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• Normalization of database for timesheet tool and ensure data integrity

  - by fireeyedboy

  I'm creating a timesheet application. I have the following entities (amongst others): Company Employee = an employee associated with a company Client = a client associated with a company So far I have the following (abbreviated) database setup: Company - id - name Employee - id - companyId (FK to Company.id) - name Client - id - companyId (FK to Company.id) - name Now, I want an employee to be associated with a client, but only if that client is associated with the company the employee works for. How would you guarantee this data integrity on a database level? Or should I just depend on the application to guarantee this data integrity? I thought about creating a many to many table like this: EmployeeClient - employeeId (FK to Employee.id) - companyId \ (combined FK to Client.companyId, Client.id) - clientId / Thus, when I insert a client for an employee along with the employee's company id, the database should prevent this when the client is not associated with the employee's company id. Does this make sense? Because this still doesn't guarantee the employee is associated with the company. How do you deal with these things? UPDATE The scenario is as followed: A company has multiple employees. Employees will only be linked to one company. A company has multiple clients also. Clients will only be linked to one company. (Company is a sandbox, so to speak). An employee of a company can be linked to a client of it's company, but only if the client is part of the company's clientele. In other words: The application will allow a company to create/add employees and create/add clients (hence the companyId FK in the Employee and Client tables). Next, the company will be allowed to assign certain clients to certain of it's employees (EmployeeClient table). Imagine an employee working on projects for a few clients for which s/he can write billable hours, but the employee must not be allowed to write billable hours for clients they are not assigned to by their employer (the company). So, employees will not automatically have access to all their company's clients, but only to those that the company has selected for them. Hopefully this has shed some more light on the matter.

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• Unintentional concatenation in Bison/Yacc grammar.

  - by troutwine

  I am experimenting with lex and yacc and have run into a strange issue, but I think it would be best to show you my code before detailing the issue. This is my lexer: %{ #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> #include "y.tab.h" void yyerror(char *); %} %% [a-zA-Z]+ { yylval.strV = yytext; return ID; } [0-9]+ { yylval.intV = atoi(yytext); return INTEGER; } [\n] { return *yytext; } [ \t] ; . yyerror("invalid character"); %% int yywrap(void) { return 1; } This is my parser: %{ #include <stdio.h> int yydebug=1; void prompt(); void yyerror(char *); int yylex(void); %} %union { int intV; char *strV; } %token INTEGER ID %% program: program statement EOF { prompt(); } | program EOF { prompt(); } | { prompt(); } ; args: /* empty */ | args ID { printf(":%s ", $<strV>2); } ; statement: ID args { printf("%s", $<strV>1); } | INTEGER { printf("%d", $<intV>1); } ; EOF: '\n' %% void yyerror(char *s) { fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", s); } void prompt() { printf("> "); } int main(void) { yyparse(); return 0; } A very simple language, consisting of no more than strings and integer and a basic REPL. Now, you'll note in the parser that args are output with a leading colon, the intention being that, when combined with the first pattern of the rule of the statement the interaction with the REPL would look something like this: > aaa aa a :aa :a aaa> However, the interaction is this: > aaa aa a :aa :a aaa aa aa > Why does the token ID in the following rule statement: ID args { printf("%s", $<strV>1); } | INTEGER { printf("%d", $<intV>1); } ; have the semantic value of the total input string, newline included? How can my grammar be reworked so that the interaction I intended?

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• J2ME/Java: Referencing StringBuffer through Threads

  - by Jemuel Dalino

  This question might be long, but I want to provide much information. Overview: I'm creating a Stock Quotes Ticker app for Blackberry. But I'm having problems with my StringBuffer that contains an individual Stock information. Process: My app connects to our server via SocketConnection. The server sends out a formatted set of strings that contains the latest Stock trade. So whenever a new trade happens, the server will send out an individual Stock Quote of that trade. Through an InputStream I am able to read that information and place each character in a StringBuffer that is referenced by Threads. By parsing based on char3 I am able to determine a set of stock quote/information. char1 - to separate data char3 - means end of a stock quote/information sample stock quote format sent out by our server: stock_quote_name(char 1)some_data(char1)some_data(char1)(char3) My app then parses that stock quote to compare certain data and formats it how it will look like when displayed in the screen. When trades happen gradually(slow) the app works perfectly. However.. Problem: When trades happen too quickly and almost at the same time, My app is not able to handle the information sent efficiently. The StringBuffer has its contents combined with the next trade. Meaning Two stock information in one StringBuffer. field should be: Stock_quote_name some_data some_data sample of what's happening: Stock_quote_name some_data some_dataStock_quote_name some_data some_data here's my code for this part: while (-1 != (data = is.read())) { sb.append((char)data); while(3 != (data = is.read())) { sb.append((char)data); } UiApplication.getUiApplication().invokeLater(new Runnable() { public void run() { try { synchronized(UiApplication.getEventLock()) { SetStringBuffer(sb); DisplayStringBuffer(); RefreshStringBuffer(); } } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println("Error in setting stringbuffer: " + e.toString()); } } }); } public synchronized void DisplayStringBuffer() { try { //parse sb - string buffer ...... } catch(Exception ex) { System.out.println("error in DisplayStringBuffer(): " + ex.toString()); } } public synchronized void SetStringBuffer(StringBuffer dataBuffer) { this.sb =dataBuffer; System.out.println(sb); } public synchronized void RefreshStringBuffer() { this.sb.delete(0, this.sb.length()); } From what I can see, when trades happen very fast, The StringBuffer is not refreshed immediately and still has the contents of the previous trade, when i try to put new data. My Question is: Do you guys have any suggestion on how i can put data into the StringBuffer, without the next information being appended to the first content

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• How do I do high quality scaling of a image?

  - by pbhogan

  I'm writing some code to scale a 32 bit RGBA image in C/C++. I have written a few attempts that have been somewhat successful, but they're slow and most importantly the quality of the sized image is not acceptable. I compared the same image scaled by OpenGL (i.e. my video card) and my routine and it's miles apart in quality. I've Google Code Searched, scoured source trees of anything I thought would shed some light (SDL, Allegro, wxWidgets, CxImage, GD, ImageMagick, etc.) but usually their code is either convoluted and scattered all over the place or riddled with assembler and little or no comments. I've also read multiple articles on Wikipedia and elsewhere, and I'm just not finding a clear explanation of what I need. I understand the basic concepts of interpolation and sampling, but I'm struggling to get the algorithm right. I do NOT want to rely on an external library for one routine and have to convert to their image format and back. Besides, I'd like to know how to do it myself anyway. :) I have seen a similar question asked on stack overflow before, but it wasn't really answered in this way, but I'm hoping there's someone out there who can help nudge me in the right direction. Maybe point me to some articles or pseudo code... anything to help me learn and do. Here's what I'm looking for: 1. No assembler (I'm writing very portable code for multiple processor types). 2. No dependencies on external libraries. 3. I am primarily concerned with scaling DOWN, but will also need to write a scale up routine later. 4. Quality of the result and clarity of the algorithm is most important (I can optimize it later). My routine essentially takes the following form: DrawScaled( uint32 *src, uint32 *dst, src_x, src_y, src_w, src_h, dst_x, dst_y, dst_w, dst_h ); Thanks! UPDATE: To clarify, I need something more advanced than a box resample for downscaling which blurs the image too much. I suspect what I want is some kind of bicubic (or other) filter that is somewhat the reverse to a bicubic upscaling algorithm (i.e. each destination pixel is computed from all contributing source pixels combined with a weighting algorithm that keeps things sharp. EXAMPLE: Here's an example of what I'm getting from the wxWidgets BoxResample algorithm vs. what I want on a 256x256 bitmap scaled to 55x55. And finally: the original 256x256 image

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• creating a JQuery function

  - by Russell Parrott

  Sorry to bother you guys & girls again on Christmas eve, but I need help creating a reusable JQuery function. I have "badly crafted" this set of code that all works. But I would really like to put it as a function so I don't have to keep repeating everything for each form. I am not too sure about how all the if statements can be combined etc. that is why I wrote it as it is. Any help much appreciated - Oh I suppose it could also be some kind of plugin but that might be the next step if I can understand how the function works. $(':input:visible').live('blur',function(){ if($(this).attr('required')) { if($(this).val() == '' ) { $(this).css({'background-color':'#FFEEEE' }); $(this).parent('form').children('input[type=submit]').hide(); $(this).next('.errormsg').html('OOPs ... '+$(this).prev('label').html()+' is required'); $(this).focus(); $(this).attr('placeholder').hide(); } else { $(this).css({'background-color':'#FFF' , 'border-color':'#999999'}); $(this).next('.errormsg').empty(); $(this).parent('form').children('input[type=submit]').show(); } } return false; }); $(':input[max]').live('blur',function(){ if($(this).attr('max') < parseInt($(this).val()) ){ $(this).next('.errormsg').html( 'OOPs ... the maximum value is '+$(this).attr('max') ); $(this).parent('form').children('input[type=submit]').hide(); $(this).focus(); } else {} return false; }); $(':input[min]').live('blur',function(){ if($(this).attr('min') > parseInt($(this).val()) ){ $(this).next('.errormsg').html( 'OOPs ... the minimum value is '+$(this).attr('min') ); $(this).parent('form').children('input[type=submit]').hide(); $(this).focus(); } else {} return false; }); $(':input[maxlength]').live('keyup',function(){ if($(this).val()==''){ } else { $(this).next('.errormsg').html( $(this).attr('maxlength')- $(this).val().length +' chars remaining'); } return false; }); As said, help much appreciated with one small (I hope) thing, how can I break out of any function IF there are no error messages to actually submit the form?

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• Mysql select - improve performances

  - by realshadow

  Hey, I am working on an e-shop which sells products only via loans. I display 10 products per page in any category, each product has 3 different price tags - 3 different loan types. Everything went pretty well during testing time, query execution time was perfect, but today when transfered the changes to the production server, the site "collapsed" in about 2 minutes. The query that is used to select loan types sometimes hangs for ~10 seconds and it happens frequently and thus it cant keep up and its hella slow. The table that is used to store the data has approximately 2 milion records and each select looks like this: SELECT * FROM products_loans WHERE KOD IN("X17/Q30-10", "X17/12", "X17/5-24") AND 369.27 BETWEEN CENA_OD AND CENA_DO; 3 loan types and the price that needs to be in range between CENA_OD and CENA_DO, thus 3 rows are returned. But since I need to display 10 products per page, I need to run it trough a modified select using OR, since I didnt find any other solution to this. I have asked about it here, but got no answer. As mentioned in the referencing post, this has to be done separately since there is no column that could be used in a join (except of course price and code, but that ended very, very badly). Here is the show create table, kod and CENA_OD/CENA_DO very indexed via INDEX. CREATE TABLE `products_loans` ( `KOEF_ID` bigint(20) NOT NULL, `KOD` varchar(30) NOT NULL, `AKONTACIA` int(11) NOT NULL, `POCET_SPLATOK` int(11) NOT NULL, `koeficient` decimal(10,2) NOT NULL default '0.00', `CENA_OD` decimal(10,2) default NULL, `CENA_DO` decimal(10,2) default NULL, `PREDAJNA_CENA` decimal(10,2) default NULL, `AKONTACIA_SUMA` decimal(10,2) default NULL, `TYP_VYHODY` varchar(4) default NULL, `stage` smallint(6) NOT NULL default '1', PRIMARY KEY (`KOEF_ID`), KEY `CENA_OD` (`CENA_OD`), KEY `CENA_DO` (`CENA_DO`), KEY `KOD` (`KOD`), KEY `stage` (`stage`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 And also selecting all loan types and later filtering them trough php doesnt work good, since each type has over 50k records and the select takes too much time as well... Any ides about improving the speed are appreciated. Edit: Here is the explain +----+-------------+----------------+-------+---------------------+------+---------+------+--------+-------------+ | id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra | +----+-------------+----------------+-------+---------------------+------+---------+------+--------+-------------+ | 1 | SIMPLE | products_loans | range | CENA_OD,CENA_DO,KOD | KOD | 92 | NULL | 190158 | Using where | +----+-------------+----------------+-------+---------------------+------+---------+------+--------+-------------+ I have tried the combined index and it improved the performance on the test server from 0.44 sec to 0.06 sec, I cant access the production server from home though, so I will have to try it tomorrow.

