TextChanged i set that to false, and on specific user action i set it to true and Text to a value that indicates that there is null inside the textbox. Then, based on NullMode, textbox is drawn differently. Now, i have a semaphore-like approach in order to prevent event handle from firing when i dont need it. Here is how it looks: private void input_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (_preventTextBoxEvents) return; _preventTextBoxEvents = true; //if (NullMode) // Text = ""; NullMode = false; ValidateInput(); _preventTextBoxEvents = false; } Now, if i need to set a textbox text to something that should show while in nullmode, i just set _preventTextBoxEvents before i do to true and it works all right. BUT! I need to also remove the text when user tries to input something into the textbox! So i need to set Text to "". Problem is, if i uncomment that, form is closed after the event handler exits. I cannot prevent it (e.Cancel = true in FormClosing doesnt help!) and do not understand what can be causing it. There is no error message too (and i'm not doing try-catch). My logic, when i do Text="". OnTextChanged should fire, it should call my TextChanged and it will see _preventTextBoxEvents is true and exit, so there would be no stack overflow / infinite recursion. What is going on?

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• How do I use a jQuery not selector to select relative URLs?

  - by Matt

  I'm working on a little jQuery script to add Google Analytics pageTracker onclick data to all relative URLs on my forum, allowing me to track clicks to external sites. I don't want to add the onclick to internal links on forum.sitename or sitename, and I don't want to add them to any hrefs marked # or that start with /. My script below works nicely, but for one minor problem! All of the forum's URLs are relative and don't start with /. I appear to have no way to change that, so need to modify the jQuery below to prevent it adding the onclick to links like as it currently does. What I want to do, is to write a .not() function like .not("[href!^=http") to prevent jQuery from adding the onclick to any hrefs which do not start with http. However, .not() appears not to support this. I'm new to jQuery and can't figure this out. Any pointers would be massively appreciated. $(document).ready(function(){ // Get URL from a href var URL = $("a").attr('href'); // Add pageTracker data for GA tracking $("a") .not("[href^=#]") .not("[href^=http://forum.sitename]") .not("[href^=http://www.sitename]") .attr("onclick","pageTracker._trackEvent('Outgoing_Links', 'Forum', " + URL + ");") ; }); Thanks!

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• PHP curl timing mismatch

  - by JonoB

  I am running a php script that: queries a local database to retrieve an amount executes a curl statement to update an external database with the above amount + x queries the local database again to insert a new row reflecting that the curl statement has been executed. One of the problems that I am having is that the curl statement takes 2-4 seconds to execute, so I have two different users from the same company running the same script at the same time, the execution time of the curl command can cause a mismatch in what should be updated in the external database. This is the because the curl statement has not yet returned from the first user...so the second user is working off incorrect figures. I am not sure of the best options here, but basically I need to prevent two or more curl statements being run at the same time. I thought of storing a value in the database that indicates that the curl statement is being executed at that time, and prevent any other curl statements being run until its completed. Once the first curl statement has been executed, then the database flag is updated and the next one can run. If this field is 'locked', then I could loop through the code and sleep for (5) seconds, and then check again if the flag has been reset. If after (3) loops, then reset the flag automatically (i've never seen the curl take longer than 5 seconds) and continue processing. Are there any other (more elegant) ways of approaching this?

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• Best practices for encrypting continuous/small UDP data

  - by temp

  Hello everyone, I am having an application where I have to send several small data per second through the network using UDP. The application need to send the data in real-time (no waiting). I want to encrypt these data and insure that what I am doing is as secure as possible. Since I am using UDP, there is no way to use SSL/TLS, so I have to encrypt each packet alone since the protocol is connectionless/unreliable/unregulated. Right now, I am using a 128-bit key derived from a passphrase from the user, and AES in CBC mode (PBE using AES-CBC). I decided to use a random salt with the passphrase to derive the 128-bit key (prevent dictionary attack on the passphrase), and of course use IVs (to prevent statistical analysis for packets). However I am concerned about few things: Each packet contains small amount of data (like a couple of integer values per packet) which will make the encrypted packets vulnerable to known-plaintext attacks (which will result in making it easier to crack the key). Also, since the encryption key is derived from a passphrase, this will make the key space way less (I know the salt will help, but I have to send the salt through the network once and anyone can get it). Given these two things, anyone can sniff and store the sent data, and try to crack the key. Although this process might take some time, once the key is cracked all the stored data will be decrypted, which will be a real problem for my application. So my question is, what is the best practices for sending/encrypting continuous small data using a connectionless protocol (UDP)? Is my way the best way to do it? ...flowed? ...Overkill? ... Please note that I am not asking for a 100% secure solution, as there is no such thing. Cheers

