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• Where's My Windows Azure Subscriptions

  - by Shaun

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/11/03/wheres-my-windows-azure-subscriptions.aspxYesterday when I opened Windows Azure manage portal I found some resources were missed. I checked the website for those missed cloud service and they are still live. Then I checked my billing history but didn't found any problem. When I back to the portal I found that all of those resource are under my MSDN subscription. So I remembered that if this is related with the recently Windows Azure platform update.   This feature named "Enterprise Management", which provides the ability to manage your organization in a directory which is hosted entirely in the cloud, or alternatively kept in sync with an on-premises Windows Server Active Directory solution. By default, all existing windows azure account would have a default Windows Azure Active Directory (a.k.a. WAAD) associated. In the address bar I can find the default login WAAD of my account, which is "microsoft.onmicrosoft.com". To change the WAAD we can click "subscriptions" on top of the manage portal, select the active directory from the list of "filter by directory" and select the subscription we want to see, then press "apply". As you can see, the subscription under my MSDN was located in a WAAD named "beijingtelecom.onmicrosoft.com". This is because when Microsoft applied this feature, they will check if you have an existing WAAD in your subscription. If not, it will create a new one, otherwise it will use your WAAD and move your subscription into this directory. Since I created a WAAD for test several months ago, this subscription was moved to this directory.   To change the subscription's directory is simple. First we need to create a new WAAD with the name we preferred. As below I created a new directory named "shaunxu". Then select "settings" from the left navigation bar, select the subscription we wanted to change and click "edit directory". You don't have the permission to edit/change directory unless your Microsoft Account is the service administrator of this subscription. Then in the popup window, select the WAAD you want to change and press "next". All done. You need to log off and log in the portal then your subscription will be in the directory you wanted. And after these steps I can view my resources in this subscription.   Summary In this post I described how to change subscriptions into a new directory. With this new feature we can manage our Windows Azure subscription more flexible. But there are something we need keep in mind. 1. Only the service administrator could be able to move subscription. 2. Currently there's no way for us to see our Windows Azure services in more than one directory at the same time. Like me, I can see my services under "shaunxu.onmicrosoft.com" and I must change the filter directory from the "subscriptions" menu to see other services under "microsoft.onmicrosoft.com". 3. Currently we cannot delete an existing WAAD.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• MaxTotalSizeInBytes - Blind spots in Usage file and Web Analytics Reports

  - by Gino Abraham

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GinoAbraham/archive/2013/10/28/maxtotalsizeinbytes---blind-spots-in-usage-file-and-web-analytics.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint_strategery/archive/2012/04/16/usage-file-and-web-analytics-reports-with-blind-spots.aspx In my previous post (Troubleshooting SharePoint 2010 Web Analytics), I referenced a problem that can occur when exceeding the daily partition size for the LoggingDB, which generates the ULS message “[Partition] has exceeded the max bytes”. Below, I wanted to provide some additional info on this particular issue and help identify some options if this occurs. As an aside, this post only applies if you are missing portions of Usage data - think blind spots on intermittent days or user activity regularly sparse for the afternoon/evening. If this fits your scenario - read on. But if Usage logs are outright missing, go check out my Troubleshooting post first.  Background on the problem:The LoggingDB database has a default maximum size of ~6GB. However, SharePoint evenly splits this total size into fixed sized logical partitions – and the number of partitions is defined by the number of days to retain Usage data (by default 14 days). In this case, 14 partitions would be created to account for the 14 days of retention. If the retention were halved to 7 days, the LoggingDBwould be split into 7 corresponding partitions at twice the size. In other words, the partition size is generally defined as [max size for DB] / [number of retention days].Going back to the default scenario, the “max size” for the LoggingDB is 6200000000 bytes (~6GB) and the retention period is 14 days. Using our formula, this would be [~6GB] / [14 days], which equates to 444858368 bytes (~425MB) per partition per day. Again, if the retention were halved to 7 days (which halves the number of partitions), the resulting partition size becomes [~6GB] / [7 days], or ~850MB per partition.From my experience, when the partition size for any given day is exceeded, the usage logging for the remainder of the day is essentially thrown away because SharePoint won’t allow any more to be written to that day’s partition. The only clue that this is occurring (beyond truncated usage data) is an error such as the following that gets reported in the ULS:04/08/2012 09:30:04.78    OWSTIMER.EXE (0x1E24)    0x2C98    SharePoint Foundation    Health    i0m6     High    Table RequestUsage_Partition12 has 444858368 bytes that has exceeded the max bytes 444858368It’s also worth noting that the exact bytes reported (e.g. ‘444858368’ above) may slightly vary among farms. For example, you may instead see 445226812, 439123456, or something else in the ballpark. The exact number itself doesn't matter, but this error message intends to indicates that the reporting usage has exceeded the partition size for the given day.What it means:The error itself is easy to miss, which can lead to substantial gaps in the reporting data (your mileage may vary) if not identified. At this point, I can only advise to periodically check the ULS logs for this message. Down the road, I plan to explore if [Developing a Custom Health Rule] could be leveraged to identify the issue (If you've ever built Custom Health Rules, I'd be interested to hear about your experiences). Overcoming this issue also poses a challenge, with workaround options including:Lower the retentionBecause the partition size is generally defined as [max size] / [number of retention days], the first option is to lower the number of days to retain the data – the lower the retention, the lower the divisor and thus a bigger partition. For example, halving the retention from 14 to 7 days would halve the number of partitions, but double the partition size to ~850MB (e.g. [6200000000 bytes] / [7 days] = ~850GB partitions). Lowering it to 2 days would result in two ~3GB partitions… and so on.Recreate the LoggingDB with an increased sizeThe property MaxTotalSizeInBytes is exposed by OM code for the SPUsageDefinition object and can be updated with the example PowerShell snippet below. However, updating this value has no immediate impact because this size only applies when creating a LoggingDB. Therefore, you must create a newLoggingDB for the Usage Service Application. The gotcha: this effectively deletes all prior Usage databecause the Usage Service Application can only have a single LoggingDB.Here is an example snippet to update the "Page Requests" Usage Definition:$def=Get-SPUsageDefinition -Identity "page requests" $def.MaxTotalSizeInBytes=12400000000 $def.update()Create a new Logging database and attach to the Usage Service Application using the following command: Get-spusageapplication | Set-SPUsageApplication -DatabaseServer <dbServer> -DatabaseName <newDBname> Updated (5/10/2012): Once the new database has been created, you can confirm the setting has truly taken by running the following SQL Query (be sure to replace the database name in the following query with the name provided in the PowerShell above)SELECT * FROM [WSS_UsageApplication].[dbo].[Configuration] WITH (nolock) WHERE ConfigName LIKE 'Max Total Bytes - RequestUsage'

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• AWS .NET SDK v2: setting up queues and topics

  - by Elton Stoneman

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2013/10/13/aws-.net-sdk-v2-setting-up-queues-and-topics.aspxFollowing on from my last post, reading from SQS queues with the new SDK is easy stuff, but linking a Simple Notification Service topic to an SQS queue is a bit more involved. The AWS model for topics and subscriptions is a bit more advanced than in Azure Service Bus. SNS lets you have subscribers on multiple different channels, so you can send a message which gets relayed to email address, mobile apps and SQS queues all in one go. As the topic owner, when you request a subscription on any channel, the owner needs to confirm they’re happy for you to send them messages. With email subscriptions, the user gets a confirmation request from Amazon which they need to reply to before they start getting messages. With SQS, you need to grant the topic permission to write to the queue. If you own both the topic and the queue, you can do it all in code with the .NET SDK. Let’s say you want to create a new topic, a new queue as a topic subscriber, and link the two together. Creating the topic is easy with the SNS client (which has an expanded name, AmazonSimpleNotificationServiceClient, compare to the SQS class which is just called QueueClient): var request = new CreateTopicRequest(); request.Name = TopicName; var response = _snsClient.CreateTopic(request); TopicArn = response.TopicArn; In the response from AWS (which I’m assuming is successful), you get an ARN – Amazon Resource Name – which is the unique identifier for the topic. We create the queue using the same code from my last post, AWS .NET SDK v2: the message-pump pattern, and then we need to subscribe the queue to the topic. The topic creates the subscription request: var response = _snsClient.Subscribe(new SubscribeRequest { TopicArn = TopicArn, Protocol = "sqs", Endpoint = _queueClient.QueueArn }); That response will give you an ARN for the subscription, which you’ll need if you want to set attributes like RawMessageDelivery. Then the SQS client needs to confirm the subscription by allowing the topic to send messages to it. The SDK doesn’t give you a nice mechanism for doing that, so I’ve extended my AWS wrapper with a method that encapsulates it: internal void AllowSnsToSendMessages(TopicClient topicClient) { var policy = Policies.AllowSendFormat.Replace("%QueueArn%", QueueArn).Replace("%TopicArn%", topicClient.TopicArn); var request = new SetQueueAttributesRequest(); request.Attributes.Add("Policy", policy); request.QueueUrl = QueueUrl; var response = _sqsClient.SetQueueAttributes(request); } That builds up a policy statement, which gets added to the queue as an attribute, and specifies that the topic is allowed to send messages to the queue. The statement itself is a JSON block which contains the ARN of the queue, the ARN of the topic, and an Allow effect for the sqs:SendMessage action: public const string AllowSendFormat= @"{ ""Statement"": [ { ""Sid"": ""MySQSPolicy001"", ""Effect"": ""Allow"", ""Principal"": { ""AWS"": ""*"" }, ""Action"": ""sqs:SendMessage"", ""Resource"": ""%QueueArn%"", ""Condition"": { ""ArnEquals"": { ""aws:SourceArn"": ""%TopicArn%"" } } } ] }"; There’s a new gist with an updated QueueClient and a new TopicClient here: Wrappers for the SQS and SNS clients in the AWS SDK for .NET v2. Both clients have an Ensure() method which creates the resource, so if you want to create a topic and a subscription you can use:  var topicClient = new TopicClient(“BigNews”, “ImListening”); And the topic client has a Subscribe() method, which calls into the message pump on the queue client: topicClient.Subscribe(x=>Log.Debug(x.Body)); var message = {}; //etc. topicClient.Publish(message); So you can isolate all the fiddly bits and use SQS and SNS with a similar interface to the Azure SDK.