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• Redirecting one file to another using dub2 and strtok

  - by Sergiy Zakharov

  OK, here goes. I have to write a program, in which I need to use strtok and dup2 to redirect one file to another, but I need to also have the user to actually put the command cat < file1 file2, but not from the shell, but instead by using my program. That's why I need strtok. And the reason my program doesn't work is probably because of that, because I don't really understand how strtok works. I found a similar program on the internet, but they just take the ls command and redirect it to the file. That's it. My program is much more complicated. I mean, it would've been easier just to say in shell cat < file1 file2, but for some reason they want us to do it this way. So, anyways, here is what I have so far (here I just combined what I have found on the internet with what I already had from before. We had to do something similar but then the user would just go ls or ls -l. Very simple stuff. This is much harder, for me, at least.) #include <fcntl.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <errno.h> #include <sys/wait.h> #include <string.h> int main() { pid_t pid; char line[256]; char *args[129]; int i; int fd; int status; char *temp; while (1) { printf(">"); if (fgets(line, 256, stdin) == 0) { exit(0); } else { pid = fork(); if (pid == 0) { i = 0; temp = strtok("<",line); while (temp != NULL) { args[i++] = temp; temp = strtok(">",line); args[i] = '\0'; } fd = open("hello", O_RDONLY); dup2(fd, STDIN_FILENO); fd = open("world", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, S_IRWXU); dup2(fd, STDOUT_FILENO ); close(fd); execvp(args[0], args); } else { close(fd); wait(&status); } } } } Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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• Refactor a link and an image

  - by Mihail Stoynov

  I have to write an link with an image inside. Instead of explaining, here's the code I have now: <c:if test="${userSession.loggedUser eq null and company.image != null}"> <a onclick="${rich:component('loginPanel')}.show()"> <img src="/download.do?hash=#{company.image.hash}" /> </a> </c:if> <c:if test="${userSession.loggedUser eq null and company.image == null}"> <a onclick="${rich:component('loginPanel')}.show()"> <img src="${request.contextPath}/img/icons/logo_default.jpg" /> </a> </c:if> <c:if test="${userSession.loggedUser ne null and company.image != null}"> <a href="company.xhtml?${company.name}"> <img src="/download.do?hash=#{company.image.hash}" /> </a> </c:if> <c:if test="#{userSession.loggedUser ne null and company.image == null}"> <a href="company.xhtml?${company.name}"> <img src="${request.contextPath}/img/icons/logo_default.jpg" /> </a> </c:if> This code looks awful - there are two exact links with two exact images but combined in all possible combinations. Is there a better way? Is there a way to avoid c:if - it created tables? Update: Bozho proposes: You can replace <c:if and <a with <h:outputLink rendered="#{..}". Apart from that I don't see any other optimization. But it doesn't work. This does not render correctly: <a href=> <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} </a> (the image is outside the anchor) This does render fine: <h:outputLink value=> <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} <h:outputLink rendered="#{..} </a> , but it always adds href and in two of the cases I don't want href when rendered.

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• Nested WHILE loops not acting as expected - Javascript / Google Apps Script

  - by dthor

  I've got a function that isn't acting as intended. Before I continue, I'd like preface this with the fact that I normally program in Mathematica and have been tasked with porting over a Mathematica function (that I wrote) to JavaScript so that it can be used in a Google Docs spreadsheet. I have about 3 hours of JavaScript experience... The entire (small) project is calculating the Gross Die per Wafer, given a wafer and die size (among other inputs). The part that isn't working is where I check to see if any corner of the die is outside of the effective radius, Reff. The function takes a list of X and Y coordinates which, when combined, create the individual XY coord of the center of the die. That is then put into a separate function "maxDistance" that calculates the distance of each of the 4 corners and returns the max. This max value is checked against Reff. If the max is inside the radius, 1 is added to the die count. // Take a list of X and Y values and calculate the Gross Die per Wafer function CoordsToGDW(Reff,xSize,ySize,xCoords,yCoords) { // Initialize Variables var count = 0; // Nested loops create all the x,y coords of the die centers for (var i = 0; i < xCoords.length; i++) { for (var j = 0; j < yCoords.length, j++) { // Add 1 to the die count if the distance is within the effective radius if (maxDistance(xCoords[i],yCoords[j],xSize,ySize) <= Reff) {count = count + 1} } } return count; } Here are some examples of what I'm getting: xArray={-52.25, -42.75, -33.25, -23.75, -14.25, -4.75, 4.75, 14.25, 23.75, 33.25, 42.75, 52.25, 61.75} yArray={-52.5, -45.5, -38.5, -31.5, -24.5, -17.5, -10.5, -3.5, 3.5, 10.5, 17.5, 24.5, 31.5, 38.5, 45.5, 52.5, 59.5} CoordsToGDW(45,9.5,7.0,xArray,yArray) returns: 49 (should be 72) xArray={-36, -28, -20, -12, -4, 4, 12, 20, 28, 36, 44} yArray={-39, -33, -27, -21, -15, -9, -3, 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, 33, 39, 45} CoordsToGDW(32.5,8,6,xArray,yArray) returns: 39 (should be 48) I know that maxDistance() is returning the correct values. So, where's my simple mistake? Also, please forgive me writing some things in Mathematica notation... Edit #1: A little bit of formatting. Edit #2: Per showi, I've changed WHILE loops to FOR loops and replaced <= with <. Still not the right answer. It did clean things up a bit though... Edit #3: What I'm essentially trying to do is take [a,b] and [a,b,c] and return [[a,a],[a,b],[a,c],[b,a],[b,b],[b,c]]

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• Multiple column subselect in mysql 5 (5.1.42)

  - by rubber boots

  This one seems to be a simple problem, but I can't make it work in a single select or nested select. Retrieve the authors and (if any) advisers of a paper (article) into one row. I order to explain the problem, here are the two data tables (pseudo) papers (id, title, c_year) persons (id, firstname, lastname) plus a link table w/one extra attribute (pseudo): paper_person_roles( paper_id person_id act_role ENUM ('AUTHOR', 'ADVISER') ) This is basically a list of written papers (table: papers) and a list of staff and/or students (table: persons) An article my have (1,N) authors. An article may have (0,N) advisers. A person can be in 'AUTHOR' or 'ADVISER' role (but not at the same time). The application eventually puts out table rows containing the following entries: TH: || Paper_ID | Author(s) | Title | Adviser(s) | TD: || 21334 |John Doe, Jeff Tucker|Why the moon looks yellow|Brown, Rayleigh| ... My first approach was like: select/extract a full list of articles into the application, eg.SELECT q.id, q.title FROM papers AS q ORDER BY q.c_year and save the results of the query into an array (in the application). After this step, loop over the array of the returned information and retrieve authors and advisers (if any), via prepared statement (? is the paper's id) from the link table like:APPLICATION_LOOP(paper_ids in array) SELECT p.lastname, p.firstname, r.act_role FROM persons AS p, paper_person_roles AS r WHERE p.id=r.person_id AND r.paper_id = ? # The application does further processing from here (pseudo): foreach record from resulting records if record.act_role eq 'AUTHOR' then join to author_column if record.act_role eq 'ADVISER' then join to avdiser_column end print id, author_column, title, adviser_column APPLICATION_LOOP This works so far and gives the desired output. Would it make sense to put the computation back into the DB? I'm not very proficient in nontrivial SQL and can't find a solution with a single (combined or nested) select call. I tried sth. like SELECT q.title (CONCAT_WS(' ', (SELECT p.firstname, p.lastname AS aunames FROM persons AS p, paper_person_roles AS r WHERE q.id=r.paper_id AND r.act_role='AUTHOR') ) ) AS aulist FROM papers AS q, persons AS p, paper_person_roles AS r in several variations, but no luck ... Maybe there is some chance? Thanks in advance r.b.

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• Post and get at the same time in php

  - by user225269

  Do you have any suggestions with my problem. I need to use get and post at the same time. Get because I need to output what the user has typed. And post because I need to access the mysql database in relation to that input. It looks something like this: <form name="x" method="get" action="x.php"> <input name="year" type="text"> <select name="general" id="general"> <font size="3"> <option value="YEAR">Year</option> </form> This will output the contents of mysql depending on what the user will check: <form name="y" method="post" action"y.php"> <input name="fname" type="checkbox"> </form> And the form action of those two combined will look something like this: <?php if($_POST['general'] == 'YEAR'){ ?> <?php echo $_GET["year"]; ?> <?php $result2 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM student WHERE student.YEAR='$syear'"); ?> <table border='1'> <tr> <?php if ( $ShowLastName ) { ?><th>LASTNAME</th><?php } ?> <?php if ( $ShowFirstName ) { ?><th>FIRSTNAME</th><?php } ?> </tr> <?php while ( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result2) ) { if (!$result2) { } ?> <tr> <td><?php echo $row['IDNO']?> </td> <td><?php echo $row['YEAR'] ?> </td> <?php if ( $ShowLastName ) { echo('<td>'.$row['LASTNAME'].'</td>'); } ?></td> <?php if ( $ShowFirstName ) { echo('<td>'.$row['FIRSTNAME'].'</td>'); } ?> I really get lots of undefined errors when I do this. What can you recommend that I should do in order to get the value inputted by the user together with the mysql data.

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• Delete duplicate rows, do not preserve one row

  - by Radley

  I need a query that goes through each entry in a database, checks if a single value is duplicated elsewhere in the database, and if it is - deletes both entries (or all, if more than two). Problem is the entries are URLs, up to 255 characters, with no way of identifying the row. Some existing answers on Stackoverflow do not work for me due to performance limitations, or they use uniqueid which obviously won't work when dealing with a string. Long Version: I have two databases containing URLs (and only URLs). One database has around 3,000 urls and the other around 1,000. However, a large majority of the 1,000 urls were taken from the 3,000 url database. I need to merge the 1,000 into the 3,000 as new entries only. For this, I made a third database with combined URLs from both tables, about 4,000 entries. I need to find all duplicate entries in this database and delete them (Both of them, without leaving either). I have followed the query of a few examples on this site, but whenever I try to delete both entries it ends up deleting all the entries, or giving sql errors. Alternatively: I have two databases, each containing the separate database. I need to check each row from one database against the other to find any that aren't duplicates, and then add those to a third database. Edit: I've got my own PHP solution which is pretty hacky, but works. I cannot answer my own question for 8 hours because I'm new, so here it is for now: I went with a PHP script to accomplish this, as I'm more familiar with PHP than MySQL. This generates a simple list of urls that only exist in the target database, but not both. If you have more than 7,000 entries to parse this may take awhile, and you will need to copy/paste the results into a text file or expand the script to store them back into a database. I'm just doing it manually to save time. Note: Uses MeekroDB <pre> <?php require('meekrodb.2.1.class.php'); DB::$user = 'root'; DB::$password = ''; DB::$dbName = 'testdb'; $all = DB::query('SELECT * FROM old_urls LIMIT 7000'); foreach($all as $row) { $test = DB::query('SELECT url FROM new_urls WHERE url=%s', $row['url']); if (!is_array($test)) { echo $row['url'] . "\n"; }else{ if (count($test) == 0) { echo $row['url'] . "\n"; } } } ?> </pre>

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• WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main WXS and WXI file