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• Best practices for encrytping continuous/small UDP data

  - by temp

  Hello everyone, I am having an application where I have to send several small data per second through the network using UDP. The application need to send the data in real-time (on waiting). I want to encrypt these data and insure that what I am doing is as secure as possible. Since I am using UDP, there is no way to use SSL/TLS, so I have to encrypt each packet alone since the protocol is connectionless/unreliable/unregulated. Right now, I am using a 128-bit key derived from a passphrase from the user, and AES in CBC mode (PBE using AES-CBC). I decided to use a random salt with the passphrase to derive the 128-bit key (prevent dictionary attack on the passphrase), and of course use IVs (to prevent statistical analysis for packets). However I am concerned about few things: Each packet contains small amount of data (like a couple of integer values per packet) which will make the encrypted packets vulnerable to known-plaintext attacks (which will result in making it easier to crack the key). Also, since the encryption key is derived from a passphrase, this will make the key space way less (I know the salt will help, but I have to send the salt through the network once and anyone can get it). Given these two things, anyone can sniff and store the sent data, and try to crack the key. Although this process might take some time, once the key is cracked all the stored data will be decrypted, which will be a real problem for my application. So my question is, what is the best practices for sending/encrypting continuous small data using a connectionless protocol (UDP)? Is my way the best way to do it? ...flowed? ...Overkill? ... Please note that I am not asking for a 100% secure solution, as there is no such thing. Cheers

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• Best Practice: Protecting Personally Identifiable Data in a ASP.NET / SQL Server 2008 Environment

  - by William

  Thanks to a SQL injection vulnerability found last week, some of my recommendations are being investigated at work. We recently re-did an application which stores personally identifiable information whose disclosure could lead to identity theft. While we read some of the data on a regular basis, the restricted data we only need a couple of times a year and then only two employees need it. I've read up on SQL Server 2008's encryption function, but I'm not convinced that's the route I want to go. My problem ultimately boils down to the fact that we're either using symmetric keys or assymetric keys encrypted by a symmetric key. Thus it seems like a SQL injection attack could lead to a data leak. I realize permissions should prevent that, permissions should also prevent the leaking in the first place. It seems to me the better method would be to asymmetrically encrypt the data in the web application. Then store the private key offline and have a fat client that they can run the few times a year they need to access the restricted data so the data could be decrypted on the client. This way, if the server get compromised, we don't leak old data although depending on what they do we may leak future data. I think the big disadvantage is this would require re-writing the web application and creating a new fat application (to pull the restricted data). Due to the recent problem, I can probably get the time allocated, so now would be the proper time to make the recommendation. Do you have a better suggestion? Which method would you recommend? More importantly why?

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• Using complex where clause in NHibernate mapping layer

  - by JLevett

  I've used where clauses previously in the mapping layer to prevent certain records from ever getting into my application at the lowest level possible. (Mainly to prevent having to re-write lots of lines of code to filter out the unwanted records) These have been simple, one column queries, like so this.Where("Invisible = 0"); However a scenario has appeared which requires the use of an exists sql query. exists (select ep_.Id from [Warehouse].[dbo].EventPart ep_ where Id = ep_.EventId and ep_.DataType = 4 In the above case I would usually reference the parent table Event with a short name, i.e. event_.Id however as Nhibernate generates these short names dynamically it's impossible to know what it's going to be. So instead I tried using just Id, from above ep_ where Id = ep_.EventId When the code is run, because of the dynamic short names the EventPart table short name ep_ is has another short name prefixed to it, event0_.ep_ where event0_ refers to the parent table. This causes an SQL error because of the . in between event0_ and ep_ So in my EventMap I have the following this.Where("(exists (select ep_.Id from [isnapshot.Warehouse].[dbo].EventPart ep_ where Id = ep_.EventId and ep_.DataType = 4)"); but when it's generated it creates this select cast(count(*) as INT) as col_0_0_ from [isnapshot.Warehouse].[dbo].Event event0_ where (exists (select ep_.Id from [isnapshot.Warehouse].[dbo].EventPart event0_.ep_ where event0_.Id = ep_.EventId and ep_.DataType = 4) It has correctly added the event0_ to the Id Was the mapping layer where clause built to handle this and if so where am I going wrong?