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• If not now, then when?

  - by Chris Gardner

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/freestylecoding/archive/2013/10/25/if-not-now-then-when.aspx The time has been flying by this year. It seems like only yesterday that I mentioned the gorillagator, a simple construct of confusion to try to draw attention to my message. In reality, that message was sent over a month ago. During that time, the hours slipped to days and days to weeks. Many exciting things have happened to myself; I'm sure many exciting things have happened to you. I'm also sure that many terrifying things have happened to children and their families. 62 children enter treatment at a Children's Miracle Network Hospital every minute. That's nearly 60,000 children since I sent the last email. To put that number in perspective, that is more than the population of Greenland. If we expand that to the past year, they have been nearly 550,000 children treated. That is almost the population of Huntsville, Decatur, and all their suburbs combined. Over the past 4 years, I have raised a little more than $3,000 for Children's Hospital of Alabama. As a result, I received a call from the organizers of Extra Life thanking me for my dedicated work and informing me that I was the top supporters for Children's Hospital of Alabama ... with my measly three grand. We can do much better than that. It may sound like I'm trying to have fun by playing games for 24 hours. It is more than that. It is me using my time and body as a catalyst. It is me putting my passion to work for a cause. It is me turning my love into something tangible. I have been campaigning and fighting to give these children a chance for years. I have been asking you to help me support these children and families. I've been putting in countless hours of talking to people, impassioned emails, and carefully constructed tweets. I have been fighting with cutting edge, and sometimes expensive, technology to try to provide live streams of my marathons. I yearly put my body through 24 (and, this year, 25) hours of no sleep. I do this to represent the countless hours these families sit awake at their children's side. All I ask is a few minutes on a website and a few dollars. These few minutes and few dollars go a long way help people that are experiencing circumstances that only occur in our nightmares. I also ask that you take one extra step. Forward this plea to those that you know. I can only reach a small fraction of a percentage of the people that may be able to help. Together, we can reach the world. I raise money for Children's Hospital of Alabama. As this message branches out, people may wish to support a hospital closer to their area. I have included a link to the list of people that have dedicated their time and have received no donations. Find someone on the list supporting your local hospital and give them a donation. Let them know that their time and effort are appreciated. Together, we can do something great. Together, we can make a difference. Together, we all stand tall. Thank you. You can get more information at http://www.extra-life.org and http://childrensmiraclenetworkhospitals.org/" My donation page is http://www.extra-life.org/participant/cgardner The list of participants without donations is http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.eventParticipantList&page=629&eventID=512

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• More Stuff less Fluff

  - by brendonpage

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/brendonpage/archive/2013/11/08/more-stuff-less-fluff.aspxYAGNI – "You Aren't Going To Need It". This is an acronym commonly used in software development to remind developers to only write what they need. This acronym exists because software developers have gotten into the habit of writing everything they need to solve a problem and then everything they think they're going to possibly need in the future. Since we can't predict the future this results in a large portion of the code that we write never being used. That extra code causes unnecessary complexity, which makes it harder to understand and harder to modify when we inevitably have to write something that we didn't think of. I've known about YAGNI for some time now but I never really got it. The words made sense and the idea was clear but the concept never sank in. I was one of those devs who'd happily write a ton of code in the anticipation of future needs. In my mind this was an essential part of writing high quality code. I didn't realise that in doing so I was actually writing low quality code. If you are anything like me you are probably thinking "Lies and propaganda! High quality code needs to be future proof." I agree! But what makes code future proof? If we could see into the future the answer would be simple, code that allows for or meets all future requirements. Since we can't see the future the best we can do is write code that can easily adapt to future requirements, this means writing flexible code. Flexible code is: Fast to understand. Fast to add to. Fast to modify. To be flexible code has to be simple, this means only making it as complex as it needs to be to meet those 3 criteria. That is high quality code. YAGNI! The art is in deciding where to place the seams (abstractions) that will give you flexibility without making decisions about future functionality. Robert C Martin explains it very nicely, he says a good architecture allows you to defer decisions because if you can defer a decision then you have the flexibility to change it. I've recently had a YAGNI experience which brought this all into perspective. I was working on a new project which had multiple clients that connect to a server hosted in the cloud. I was tasked with adding a feature to the desktop client that would allow users to capture items that would then be saved to the cloud. My immediate thought was "Hey we have multiple clients so I should build a web service for these items, that way we can access them from other clients", so I went to work and this is what I created.  I stood back and gazed upon what I'd created with a warm fuzzy feeling. It was beautiful! Then the time came for the team to use the design I'd created for another feature with a new entity. Let's just say that they didn't get the same warm fuzzy feeling that I did when they looked at the design. After much discussion they eventually got it through to me that I'd bloated the design based on an assumption of future functionality. After much more discussion we cut the design down to the following. This design gives us future flexibility with no extra work, it is as complex as it needs to be. It has been a couple of months since this incident and we still haven't needed to access either of the entities from other clients. Using the simpler design allowed us to do more stuff with less stuff!

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• Html.ValidationSummary and Multiple Forms

  - by MightyZot

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/MightyZot/archive/2013/11/11/html.validationsummary-and-multiple-forms.aspxThe Html.ValidationSummary helper writes a div with a list of general errors added to the model state while a request is being serviced. There is generally one form per view or partial view, I think, so often there is only one call to Html.ValidationSummary in the page resulting from the assembly of your views. And, consequently, there is no problem with the markup that Html.ValidationSummary spits out as a result. What if you want to put multiple forms in one view? Even if you create a view model that’s an aggregate of the view models for each form, the error validation summary is going to contain errors from both forms. Check out this screen shot, which shows a page with multiple forms. Notice how the error validation summary shows up twice. Grrr! Errors for the login form also show up in the registration form. Luckily, there is an easy way around this. Pull the errors out of the model state and separate them for each form. You’ll need to identify the appropriate form by setting the key when you make calls to ModelState.AddModelError. Assume in my example that errors for the login form are added to model state using the “LoginForm” key. And, likewise, assume that errors for the registration form are added to model state using the “RegistrationForm” key. An example of that might look like this… // If we got this far, something failed, redisplay form ModelState.AddModelError("LoginForm", "User name or password is not right..."); return View(model); Over in the code for your View, you can pull each form’s errors from the model state using lambda expressions that look like these… var LoginFormErrors = ViewData.ModelState.Where(ms => ms.Key == "LoginForm"); var RegistrationFormErrors = ViewData.ModelState.Where(ms => ms.Key == "RegistrationForm"); Now that you have two collections containing errors, you can display only the errors specific to each form. I’m doing that in my code by removing the calls to Html.ValidationSummary and replacing them with enumerators that look like this… if(LoginFormErrors.Count() > 0) { <div class="cdt-error-list">     <ul>     @foreach (var entry in LoginFormErrors)     {         foreach (var error in entry.Value.Errors)         {             <li>@error.ErrorMessage</li>         }     }     </ul> </div> } …and for the registration form, the code looks like this… @if(RegistrationFormErrors.Count() > 0) { <div class="cdt-error-list">     <ul>     @foreach (var entry in RegistrationFormErrors)     {         foreach (var error in entry.Value.Errors)         {             <li>@error.ErrorMessage</li>         }     }     </ul> </div> } The result is a nice clean separation of the list of errors that are specific to each form. And, this is important because each form is submitted separately in my case, so both forms don’t generate errors in the same context. As you’ll see in the screen shot below, errors added to the model state when the login form is submitted do not show up in the registration form’s validation summary.