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  In the previous post we’ve taken a look at the WiX solution/project structure and project properties. We’re still playing with our super SuperForm application and today we’ll take a look at the general parts of the main wxs file, SuperForm.wxs, and the wxi include file. For wxs file we’ll just go over the general description of what each part does in the code comments. The more detailed descriptions will be in future posts about features themselves. WXI include file Include files are exactly what their name implies. To include a wxi file into the wxs file you have to put the wxi at the beginning of each .wxs file you wish to include it in. If you’ve ever worked with C++ you can think of the include files as .h files. For example if you include SuperFormVariables.wxi into the SuperForm.wxs, the variables in the wxi won’t be seen in FilesFragment.wxs or RegistryFragment.wxs. You’d have to include it manually into those two wxs files too. For preprocessor variable $(var.VariableName) to be seen by every file in the project you have to include them in the WiX project properties->Build->“Define preprocessor variables” textbox. This is why I’ve chosen not to go this route because in multi developer teams not everyone has the same directory structure and having a single variable would mean each developer would have to checkout the wixproj file to edit the variable. This is pretty much unacceptable by my standards. This is why we’ve added a System Environment variable named SuperFormFilesDir as is shown in the previous Wix Tutorial post. Because the FilesFragment.wxs is autogenerated on every project build we don’t want to change it manually each time by adding the include wxi at the beginning of the file. This way we couldn’t recreate it in each pre-build event. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Include> <!-- Versioning. These have to be changed for upgrades. It's not enough to just include newer files. --> <?define MajorVersion="1" ?> <?define MinorVersion="0" ?> <?define BuildVersion="0" ?> <!-- Revision is NOT used by WiX in the upgrade procedure --> <?define Revision="0" ?> <!-- Full version number to display --> <?define VersionNumber="$(var.MajorVersion).$(var.MinorVersion).$(var.BuildVersion).$(var.Revision)" ?> <!-- Upgrade code HAS to be the same for all updates. Once you've chosen it don't change it. --> <?define UpgradeCode="YOUR-GUID-HERE" ?> <!-- Path to the resources directory. resources don't really need to be included in the project structure but I like to include them for for clarity --> <?define ResourcesDir="$(var.ProjectDir)\Resources" ?> <!-- The name of your application exe file. This will be used to kill the process when updating and creating the desktop shortcut --> <?define ExeProcessName="SuperForm.MainApp.exe" ?></Include> For now there’s no way to tell WiX in Visual Studio to have a wxi include file available to the whole project, so you have to include it in each file separately. Only variables set in “Define preprocessor variables” or System Environment variables are accessible to the whole project for now. The main WXS file: SuperForm.wxs We’ll only take a look at the general structure of the main SuperForm.wxs and not its the details. We’ll cover the details in future posts. The code comments should provide plenty info about what each part does in general. Basically there are 5 major parts. The update part, the conditions and actions part, the UI install sequence, the directory structure and the features we want to include. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!-- Add xmlns:util namespace definition to be able to use stuff from WixUtilExtension dll--><Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi" xmlns:util="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/UtilExtension"> <!-- This is how we include wxi files --> <?include $(sys.CURRENTDIR)Includes\SuperFormVariables.wxi ?> <!-- Id="*" is to enable upgrading. * means that the product ID will be autogenerated on each build. Name is made of localized product name and version number. --> <Product Id="*" Name="!(loc.ProductName) $(var.VersionNumber)" Language="!(loc.LANG)" Version="$(var.VersionNumber)" Manufacturer="!(loc.ManufacturerName)" UpgradeCode="$(var.UpgradeCode)"> <!-- Define the minimum supported installer version (3.0) and that the install should be done for the whole machine not just the current user --> <Package InstallerVersion="300" Compressed="yes" InstallScope="perMachine"/> <Media Id="1" Cabinet="media1.cab" EmbedCab="yes" /> <!-- Upgrade settings. This will be explained in more detail in a future post --> <Upgrade Id="$(var.UpgradeCode)"> <UpgradeVersion OnlyDetect="yes" Minimum="$(var.VersionNumber)" IncludeMinimum="no" Property="NEWER_VERSION_FOUND" /> <UpgradeVersion Minimum="0.0.0.0" IncludeMinimum="yes" Maximum="$(var.VersionNumber)" IncludeMaximum="no" Property="OLDER_VERSION_FOUND" /> </Upgrade> <!-- Reference the global NETFRAMEWORK35 property to check if it exists --> <PropertyRef Id="NETFRAMEWORK35"/> <!-- Startup conditions that checks if .Net Framework 3.5 is installed or if we're running the OS higher than Windows XP SP2. If not the installation is aborted. By doing the (Installed OR ...) property means that this condition will only be evaluated if the app is being installed and not on uninstall or changing --> <Condition Message="!(loc.DotNetFrameworkNeeded)"> <![CDATA[Installed OR NETFRAMEWORK35]]> </Condition> <Condition Message="!(loc.AppNotSupported)"> <![CDATA[Installed OR ((VersionNT >= 501 AND ServicePackLevel >= 2) OR (VersionNT >= 502))]]> </Condition> <!-- This custom action in the InstallExecuteSequence is needed to stop silent install (passing /qb to msiexec) from going around it. --> <CustomAction Id="NewerVersionFound" Error="!(loc.SuperFormNewerVersionInstalled)" /> <InstallExecuteSequence> <!-- Check for newer versions with FindRelatedProducts and execute the custom action after it --> <Custom Action="NewerVersionFound" After="FindRelatedProducts"> <![CDATA[NEWER_VERSION_FOUND]]> </Custom> <!-- Remove the previous versions of the product --> <RemoveExistingProducts After="InstallInitialize"/> <!-- WixCloseApplications is a built in custom action that uses util:CloseApplication below --> <Custom Action="WixCloseApplications" Before="InstallInitialize" /> </InstallExecuteSequence> <!-- This will ask the user to close the SuperForm app if it's running while upgrading --> <util:CloseApplication Id="CloseSuperForm" CloseMessage="no" Description="!(loc.MustCloseSuperForm)" ElevatedCloseMessage="no" RebootPrompt="no" Target="$(var.ExeProcessName)" /> <!-- Use the built in WixUI_InstallDir GUI --> <UIRef Id="WixUI_InstallDir" /> <UI> <!-- These dialog references are needed for CloseApplication above to work correctly --> <DialogRef Id="FilesInUse" /> <DialogRef Id="MsiRMFilesInUse" /> <!-- Here we'll add the GUI logic for installation and updating in a future post--> </UI> <!-- Set the icon to show next to the program name in Add/Remove programs --> <Icon Id="SuperFormIcon.ico" SourceFile="$(var.ResourcesDir)\Exclam.ico" /> <Property Id="ARPPRODUCTICON" Value="SuperFormIcon.ico" /> <!-- Installer UI custom pictures. File names are made up. Add path to your pics. –> <!-- <WixVariable Id="WixUIDialogBmp" Value="MyAppLogo.jpg" /> <WixVariable Id="WixUIBannerBmp" Value="installBanner.jpg" /> --> <!-- the default directory structure --> <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir"> <Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder"> <Directory Id="INSTALLLOCATION" Name="!(loc.ProductName)" /> </Directory> </Directory> <!-- Set the default install location to the value of INSTALLLOCATION (usually c:\Program Files\YourProductName) --> <Property Id="WIXUI_INSTALLDIR" Value="INSTALLLOCATION" /> <!-- Set the components defined in our fragment files that will be used for our feature --> <Feature Id="SuperFormFeature" Title="!(loc.ProductName)" Level="1"> <ComponentGroupRef Id="SuperFormFiles" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpVersionInRegistry" /> <ComponentRef Id="cmpIsThisUpdateInRegistry" /> </Feature> </Product></Wix> For more info on what certain attributes mean you should look into the WiX Documentation.   WiX 3 tutorial by Mladen Prajdic navigation WiX 3 Tutorial: Solution/Project structure and Dev resources WiX 3 Tutorial: Understanding main wxs and wxi file WiX 3 Tutorial: Generating file/directory fragments with Heat.exe

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• AutoMapper MappingFunction from Source Type of NameValueCollection

  - by REA_ANDREW

  I have had a situation arise today where I need to construct a complex type from a source of a NameValueCollection.  A little while back I submitted a patch for the Agatha Project to include REST (JSON and XML) support for the service contract.  I realized today that as useful as it is, it did not actually support true REST conformance, as REST should support GET so that you can use JSONP from JavaScript directly meaning you can query cross domain services.  My original implementation for POX and JSON used the POST method and this immediately rules out JSONP as from reading, JSONP only works with GET Requests. This then raised another issue.  The current operation contract of Agatha and one of its main benefits is that you can supply an array of Request objects in a single request, limiting the about of server requests you need to make.  Now, at the present time I am thinking that this will not be the case for the REST imlementation but will yield the benefits of the fact that : The same Request objects can be used for SOAP and RST (POX, JSON) The construct of the JavaScript functions will be simpler and more readable It will enable the use of JSONP for cross domain REST Services The current contract for the Agatha WcfRequestProcessor is at time of writing the following: [ServiceContract] public interface IWcfRequestProcessor { [OperationContract(Name = "ProcessRequests")] [ServiceKnownType("GetKnownTypes", typeof(KnownTypeProvider))] [TransactionFlow(TransactionFlowOption.Allowed)] Response[] Process(params Request[] requests); [OperationContract(Name = "ProcessOneWayRequests", IsOneWay = true)] [ServiceKnownType("GetKnownTypes", typeof(KnownTypeProvider))] void ProcessOneWayRequests(params OneWayRequest[] requests); }   My current proposed solution, and at the very early stages of my concept is as follows: [ServiceContract] public interface IWcfRestJsonRequestProcessor { [OperationContract(Name="process")] [ServiceKnownType("GetKnownTypes", typeof(KnownTypeProvider))] [TransactionFlow(TransactionFlowOption.Allowed)] [WebGet(UriTemplate = "process/{name}/{*parameters}", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedResponse, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)] Response[] Process(string name, NameValueCollection parameters); [OperationContract(Name="processoneway",IsOneWay = true)] [ServiceKnownType("GetKnownTypes", typeof(KnownTypeProvider))] [WebGet(UriTemplate = "process-one-way/{name}/{*parameters}", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.WrappedResponse, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Json)] void ProcessOneWayRequests(string name, NameValueCollection parameters); }   Now this part I have not yet implemented, it is the preliminart step which I have developed which will allow me to take the name of the Request Type and the NameValueCollection and construct the complex type which is that of the Request which I can then supply to a nested instance of the original IWcfRequestProcessor  and work as it should normally.  To give an example of some of the urls which you I envisage with this method are: http://www.url.com/service.svc/json/process/getweather/?location=london http://www.url.com/service.svc/json/process/getproductsbycategory/?categoryid=1 http://www.url.om/service.svc/json/process/sayhello/?name=andy Another reason why my direction has gone to a single request for the REST implementation is because of restrictions which are imposed by browsers on the length of the url.  From what I have read this is on average 2000 characters.  I think that this is a very acceptable usage limit in the context of using 1 request, but I do not think this is acceptable for accommodating multiple requests chained together.  I would love to be corrected on that one, I really would but unfortunately from what I have read I have come to the conclusion that this is not the case. The mapping function So, as I say this is just the first pass I have made at this, and I am not overly happy with the try catch for detecting types without default constructors.  I know there is a better way but for the minute, it escapes me.  I would also like to know the correct way for adding mapping functions and not using the anonymous way that I have used.  To achieve this I have used recursion which I am sure is what other mapping function use. As you do have to go as deep as the complex type is. public static object RecurseType(NameValueCollection collection, Type type, string prefix) { try { var returnObject = Activator.CreateInstance(type); foreach (var property in type.GetProperties()) { foreach (var key in collection.AllKeys) { if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(prefix) || key.Length > prefix.Length) { var propertyNameToMatch = String.IsNullOrEmpty(prefix) ? key : key.Substring(property.Name.IndexOf(prefix) + prefix.Length + 1); if (property.Name == propertyNameToMatch) { property.SetValue(returnObject, Convert.ChangeType(collection.Get(key), property.PropertyType), null); } else if(property.GetValue(returnObject,null) == null) { property.SetValue(returnObject, RecurseType(collection, property.PropertyType, String.Concat(prefix, property.PropertyType.Name)), null); } } } } return returnObject; } catch (MissingMethodException) { //Quite a blunt way of dealing with Types without default constructor return null; } }   Another thing is performance, I have not measured this in anyway, it is as I say the first pass, so I hope this can be the start of a more perfected implementation.  I tested this out with a complex type of three levels, there is no intended logical meaning to the properties, they are simply for the purposes of example.  You could call this a spiking session, as from here on in, now I know what I am building I would take a more TDD approach.  OK, purists, why did I not do this from the start, well I didn’t, this was a brain dump and now I know what I am building I can. The console test and how I used with AutoMapper is as follows: static void Main(string[] args) { var collection = new NameValueCollection(); collection.Add("Name", "Andrew Rea"); collection.Add("Number", "1"); collection.Add("AddressLine1", "123 Street"); collection.Add("AddressNumber", "2"); collection.Add("AddressPostCodeCountry", "United Kingdom"); collection.Add("AddressPostCodeNumber", "3"); AutoMapper.Mapper.CreateMap<NameValueCollection, Person>() .ConvertUsing(x => { return(Person) RecurseType(x, typeof(Person), null); }); var person = AutoMapper.Mapper.Map<NameValueCollection, Person>(collection); Console.WriteLine(person.Name); Console.WriteLine(person.Number); Console.WriteLine(person.Address.Line1); Console.WriteLine(person.Address.Number); Console.WriteLine(person.Address.PostCode.Country); Console.WriteLine(person.Address.PostCode.Number); Console.ReadLine(); }   Notice the convention that I am using and that this method requires you do use.  Each property is prefixed with the constructed name of its parents combined.  This is the convention used by AutoMapper and it makes sense. I can also think of other uses for this including using with ASP.NET MVC ModelBinders for creating a complex type from the QueryString which is itself is a NameValueCollection. Hope this is of some help to people and I would welcome any code reviews you could give me. References: Agatha : http://code.google.com/p/agatha-rrsl/ AutoMapper : http://automapper.codeplex.com/   Cheers for now, Andrew   P.S. I will have the proposed solution for a more complete REST implementation for AGATHA very soon. 