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• Flex/Flash: Don't show 'bar' cursor when dragging over a TextField/TextArea?

  - by David Wolever

  As the title suggests, how can I prevent the "bar" cursor from appearing when I click-and-drag over a TextField? For example, consider this interaction: I'd like to prevent the cursor changing to the "bar" in step "2". How can I do that? I've tried fiddling with the selectable flag: protected static function fixMouseOverAfordance(field:TextField):void { var iOwnClick:Boolean = false; function handleMouseOver(event:MouseEvent):void { if (event.buttonDown) { field.selectable = iOwnClick; } else { field.selectable = true; iOwnClick = false; } } field.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, handleMouseOver, false, EventPriority.CURSOR_MANAGEMENT+1); field.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, handleMouseOver, false, EventPriority.CURSOR_MANAGEMENT+1); field.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, handleMouseOver, false, EventPriority.CURSOR_MANAGEMENT+1); field.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, function(event:MouseEvent):void { iOwnClick = true; field.selectable = true; }); } But the "bar" cursor still appears the first time the mouse is moved over the text field (however, after it has been moved out then moved back in, it does the right thing).

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• Does IE completely ignore cache control headers for AJAX requests?

  - by Joshua Hayworth

  Hello there, I've got, what I would consider, a simple test web site. A single page with a single button. Here is a copy of the source I'm working with if you would like to download it and play with it. When that button is clicked, it creates a JavaScript timer that executes once a second. When the timer function is executed, An AJAX call is made to retrieve a text value. That text value is then placed into the DOM. What's my problem? IE Caching. Crack open Task Manager and watch what happens to the iexplorer.exe process (IE 8.0.7600.16385 for me) while the timer in that page is executing. See the memory and handle count getting larger? Why is that happening when, by all accounts, I have caching turned off. I've got the jQuery cache option set to false in $.ajaxSetup. I've got the CacheControl header set to no-cache and no-store. The Expires header is set to DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1). The headers are set in both the page code-behind as well as the HTTP Handler's response. Anybody got any ideas as to how I could prevent IE from caching the results of the AJAX call? Here is what the iexplorer.exe process looks like in ProcessMonitor. I believe that the activity shown in this picture is exactly what I'm attempting to prevent.

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• HTML form with single text field + preventing postback in Internet Explorer

  - by SudheerKovalam

  I have noticed a rather strange behaviour in IE. I have a HTML form with a single input text field and a submit button On Submit click I need to execute a client side JavaScript function that does the necessary. Now when I want to prevent the postback in the text field (on enter key press) I have added a key press JavaScript function that looks like this: <input type=text onkeypress="return OnEnterKeyPress(event)" /> function OnEnterKeyPress(event) { var keyNum = 0; if (window.event) // IE { keyNum = event.keyCode; } else if (event.which) // Netscape/Firefox/Opera { keyNum = event.which; } else return true; if (keyNum == 13) // Enter Key pressed, then start search, else do nothing. { OnButtonClick(); return false; } else return true; } Strangly this doesn't work. But if I pass the text field to the function : <input type=text onkeypress="return OnEnterKeyPress(this,event);" /> function OnEnterKeyPress(thisForm,event) { var keyNum = 0; if (window.event) // IE { keyNum = event.keyCode; } else if (event.which) // Netscape/Firefox/Opera { keyNum = event.which; } else return true; if (keyNum == 13) // Enter Key pressed, then start search, else do nothing. { OnButtonClick(); return false; } else return true; } I am able to prevent the postback. Can anyone confirm what is exactly happening here?? the HTML form has just one text box and a submit button The resultant o/p of the JavaScript function executed on submit is displayed in a HTML text area in a separate div.