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• Why I switch from Asana.com

  - by Anirudha

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/anirugu/archive/2013/10/24/why-i-switch-from-asana.com.aspxI used Asana.com from 1-2 years. have nice experience to use it. it’s not so easy. When I started using it it’s make many confusion. Now I switch from it.   When I first time see I really didn’t understand how to make a private list. There is a icon on top click on it and make it private. After doing that I still not sure if this is working. There is a lot of confusion made that time. I discuss too much to figure out small small things. The UI is interesting but so hard to understand.  What I am looking for is just a list that I can hold private. I would like to share it only if I put them shared and put email address of person to hold them same list. Few days ago I see that My Win8 phone have a app that call Microsoft OneNote. The good thing of this MS app is that I can record my voice in the app. If someone want to make a list for future then he just need to say and this can be recorded.  This is awesome when you feel that Mobile keypad is just not so fast as a normal regular keyboard.   Google docs are another good option to handle this thing. Just make a word file and use it. share it with friend with many option. One best thing is this app have very simply UI then any other apps.   One more alternative is https://trello.com which you hear from joel on their blog http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2011/09/13.html There are many html5 and browser based, mobile based app. Many of them support multi platform feature. this means you can have them from PC to your Pocket. One good thing we all wanted is offline. if you are not online thing will be saved and push back to server when you will be online.   The biggest problem with some apps are they are attractive easy but hard to learn. Their one feature are not clearly defined what he does. This make frustration and confusion to user. When app are not simple to use people start stop trying to learn it. That’s all the problem I have with asana.com If you don’t want to try anything then what about Sticky Notes that is part of Windows 7. This app are still usable since you can store the text on it. If you know any good app to make a task list that provide access from tablet/mobile then put comment here. In the whole world of app there is a lot of app for doing this same thing differently. I mention few of them here. I hope this is nice to describe it.   Thanks for read my post.

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• Cloud Adoption Challenges

  - by Herve Roggero

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/hroggero/archive/2013/11/07/cloud-adoption-challenges.aspxWhile cloud computing makes sense for most organizations and countless projects, I have seen customers significantly struggle with cloud adoption challenges. This blog post is not an attempt to provide a generic assessment of cloud adoption; rather it is an account of personal experiences in the field, some of which may or may not apply to your organization. Cloud First, Burst? In the rush to cloud adoption some companies have made the decision to redesign their core system with a cloud first approach. However a cloud first approach means that the system may not work anymore on-premises after it has been redesigned, specifically if the system depends on Platform as a Service (PaaS) components (such as Azure Tables). While PaaS makes sense when your company is in a position to adopt the cloud exclusively, it can be difficult to leverage with systems that need to work in different clouds or on-premises. As a result, some companies are starting to rethink their cloud strategy by designing for on-premises first, and modify only the necessary components to burst when needed in the cloud. This generally means that the components need to work equally well in any environment, which requires leveraging Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or additional investments for PaaS applications, or both.  What’s the Problem? Although most companies can benefit from cloud computing, not all of them can clearly identify a business reason for doing so other than in very generic terms. I heard many companies claim “it’s cheaper”, or “it allows us to scale”, without any specific metric or clear strategy behind the adoption decision. Other companies have a very clear strategy behind cloud adoption and can precisely articulate business benefits, such as “we have a 500% increase in traffic twice a year, so we need to burst in the cloud to avoid doubling our network and server capacity”. Understanding the problem being solved through by adopting cloud computing can significantly help organizations determine the optimum path and timeline to adoption. Performance or Scalability? I stopped counting the number of times I heard “the cloud doesn’t scale; our database runs faster on a laptop”.  While performance and scalability are related concepts, they are nonetheless different in nature. Performance is a measure of response time under a given load (meaning with a specific number of users), while scalability is the performance curve over various loads. For example one system could see great performance with 100 users, but timeout with 1,000 users, in which case the system wouldn’t scale. However another system could have average performance with 100 users, but display the exact same performance with 1,000,000 users, in which case the system would scale. Understanding that cloud computing does not usually provide high performance, but instead provides the tools necessary to build a scalable system (usually using PaaS services such as queuing and data federation), is fundamental to proper cloud adoption. Uptime? Last but not least, you may want to read the Service Level Agreement of your cloud provider in detail if you haven’t done so. If you are expecting 99.99% uptime annually you may be in for a surprise. Depending on the component being used, there may be no associated SLA at all! Other components may be restarted at any time, or services may experience failover conditions weekly ( or more) based on current overall conditions of the cloud service provider, most of which are outside of your control. As a result, for PaaS cloud environments (and to a certain extent some IaaS systems), applications need to assume failure and gracefully retry to be successful in the cloud in order to provide service continuity to end users. About Herve Roggero Herve Roggero, Windows Azure MVP, is the founder of Blue Syntax Consulting (http://www.bluesyntax.net). Herve's experience includes software development, architecture, database administration and senior management with both global corporations and startup companies. Herve holds multiple certifications, including an MCDBA, MCSE, MCSD. He also holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from Indiana University. Herve is the co-author of "PRO SQL Azure" and “PRO SQL Server 2012 Practices” from Apress, a PluralSight author, and runs the Azure Florida Association.

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• Career-Defining Moments

  - by Robz / Fervent Coder

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/robz/archive/2013/06/25/career-defining-moments.aspx Fear holds us back from many things. A little fear is healthy, but don’t let it overwhelm you into missing opportunities. In every career there is a moment when you can either step forward and define yourself, or sit down and regret it later. Why do we hold back: is it fear, constraints, family concerns, or that we simply can't do it? I think in many cases it comes to the unknown, and we are good at fearing the unknown. Some people hold back because they are fearful of what they don’t know. Some hold back because they are fearful of learning new things. Some hold back simply because to take on a new challenge it means they have to give something else up. The phrase sometimes used is “It’s the devil you know versus the one you don’t.” That fear sometimes allows us to miss great opportunities. In many people’s case it is the opportunity to go into business for yourself, to start something that never existed. Most hold back hear for a fear of failing. We’ve all heard the phrase “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”, which is intended to get people to think about the opportunities they might create. A better term I heard recently on the Ruby Rogues podcast was “What would be worth doing even if you knew you were going to fail?” I think that wording suits the intent better. If you knew (or thought) going in that you were going to fail and you didn’t care, it would open you up to the possibility of paying more attention to the journey and not the outcome. In my case it is a fear of acceptance. I am fearful that I may not learn what I need to learn or may not do a good enough job to be accepted. At the same time that fear drives me and makes me want to leap forward. Some folks would define this as “The Flinch”. I’m learning Ruby and Puppet right now. I have limited experience with both, limited to the degree it scares me some that I don’t know much about either. Okay, it scares me quite a bit! Some people’s defining moment might be going to work for Microsoft. All of you who know me know that I am in love with automation, from low-tech to high-tech automation. So for me, my “mecca” is a little different in that regard. Awhile back I sat down and defined where I wanted my career to go and it had to do more with DevOps, defined as applying developer practices to system administration operations (I could not find this definition when I searched). It’s an area that interests me and why I really want to expand chocolatey into something more awesome. I want to see Windows be as automatable and awesome as other operating systems that are out there. Back to the career-defining moment. Sometimes these moments only come once in a lifetime. The key is to recognize when you are in one of these moments and step back to evaluate it before choosing to dive in head first. So I am about to embark on what I define as one of these “moments.”  On July 1st I will be joining Puppet Labs and working to help make the Windows automation experience rock solid! I’m both scared and excited about the opportunity!

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• Selenium &ndash; Use Data Driven tests to run in multiple browsers and sizes