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• SQLAuthority News – Pluralsight Course Review – Practices for Software Startups – Part 2 of 2

  - by pinaldave

  This is the second part of the two part series of Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Please read the first part of this series over here. The course is written by Stephen Forte (Blog | Twitter). Stephen Forte is the Chief Strategy Officer of the venture backed company, Telerik. Personal Learning Schedule After these three sessions it was 6:30 am and time to do my own blog.  But for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about the course, and wanted to go back and finish.  I was wishing that I had woken up at 3 am so I could finish all at one go.  All day long I was digesting what I had learned.  At 10 pm, after my daughter had gone to bed, I sighed on again.  I was not disappointed by the long wait.  As I mentioned before, Stephen has started four to six companies, and all of them are very successful today. Here is the video I promised yesterday – it discusses the importance of Right Sizing Your Startup. The Heartbeat of Startup – Technology Stephen has combined all technology knowledge into one 30 minute session.  He discussed  how to start your project, how to deal with opinions, and how to deal with multiple ideas – every start up has multiple directions it can go. He spent a lot of time emphasized deciding which direction to go and how to decide which will be the best for you.  He called it a continuous development cycle. One of the biggest hazards for a start-up company is one person deciding the direction the company will go, until down the road another team member announces that there is a glitch in their part of the work and that everyone will have to start over.  Even though a team of two or five people can move quickly, often the decision has gone too long and cannot be easily fixed.   Stephen used an example from his own life:  he was biased for one type of technology, and his teammate for another.  In the end they opted for his teammate’s  choice , and in the end it was a good decision, even though he was unfamiliar with that particular program.  He argues that technology should not be a barrier to progress, that you cannot rely on your experience only.  This really spoke to me because I am a big fan of SQL, but I know there is more out there, and I should be more open to it.  I give my thanks to Stephen, I learned something in this module besides startups. Money, Success and Epic Win! The longest, but most interesting, the module was funding your start-up.  You need to fund the start-up right at the very beginning, if not done right you will run into trouble.  The good news is that a few years ago start-ups required a lot more money – think millions of dollars – but now start-ups can get off the ground for thousands.  Stephen used an example of a company that years ago would have needed a million dollars, but today could be started for $600.  It is true that things have changed, but you still need money.  For $600 you can start small and add dynamically, as needed.  But the truth is that if you have $600, $6000, or $6 million, it will be spent.  Don’t think of it as trying to save money, think of it as investing in your future.   You will need money, and you will need to (quickly) decide what you do with the money: shares, stakeholders, investing in a team, hiring a CEO.  This is so important because once you have money and start the company, the company IS your money.  It is your biggest currency – having a percentage of ownership in the company.  Investors will want percentages as repayment for their investment, and they will want a say in the business as well.  You will have to decide how far you will dilute your shares, and how the company will be divided, if at all.  If you don’t plan in advance, you will find that after gaining three or four investors, suddenly you are the minority owner in your own dream.  You need to understand funding carefully.  This single module is worth all the money you would have spent on the whole course alone.  I encourage everyone to listen to this single module even if they don’t watch any of the others.     Press End to Start the Game – Exists! The final module is exit strategies.  You did all this work, dealt with all political and legal issues.  What are you going to get out of it? The answer is simple: money.  Maybe you want your company to be bought out, for you talent to bring you a profit.  You can sell the company to someone and still head it.  Many options are available.  You could sell and still work as an employee but no longer own the company.  There are many exit strategies.  This is where all your hard work comes into play.  It is important not to feel fooled at any step.  There are so many good ideas that end up in the garbage because of poor planning, so that if you find yourself successful, you don’t want to blow it at this step!  The exit is important.  I thought that this aspect of the course was completely unique, and I loved Stephen’s point of view.  I was lost deep in thought after this module ended.  I actually took two hours worth of notes on this section alone – and it was only a three hour course.  I am planning on attending this course one more time next week, just to catch up on all the small bits of wisdom I’m sure I missed. Thank you Stephen for bringing your real world experience with us!  I recommend that everyone attends this course, even if they don’t want to begin their own start-up company. It was indeed a long day for me. Do not forget to read part 1 of this story and attend course Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Class-Level Model Validation with EF Code First and ASP.NET MVC 3

  - by ScottGu

  Earlier this week the data team released the CTP5 build of the new Entity Framework Code-First library.  In my blog post a few days ago I talked about a few of the improvements introduced with the new CTP5 build.  Automatic support for enforcing DataAnnotation validation attributes on models was one of the improvements I discussed.  It provides a pretty easy way to enable property-level validation logic within your model layer. You can apply validation attributes like [Required], [Range], and [RegularExpression] – all of which are built-into .NET 4 – to your model classes in order to enforce that the model properties are valid before they are persisted to a database.  You can also create your own custom validation attributes (like this cool [CreditCard] validator) and have them be automatically enforced by EF Code First as well.  This provides a really easy way to validate property values on your models.  I showed some code samples of this in action in my previous post. Class-Level Model Validation using IValidatableObject DataAnnotation attributes provides an easy way to validate individual property values on your model classes.  Several people have asked - “Does EF Code First also support a way to implement class-level validation methods on model objects, for validation rules than need to span multiple property values?”  It does – and one easy way you can enable this is by implementing the IValidatableObject interface on your model classes. IValidatableObject.Validate() Method Below is an example of using the IValidatableObject interface (which is built-into .NET 4 within the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace) to implement two custom validation rules on a Product model class.  The two rules ensure that: New units can’t be ordered if the Product is in a discontinued state New units can’t be ordered if there are already more than 100 units in stock We will enforce these business rules by implementing the IValidatableObject interface on our Product class, and by implementing its Validate() method like so: The IValidatableObject.Validate() method can apply validation rules that span across multiple properties, and can yield back multiple validation errors. Each ValidationResult returned can supply both an error message as well as an optional list of property names that caused the violation (which is useful when displaying error messages within UI). Automatic Validation Enforcement EF Code-First (starting with CTP5) now automatically invokes the Validate() method when a model object that implements the IValidatableObject interface is saved.  You do not need to write any code to cause this to happen – this support is now enabled by default. This new support means that the below code – which violates one of our above business rules – will automatically throw an exception (and abort the transaction) when we call the “SaveChanges()” method on our Northwind DbContext: In addition to reactively handling validation exceptions, EF Code First also allows you to proactively check for validation errors.  Starting with CTP5, you can call the “GetValidationErrors()” method on the DbContext base class to retrieve a list of validation errors within the model objects you are working with.  GetValidationErrors() will return a list of all validation errors – regardless of whether they are generated via DataAnnotation attributes or by an IValidatableObject.Validate() implementation.  Below is an example of proactively using the GetValidationErrors() method to check (and handle) errors before trying to call SaveChanges(): ASP.NET MVC 3 and IValidatableObject ASP.NET MVC 2 included support for automatically honoring and enforcing DataAnnotation attributes on model objects that are used with ASP.NET MVC’s model binding infrastructure.  ASP.NET MVC 3 goes further and also honors the IValidatableObject interface.  This combined support for model validation makes it easy to display appropriate error messages within forms when validation errors occur.  To see this in action, let’s consider a simple Create form that allows users to create a new Product: We can implement the above Create functionality using a ProductsController class that has two “Create” action methods like below: The first Create() method implements a version of the /Products/Create URL that handles HTTP-GET requests - and displays the HTML form to fill-out.  The second Create() method implements a version of the /Products/Create URL that handles HTTP-POST requests - and which takes the posted form data, ensures that is is valid, and if it is valid saves it in the database.  If there are validation issues it redisplays the form with the posted values.  The razor view template of our “Create” view (which renders the form) looks like below: One of the nice things about the above Controller + View implementation is that we did not write any validation logic within it.  The validation logic and business rules are instead implemented entirely within our model layer, and the ProductsController simply checks whether it is valid (by calling the ModelState.IsValid helper method) to determine whether to try and save the changes or redisplay the form with errors. The Html.ValidationMessageFor() helper method calls within our view simply display the error messages our Product model’s DataAnnotations and IValidatableObject.Validate() method returned.  We can see the above scenario in action by filling out invalid data within the form and attempting to submit it: Notice above how when we hit the “Create” button we got an error message.  This was because we ticked the “Discontinued” checkbox while also entering a value for the UnitsOnOrder (and so violated one of our business rules).  You might ask – how did ASP.NET MVC know to highlight and display the error message next to the UnitsOnOrder textbox?  It did this because ASP.NET MVC 3 now honors the IValidatableObject interface when performing model binding, and will retrieve the error messages from validation failures with it. The business rule within our Product model class indicated that the “UnitsOnOrder” property should be highlighted when the business rule we hit was violated: Our Html.ValidationMessageFor() helper method knew to display the business rule error message (next to the UnitsOnOrder edit box) because of the above property name hint we supplied: Keeping things DRY ASP.NET MVC and EF Code First enables you to keep your validation and business rules in one place (within your model layer), and avoid having it creep into your Controllers and Views.  Keeping the validation logic in the model layer helps ensure that you do not duplicate validation/business logic as you add more Controllers and Views to your application.  It allows you to quickly change your business rules/validation logic in one single place (within your model layer) – and have all controllers/views across your application immediately reflect it.  This help keep your application code clean and easily maintainable, and makes it much easier to evolve and update your application in the future. Summary EF Code First (starting with CTP5) now has built-in support for both DataAnnotations and the IValidatableObject interface.  This allows you to easily add validation and business rules to your models, and have EF automatically ensure that they are enforced anytime someone tries to persist changes of them to a database.  ASP.NET MVC 3 also now supports both DataAnnotations and IValidatableObject as well, which makes it even easier to use them with your EF Code First model layer – and then have the controllers/views within your web layer automatically honor and support them as well.  This makes it easy to build clean and highly maintainable applications. You don’t have to use DataAnnotations or IValidatableObject to perform your validation/business logic.  You can always roll your own custom validation architecture and/or use other more advanced validation frameworks/patterns if you want.  But for a lot of applications this built-in support will probably be sufficient – and provide a highly productive way to build solutions. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Preserving Permalinks