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• Painting on GtkScrolledWindow or GtkEventBox

  - by ptomato

  Using GTK, I'm trying to overlay a "More" prompt (but it could just as well be any drawing object) in the corner of a GtkTextView contained within a GtkScrolledWindow. I draw the prompt in the handler for the expose signal of the text view. It works, but when I scroll the window I get artifacts: the prompt is moved along with the contents of the text view and not erased. In order to get rid of the artifacts I trigger a redraw after each scroll. This mostly works, but you can still see the prompt jumping up and down when you scroll quickly. Is there any way to prevent this? It would be nice if the prompt just "floated" on top of the text view. I tried enclosing the scrolled window in a GtkEventBox and painting the prompt on top of that, but that didn't work either; the scrollbars and text view always paint over the prompt, even when you set the event box's window to go in front of its children's windows. UPDATE If I connect the GtkEventBox's expose callback with g_signal_connect_after(), then it is called after the expose callbacks of the GtkScrolledWindow and GtkTextView. The text view still draws over the event box though. I think this is because the scrolling happens asynchronously. Anybody got any idea how I can prevent my drawing from being overwritten?

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• What is common between environments within a shell terminal session?

  - by Matt1776

  I have a custom shell script that runs each time a user logs in or identity is assumed, its been placed in /etc/profile.d and performs some basic env variable operations. Recently I added some code so that if screen is running it will reattach it without needing me to type anything. There are some problems however. If I log-in as root, and su - to another user, the code runs a second time. Is there a variable I can set when the code runs the first time that will prevent a second run of the code? I thought to write something to the disk but then I dont want to prevent the code from running if I begin a new terminal session. Here is the code in question. It first attempts to reattach - if unsuccessful because its already attached (as it might be on an interruped session) it will 'take' the session back. screen -r if [ -z "$STY" ]; then exec screen -dR fi Ultimately this bug prevents me from substituting user to another user because as soon as I do so, it grabs the screen session and puts me right back where I started. Pretty frustrating

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• Extensions methods and forward compatibilty of source code.

  - by TcKs

  Hi, I would like solve the problem (now hypothetical but propably real in future) of using extension methods and maginification of class interface in future development. Example: /* the code written in 17. March 2010 */ public class MySpecialList : IList<MySpecialClass> { // ... implementation } // ... somewhere elsewhere ... MySpecialList list = GetMySpecialList(); // returns list of special classes var reversedList = list.Reverse().ToList(); // .Reverse() is extension method /* now the "list" is unchanged and "reveresedList" has same items in reversed order */ /* --- in future the interface of MySpecialList will be changed because of reason XYZ*/ /* the code written in some future */ public class MySpecialList : IList<MySpecialClass> { // ... implementation public MySpecialList Reverse() { // reverse order of items in this collection return this; } } // ... somewhere elsewhere ... MySpecialList list = GetMySpecialList(); // returns list of special classes var reversedList = list.Reverse().ToList(); // .Reverse() was extension method but now is instance method and do something else ! /* now the "list" is reversed order of items and "reveresedList" has same items lake in "list" */ My question is: Is there some way how to prevent this case (I didn't find them)? If is now way how to prevent it, is there some way how to find possible issues like this? If is now way how to find possible issues, should I forbid usage of extension methods? Thanks.

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• Using Read-Only Fields in a C# WebBrowser

  - by TheDramaLlama

  I'm currently using a WebBrowser control in a C# WinForms application, and attempting to control some variability presented with this control. Basically, my users log in to a separate UI provided by my application, which then displays the WebBrowser control, navigates to a predetermined log-in URL, and then auto-fills the username and password fields on that page. However, in order to prevent unpredictable behavior in this WebBrowser control, I want to make these username and password text boxes read-only after they are auto-populated. Essentially, I want the user to see a browser page that has been filled out for them, and that cannot be edited. (This is so that any authentication errors can be handled by my application as opposed to the browser.) The code I'm currently using to populate the text fields and make them read only is as follows: webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("username").InnerText = username; webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("password").InnerText = password; webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("username").Enabled = false; webBrowser1.Document.GetElementById("password").Enabled = false; Unfortunately, when I try to make the fields read-only, the authentication server acts like the password field was not filled out, and prompts the user to fill it out again after the "Submit" button is clicked. Is this expected behavior, and if so, what other methods can I try to prevent users from changing the credentials that the browser was auto-populated with?