  - by Aligned

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/Aligned/archive/2013/11/04/selenium-ndash-use-data-driven-tests-to-run-in-multiple.aspxSelenium uses WebDriver (or is it the same? I’m still learning how it is connected) to run Automated UI tests in many different browsers. For example, you can run the same test in Chrome and Firefox and in a smaller sized Chrome browser. The permutations can grow quickly. One way to get them to run in MStest is to create  a test method for each test (ie ChromeDeleteItem_Small, ChromeDeleteItem_Large, FFDeleteItem_Small, FFDeleteItem_Large) that each call  the same base method, passing in the browser and size you’d like. This approach was causing a lot of duplicate code, so I decided to use the data driven approach, common to Coded UI or Unit test methods. 1. Create a class with a test method. 2. Create a csv with two columns: BrowserType, BrowserSize 3. Add rows for each permutation: Chrome, Large | Chrome, Small | Firefox, Large | Firefox, Small | IE, Large | IE, Small | *** 4. Add the csv to the Visual Studio Project. 5. Set the Copy to output directory to Copy always 6. Add the attribute: [DataSource("Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.DataSource.CSV", "|DataDirectory|\\TestMatrix.csv", "TestMatrix#csv", DataAccessMethod.Sequential), DeploymentItem("TestMatrix.csv")] 7. Run the test in the test explorer Example:[CodedUITest] public class AllTasksTests : TasksTestBase { [TestMethod] [TestCategory("Tasks")] [DataSource("Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.DataSource.CSV", "|DataDirectory|\\TestMatrix.csv", "TestMatrix#csv", DataAccessMethod.Sequential), DeploymentItem("TestMatrix.csv")] public void CreateTask() { this.PrepForDataDrivenTest(); base.CreateTaskTest("New Task"); } } protected void PrepForDataDrivenTest() { var browserType = this.ParseBrowserType(Context.DataRow["BrowserType"].ToString()); var browserSize = this.ParseBrowserSize(Context.DataRow["BrowserSize"].ToString()); this.BrowserType = browserType; this.BrowserSize = browserSize; Trace.WriteLine("browser: " + browserType.ToString()); Trace.WriteLine("browser size: " + browserSize.ToString()); } /// <summary> /// Get the enum value from the string /// </summary> /// <param name="browserType">Chrome, Firefox, or IE</param> /// <returns>The browser type.</returns> private BrowserType ParseBrowserType(string browserType) { return (UITestFramework.BrowserType)Enum.Parse(typeof(UITestFramework.BrowserType), browserType, true); } /// <summary> /// Get the browser size enum value from the string /// </summary> /// <param name="browserSize">Small, Medium, Large</param> /// <returns>the browser size</returns> private BrowserSizeEnum ParseBrowserSize(string browserSize) { return (BrowserSizeEnum)Enum.Parse(typeof(BrowserSizeEnum), browserSize, true); }/// <summary> /// Change the browser to the size based on the enum. /// </summary> /// <param name="browserSize">The BrowserSizeEnum value to resize the window to.</param> private void ResizeBrowser(BrowserSizeEnum browserSize) { switch (browserSize) { case BrowserSizeEnum.Large: this.driver.Manage().Window.Maximize(); break; case BrowserSizeEnum.Medium: this.driver.Manage().Window.Size = new Size(800, this.driver.Manage().Window.Size.Height); break; case BrowserSizeEnum.Small: this.driver.Manage().Window.Size = new Size(500, this.driver.Manage().Window.Size.Height); break; default: break; } }/// <summary> /// Browser sizes for automation testing /// </summary> public enum BrowserSizeEnum { /// <summary> /// Large size, Maximized to the desktop /// </summary> Large, /// <summary> /// Similar to tablets /// </summary> Medium, /// <summary> /// Phone sizes... 610px and smaller /// </summary> Small } Hope it helps!

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• TFS 2012 API Create Alert Subscriptions

  - by Bob Hardister

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/BobHardister/archive/2013/07/24/tfs-2012-api-create-alert-subscriptions.aspxThere were only a few post on this and I felt like really important information was left out: What the defaults are How to create the filter string Here’s the code to create the subscription. Get the Collection public TfsTeamProjectCollection GetCollection(string collectionUrl) { try { //connect to the TFS collection using the active user TfsTeamProjectCollection tpc = new TfsTeamProjectCollection(new Uri(collectionUrl)); tpc.EnsureAuthenticated(); return tpc; } catch (Exception) { return null; } } Use Impersonation Because my app is used to create “support tickets” as stories in TFS, I use impersonation so the subscription is setup for the “requester.”  That way I can take all the defaults for the subscription delivery preferences. public TfsTeamProjectCollection GetCollectionImpersonation(string collectionUrl, string impersonatingUserAccount) { // see: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/taylaf/archive/2009/12/04/introducing-tfs-impersonation.aspx try { TfsTeamProjectCollection tpc = GetCollection(collectionUrl); if (!(tpc == null)) { //get the TFS identity management service (v2 is 2012 only) IIdentityManagementService2 ims = tpc.GetService<IIdentityManagementService2>(); //look up the user we want to impersonate TeamFoundationIdentity identity = ims.ReadIdentity(IdentitySearchFactor.AccountName, impersonatingUserAccount, MembershipQuery.None, ReadIdentityOptions.None); //create a new connection using the impersonated user account //note: do not ensure authentication because the impersonated user may not have //windows authentication at execution if (!(identity == null)) { TfsTeamProjectCollection itpc = new TfsTeamProjectCollection(tpc.Uri, identity.Descriptor); return itpc; } else { //the user account is not found return null; } } else { return null; } } catch (Exception) { return null; } } Create the Alert Subscription public bool SetWiAlert(string collectionUrl, string projectName, int wiId, string emailAddress, string userAccount) { bool setSuccessful = false; try { //use impersonation so the event service creating the subscription will default to //the correct account: otherwise domain ambiguity could be a problem TfsTeamProjectCollection itpc = GetCollectionImpersonation(collectionUrl, userAccount); if (!(itpc == null)) { IEventService es = itpc.GetService(typeof(IEventService)) as IEventService; DeliveryPreference deliveryPreference = new DeliveryPreference(); //deliveryPreference.Address = emailAddress; deliveryPreference.Schedule = DeliverySchedule.Immediate; deliveryPreference.Type = DeliveryType.EmailHtml; //the following line does not work for two reasons: //string filter = string.Format("\"ID\" = '{0}' AND \"Authorized As\" <> '[Me]'", wiId); //1. the create fails because there is a space between Authorized As //2. the explicit query criteria are all incorrect anyway // see uncommented line for what does work: you have to create the subscription mannually // and then get it to view what the filter string needs to be (see following commented code) //this works string filter = string.Format("\"CoreFields/IntegerFields/Field[Name='ID']/NewValue\" = '12175'" + " AND \"CoreFields/StringFields/Field[Name='Authorized As']/NewValue\"" + " <> '@@MyDisplayName@@'", projectName, wiId); string eventName = string.Format("<PT N=\"ALM Ticket for Work Item {0}\"/>", wiId); es.SubscribeEvent("WorkItemChangedEvent", filter, deliveryPreference, eventName); ////use this code to get existing subscriptions: you can look at manually created ////subscriptions to see what the filter string needs to be //IIdentityManagementService2 ims = itpc.GetService<IIdentityManagementService2>(); //TeamFoundationIdentity identity = ims.ReadIdentity(IdentitySearchFactor.AccountName, // userAccount, // MembershipQuery.None, // ReadIdentityOptions.None); //var existingsubscriptions = es.GetEventSubscriptions(identity.Descriptor); setSuccessful = true; return setSuccessful; } else { return setSuccessful; } } catch (Exception) { return setSuccessful; } }

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• Opencv application crashes at runtime with error code 0x0000142

  - by Tuan Anh

  I have openCV and minGW installed with codeblock IDE following the instructions found here http://kevinhughes.ca/tutorials/opencv-install-on-windows-with-codeblocks-and-mingw/ i tried the simple image loading program in the article and the build process went fine. but when i tried running the output program, it crashes with the error message "the application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). Click OK to close the application." I used Dependency Walker to see if the program failed to load dll module and here's the output screen of Dependency Walker https://www.dropbox.com/s/f9iaftdt8atjwpl/Screenshot%202013-11-05%2022.21.45.png i am not used to DW but as i can see in its output screen, some openCV dll failed to load and the loaded Windows DLL were 64 bit instead of 32 bit (as minGW is 32 bit). I can't figure out why as i already configure the Path environment variable for the bin directory of openCV and the app still can not load the dll modules. And i think that Windows will automatically load the proper 32 bit DLLs when a 32 bit app is run but this situation the app still failed to load. Anyone has ideas?

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• preparing SMS app for Android KitKat

  - by Pmsc

  in agreement with the recent post from Android Developers http://android-developers.blogspot.pt/2013/10/getting-your-sms-apps-ready-for-kitkat.html ,I was trying to prepare my app to the new android version, but encountered a problem with the part they suggest to create a dialog to let the user set the app as the default application to handle SMS's : Android Developers Post public class ComposeSmsActivity extends Activity { @Override protected void onResume() { super.onResume(); final String myPackageName = getPackageName(); if (!Telephony.Sms.getDefaultSmsPackage(this).equals(myPackageName)) { // App is not default. // Show the "not currently set as the default SMS app" interface View viewGroup = findViewById(R.id.not_default_app); viewGroup.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE); // Set up a button that allows the user to change the default SMS app Button button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.change_default_app); button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() { public void onClick(View v) { Intent intent = new Intent(Telephony.Sms.Intents.ACTION_CHANGE_DEFAULT); intent.putExtra(Telephony.Sms.Intents.EXTRA_PACKAGE_NAME, myPackageName); startActivity(intent); } }); } else { // App is the default. // Hide the "not currently set as the default SMS app" interface View viewGroup = findViewById(R.id.not_default_app); viewGroup.setVisibility(View.GONE); } } } the code itself in pretty much straightforward, but I'm unable to access to Telephony.Sms.getDefaultSmsPackage because it says that Telephony cannot be resolved, and I can't find any import or declaration that would fix that. Can anyone please help? Thanks in advanced.