  - by Daniel Moth

  One of the things that gets me on a rant is websites that break permalinks. If you have posted something somewhere and there is a public URL pointing to it, that URL should never ever return a 404. You are breaking all websites that ever linked to you and you are breaking all search engine links to your content (that others will try and follow). It is a pet peeve of mine. So when I had to move my blog, obviously I would preserve the root URL (www.danielmoth.com/Blog/), but I also wanted to preserve every URL my blog has generated over the years. To be clear, our focus here is on the URL formatting, not the content migration which I'll talk about in my next post. In this post, I'll describe my solution first and then what it solves. 1. The IIS7 Rewrite Module and web.config There are a few ways you can map an old URL to a new one (so when requests to the old URL come in, they get redirected to the new one). The new blog engine I use (dasBlog) has built-in functionality to do that (Scott refers to it here). Instead, the way I chose to address the issue was to use the IIS7 rewrite module. The IIS7 rewrite module allows redirecting URLs based on pattern matching, regular expressions and, of course, hardcoded full URLs for things that don't fall into any pattern. You can configure it visually from IIS Manager using a handy dialog that allows testing patterns against input URLs. Here is what mine looked like after configuring a few rules: To learn more about this technology check out this video, the reference page and this overview blog post; all 3 pages have a collection of related resources at the bottom worth checking out too. All the visual configuration ends up in a web.config file at the root folder of your website. If you are on a shared hosting service, probably the only way you can use the Rewrite Module is by directly editing the web.config file. Next, I'll describe the URLs I had to map and how that manifested itself in the web.config file. What I did was create the rules locally using the GUI, and then took the generated web.config file and uploaded it to my live site. You can view my web.config here. 2. Monthly Archives Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/2004_07_01_mothblog_archive.html dasBlog: /Blog/default,month,2004-07.aspx In my web.config file, the rule that deals with this is the one named "monthlyarchive_redirect". 3. Categories Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/labels/Personal.html dasBlog: /Blog/CategoryView,category,Personal.aspx In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "category_redirect". 4. Posts Observe the difference between the way the two blog engines generate this type of URL Blogger: /Blog/2004/07/hello-world.html dasBlog: /Blog/Hello-World.aspx In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "post_redirect". Note: The decision is taken to use dasBlog URLs that do not include the date info (see the description of my Appearance settings). If we included the date info then it would have to include the day part, which blogger did not generate. This makes it impossible to redirect correctly and to have a single permalink for blog posts moving forward. An implication of this decision, is that no two blog posts can have the same title. The tool I will describe in my next post (inelegantly) deals with duplicates, but not with triplicates or higher. 5. Unhandled by a generic rule Unfortunately, the two blog engines use different rules for generating URLs for blog posts. Most of the time the conversion is as simple as the example of the previous section where a post titled "Hello World" generates a URL with the words separated by a hyphen. Some times that is not the case, for example: /Blog/2006/05/medc-wrap-up.html /Blog/MEDC-Wrapup.aspx or /Blog/2005/01/best-of-moth-2004.html /Blog/Best-Of-The-Moth-2004.aspx or /Blog/2004/11/more-windows-mobile-2005-details.html /Blog/More-Windows-Mobile-2005-Details-Emerge.aspx In short, blogger does not add words to the title beyond ~39 characters, it drops some words from the title generation (e.g. a, an, on, the), and it preserve hyphens that appear in the title. For this reason, we need to detect these and explicitly list them for redirects (no regular expression can help here because the full set of rules is not listed anywhere). In my web.config file the rule that deals with this is the one named "Redirect rule1 for FullRedirects" combined with the rewriteMap named "StaticRedirects". Note: The tool I describe in my next post will detect all the URLs that need to be explicitly redirected and will list them in a file ready for you to copy them to your web.config rewriteMap. 6. C# code doing the same as the web.config I wrote some naive code that does the same thing as the web.config: given a string it will return a new string converted according to the 3 rules above. It does not take into account the 4th case where an explicit hard-coded conversion is needed (the tool I present in the next post does take that into account). static string REGEX_post_redirect = "[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}/([0-9a-z-]+).html"; static string REGEX_category_redirect = "labels/([_0-9a-z-% ]+).html"; static string REGEX_monthlyarchive_redirect = "([0-9]{4})_([0-9]{2})_[0-9]{2}_mothblog_archive.html"; static string Redirect(string oldUrl) { GroupCollection g; if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_post_redirect, 2, out g)) return string.Concat(g[1].Value, ".aspx"); if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_category_redirect, 2, out g)) return string.Concat("CategoryView,category,", g[1].Value, ".aspx"); if (RunRegExOnIt(oldUrl, REGEX_monthlyarchive_redirect, 3, out g)) return string.Concat("default,month,", g[1].Value, "-", g[2], ".aspx"); return string.Empty; } static bool RunRegExOnIt(string toRegEx, string pattern, int groupCount, out GroupCollection g) { if (pattern.Length == 0) { g = null; return false; } g = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled).Match(toRegEx).Groups; return (g.Count == groupCount); } Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Building Great-Looking, Usable Apps: A two-day workshop applying Oracle’s best UX practices in ADF

  - by mvaughan

  By Misha Vaughan, Oracle Applications User ExperienceI have been with Oracle for more than 12 years. It is a company that has granted me extraordinary creative freedom to help deliver compelling experiences for customers.I am beyond proud to talk about one of the experiences we just took for a test drive. Recently, we delivered a first-of-its-kind, three-team collaboration, train-the-trainer event in Reading, U.K., on building great-looking, usable apps based on Oracle Fusion Applications -- using the ADF tool kit. A new kind of workshopKevin Li, Platform Product Director, asked the Oracle Applications User Experience VP, Jeremy Ashley, if the team had anything to help partners and customers build applications that looked like Fusion. He was receiving this request from European partners and customers.Some quick conversations ensued, and the idea for the workshop was born: We would conduct an experiment.  We would work with feedback from the key Platform Technology Solutions (PTS) trainers under Andre Pavanello, Director, Platform Technology Solutions, in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. We would partner with the ADF team lead by Grant Ronald, Director of Product Management, title> and leverage the Applications UX expertise in Ashley’s team.The goal: Create a pilot workshop that in two days would explain to an ADF developer how to leverage the next-generation user experience best-practices developed for Fusion Apps. Why? Customers who need integrations with Oracle Fusion Applications, who are looking for custom applications that need to co-exist with Fusion, or who quite simply want a next-generation design for a custom app, need their solutions to reflect the next-generation research and design.Building an event for an ADF developerThe biggest hurdle was figuring out where to start.  How far into user experience country do you take an ADF developer? How far into ADF do you need to go if you are a UX professional?After some time in the UX kitchen, the workshop recipe looked like this: Mix equal parts: Fusion user experience design principles and functional design patterns The art and science behind UX How to wireframe designs that you can build in Fusion How to translate those designs into an ADF application Ultan O’Broin, Director of Global User Experience, explaining the trouble ticket wireframe design exerciseLynn Munsinger, Senior Group Product Manager, explaining the follow-on trouble ticket ADF coding exercise For spice, add:•    Debra Lilley, Fujitsu and ACE director, showcasing some of the latest ADF design work in the new face of Fusion Applications •    Partner show-and-tell of example apps they have built with FMW and ADF that are dynamic, beautiful, and interactive.Debra Lilley, Oracle ACE Director and Fujitsu Fusion Champion on the new face of Fusion built with ADF and Fusion extensibility with composers as a window into “the possible”?The taste testThis first go-round of the workshop was aimed squarely at ADF developers and partners.  We were privileged to have participation and feedback from:•    Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger S. A., Denmark•    John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, UK•    Josef Huber, Primus Delphi Group, Munich•    Thaddaus Weindl, Primus Delphi, Group , Munich•    Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Balaji Kamepalli, EiS Technologies, Bangalore•    Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Mexico•    Yannick Ongena, infoMENTUM, UK•    Jakub Ciszek, infoMENTUM, UK•    Mauro Flores, infoMENTUM, UK•    Matteo Formica, infoMENTUM, UKRichard Bingham, Oracle, Mauro Flores and Matteo Formica, infoMENTUMWhy is this so exciting?  Oracle has invested heavily in the research and development of the Oracle Fusion Applications user experience. This investment has been and continues to be applied across the product lines. Now, we finally get to teach customers and partners how to take advantage of this investment for custom solutions.This event was a pilot to test-drive the content, as well as a train-the-trainer event that our EMEA colleagues will be using with partners who want to build with Fusion Apps design patterns.What did attendees think?"I liked most the science stuff, like eye-tracking, design patterns and best-practice (color, contrast),” Josef Huber said. “It was a very good introduction to UI design, and most developers and project managers are very bad in that.  So this course would be good for all developers and even project managers." Team Anonymous: John Sim, Fishbowl Solutions, Flavius Sana, Oracle, Josef Huber, infoMENTUM, Mireille Duroussaud, Oracle. Winners of the wireframing design exercise.  Sten Vesterli, of Scott/Tiger, said he attended to learn techniques he could use in his own projects. He wants to ensure that his applications better meet the needs of his users, and he said sessions during the workshop on user interface design and wireframing were most useful to him.  “Go to this event to learn the art and science of good user interfaces from people who really know how to do it,” he said.Sten Vesterli, Scott/Tiger, Angelo Santagata, Oracle Plinio Arbizu said the workshop fulfilled his goals, thanks to the recommendations given in how to design user interfaces to facilitate the adoption of applications among the final users. “The workshop combined these recommendations with an exercise that improved the technical comprehension, permitting the usage of JDeveloper to set forth our solutions,” he said. He added: “The first session that I really enjoyed was the five Fusion design principles. It was incredible to discover how these simple principles were included in an inherit manner in Fusion Applications, and I had been using many of them applying only ADF components.  Another topic that I enjoyed a lot was the eight recommendations about the visual design of UIs. The issues that were raised in that lesson are unknown to the developers and of great value to achieve an attractive presentation layer to the end users.  Participate in this workshop, and include these usability features in your projects and in this manner not only to facilitate and improve the user productivity, but also to distinguish you as a professional who takes advantage fully of the functionalities offered by Oracle technology. Praveen Pillalamarri came to the workshop to learn about the difficulties faced in UI and UX development, and how this can be resolved with the help of ADF.  He also appreciated the opportunity to talk with other individuals who came to the workshop. Pillalmarri said, “The way we looked at things in terms of work and projects were sharpened.  UI and UX design knowledge shared by you was quite interesting, especially the minute things which we ignored in the UI or UX design.” Plinio Arbizu, Services & Processes Solutions S. A., Richard Bingham, Oracle, Balaji Kamepalli, & Praveen Pillalamarri, EiS TechnologiesReady to spread the wordIn EMEA, Oracle customers and partners have access to three world-class trainers via Platform Technology Solutions: Mireille Duroussaud, Flavius Sana, and Angelo Santagata. Contact Andre Pavanello if you like to experience this workshop firsthand, or you have customers or partners who would benefit from the training.We are looking to bring the event to the U.S. in spring 2013. If you have interest in this kind of a workshop, leave a comment below. For those who want to follow the action, join the ADF Enterprise Methodology Group run by Oracle’s Chris Muir. Ask questions and continue with the conversation in this forum, or check blogs.oracle.com/usableapps for topics emerging from the workshop.