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• ASP.NET - Google Chrome caching DropDownList selections

  - by Fake

  I'm experiencing what seems to be a caching issue with Google Chrome and Safari on my cart page. In the cart there are 2 dropdown lists. When you hit the checkout button after changing the values in the dropdown lists, it commits what's selected in the lists to the database. It's a little bit hard to explain the unexpected behavior so I will try to write it out step by step with an illustration of my problem. Lets say the first dropdown list has the values of: VALUE1 VALUE2 VALUE3 And the second dropdown list has the values of: DUMBO1 DUMBO2 DUMBO3 I add an item to my cart. Screen Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 Database Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 I hit Checkout. Database says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 (I can't see the dropdown lists after I hit checkout because i'm not at the cart page) I hit the back button. Screen Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 Database Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 I drop down the VALUE1 combo and select VALUE2, VALUE2 is selected momentarily and then the site posts back and VALUE1 is re-selected in the drop down list (from being reloaded from the DB) MOMENTARILY Screen Says: VALUE2, DUMBO1 Database Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 THEN AFTER POSTBACK FROM DROPDOWNLIST_SELECTIONCHANGED EVENT Screen Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 Database Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 Hit Checkout. Database Says VALUE1 ,DUMBO1 (I can't see the dropdown lists after I hit checkout because i'm not at the cart page) Go back. Screen Says: VALUE2, DUMBO1 Database Says: VALUE1, DUMBO1 So it appears that it's remembering my selection of VALUE2 even though it jumped back to VALUE1 before I checked out. It seems to be a caching problem, however I've got some no-cache code to prevent caching of that page that works great in firefox and internet explorer but seems to be failing in Chrome and Safari. I'm basically returning in the headers for the cart page: no-cache, no-store, and must-revalidate to attempt to prevent caching, but based on this scenario it seems to be caching the page anyway and not reloading it when I hit the back button. I am open to any solutions or suggestions at this point. Thanks!

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• Singleton pattern in C++

  - by skydoor

  I have a question about the singleton pattern. I saw two cases concerning the static member in the singleton class. First it is an object, like this class CMySingleton { public: static CMySingleton& Instance() { static CMySingleton singleton; return singleton; } // Other non-static member functions private: CMySingleton() {} // Private constructor ~CMySingleton() {} CMySingleton(const CMySingleton&); // Prevent copy-construction CMySingleton& operator=(const CMySingleton&); // Prevent assignment }; One is an pointer, like this class GlobalClass { int m_value; static GlobalClass *s_instance; GlobalClass(int v = 0) { m_value = v; } public: int get_value() { return m_value; } void set_value(int v) { m_value = v; } static GlobalClass *instance() { if (!s_instance) s_instance = new GlobalClass; return s_instance; } }; What's the difference between the two cases? Which one is correct?

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• Jquery Selecting Multiple Classes, Loading External Files

  - by WillingLearner

  I have 2 links, with the class dynamicLoad. <ul class="navbar"> <li><a href="Page3-News.html" class="dynamicLoad news">NEWS</a></li> <li><a href="Page2-Events.html" class="dynamicLoad">EVENTS</a></li> </ul> and then I have this already working code, which loads external pages into a div named #MainWrapper: <script type="text/javascript"> $( document ).ready( function() { $( 'a.dynamicLoad' ).click( function( e ) { e.preventDefault(); // prevent the browser from following the link e.stopPropagation(); // prevent the browser from following the link $( '#MainWrapper' ).load( $( this ).attr( 'href' ) ); }); }); </script> How do I edit this code and my links, so that i can target the 1st link with the classes of both dynamicLoad and news, and then, load another script and/or pages into the main wrapper, without breaking its already working functionality?

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• How can I secure my $_GETs in PHP?