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• asp.net gridview bind dateformat not working with update

  - by Brabbeldas

  I have a GridView with a TemplateField column which shows a DateTime from a DataSource. <Columns> <asp:CommandField ShowEditButton="True" /> <asp:TemplateField HeaderText="Start Date"> <EditItemTemplate> <asp:TextBox ID="txtDateStart" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("dtDateStart", "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}") %>'</asp:TextBox> </EditItemTemplate> <ItemTemplate> <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text='<%# Bind("dtDateStart", "{0:dd/MM/yyyy}") %>'></asp:Label> </ItemTemplate> </asp:TemplateField> </Columns> Displaying the date in the correct format works as it should. Note that the format starts with DAY followed by MONTH. When I switch to edit mode, change the date in the TextBox to '31-01-2013' and press the GridView's update-link i get an error: Cannot convert value of parameter 'dtDateStart' from 'System.String' to 'System.DateTime' The error is generated by the GridView not my own code. It happens before the UpdateMethod of my DataSource is called. When i type '01-31-2012' the data is processed correctly and the value is updated into the database. Somehow when the date is displayed it uses format dd-MM-yyyy (just as I need it to) But when it reads the new value form the TextBox it uses MM-dd-yyyy Can somebody please help me?

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• Filtering Security Logs by User and Logon Type

  - by Trido

  I have been asked to find out when a user has logged on to the system in the last week. Now the audit logs in Windows should contain all the info I need. I think if I search for Event ID 4624 (Logon Success) with a specific AD user and Logon Type 2 (Interactive Logon) that it should give me the information I need, but for the life of my I cannot figure out how to actually filter the Event Log to get this information. Is it possible inside of the Event Viewer or do you need to use an external tool to parse it to this level? I found http://nerdsknowbest.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/filter-security-event-logs-by-user-in.html which seemed to be part of what I needed. I modified it slightly to only give me the last 7 days worth. Below is the XML I tried. <QueryList> <Query Id="0" Path="Security"> <Select Path="Security">*[System[(EventID=4624) and TimeCreated[timediff(@SystemTime) &lt;= 604800000]]]</Select> <Select Path="Security">*[EventData[Data[@Name='Logon Type']='2']]</Select> <Select Path="Security">*[EventData[Data[@Name='subjectUsername']='Domain\Username']]</Select> </Query> </QueryList> It only gave me the last 7 days, but the rest of it did not work. Can anyone assist me with this? EDIT Thanks to the suggestions of Lucky Luke I have been making progress. The below is my current query, although as I will explain it isn't returning any results. <QueryList> <Query Id="0" Path="Security"> <Select Path="Security"> *[System[(EventID='4624')] and System[TimeCreated[timediff(@SystemTime) &lt;= 604800000]] and EventData[Data[@Name='TargetUserName']='john.doe'] and EventData[Data[@Name='LogonType']='2'] ] </Select> </Query> </QueryList> As I mentioned, it wasn't returning any results so I have been messing with it a bit. I can get it to produce the results correctly until I add in the LogonType line. After that, it returns no results. Any idea why this might be? EDIT 2 I updated the LogonType line to the following: EventData[Data[@Name='LogonType'] and (Data='2' or Data='7')] This should capture Workstation Logons as well as Workstation Unlocks, but I still get nothing. I then modify it to search for other Logon Types like 3, or 8 which it finds plenty of. This leads me to believe that the query works correctly, but for some reason there are no entries in the Event Logs with Logon Type equalling 2 and this makes no sense to me. Is it possible to turn this off?

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• A class meant for an alfresco behavior and its bean, how do they work and how are they deployed trough eclipse