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• I Hereby Resolve… (T-SQL Tuesday #14)

  - by smisner

  It’s time for another T-SQL Tuesday, hosted this month by Jen McCown (blog|twitter), on the topic of resolutions. Specifically, “what techie resolutions have you been pondering, and why?” I like that word – pondering – because I ponder a lot. And while there are many things that I do already because of my job, there are many more things that I ponder about doing…if only I had the time. Then I ponder about making time, but then it’s back to work! In 2010, I was moderately more successful in making time for things that I ponder about than I had been in years past, and I hope to continue that trend in 2011. If Jen hadn’t settled on this topic, I could keep my ponderings to myself and no one would ever know the outcome, but she’s egged me on (and everyone else that chooses to participate)! So here goes… For me, having resolve to do something means that I wouldn’t be doing that something as part of my ordinary routine. It takes extra effort to make time for it. It’s not something that I do once and check off a list, but something that I need to commit to over a period of time. So with that in mind, I hereby resolve… To Learn Something New… One of the things I love about my job is that I get to do a lot of things outside of my ordinary routine. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of opportunity! So what more could I possibly add to that list of things to do? Well, the more I learn, the more I realize I have so much more to learn. It would be much easier to remain in ignorant bliss, but I was born to learn. Constantly. (And apparently to teach, too– my father will tell you that as a small child, I had the neighborhood kids gathered together to play school – in the summer. I’m sure they loved that – but they did it!) These are some of things that I want to dedicate some time to learning this year: Spatial data. I have a good understanding of how maps in Reporting Services works, and I can cobble together a simple T-SQL spatial query, but I know I’m only scratching the surface here. Rob Farley (blog|twitter) posted interesting examples of combining maps and PivotViewer, and I think there’s so many more creative possibilities. I’ve always felt that pictures (including charts and maps) really help people get their minds wrapped around data better, and because a lot of data has a geographic aspect to it, I believe developing some expertise here will be beneficial to my work. PivotViewer. Not only is PivotViewer combined with maps a useful way to visualize data, but it’s an interesting way to work with data. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out this interactive demonstration using Netflx OData feed. According to Rob Farley, learning how to work with PivotViewer isn’t trivial. Just the type of challenge I like! Security. You’ve heard of the accidental DBA? Well, I am the accidental security person – is there a word for that role? My eyes used to glaze over when having to study about security, or  when reading anything about it. Then I had a problem long ago that no one could figure out – not even the vendor’s tech support – until I rolled up my sleeves and painstakingly worked through the myriad of potential problems to resolve a very thorny security issue. I learned a lot in the process, and have been able to share what I’ve learned with a lot of people. But I’m not convinced their eyes weren’t glazing over, too. I don’t take it personally – it’s just a very dry topic! So in addition to deepening my understanding about security, I want to find a way to make the subject as it relates to SQL Server and business intelligence more accessible and less boring. Well, there’s actually a lot more that I could put on this list, and a lot more things I have plans to do this coming year, but I run the risk of overcommitting myself. And then I wouldn’t have time… To Have Fun! My name is Stacia and I’m a workaholic. When I love what I do, it’s difficult to separate out the work time from the fun time. But there are some things that I’ve been meaning to do that aren’t related to business intelligence for which I really need to develop some resolve. And they are techie resolutions, too, in a roundabout sort of way! Photography. When my husband and I went on an extended camping trip in 2009 to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, I had a nice little digital camera that took decent pictures. But then I saw the gorgeous cameras that other tourists were toting around and decided I needed one too. So I bought a Nikon D90 and have started to learn to use it, but I’m definitely still in the beginning stages. I traveled so much in 2010 and worked on two book projects that I didn’t have a lot of free time to devote to it. I was very inspired by Kimberly Tripp’s (blog|twitter) and Paul Randal’s (blog|twitter) photo-adventure in Alaska, though, and plan to spend some dedicated time with my camera this year. (And hopefully before I move to Alaska – nothing set in stone yet, but we hope to move to a remote location – with Internet access – later this year!) Astronomy. I have this cool telescope, but it suffers the same fate as my camera. I have been gone too much and busy with other things that I haven’t had time to work with it. I’ll figure out how it works, and then so much time passes by that I forget how to use it. I have this crazy idea that I can actually put the camera and the telescope together for astrophotography, but I think I need to start simple by learning how to use each component individually. As long as I’m living in Las Vegas, I know I’ll have clear skies for nighttime viewing, but when we move to Alaska, we’ll be living in a rain forest. I have no idea what my opportunities will be like there – except I know that when the sky is clear, it will be far more amazing than anything I can see in Vegas – even out in the desert - because I’ll be so far away from city light pollution. I’ve been contemplating putting together a blog on these topics as I learn. As many of my fellow bloggers in the SQL Server community know, sometimes the best way to learn something is to sit down and write about it. I’m just stumped by coming up with a clever name for the new blog, which I was thinking about inaugurating with my move to Alaska. Except that I don’t know when that will be exactly, so we’ll just have to wait and see which comes first!

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• Wireless will not connect

  - by azz0r

  Hello, I have installed Ubuntu 10.10 on the same machine as my windows setup. However, it will not connect to my wireless network. It can see its there, it can attempt to connect, yet it will never connect. It will keep bringing up the password prompt everyso often. I have tried turning my security to WEP, I ended up turning it back to WPA2. It is set to AES (noted a few threads on google about that). Can you assist? I would love to dive into Ubuntu, but without the internet its pointless. --- lshw -C network --- *-network description: Ethernet interface product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0 logical name: eth0 version: 02 serial: 00:1d:92:ea:cc:62 capacity: 1GB/s width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8168 driverversion=8.020.00-NAPI duplex=half latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:29 ioport:e800(size=256) memory:feaff000-feafffff memory:f8ff0000-f8ffffff(prefetchable) memory:feac0000-feadffff(prefetchable) *-network description: Wireless interface physical id: 1 logical name: wlan0 serial: 00:15:af:72:a4:38 capabilities: ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn --- iwconfig ---- lo no wireless extensions. eth0 no wireless extensions. wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:"Wuggawoo" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=9 dBm Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Encryption key:off Power Management:on --- cat /etc/network/interfaces ---- auto lo iface lo inet loopback logs deamon.log --- Jan 19 04:17:09 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: Authentication with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out. Jan 19 04:17:09 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Jan 19 04:17:09 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning Jan 19 04:17:11 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: WPS-AP-AVAILABLE Jan 19 04:17:11 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: Trying to associate with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (SSID='Wuggawoo' freq=2437 MHz) Jan 19 04:17:11 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associating Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0/wireless): association took too long. Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 5 -> 6 (reason 0) Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0/wireless): asking for new secrets Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled... Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started... Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 6 -> 4 (reason 0) Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) scheduled... Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete. Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) starting... Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 4 -> 5 (reason 0) Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0/wireless): connection 'Wuggawoo' has security, and secrets exist. No new secrets needed. Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Config: added 'ssid' value 'Wuggawoo' Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Config: added 'scan_ssid' value '1' Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Config: added 'key_mgmt' value 'WPA-PSK' Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Config: added 'psk' value '<omitted>' Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: nm_setting_802_1x_get_pkcs11_engine_path: assertion `NM_IS_SETTING_802_1X (setting)' failed Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: nm_setting_802_1x_get_pkcs11_module_path: assertion `NM_IS_SETTING_802_1X (setting)' failed Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) complete. Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> Config: set interface ap_scan to 1 Jan 19 04:17:12 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning Jan 19 04:17:13 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: WPS-AP-AVAILABLE Jan 19 04:17:13 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: Trying to associate with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (SSID='Wuggawoo' freq=2437 MHz) Jan 19 04:17:13 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associating Jan 19 04:17:23 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: Authentication with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out. Jan 19 04:17:23 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Jan 19 04:17:23 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning Jan 19 04:17:24 ubuntu AptDaemon: INFO: Initializing daemon Jan 19 04:17:25 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: WPS-AP-AVAILABLE Jan 19 04:17:25 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: Trying to associate with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (SSID='Wuggawoo' freq=2437 MHz) Jan 19 04:17:25 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associating Jan 19 04:17:27 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> wlan0: link timed out. --- kern.log --- Jan 19 04:18:11 ubuntu kernel: [ 142.420024] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out Jan 19 04:18:13 ubuntu kernel: [ 144.333847] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 1) Jan 19 04:18:13 ubuntu kernel: [ 144.539996] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 2) Jan 19 04:18:13 ubuntu kernel: [ 144.750027] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 3) Jan 19 04:18:14 ubuntu kernel: [ 144.940022] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out Jan 19 04:18:25 ubuntu kernel: [ 155.832995] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 1) Jan 19 04:18:25 ubuntu kernel: [ 156.030046] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 2) Jan 19 04:18:25 ubuntu kernel: [ 156.230039] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 3) Jan 19 04:18:25 ubuntu kernel: [ 156.430039] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out --- syslog --- Jan 19 04:18:46 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: Authentication with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out. Jan 19 04:18:46 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Jan 19 04:18:46 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning Jan 19 04:18:48 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: WPS-AP-AVAILABLE Jan 19 04:18:48 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1289]: Trying to associate with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (SSID='Wuggawoo' freq=2437 MHz) Jan 19 04:18:48 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associating Jan 19 04:18:48 ubuntu kernel: [ 178.833905] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 1) Jan 19 04:18:48 ubuntu kernel: [ 179.030035] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 2) Jan 19 04:18:48 ubuntu kernel: [ 179.230020] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (try 3) Jan 19 04:18:48 ubuntu kernel: [ 179.433634] wlan0: direct probe to AP 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out lspci and lsusb lspci -- 00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 Host Bridge 00:02.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (ext gfx port 0) 00:05.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 1) 00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2) 00:11.0 SATA controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 SATA Controller [AHCI mode] 00:12.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller 00:12.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller 00:12.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller 00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI0 Controller 00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700 USB OHCI1 Controller 00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB EHCI Controller 00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 SMBus Controller (rev 3a) 00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 IDE Controller 00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) 00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 LPC host controller 00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 PCI to PCI Bridge 00:14.5 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc SB700/SB800 USB OHCI2 Controller 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] HyperTransport Configuration 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Address Map 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] DRAM Controller 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Miscellaneous Control 00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K10 [Opteron, Athlon64, Sempron] Link Control 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G80 [GeForce 8800 GTS] (rev a2) 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02) 03:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): JMicron Technology Corp. IEEE 1394 Host Controller -- lsusb -- Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 003: ID 046d:c517 Logitech, Inc. LX710 Cordless Desktop Laser Bus 004 Device 002: ID 045e:0730 Microsoft Corp. Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 002 Device 003: ID 13d3:3247 IMC Networks 802.11 n/g/b Wireless LAN Adapter Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0718:0628 Imation Corp. Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:08c2 Logitech, Inc. QuickCam PTZ Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:2228 Standard Microsystems Corp. 9-in-2 Card Reader Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub With no security on my router I still can't connect, I get: Jan 19 15:58:01 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1165]: Authentication with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out. Jan 19 15:58:01 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Jan 19 15:58:01 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: disconnected -> scanning Jan 19 15:58:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1165]: WPS-AP-AVAILABLE Jan 19 15:58:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1165]: Trying to associate with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d (SSID='Wuggawoo' freq=2437 MHz) Jan 19 15:58:02 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1165]: Association request to the driver failed Jan 19 15:58:02 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: scanning -> associating Jan 19 15:58:05 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> wlan0: link timed out. Jan 19 15:58:07 ubuntu wpa_supplicant[1165]: Authentication with 94:44:52:0d:22:0d timed out. Jan 19 15:58:07 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connection state: associating -> disconnected Jan 19 15:58:07 ubuntu NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): supplicant connec

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• At the Java DEMOgrounds - JavaFX