  - by ggfan

  My profile.php displays all the user's postings,comments,pictures. If the user wants to delete, it sends the posting's id to the remove.php so it's like remove.php?action=removeposting&posting_id=2. If they want to remove a picture, it's remove.php?action=removepicture&picture_id=1. Using the get data, I do a query to the database to display the info they want to delete and if they want to delete it, they click "yes". So the data is deleted via $POST NOT $GET to prevent cross-site request forgery. My question is how do I make sure the GETs are not some javascript code, sql injection that will mess me up. here is my remove.php //how do I make $action safe? //should I use mysqli_real_escape_string? //use strip_tags()? $action=trim($_GET['action']); if (($action != 'removeposting') && ($action != 'removefriend') && ($action != 'removecomment')) { echo "please don't change the action. go back and refresh"; header("Location: index.php"); exit(); } if ($action == 'removeposting') { //get the info and display it in a form. if user clicks "yes", deletes } if ($action =='removepicture') { //remove pic } I know I can't be 100% safe, but what are some common defenses I can use. EDIT Do this to prevent xss $action=trim($_GET['action']); htmlspecialchars(strip_tags($action)); Then when I am 'recalling' the data back via POST, I would use $posting_id = mysqli_real_escape_string($dbc, trim($_POST['posting_id']));

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• Disable a form and all contained elements until an ajax query completes (or another solution to prev

  - by Max Williams

  I have a search form with inputs and selects, and when any input/select is changed i run some js and then make an ajax query with jquery. I want to stop the user from making further changes to the form while the request is in progress, as at the moment they can initiate several remote searches at once, effectively causing a race between the different searches. It seems like the best solution to this is to prevent the user from interacting with the form while waiting for the request to come back. At the moment i'm doing this in the dumbest way possible by hiding the form before making the ajax query and then showing it again on success/error. This solves the problem but looks horrible and isn't really acceptable. Is there another, better way to prevent interaction with the form? To make things more complicated, to allow nice-looking selects, the user actually interacts with spans which have js hooked up to them to tie them to the actual, hidden, selects. So, even though the spans aren't inputs, they are contained in the form and represent the actual interactive elements of the form. Grateful for any advice - max. Here's what i'm doing now: function submitQuestionSearchForm(){ //bunch of irrelevant stuff var questionSearchForm = jQuery("#searchForm"); questionSearchForm.addClass("searching"); jQuery.ajax({ async: true, data: jQuery.param(questionSearchForm.serializeArray()), dataType: 'script', type: 'get', url: "/questions", success: function(msg){ //more irrelevant stuff questionSearchForm.removeClass("searching"); }, error: function(msg){ questionSearchForm.removeClass("searching"); } }); return true; }