  - by MrHappy

  (This is a partial repost of a question asked 10 days ago because only 1 part was answered(not included), I've rewritten it into a way better question and added 3 more tags) where do I put the DeleteAsset.class or why isn't it being found? I've put the compiled class from the bin of the workspace of eclipse into alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/webapps/alfresco/WEB-INF/classes/com/openerp/behavior/ and right now it's giving me Error loading class [com.openerp.behavior.DeleteAsset] for bean with name 'deletionBehavior' defined in URL [file:/home/openerp/alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/extension/cust??om-web-context.xml]: problem with class file or dependent class; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/openerp/behavior/DeleteAsset (wrong name: DeleteAsset) when I put it in there. (See bean below!) The code(I'd trying to work without the model class, idk if I made any silly mistakes on that): package com.openerp.behavior; import java.util.List; import java.net.*; import java.io.*; import org.alfresco.repo.node.NodeServicePolicies; import org.alfresco.repo.policy.Behaviour; import org.alfresco.repo.policy.JavaBehaviour; import org.alfresco.repo.policy.PolicyComponent; import org.alfresco.repo.policy.Behaviour.NotificationFrequency; import org.alfresco.repo.security.authentication.AuthenticationUtil; import org.alfresco.repo.security.authentication.AuthenticationUtil.RunAsWork; import org.alfresco.service.cmr.repository.ChildAssociationRef; import org.alfresco.service.cmr.repository.NodeRef; import org.alfresco.service.cmr.repository.NodeService; import org.alfresco.service.namespace.NamespaceService; import org.alfresco.service.namespace.QName; import org.alfresco.service.transaction.TransactionService; import org.apache.log4j.Logger; //this is the newer version //import com.openerp.model.openerpJavaModel; public class DeleteAsset implements NodeServicePolicies.BeforeDeleteNodePolicy { private PolicyComponent policyComponent; private Behaviour beforeDeleteNode; private NodeService nodeService; public void init() { this.beforeDeleteNode = new JavaBehaviour(this,"beforeDeleteNode",NotificationFrequency.EVERY_EVENT); this.policyComponent.bindClassBehaviour(QName.createQName("http://www.someco.com/model/content/1.0","beforeDeleteNode"), QName.createQName("http://www.someco.com/model/content/1.0","sc:doc"), this.beforeDeleteNode); } public setNodeService(NodeService nodeService){ this.nodeService = nodeService; } @Override public void beforeDeleteNode(NodeRef node) { System.out.println("beforeDeleteNode!"); try { QName attachmentID1= QName.createQName("http://www.someco.com/model/content/1.0", "OpenERPattachmentID1"); // this could/shoul be defined in your OpenERPModel-class int attachmentid = (Integer)nodeService.getProperty(node, attachmentID1); //int attachmentid = 123; URL oracle = new URL("http://0.0.0.0:1885/delete/%20?attachmentid=" + attachmentid); URLConnection yc = oracle.openConnection(); BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader( yc.getInputStream())); String inputLine; while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) //System.out.println(inputLine); in.close(); } catch(Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } This is my full custom-web-context file: <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?> <!DOCTYPE beans PUBLIC '-//SPRING//DTD BEAN//EN' 'http://www.springframework.org/dtd/spring-beans.dtd'> <beans> <!-- Registration of new models --> <bean id="smartsolution.dictionaryBootstrap" parent="dictionaryModelBootstrap" depends-on="dictionaryBootstrap"> <property name="models"> <list> <value>alfresco/extension/scOpenERPModel.xml</value> </list> </property> </bean> <!-- deletion of attachments within openERP when delete is initiated in Alfresco--> <bean id="DeleteAsset" class="com.openerp.behavior.DeleteAsset" init-method="init"> <property name="NodeService"> <ref bean="NodeService" /> </property> <property name="PolicyComponent"> <ref bean="PolicyComponent" /> </property> </bean> and content type: <type name="sc:doc"> <title>OpenERP Document</title> <parent>cm:content</parent> There's also this when I open share An error has occured in the Share component: /share/service/components/dashlets/my-sites. It responded with a status of 500 - Internal Error. Error Code Information: 500 - An error inside the HTTP server which prevented it from fulfilling the request. Error Message: 09230001 Failed to execute script 'classpath*:alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js': 09230000 09230001 Failed during processing of IMAP server status configuration from Alfresco: 09230000 Unable to retrieve IMAP server status from Alfresco: 404 Server: Alfresco Spring WebScripts - v1.2.0 (Release 1207) schema 1,000 Time: Oct 23, 2013 11:40:06 AM Click here to view full technical information on the error. Exception: org.alfresco.error.AlfrescoRuntimeException - 09230001 Failed during processing of IMAP server status configuration from Alfresco: 09230000 Unable to retrieve IMAP server status from Alfresco: 404 org.alfresco.web.scripts.SingletonValueProcessorExtension.getSingletonValue(SingletonValueProcessorExtension.java:108) org.alfresco.web.scripts.SingletonValueProcessorExtension.getSingletonValue(SingletonValueProcessorExtension.java:59) org.alfresco.web.scripts.ImapServerStatus.getEnabled(ImapServerStatus.java:49) sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57) sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43) java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606) org.mozilla.javascript.MemberBox.invoke(MemberBox.java:155) org.mozilla.javascript.JavaMembers.get(JavaMembers.java:117) org.mozilla.javascript.NativeJavaObject.get(NativeJavaObject.java:113) org.mozilla.javascript.ScriptableObject.getProperty(ScriptableObject.java:1544) org.mozilla.javascript.ScriptRuntime.getObjectProp(ScriptRuntime.java:1375) org.mozilla.javascript.ScriptRuntime.getObjectProp(ScriptRuntime.java:1364) org.mozilla.javascript.gen.c6._c1(file:/opt/alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js:4) org.mozilla.javascript.gen.c6.call(file:/opt/alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js) org.mozilla.javascript.optimizer.OptRuntime.callName0(OptRuntime.java:108) org.mozilla.javascript.gen.c6._c0(file:/opt/alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js:51) org.mozilla.javascript.gen.c6.call(file:/opt/alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js) org.mozilla.javascript.ContextFactory.doTopCall(ContextFactory.java:393) org.mozilla.javascript.ScriptRuntime.doTopCall(ScriptRuntime.java:2834) org.mozilla.javascript.gen.c6.call(file:/opt/alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js) org.mozilla.javascript.gen.c6.exec(file:/opt/alfresco-4.2.c/tomcat/webapps/share/WEB-INF/classes/alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.processor.JSScriptProcessor.executeScriptImpl(JSScriptProcessor.java:318) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.processor.JSScriptProcessor.executeScript(JSScriptProcessor.java:192) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.AbstractWebScript.executeScript(AbstractWebScript.java:1305) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.DeclarativeWebScript.execute(DeclarativeWebScript.java:86) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.PresentationContainer.executeScript(PresentationContainer.java:70) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.LocalWebScriptRuntimeContainer.executeScript(LocalWebScriptRuntimeContainer.java:240) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.AbstractRuntime.executeScript(AbstractRuntime.java:377) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.AbstractRuntime.executeScript(AbstractRuntime.java:209) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.WebScriptProcessor.executeBody(WebScriptProcessor.java:310) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractProcessor.execute(AbstractProcessor.java:57) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.process(RenderService.java:599) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.renderSubComponent(RenderService.java:505) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.renderChromeInclude(RenderService.java:1284) org.springframework.extensions.directives.ChromeIncludeFreeMarkerDirective.execute(ChromeIncludeFreeMarkerDirective.java:81) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:274) freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:126) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.IfBlock.accept(IfBlock.java:82) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Environment.process(Environment.java:199) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.processor.FTLTemplateProcessor.process(FTLTemplateProcessor.java:171) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.WebTemplateProcessor.executeBody(WebTemplateProcessor.java:438) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractProcessor.execute(AbstractProcessor.java:57) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.processRenderable(RenderService.java:204) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.ChromeRenderer.body(ChromeRenderer.java:95) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractRenderer.render(AbstractRenderer.java:77) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.ChromeRenderer.render(ChromeRenderer.java:86) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.processComponent(RenderService.java:432) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.ComponentRenderer.body(ComponentRenderer.java:94) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractRenderer.render(AbstractRenderer.java:77) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.renderComponent(RenderService.java:961) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.renderRegionComponents(RenderService.java:900) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.renderChromeInclude(RenderService.java:1263) org.springframework.extensions.directives.ChromeIncludeFreeMarkerDirective.execute(ChromeIncludeFreeMarkerDirective.java:81) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:274) freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:126) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Environment.process(Environment.java:199) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.processor.FTLTemplateProcessor.process(FTLTemplateProcessor.java:171) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.WebTemplateProcessor.executeBody(WebTemplateProcessor.java:438) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractProcessor.execute(AbstractProcessor.java:57) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.processRenderable(RenderService.java:204) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.ChromeRenderer.body(ChromeRenderer.java:95) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractRenderer.render(AbstractRenderer.java:77) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.ChromeRenderer.render(ChromeRenderer.java:86) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.RegionRenderer.body(RegionRenderer.java:99) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractRenderer.render(AbstractRenderer.java:77) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.renderRegion(RenderService.java:851) org.springframework.extensions.directives.RegionDirectiveData.render(RegionDirectiveData.java:91) org.springframework.extensions.surf.extensibility.impl.ExtensibilityModelImpl.merge(ExtensibilityModelImpl.java:408) org.springframework.extensions.surf.extensibility.impl.AbstractExtensibilityDirective.merge(AbstractExtensibilityDirective.java:169) org.springframework.extensions.surf.extensibility.impl.AbstractExtensibilityDirective.execute(AbstractExtensibilityDirective.java:137) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:274) freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:126) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.IteratorBlock$Context.runLoop(IteratorBlock.java:179) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:428) freemarker.core.IteratorBlock.accept(IteratorBlock.java:102) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.IteratorBlock$Context.runLoop(IteratorBlock.java:179) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:428) freemarker.core.IteratorBlock.accept(IteratorBlock.java:102) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Macro$Context.runMacro(Macro.java:172) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:614) freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:106) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.IfBlock.accept(IfBlock.java:82) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Macro$Context.runMacro(Macro.java:172) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:614) freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:106) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Environment$3.render(Environment.java:246) org.springframework.extensions.surf.extensibility.impl.DefaultExtensibilityDirectiveData.render(DefaultExtensibilityDirectiveData.java:119) org.springframework.extensions.surf.extensibility.impl.ExtensibilityModelImpl.merge(ExtensibilityModelImpl.java:408) org.springframework.extensions.surf.extensibility.impl.AbstractExtensibilityDirective.merge(AbstractExtensibilityDirective.java:169) org.springframework.extensions.surf.extensibility.impl.AbstractExtensibilityDirective.execute(AbstractExtensibilityDirective.java:137) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:274) freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:126) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:406) freemarker.core.BodyInstruction.accept(BodyInstruction.java:93) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Macro$Context.runMacro(Macro.java:172) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:614) freemarker.core.UnifiedCall.accept(UnifiedCall.java:106) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.MixedContent.accept(MixedContent.java:92) freemarker.core.Environment.visit(Environment.java:221) freemarker.core.Environment.process(Environment.java:199) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.processor.FTLTemplateProcessor.process(FTLTemplateProcessor.java:171) org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.WebTemplateProcessor.executeBody(WebTemplateProcessor.java:438) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractProcessor.execute(AbstractProcessor.java:57) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.processTemplate(RenderService.java:721) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.TemplateInstanceRenderer.body(TemplateInstanceRenderer.java:140) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractRenderer.render(AbstractRenderer.java:77) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.bean.PageRenderer.body(PageRenderer.java:85) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.AbstractRenderer.render(AbstractRenderer.java:77) org.springframework.extensions.surf.render.RenderService.renderPage(RenderService.java:762) org.springframework.extensions.surf.mvc.PageView.dispatchPage(PageView.java:411) org.springframework.extensions.surf.mvc.PageView.renderView(PageView.java:306) org.springframework.extensions.surf.mvc.AbstractWebFrameworkView.renderMergedOutputModel(AbstractWebFrameworkView.java:316) org.springframework.web.servlet.view.AbstractView.render(AbstractView.java:250) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.render(DispatcherServlet.java:1047) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:817) org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:719) org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:644) org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:549) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:621) javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:722) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:305) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210) org.alfresco.web.site.servlet.MTAuthenticationFilter.doFilter(MTAuthenticationFilter.java:74) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210) org.alfresco.web.site.servlet.SSOAuthenticationFilter.doFilter(SSOAuthenticationFilter.java:374) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243) org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:222) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:123) org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:472) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:168) org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:99) org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:929) org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118) org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:407) org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1002) org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:585) org.apache.tomcat.util.net.AprEndpoint$SocketWithOptionsProcessor.run(AprEndpoint.java:1771) java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145) java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615) java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:724) Exception: org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.WebScriptException - 09230000 09230001 Failed during processing of IMAP server status configuration from Alfresco: 09230000 Unable to retrieve IMAP server status from Alfresco: 404 org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.processor.JSScriptProcessor.executeScriptImpl(JSScriptProcessor.java:324) Exception: org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.WebScriptException - 09230001 Failed to execute script 'classpath*:alfresco/site-webscripts/org/alfresco/components/dashlets/my-sites.get.js': 09230000 09230001 Failed during processing of IMAP server status configuration from Alfresco: 09230000 Unable to retrieve IMAP server status from Alfresco: 404 org.springframework.extensions.webscripts.processor.JSScriptProcessor.executeScript(JSScriptProcessor.java:200) UPDATE: I think I've found the problem. Being a newbie to eclipse I haven't managed the dependecies well I think. Could anyone link me to a tutorial describing how to get org.alfresco.repo.node.NodeServicePolicies; as seen in import org.alfresco.repo.node.NodeServicePolicies; and other such imports into eclipse, I've got the alfresco source from svn but the tutorial I've found seems to fail me. java/lang/Error\00\F1Unresolved compilation problems: The declared package "com.openerp.behavior" does not match the expected package "java.com.openerp.behavior" The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.alfresco cannot be resolved The import org.apache cannot be resolved The import com.openerp cannot be resolved NodeServicePolicies cannot be resolved to a type PolicyComponent cannot be resolved to a type Behaviour cannot be resolved to a type NodeService cannot be resolved to a type Behaviour cannot be resolved to a type JavaBehaviour cannot be resolved to a type NotificationFrequency cannot be resolved to a variable PolicyComponent cannot be resolved to a type QName cannot be resolved QName cannot be resolved Behaviour cannot be resolved to a type Return type for the method is missing NodeService cannot be resolved to a type NodeService cannot be resolved to a type NodeRef cannot be resolved to a type QName cannot be resolved to a type QName cannot be resolved NodeService cannot be resolved to a type \00\00\00\00\00(Ljava/lang/String;)V\00LineNumberTable\00LocalVariableTable\00this\00'Ljava/com/openerp/behavior/DeleteAsset;\00init\008Unresolved compilation problems: Behaviour cannot be resolved to a type JavaBehaviour cannot be resolved to a type NotificationFrequency cannot be resolved to a variable PolicyComponent cannot be resolved to a type QName cannot be resolved QName cannot be resolved Behaviour cannot be resolved to a type \00(LNodeRef;)V\00\00\B0Unresolved compilation problems: NodeRef cannot be resolved to a type QName cannot be resolved to a type QName cannot be resolved NodeService cannot be resolved to a type