  - by Janice J. Heiss

  JavaFX has made rapid progress in the last year, as is evidenced by the wealth of demos on display. A few questions appear to be prominent in the minds of JavaFX enthusiasts. Here are some questions with answers provided by Oracle’s JavaFX team.When will the rest of the JavaFX code be available in open source?Oracle has started to open source JavaFX. The existing platform code will finish being committed to OpenJFX by the end of the year.Why should I use JavaFX instead of HTML5?We see JavaFX as complementary to HTML5, and most companies we talk to react positively once they understand how they can benefit from a hybrid solution. As most HTML5 developers will tell you, the biggest obstacle to deploying HTML5 applications is fragmentation. JavaFX offers a convenient way to render HTML and JavaScript within its WebView component, which provides the same level of quality and features across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Additionally, JavaScript in WebView can make calls into the Java code, and vice versa, allowing developers to tap into the best of both worlds.What is the market penetration of JavaFX? It is currently limited, as we've just made available JavaFX on Mac and Linux in August, but we expect JavaFX to be present on millions of desktop-type systems now that JavaFX is included as part of the JRE. We have also significantly lowered the level of effort required to deploy an application bundling the JRE and JavaFX runtime libraries. Finally, we are seeing a lot of interest by companies operating in the embedded market, who have found it hard to develop compelling UIs with existing technologies.Below are summaries of JavaFX Demos on display at JavaOne 2012:JavaFX EnsembleEnsemble is a collection of over 100 JavaFX samples packaged as a JavaFX application. This demo is especially useful to those new to JavaFX, or those not familiar with its latest features (e.g. canvas, color picker). Ensemble is the reference for getting familiar with JavaFX functionality. Each sample can be run from within Ensemble, and the API for each sample, as well as the source code are available alongside the sample.The samples source code can be saved as a NetBeans project for convenience purposes, or can be copied as is in any other Java IDE. The version of Ensemble shown is packaged as a native Windows application, including the JRE and JavaFX libraries. It was created with the JavaFX packager, which provides multiple packaging options, and frees developers from the cumbersome and error-prone process of packaging a Java application.FX Experience ToolsFX Experience Tools is a JavaFX application that provides different utilities to create new skins for your JavaFX applications. One of the most powerful features of JavaFX is the ability to skin applications via CSS. Since not all Java developers are familiar with CSS, these utilities are a great starting point to create custom skins. JavaFX allows developers to easily customize the look and feel of their applications through CSS. FX Experience Tools makes it easy to create new themes for JavaFX applications, even if you are not familiar with CSS. FX Experience Tools is a JavaFX application packaged as a native application including the JRE and JavaFX runtime libraries. FX Experience tools shows how this type of deployment simplifies the packaging of Java applications without requiring developers to master the intricacies of Java application packaging. The download site for FX Experience Tools is http://fxexperience.com/2012/03/announcing-fx-experience-tools/ JavaFX Scene BuilderJavaFX Scene Builder is a visual layout tool that lets users quickly design the UI of your JavaFX application, without coding. Users can drag and drop UI components, modify their properties, apply style sheets, and the FXML code they create for the layout is automatically generated in the background. The result is an FXML file that can then be combined with a Java project by binding the UI to the application’s logic. Developers can easily create user interfaces for their application, as well as separate the application’s UI from the application logic for easier maintenance. Attendees can get this app by going to javafx.com and checking the link at top of the “Overview” page.Scene Builder allows developers to easily layout JavaFX UI controls, charts, shapes, and containers, so that you can quickly prototype user interfaces. It generates FXML, an XML-based markup language that enables users to define an application’s user interface, separately from the application logic. Scene Builder can be used in combination with any Java IDE, but is more tightly integrated with NetBeans IDE. It is written as a JavaFX application, with native desktop integration on Windows and Mac OS X. It’s a perfect example of a JavaFX application packages as a native application.Scene Builder is available for your preferred development platform. Besides the GA release on Windows and Mac, a Developer Preview of Scene Builder for Linux has just been made available.Scenic ViewScenic View is a tool that can be used to understand the current state of your application UI, and to also easily manipulate properties of the scenegraph without having to keep editing your code. Creating UIs is a complex process, and it can be hard and tedious detecting these issues, editing the code, and then compiling it to test the app again. Scenic View is a great diagnostics tool that helps developers identify these issues and correct them at runtime.Attendees can get Scenic View by going to javafx.com, selecting the “Community” tab, and clicking the link under the “Third Party Tools and Utilities” section.Scenic View allows developers to easily examine the state of a JavaFX application scenegraph while the application is running. Some of the latest features added to Scenic View include event monitoring, javadoc browsing, and contextual menus. The download site for Scenic View is available here: http://fxexperience.com/scenic-view/ Conference TourConference Tour is an application that lets users discover some of the major Java conferences throughout the world. The Conference Tour application shows how simple it is to mix JavaFX and HTML5 into a single, interactive application. Attendees get Conference Tour here.JavaFX includes a Web engine based on Webkit that provides a consistent web interface to render HTML5 across operating systems, within a JavaFX application. JavaFX features a bi-directional bridge that allows Java APIs to call JavaScript within WebView, or allows JavaScript to make calls to Java APIs. This allows developers to leverage the best of both worlds.Java EE developers can take advantage of WebView and the JavaScript-Java bridge to allow their HTML clients to seamlessly bypass Web browser’s sandbox to access native system resources, providing a richer user experience.FXMediaPlayerFXMediaPlayer is an application that lets developers check different media functionality in JavaFX, such as synthesizer or support for HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). This demo shows how developers can embed video content in their Java applications. JavaFX leverages the underlying video (e.g., H.264) and audio (e.g., AAC) codecs on the user’s computer. JavaFX APIs allow developers to interact with the video content (e.g. play/pause, or programmable markers). Some of the latest media features introduced in JavaFX 2.2 include HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). Obviously there is a lot for JavaFX enthusiasts to chew on!

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• MVC 3 AdditionalMetadata Attribute with ViewBag to Render Dynamic UI

  - by Steve Michelotti

  A few months ago I blogged about using Model metadata to render a dynamic UI in MVC 2. The scenario in the post was that we might have a view model where the questions are conditionally displayed and therefore a dynamic UI is needed. To recap the previous post, the solution was to use a custom attribute called [QuestionId] in conjunction with an “ApplicableQuestions” collection to identify whether each question should be displayed. This allowed me to have a view model that looked like this: 1: [UIHint("ScalarQuestion")] 2: [DisplayName("First Name")] 3: [QuestionId("NB0021")] 4: public string FirstName { get; set; } 5: 6: [UIHint("ScalarQuestion")] 7: [DisplayName("Last Name")] 8: [QuestionId("NB0022")] 9: public string LastName { get; set; } 10: 11: [UIHint("ScalarQuestion")] 12: [QuestionId("NB0023")] 13: public int Age { get; set; } 14: 15: public IEnumerable<string> ApplicableQuestions { get; set; } At the same time, I was able to avoid repetitive IF statements for every single question in my view: 1: <%: Html.EditorFor(m => m.FirstName, new { applicableQuestions = Model.ApplicableQuestions })%> 2: <%: Html.EditorFor(m => m.LastName, new { applicableQuestions = Model.ApplicableQuestions })%> 3: <%: Html.EditorFor(m => m.Age, new { applicableQuestions = Model.ApplicableQuestions })%> by creating an Editor Template called “ScalarQuestion” that encapsulated the IF statement: 1: <%@ Control Language="C#" Inherits="System.Web.Mvc.ViewUserControl" %> 2: <%@ Import Namespace="DynamicQuestions.Models" %> 3: <%@ Import Namespace="System.Linq" %> 4: <% 5: var applicableQuestions = this.ViewData["applicableQuestions"] as IEnumerable<string>; 6: var questionAttr = this.ViewData.ModelMetadata.ContainerType.GetProperty(this.ViewData.ModelMetadata.PropertyName).GetCustomAttributes(typeof(QuestionIdAttribute), true) as QuestionIdAttribute[]; 7: string questionId = null; 8: if (questionAttr.Length > 0) 9: { 10: questionId = questionAttr[0].Id; 11: } 12: if (questionId != null && applicableQuestions.Contains(questionId)) { %> 13: <div> 14: <%: Html.Label("") %> 15: <%: Html.TextBox("", this.Model)%> 16: </div> 17: <% } %> You might want to go back and read the full post in order to get the full context. MVC 3 offers a couple of new features that make this scenario more elegant to implement. The first step is to use the new [AdditionalMetadata] attribute which, so far, appears to be an under appreciated new feature of MVC 3. With this attribute, I don’t need my custom [QuestionId] attribute anymore - now I can just write my view model like this: 1: [UIHint("ScalarQuestion")] 2: [DisplayName("First Name")] 3: [AdditionalMetadata("QuestionId", "NB0021")] 4: public string FirstName { get; set; } 5:   6: [UIHint("ScalarQuestion")] 7: [DisplayName("Last Name")] 8: [AdditionalMetadata("QuestionId", "NB0022")] 9: public string LastName { get; set; } 10:   11: [UIHint("ScalarQuestion")] 12: [AdditionalMetadata("QuestionId", "NB0023")] 13: public int Age { get; set; } Thus far, the documentation seems to be pretty sparse on the AdditionalMetadata attribute. It’s buried in the Other New Features section of the MVC 3 home page and, after showing the attribute on a view model property, it just says, “This metadata is made available to any display or editor template when a product view model is rendered. It is up to you to interpret the metadata information.” But what exactly does it look like for me to “interpret the metadata information”? Well, it turns out it makes the view much easier to work with. Here is the re-implemented ScalarQuestion template updated for MVC 3 and Razor: 1: @{ 2: object questionId; 3: ViewData.ModelMetadata.AdditionalValues.TryGetValue("QuestionId", out questionId); 4: if (ViewBag.applicableQuestions.Contains((string)questionId)) { 5: <div> 6: @Html.LabelFor(m => m) 7: @Html.TextBoxFor(m => m) 8: </div> 9: } 10: } So we’ve gone from 17 lines of code (in the MVC 2 version) to about 7-8 lines of code here. The first thing to notice is that in MVC 3 we now have a property called “AdditionalValues” that hangs off of the ModelMetadata property. This is automatically populated by any [AdditionalMetadata] attributes on the property. There is no more need for me to explicitly write Reflection code to GetCustomAttributes() and then check to see if those attributes were present. I can just call TryGetValue() on the dictionary to see if they were present. Secondly, the “applicableQuestions” anonymous type that I passed in from the calling view – in MVC 3 I now have a dynamic ViewBag property where I can just “dot into” the applicableQuestions with a nicer syntax than dictionary square bracket syntax. And there’s no problems calling the Contains() method on this dynamic object because at runtime the DLR has resolved that it is a generic List<string>. At this point you might be saying that, yes the view got much nicer than the MVC 2 version, but my view model got slightly worse.  In the previous version I had a nice [QuestionId] attribute but now, with the [AdditionalMetadata] attribute, I have to type the string “QuestionId” for every single property and hope that I don’t make a typo. Well, the good news is that it’s easy to create your own attributes that can participate in the metadata’s additional values. The key is that the attribute must implement that IMetadataAware interface and populate the AdditionalValues dictionary in the OnMetadataCreated() method: 1: public class QuestionIdAttribute : Attribute, IMetadataAware 2: { 3: public string Id { get; set; } 4:   5: public QuestionIdAttribute(string id) 6: { 7: this.Id = id; 8: } 9:   10: public void OnMetadataCreated(ModelMetadata metadata) 11: { 12: metadata.AdditionalValues["QuestionId"] = this.Id; 13: } 14: } This now allows me to encapuslate my “QuestionId” string in just one place and get back to my original attribute which can be used like this: [QuestionId(“NB0021”)]. The [AdditionalMetadata] attribute is a powerful and under-appreciated new feature of MVC 3. Combined with the dynamic ViewBag property, you can do some really interesting things with your applications with less code and ceremony.

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• Keeping track of File System Utilization in Ops Center 12c