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• PASS: Bylaw Changes

  - by Bill Graziano

  While you’re reading this, a post should be going up on the PASS blog on the plans to change our bylaws.  You should be able to find our old bylaws, our proposed bylaws and a red-lined version of the changes.  We plan to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that point we’ll decide whether to vote on these changes or take other action. The executive summary is that we’re adding a restriction to prevent more than two people from the same company on the Board and eliminating the Board’s Officer Appointment Committee to have Officers directly elected by the Board.  This second change better matches how officer elections have been conducted in the past. The Gritty Details Our scope was to change bylaws to match how PASS actually works and tackle a limited set of issues.  Changing the bylaws is hard.  We’ve been working on these changes since the March board meeting last year.  At that meeting we met and talked through the issues we wanted to address.  In years past the Board has tried to come up with language and then we’ve discussed and negotiated to get to the result.  In March, we gave HQ guidance on what we wanted and asked them to come up with a starting point.  Hannes worked on building us an initial set of changes that we could work our way through.  Discussing changes like this over email is difficult wasn’t very productive.  We do a much better job on this at the in-person Board meetings.  Unfortunately there are only 2 or 3 of those a year. In August we met in Nashville and spent time discussing the changes.  That was also the day after we released the slate for the 2010 election. The discussion around that colored what we talked about in terms of these changes.  We talked very briefly at the Summit and again reviewed and revised the changes at the Board meeting in January.  This is the result of those changes and discussions. We made numerous small changes to clean up language and make wording more clear.  We also made two big changes. Director Employment Restrictions The first is that only two people from the same company can serve on the Board at the same time.  The actual language in section VI.3 reads: A maximum of two (2) Directors who are employed by, or who are joint owners or partners in, the same for-profit venture, company, organization, or other legal entity, may concurrently serve on the PASS Board of Directors at any time. The definition of “employed” is at the sole discretion of the Board. And what a mess this turns out to be in practice.  Our membership is a hodgepodge of interlocking relationships.  Let’s say three Board members get together and start a blog service for SQL Server bloggers.  It’s technically for-profit.  Let’s assume it makes $8 in the first year.  Does that trigger this clause?  (Technically yes.)  We had a horrible time trying to write language that covered everything.  All the sample bylaws that we found were just as vague as this. That led to the third clause in this section.  The first sentence reads: The Board of Directors reserves the right, strictly on a case-by-case basis, to overrule the requirements of Section VI.3 by majority decision for any single Director’s conflict of employment. We needed some way to handle the trivial issues and exercise some judgment.  It seems like a public vote is the best way.  This discloses the relationship and gets each Board member on record on the issue.   In practice I think this clause will rarely be used.  I think this entire section will only be invoked for actual employment issues and not for small side projects.  In either case we have the mechanisms in place to handle it in a public, transparent way. That’s the first and third clauses.  The second clause says that if your situation changes and you fall afoul of this restriction you need to notify the Board.  The clause further states that if this new job means a Board members violates the “two-per-company” rule the Board may request their resignation.  The Board can also  allow the person to continue serving with a majority vote.  I think this will also take some judgment.  Consider a person switching jobs that leads to three people from the same company.  I’m very likely to ask for someone to resign if all three are two weeks into a two year term.  I’m unlikely to ask anyone to resign if one is two weeks away from ending their term.  In either case, the decision will be a public vote that we can be held accountable for. One concern that was raised was whether this would affect someone choosing to accept a job.  I think that’s a choice for them to make.  PASS is clearly stating its intent that only two directors from any one organization should serve at any time.  Once these bylaws are approved, this policy should not come as a surprise to any potential or current Board members considering a job change.  This clause isn’t perfect.  The biggest hole is business relationships that aren’t defined above.  Let’s say that two employees from company “X” serve on the Board.  What happens if I accept a full-time consulting contract with that company?  Let’s assume I’m working directly for one of the two existing Board members.  That doesn’t violate section VI.3.  But I think it’s clearly the kind of relationship we’d like to prevent.  Unfortunately that was even harder to write than what we have now.  I fully expect that in the next revision of the bylaws we’ll address this.  It just didn’t make it into this one. Officer Elections The officer election process received a slightly different rewrite.  Our goal was to codify in the bylaws the actual process we used to elect the officers.  The officers are the President, Executive Vice-President (EVP) and Vice-President of Marketing.  The Immediate Past President (IPP) is also an officer but isn’t elected.  The IPP serves in that role for two years after completing their term as President.  We do that for continuity’s sake.  Some organizations have a President-elect that serves for one or two years.  The group that founded PASS chose to have an IPP. When I started on the Board, the Nominating Committee (NomCom) selected the slate for the at-large directors and the slate for the officers.  There was always one candidate for each officer position.  It wasn’t really an election so much as the NomCom decided who the next person would be for each officer position.  Behind the scenes the Board worked to select the best people for the role. In June 2009 that process was changed to bring it line with what actually happens.  An Officer Appointment Committee was created that was a subset of the Board.  That committee would take time to interview the candidates and present a slate to the Board for approval.  The majority vote of the Board would determine the officers for the next two years.  In practice the Board itself interviewed the candidates and conducted the elections.  That means it was time to change the bylaws again. Section VII.2 and VII.3 spell out the process used to select the officers.  