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• Chester Devs Presentation and source code &ndash; &lsquo;Event Store - an introduction to a DSD for event sourcing and notifications&rsquo;

  - by Liam Westley

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/11/11/chester-devs-presentation-and-source-code-ndash-lsquoevent-store.aspxThank you everyone at Chester Devs Thanks to Fran Hoey and all the people from Chester Devs. It was a hard drive up and back but the enthusiasm of the audience, with some great questions does make it worthwhile. Presentation and source code My presentation, source code, Event Store runners and text files containing the various command line parameters used for curl is now available on GitHub; https://github.com/westleyl/ChesterDevs-EventStore. Don’t worry if you don’t have a GitHub account, you don’t need one, you can just click on the Download Zip button on the right hand menu to download all the files as a single ZIP file.  If all you want is the PowerPoint presentation, go to https://github.com/westleyl/ChesterDevs-EventStore/blob/master/Powerpoint/Huddle-EventStore.pptx, and click on the View Raw button. Downloading and installing Event Store and Tools Download Event Store http://download.geteventstore.com – I unzipped these files into C:\EventStore\v2.0.1 Download Curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html – I downloaded Win64 Generic (with SSL) and unzipped these files into C:\curl version 7.31.0 Running the tools I used in my presentation Demonstration 1 (running Event Store) You can use one of my Event Store runner command files to run the single node version of Event Store, using default ports of 2213 for HTTP and 1113  for TCP, and with a wildcard HTTP pattern.  Both take a single command line parameter to specify the location of the data and log files.  The runners assume the single node executable is located in C:\EventStore\v2.0.1, and will placed data files and logs beneath C:\EventStore\Data, i.e. RunEventStore.cmd TestData1 This will create data files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\Data and log files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\logs. If, when running Event Store you may see the following message, [03288,15,06:23:00.622] Failed to start http server Access is denied You will either need to run Event Store in an administrator console window, or you can use the netsh command to create a firewall permission to allow HTTP listening (this will need to be run, once, in an administrator console window), netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:2213/ user=liam You can always delete this later by running the delete; netsh http delete urlacl url=http://*:2213/ If you want to confirm that everything is running OK, open the management console in a browser by navigating to http://127.0.0.1:2213. If at any point you are asked for a user name and password use the default of ‘admin’/‘changeit’. Demonstration 2 (reading and adding data, curl) In my second demonstration I used curl directly from the console to read streams, write events and then read back those events. On GitHub I have included is a set of curl commands, CurlCommandLine.txt, and a sample data file, SampleData.json, to load an event into a DDDNorth3 stream. As there is not much data in the Event Store at this point I used the $stats-127.0.0.1:2113 which is a stream containing performance statistics for Event Store and is updated every 30 seconds (default). Demonstration 3 (projections) On GitHub I have included a sample projection, Projection-ByRoom.txt, which will create streams based on the room on which a session was held on the DDDNorth3 agenda. Browse to the management console, http://127.0.0.1:2213.  Click on Projections, New Projection, give it a name, Sessions-ByRoom, and copy in the JavaScript in the Projection-ByRoom.txt file.  Select Continuous, tick Emit Enabled and then click on Post. It should run immediately. You may by challenged for the administration login for the management console, if so use the default user name and password; 'admin'/'changeit'. Demonstration 4 (C# client) The final demonstration was the Visual Studio 2012 project using the Event Store client – referenced directly as C:\EventStore\v2.0.1\EventStore.ClientAPI.dll, although you can switch this to the latest Event Store client NuGet package. The source code provides a console app for viewing projections with the projection manager (HTTP connection), as well as containing a full set of data for the entire DDDNorth3 agenda.  It also deals with the strategy for reading newest events backwards to older events and ignoring older events that have been superseded. Resources Event Store home page: http://www.geteventstore.com/ Event Store source code on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore Event Store documentation on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki (includes index to @RobAshton’s blog series on Event Store at https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki#rob-ashton---projections-series) Event Store forum in Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/event-store TopShelf Windows service wrapper is available on github: https://gist.github.com/trbngr/5083266

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• DDD North 3 Presentation and source code &ndash; &lsquo;Event Store - an introduction to a DSD for event sourcing and notifications&rsquo;

  - by Liam Westley

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/twickers/archive/2013/10/15/ddd-north-3-presentation-and-source-code-ndash-lsquoevent-store.aspxThank you everyone at DDD North Thanks to all the people who helped organise the cracking conference that is DDD North 3, returning to Sunderland, and the great facilities at the University of Sunderland, and the fine drinks reception at Sunderland Software City.  The whole event wouldn’t be possible without the sponsors who ensured over 400 people were kept fed and watered so they could enjoy the impressive range of sessions. And lastly, a thank you to all those delegates who gave up their free time on a Saturday to spend a day dashing between lecture rooms, including a late change to my room which saw 40 people having to brave a journey between buildings in the fine drizzle. The enthusiasm from the delegates always helps recharge my geek batteries. Presentation and source code My presentation, source code, Event Store runners and text files containing the various command line parameters used for curl is now available on GitHub; https://github.com/westleyl/DDDNorth3-EventStore. Don’t worry if you don’t have a GitHub account, you don’t need one, you can just click on the Download Zip button on the right hand menu to download all the files as a single ZIP file.  If all you want is the PowerPoint presentation, go to https://github.com/westleyl/DDDNorth3-EventStore/blob/master/Powerpoint/DDDNorth-EventStore.pptx, and click on the View Raw button. Downloading and installing Event Store and Tools Download Event Store http://download.geteventstore.com – I unzipped these files into C:\EventStore\v2.0.1 Download Curl from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html – I downloaded Win64 Generic (with SSL) and unzipped these files into C:\curl version 7.31.0 Running the tools I used in my presentation Demonstration 1 (running Event Store) You can use one of my Event Store runner command files to run the single node version of Event Store, using default ports of 2213 for HTTP and 1113  for TCP, and with a wildcard HTTP pattern.  Both take a single command line parameter to specify the location of the data and log files.  The runners assume the single node executable is located in C:\EventStore\v2.0.1, and will placed data files and logs beneath C:\EventStore\Data, i.e. RunEventStore.cmd TestData1 This will create data files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\Data and log files in C:\EventStore\Data\TestData1\logs. If, when running Event Store you may see the following message, [03288,15,06:23:00.622] Failed to start http server Access is denied You will either need to run Event Store in an administrator console window, or you can use the netsh command to create a firewall permission to allow HTTP listening (this will need to be run, once, in an administrator console window), netsh http add urlacl url=http://*:2213/ user=liam You can always delete this later by running the delete; netsh http delete urlacl url=http://*:2213/ If you want to confirm that everything is running OK, open the management console in a browser by navigating to http://127.0.0.1:2213. If at any point you are asked for a user name and password use the default of ‘admin’/‘changeit’.   Demonstration 2 (reading and adding data, curl) In my second demonstration I used curl directly from the console to read streams, write events and then read back those events. On GitHub I have included is a set of curl commands, CurlCommandLine.txt, and a sample data file, SampleData.json, to load an event into a DDDNorth3 stream. As there is not much data in the Event Store at this point I used the $stats-127.0.0.1:2113 which is a stream containing performance statistics for Event Store and is updated every 30 seconds (default). Demonstration 3 (projections) On GitHub I have included a sample projection, Projection-ByRoom.txt, which will create streams based on the room on which a session was held on the DDDNorth3 agenda. Browse to the management console, http://127.0.0.1:2213.  Click on Projections, New Projection, give it a name, Sessions-ByRoom, and copy in the JavaScript in the Projection-ByRoom.txt file.  Select Continuous, tick Emit Enabled and then click on Post. It should run immediately. You may by challenged for the administration login for the management console, if so use the default user name and password; 'admin'/'changeit'.   Demonstration 4 (C# client) The final demonstration was the Visual Studio 2012 project using the Event Store client – referenced directly as C:\EventStore\v2.0.1\EventStore.ClientAPI.dll, although you can switch this to the latest Event Store client NuGet package. The source code provides a console app for viewing projections with the projection manager (HTTP connection), as well as containing a full set of data for the entire DDDNorth3 agenda.  It also deals with the strategy for reading newest events backwards to older events and ignoring older events that have been superseded. Resources Event Store home page: http://www.geteventstore.com/ Event Store source code on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore Event Store documentation on GitHub: https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki (includes index to @RobAshton’s blog series on Event Store at https://github.com/eventstore/eventstore/wiki#rob-ashton---projections-series) Event Store forum in Google Groups: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/event-store TopShelf Windows service wrapper is available on github: https://gist.github.com/trbngr/5083266

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• BizTalk host throttling &ndash; Singleton pattern and High database size

  - by S.E.R.