  - by S Stelting

  Enterprise Manager Ops Center 12c provides significant monitoring capabilities, combined with very flexible incident management. These capabilities even extend to monitoring the file systems associated with Solaris or Linux assets. Depending on your needs you can monitor and manage incidents, or you can fine tune alert monitoring rules to specific file systems. This article will show you how to use Ops Center 12c to Track file system utilization Adjust file system monitoring rules Disable file system rules Create custom monitoring rules If you're interested in this topic, please join us for a WebEx presentation! Date: Thursday, November 8, 2012 Time: 11:00 am, Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00) Meeting Number: 598 796 842 Meeting Password: oracle123 To join the online meeting ------------------------------------------------------- 1. Go to https://oracleconferencing.webex.com/oracleconferencing/j.php?ED=209833597&UID=1512095432&PW=NOWQ3YjJlMmYy&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D 2. If requested, enter your name and email address. 3. If a password is required, enter the meeting password: oracle123 4. Click "Join". To view in other time zones or languages, please click the link: https://oracleconferencing.webex.com/oracleconferencing/j.php?ED=209833597&UID=1512095432&PW=NOWQ3YjJlMmYy&ORT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D   Monitoring File Systems for OS Assets The Libraries tab provides basic, device-level information about the storage associated with an OS instance. This tab shows you the local file system associated with the instance and any shared storage libraries mounted by Ops Center. More detailed information about file system storage is available under the Analytics tab under the sub-tab named Charts. Here, you can select and display the individual mount points of an OS, and export the utilization data if desired: In this example, the OS instance has a basic root file partition and several NFS directories. Each file system mount point can be independently chosen for display in the Ops Center chart. File Systems and Incident  Reporting Every asset managed by Ops Center has a "monitoring policy", which determines what represents a reportable issue with the asset. The policy is made up of a bunch of monitoring rules, where each rule describes An attribute to monitor The conditions which represent an issue The level or levels of severity for the issue When the conditions are met, Ops Center sends a notification and creates an incident. By default, OS instances have three monitoring rules associated with file systems: File System Reachability: Triggers an incident if a file system is not reachable NAS Library Status: Triggers an incident for a value of "WARNING" or "DEGRADED" for a NAS-based file system File System Used Space Percentage: Triggers an incident when file system utilization grows beyond defined thresholds You can view these rules in the Monitoring tab for an OS: Of course, the default monitoring rules is that they apply to every file system associated with an OS instance. As a result, any issue with NAS accessibility or disk utilization will trigger an incident. This can cause incidents for file systems to be reported multiple times if the same shared storage is used by many assets, as shown in this screen shot: Depending on the level of control you'd like, there are a number of ways to fine tune incident reporting. Note that any changes to an asset's monitoring policy will detach it from the default, creating a new monitoring policy for the asset. If you'd like, you can extract a monitoring policy from an asset, which allows you to save it and apply the customized monitoring profile to other OS assets. Solution #1: Modify the Reporting Thresholds In some cases, you may want to modify the basic conditions for incident reporting in your file system. The changes you make to a default monitoring rule will apply to all of the file systems associated with your operating system. Selecting the File Systems Used Space Percentage entry and clicking the "Edit Alert Monitoring Rule Parameters" button opens a pop-up dialog which allows you to modify the rule. The first screen lets you decide when you will check for file system usage, and how long you will wait before opening an incident in Ops Center. By default, Ops Center monitors continuously and reports disk utilization issues which exist for more than 15 minutes. The second screen lets you define actual threshold values. By default, Ops Center opens a Warning level incident is utilization rises above 80%, and a Critical level incident for utilization above 95% Solution #2: Disable Incident Reporting for File System If you'd rather not report file system incidents, you can disable the monitoring rules altogether. In this case, you can select the monitoring rules and click the "Disable Alert Monitoring Rule(s)" button to open the pop-up confirmation dialog. Like the first solution, this option affects all file system monitoring. It allows you to completely disable incident reporting for NAS library status or file system space consumption. Solution #3: Create New Monitoring Rules for Specific File Systems If you'd like to have the greatest flexibility when monitoring file systems, you can create entirely new rules. Clicking the "Add Alert Monitoring Rule" (the icon with the green plus sign) opens a wizard which allows you to define a new rule.  This rule will be based on a threshold, and will be used to monitor operating system assets. We'd like to add a rule to track disk utilization for a specific file system - the /nfs-guest directory. To do this, we specify the following attribute FileSystemUsages.name=/nfs-guest.usedSpacePercentage The value of name in the attribute allows us to define a specific NFS shared directory or file system... in the case of this OS, we could have chosen any of the values shown in the File Systems Utilization chart at the beginning of this article. usedSpacePercentage lets us define a threshold based on the percentage of total disk space used. There are a number of other values that we could use for threshold-based monitoring of FileSystemUsages, including freeSpace freeSpacePercentage totalSpace usedSpace usedSpacePercentage The final sections of the screen allow us to determine when to monitor for disk usage, and how long to wait after utilization reaches a threshold before creating an incident. The next screen lets us define the threshold values and severity levels for the monitoring rule: If historical data is available, Ops Center will display it in the screen. Clicking the Apply button will create the new monitoring rule and active it in your monitoring policy. If you combine this with one of the previous solutions, you can precisely define which file systems will generate incidents and notifications. For example, this monitoring policy has the default "File System Used Space Percentage" rule disabled, but the new rule reports ONLY on utilization for the /nfs-guest directory. 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• SQL SERVER – 5 Tips for Improving Your Data with expressor Studio

  - by pinaldave

  It’s no secret that bad data leads to bad decisions and poor results.  However, how do you prevent dirty data from taking up residency in your data store?  Some might argue that it’s the responsibility of the person sending you the data.  While that may be true, in practice that will rarely hold up.  It doesn’t matter how many times you ask, you will get the data however they decide to provide it. So now you have bad data.  What constitutes bad data?  There are quite a few valid answers, for example: Invalid date values Inappropriate characters Wrong data Values that exceed a pre-set threshold While it is certainly possible to write your own scripts and custom SQL to identify and deal with these data anomalies, that effort often takes too long and becomes difficult to maintain.  Instead, leveraging an ETL tool like expressor Studio makes the data cleansing process much easier and faster.  Below are some tips for leveraging expressor to get your data into tip-top shape. Tip 1:     Build reusable data objects with embedded cleansing rules One of the new features in expressor Studio 3.2 is the ability to define constraints at the metadata level.  Using expressor’s concept of Semantic Types, you can define reusable data objects that have embedded logic such as constraints for dealing with dirty data.  Once defined, they can be saved as a shared atomic type and then re-applied to other data attributes in other schemas. As you can see in the figure above, I’ve defined a constraint on zip code.  I can then save the constraint rules I defined for zip code as a shared atomic type called zip_type for example.   The next time I get a different data source with a schema that also contains a zip code field, I can simply apply the shared atomic type (shown below) and the previously defined constraints will be automatically applied. Tip 2:     Unlock the power of regular expressions in Semantic Types Another powerful feature introduced in expressor Studio 3.2 is the option to use regular expressions as a constraint.   A regular expression is used to identify patterns within data.   The patterns could be something as simple as a date format or something much more complex such as a street address.  For example, I could define that a valid IP address should be made up of 4 numbers, each 0 to 255, and separated by a period.  So 192.168.23.123 might be a valid IP address whereas 888.777.0.123 would not be.   How can I account for this using regular expressions? A very simple regular expression that would look for any 4 sets of 3 digits separated by a period would be:  ^[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}$ Alternatively, the following would be the exact check for truly valid IP addresses as we had defined above:  ^(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])\.(25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|1[0-9]{2}|[1-9]?[0-9])$ .  In expressor, we would enter this regular expression as a constraint like this: Here we select the corrective action to be ‘Escalate’, meaning that the expressor Dataflow operator will decide what to do.  Some of the options include rejecting the offending record, skipping it, or aborting the dataflow. Tip 3:     Email pattern expressions that might come in handy In the example schema that I am using, there’s a field for email.  Email addresses are often entered incorrectly because people are trying to avoid spam.  While there are a lot of different ways to define what constitutes a valid email address, a quick search online yields a couple of really useful regular expressions for validating email addresses: This one is short and sweet:  \b[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}\b (Source: http://www.regular-expressions.info/) This one is more specific about which characters are allowed:  ^([a-zA-Z0-9_\-\.]+)@((\[[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.)|(([a-zA-Z0-9\-]+\.)+))([a-zA-Z]{2,4}|[0-9]{1,3})(\]?)$ (Source: http://regexlib.com/REDetails.aspx?regexp_id=26 ) Tip 4:     Reject “dirty data” for analysis or further processing Yet another feature introduced in expressor Studio 3.2 is the ability to reject records based on constraint violations.  To capture reject records on input, simply specify Reject Record in the Error Handling setting for the Read File operator.  Then attach a Write File operator to the reject port of the Read File operator as such: Next, in the Write File operator, you can configure the expressor operator in a similar way to the Read File.  The key difference would be that the schema needs to be derived from the upstream operator as shown below: Once configured, expressor will output rejected records to the file you specified.  In addition to the rejected records, expressor also captures some diagnostic information that will be helpful towards identifying why the record was rejected.  This makes diagnosing errors much easier! Tip 5:    Use a Filter or Transform after the initial cleansing to finish the job Sometimes you may want to predicate the data cleansing on a more complex set of conditions.  For example, I may only be interested in processing data containing males over the age of 25 in certain zip codes.  Using an expressor Filter operator, you can define the conditional logic which isolates the records of importance away from the others. Alternatively, the expressor Transform operator can be used to alter the input value via a user defined algorithm or transformation.  It also supports the use of conditional logic and data can be rejected based on constraint violations. However, the best tip I can leave you with is to not constrain your solution design approach – expressor operators can be combined in many different ways to achieve the desired results.  For example, in the expressor Dataflow below, I can post-process the reject data from the Filter which did not meet my pre-defined criteria and, if successful, Funnel it back into the flow so that it gets written to the target table. I continue to be impressed that expressor offers all this functionality as part of their FREE expressor Studio desktop ETL tool, which you can download from here.  Their Studio ETL tool is absolutely free and they are very open about saying that if you want to deploy their software on a dedicated Windows Server, you need to purchase their server software, whose pricing is posted on their website. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Win a set of Infragistics Silverlight Controls with Data Visualization!

  - by mbcrump

  Infragistics recently released their new Silverlight Data Visualization Controls. I saw a couple of samples and had to take a look. I headed over to their website and downloaded the controls. I first noticed the hospital floor-plan demo shown on their site and started thinking of ways that I could use this in my own organization. I emailed them asking if I could give away the Silverlight Data Visualization controls on my site and they said, Yes! They also wanted to throw in the standard Silverlight Line of Business controls. (combined they are worth about $3000 US). I am very thankful they were willing to help the Silverlight community with this giveaway. So some quick rules below: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Win a FREE developer’s license of Infragistics Silverlight Controls with Data Visualization ($3000 Value) Random winner will be announced on January 1st, 2011! To be entered into the contest do the following things: Subscribe to my feed. Leave a comment below with a valid email account (I WILL NOT share this info with anyone.) For extra entries simply: Retweet a link to this page using the following URL [ http://mcrump.me/iscfree ]. It does not matter what the tweet says, just as long as the URL is the same. Unlimited tweets, but please don’t go crazy! This URL will allow me to track the users that Tweet this page. Don’t forget to visit Infragistics because they made this possible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Before we get started with the Silverlight Controls, here is a couple of links to bookmark: The Silverlight Line of Business Control page is here. You can also check out the live demos here. The Data Visualization page is here. You can also check out the live demos here. Don’t worry about the Samples/Help Documentation. You can install all of that to your local HDD when you are installing it. I am going to walk you through the Silverlight Controls recently released by Infragistics. Begin by downloading the trial version and running the executable. If you downloaded the Complete bundle then you will have the following options to pick from. I like having help documentation and samples on my local HDD in case I do not have access to the internet and want to code. After it is installed, you may want to take a look at your Toolbox in Visual Studio 2010. Look for NetAdvantage 10.3 Silverlight and you will see that you now have access to all of these controls. At this point, to use the controls it’s as simple as drag/drop onto your Silverlight container. It will create the proper Namespaces for you. I wanted to highlight a few of the controls that I liked the most: Grid – After using the Infragistics grid you will wonder how you ever survived using the grid supplied by Microsoft standard controls.  This grid was designed to get your application up and running very fast. It’s simple to bind, it handles LARGE DataSets, easy to filter and allows endless possibilities of formatting data. The screenshot below is an example of the grid. For a real-time updating demo click here. SpellChecker- If your users are creating emails or performing any other function that requires Spell Checking then this control is great. Check out the screenshots below: In this first screen, I have a word that is not in the dictionary [DotNet]. The Spell Checker finds the word and allows the user to correct it. What is so great about Infragistics controls is that it only takes a few lines of code to have a full-featured Spell Checker in your application. TagCloud – This is a control that I haven’t seen anywhere else. It allows you to create keywords for popular search terms. This is very similar to TagCloud seen all over the internet.  Below is a screenshot that shows “Facebook” being a very popular item in the cloud. You can link these items to a hyperlink if you wanted. Importing/Exporting from Excel – I work with data a majority of the time. We all know the importance of Excel in our organizations, its used a lot. With Infragistics controls it make importing and exporting data from a Grid into Excel a snap. One of the things that I liked most about this control was the option to choose the Excel format (2003 or 2007). I haven’t seen this feature in other controls. Creating/Saving/Extracting/Uploading Zip Files – This is another control that I haven’t seen many others making. It allows you to basically manipulate a zip file in any way you like. You can even create a password on the zip file. Schedule – The Schedule that Infragistics provides resembles Outlook’s calendar. I think that it’s important for a user to see your app for the first time and immediately be able to start using because they are already familiar with the UI. The Schedule control accomplishes that in my opinion. I have just barely scratched the surface with the Infragistics Silverlight Line of Business controls. To check all of them then click here. A quick thing to note is that this giveaway also comes with the following Silverlight Data Visualization Controls. Below is a screenshot that list all of them:   I wanted to highlight 2 of the controls that I liked the most: xamBarcode– The xamBarcode supports the following Symbologies: Below is an example of the barcode generated by Infragistics controls. This is a high resolution barcode that you will not have to wonder if your scanner can read it. As long as you have ink in your printer your barcode will read it. I used a Symbol barcode reader to test this barcode. xamTreemap– I’ve never seen a way of displaying data like this before, but I like it. You can style this anyway that you like of course and it also comes with an Office 2010 Theme. Thanks to Infragistics for providing the controls to one lucky reader. I hope that you enjoyed this post and good luck to those that entered the contest.  Subscribe to my feed

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