We use the phrase “Officer Appointment” to separate it from the Director election but the end result is that the Board elects the officers.  Section VII.3 starts: Officers shall be appointed bi-annually by a majority of all the voting members of the Board of Directors. Everything else revolves around that sentence.  We use the word appoint but they truly are elected.  There are details in the bylaws for term limits, minimum requirements for President (1 prior term as an officer), tie breakers and filling vacancies. In practice we will have an election for President, then an election for EVP and then an election for VP Marketing.  That means that losing candidates will be able to fall down the ladder and run for the next open position.  Another point to note is that officers aren’t at-large directors.  That means if a current sitting officer loses all three elections they are off the Board.  Having Board member votes public will help with the transparency of this approach. This process has a number of positive and negatives.  The biggest concern I expect to hear is that our members don’t directly choose the officers.  I’m going to try and list all the positives and negatives of this approach. Many non-profits value continuity and are slower to change than a business.  On the plus side this promotes that.  On the negative side this promotes that.  If we change too slowly the members complain that we aren’t responsive.  If we change too quickly we make mistakes and fail at various things.  We’ve been criticized for both of those lately so I’m not entirely sure where to draw the line.  My rough assumption to this point is that we’re going too slow on governance and too quickly on becoming “more than a Summit.”  This approach creates competition in the officer elections.  If you are an at-large director there is no consequence to losing an election.  If you are an officer the only way to stay on the Board is to win an officer election or an at-large election.  If you are an officer and lose an election you can always run for the next office down.  This makes it very easy for multiple people to contest an election. There is value in a person moving through the officer positions up to the Presidency.  Having the Board select the officers promotes this.  The down side is that it takes a LOT of time to get to the Presidency.  We’ve had good people struggle with burnout.  We’ve had lots of discussion around this.  The process as we’ve described it here makes it possible for someone to move quickly through the ranks but doesn’t prevent people from working their way up through each role. We talked long and hard about having the officers elected by the members.  We had a self-imposed deadline to complete these changes prior to elections this summer. The other challenge was that our original goal was to make the bylaws reflect our actual process rather than create a new one.  I believe we accomplished this goal. We ran out of time to consider this option in the detail it needs.  Having member elections for officers needs a number of problems solved.  We would need a way for candidates to fall through the election.  This is what promotes competition.  Without this few people would risk an election and we’ll be back to one candidate per slot.  We need to do this without having multiple elections.  We may be able to copy what other organizations are doing but I was surprised at how little I could find on other organizations.  We also need a way for people that lose an officer election to win an at-large election.  Otherwise we’ll have very little competition for officers. This brings me to an area that I think we as a Board haven’t done a good job.  We haven’t built a strong process to tell you who is doing a good job and who isn’t.  This is a double-edged sword.  I don’t want to highlight Board members that are failing.  That’s not a good way to get people to volunteer and run for the Board.  But I also need a way let the members make an informed choice about who is doing a good job and would make a good officer.  Encouraging Board members to blog, publishing minutes and making votes public helps in that regard but isn’t the final answer.  I don’t know what the final answer is yet.  I do know that the Board members themselves are uniquely positioned to know which other Board members are doing good work.  They know who speaks up in meetings, who works to build consensus, who has good ideas and who works with the members.  What I Could Do Better I’ve learned a lot writing this about how we communicated with our members.  The next time we revise the bylaws I’d do a few things differently.  The biggest change would be to provide better documentation.  The March 2009 minutes provide a very detailed look into what changes we wanted to make to the bylaws.  Looking back, I’m a little surprised at how closely they matched our final changes and covered the various arguments.  If you just read those you’d get 90% of what we eventually changed.  Nearly everything else was just details around implementation.  I’d also consider publishing a scope document defining exactly what we were doing any why.  I think it really helped that we had a limited, defined goal in mind.  I don’t think we did a good job communicating that goal outside the meeting minutes though. That said, I wish I’d blogged more after the August and January meeting.  I think it would have helped more people to know that this change was coming and to be ready for it. Conclusion These changes address two big concerns that the Board had.  First, it prevents a single organization from dominating the Board.  Second, it codifies and clearly spells out how officers are elected.  This is the process that was previously followed but it was somewhat murky.  These changes bring clarity to this and clearly explain the process the Board will follow. We’re going to listen to feedback until March 31st.  At that time we’ll decide whether to approve these changes.  I’m also assuming that we’ll start another round of changes in the next year or two.  Are there other issues in the bylaws that we should tackle in the future?

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• osx snow leopard freezes

  - by lydonchandra

  Hi I got this error: Timexxxx In 'CFPasteboardCopyData', file /SourceCache/CF/CF-550.13/AppServices.subproj/CFPasteboard.c, line 1951, during lock, spin lock 0x15457a0c8 has value 0xf0000000, which is neither locked nor unlocked. The memory has been smashed. My Mac freezes except the mouse and keyboard. What is happening and how can I prevent this from happening in the future?

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• How to restrict the users' shell allowing to execute shell programs

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• Postifx disable local delivery

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• PHP-CGI slowly gains memory despite lack of requests.

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