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/SERivas/archive/2013/06/30/biztalk-host-throttling-ndash-singleton-pattern-and-high-database-size.aspxI have worked for some days around the singleton pattern (for those unfamiliar with it, read this post by Victor Fehlberg) and have come across a few very interesting posts, among which one dealt with performance issues (here, also by Victor Fehlberg). Simply put: if you have an orchestration which implements the singleton pattern, then performances will continuously decrease as the orchestration receives and consumes messages, and that behavior is more obvious when the orchestration never ends (ie : it keeps looping and never terminates or completes). As I experienced the same kind of problem (actually I was alerted by SCOM, which told me that the host was being throttled because of High database size), I thought it would be a good idea to dig a little bit a see what happens deep inside BizTalk and thus understand the reasons for this behavior. NOTE: in this article, I will focus on this High database size throttling condition. I will try and work on the other conditions in some not too distant future… Test conditions The singleton orchestration For the purpose of this study, I have created the following orchestration, which is a very basic implementation of a singleton that piles up incoming messages, then does something else when a certain timeout has been reached without receiving another message: Throttling settings I have two distinct hosts : one that hosts the receive port (basic FILE port) : Ports_ReceiveHostone that hosts the orchestration : ProcessingHost In order to emphasize the throttling mechanism, I have modified the throttling settings for each of these hosts are as follows (all other parameters are set to the default value): [Throttling thresholds] Message count in database: 500 (default value : 50000) Evolution of performance counters when submitting messages Since we are investigating the High database size throttling condition, here are the performance counter that we should take a look at (all of them are in the BizTalk:Message Agent performance object): Database sizeHigh database sizeMessage delivery throttling stateMessage publishing throttling stateMessage delivery delay (ms)Message publishing delay (ms)Message delivery throttling state durationMessage publishing throttling state duration (If you are not used to Perfmon, I strongly recommend that you start using it right now: it is a wonderful tool that allows you to open the hood and see what is going on inside BizTalk – and other systems) Database size It is quite obvious that we will start by watching the database size and high database size counters, just to see when the first reaches the configured threshold (500) and when the second rings the alarm. NOTE : During this test I submitted 600 messages, one message at a time every 10ms to see the evolution of the counters we have previously selected. It might not show very well on this screenshot, but here is what happened: From 15:46:50 to 15:47:50, the database size for the Ports_ReceiveHost host (blue line) kept growing until it reached a maximum of 504.At 15:47:50, the high database size alert fires At first I was surprised by this result: why is it the database size of the receiving host that keeps growing since it is the processing host that piles up messages? Actually, it makes total sense. This counter measures the size of the database queue that is being filled by the host, not consumed. Therefore, the high database size alert is raised on the host that fills the queue: Ports_ReceiveHost. More information is available on the Public MPWiki page. Now, looking at the Message publishing throttling state for the receiving host (green line), we can see that a throttling condition has been reached at 15:47:50: We can also see that the Message publishing delay(ms) (blue line) has begun growing slowly from this point. All of this explains why performances keep decreasing when a singleton keeps processing new messages: the database size grows and when it has exceeded the Message count in database threshold, the host is throttled and the publishing delay keeps increasing. Digging further So, what happens to the database queue then? Is it flushed some day or does it keep growing and growing indefinitely? The real question being: will the host be throttled forever because of this singleton? To answer this question, I set the Message count in database threshold to 20 (this value is very low in order not to wait for too long, otherwise I certainly would have fallen asleep in front of my screen) and I submitted 30 messages. The test was started at 18:26. At 18:56 (ie : exactly 30min later) the throttling was stopped and the database size was divided by 2. 30 min later again, the database size had dropped to almost zero: I guess I’ll have to find some documentation and do some more testing before I sort this out! My guess is that some maintenance job is at work here, though I cannot tell which one Digging even further If we take a look at the Message delivery throttling state counter for the processing host, we can see that this host was also throttled during the submission of the 600 documents: The value for the counter was 1, meaning that Message delivery incoming rate for the host instance exceeds the Message delivery outgoing rate * the specified Rate overdrive factor (percent) value. We will see this another day… :) A last word Let’s end this article with a warning: DO NOT CHANGE THE THROTTLING SETTINGS LIGHTLY! The temptation can be great to just bypass throttling by setting very high values for each parameter (or zero in some cases, which simply disables throttling). Nevertheless, always keep in mind that this mechanism is here for a very good reason: prevent your BizTalk infrastructure from exploding!! So whatever you do with those settings, do a lot of testing and benchmarking!

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• Performance considerations for common SQL queries

  - by Jim Giercyk

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/NibblesAndBits/archive/2013/10/16/performance-considerations-for-common-sql-queries.aspxSQL offers many different methods to produce the same results.  There is a never-ending debate between SQL developers as to the “best way” or the “most efficient way” to render a result set.  Sometimes these disputes even come to blows….well, I am a lover, not a fighter, so I decided to collect some data that will prove which way is the best and most efficient.  For the queries below, I downloaded the test database from SQLSkills:  http://www.sqlskills.com/sql-server-resources/sql-server-demos/.  There isn’t a lot of data, but enough to prove my point: dbo.member has 10,000 records, and dbo.payment has 15,554.  Our result set contains 6,706 records. The following queries produce an identical result set; the result set contains aggregate payment information for each member who has made more than 1 payment from the dbo.payment table and the first and last name of the member from the dbo.member table.   /*************/ /* Sub Query  */ /*************/ SELECT  a.[Member Number] ,         m.lastname ,         m.firstname ,         a.[Number Of Payments] ,         a.[Average Payment] ,         a.[Total Paid] FROM    ( SELECT    member_no 'Member Number' ,                     AVG(payment_amt) 'Average Payment' ,                     SUM(payment_amt) 'Total Paid' ,                     COUNT(Payment_No) 'Number Of Payments'           FROM      dbo.payment           GROUP BY  member_no           HAVING    COUNT(Payment_No) > 1         ) a         JOIN dbo.member m ON a.[Member Number] = m.member_no         /***************/ /* Cross Apply  */ /***************/ SELECT  ca.[Member Number] ,         m.lastname ,         m.firstname ,         ca.[Number Of Payments] ,         ca.[Average Payment] ,         ca.[Total Paid] FROM    dbo.member m         CROSS APPLY ( SELECT    member_no 'Member Number' ,                                 AVG(payment_amt) 'Average Payment' ,                                 SUM(payment_amt) 'Total Paid' ,                                 COUNT(Payment_No) 'Number Of Payments'                       FROM      dbo.payment                       WHERE     member_no = m.member_no                       GROUP BY  member_no                       HAVING    COUNT(Payment_No) > 1                     ) ca /********/                    /* CTEs  */ /********/ ; WITH    Payments           AS ( SELECT   member_no 'Member Number' ,                         AVG(payment_amt) 'Average Payment' ,                         SUM(payment_amt) 'Total Paid' ,                         COUNT(Payment_No) 'Number Of Payments'                FROM     dbo.payment                GROUP BY member_no                HAVING   COUNT(Payment_No) > 1              ),         MemberInfo           AS ( SELECT   p.[Member Number] ,                         m.lastname ,                         m.firstname ,                         p.[Number Of Payments] ,                         p.[Average Payment] ,                         p.[Total Paid]                FROM     dbo.member m                         JOIN Payments p ON m.member_no = p.[Member Number]              )     SELECT  *     FROM    MemberInfo /************************/ /* SELECT with Grouping   */ /************************/ SELECT  p.member_no 'Member Number' ,         m.lastname ,         m.firstname ,         COUNT(Payment_No) 'Number Of Payments' ,         AVG(payment_amt) 'Average Payment' ,         SUM(payment_amt) 'Total Paid' FROM    dbo.payment p         JOIN dbo.member m ON m.member_no = p.member_no GROUP BY p.member_no ,         m.lastname ,         m.firstname HAVING  COUNT(Payment_No) > 1   We can see what is going on in SQL’s brain by looking at the execution plan.  The Execution Plan will demonstrate which steps and in what order SQL executes those steps, and what percentage of batch time each query takes.  SO….if I execute all 4 of these queries in a single batch, I will get an idea of the relative time SQL takes to execute them, and how it renders the Execution Plan.  We can settle this once and for all.  Here is what SQL did with these queries:   Not only did the queries take the same amount of time to execute, SQL generated the same Execution Plan for each of them.  Everybody is right…..I guess we can all finally go to lunch together!  But wait a second, I may not be a fighter, but I AM an instigator.     Let’s see how a table variable stacks up.  Here is the code I executed: /********************/ /*  Table Variable  */ /********************/ DECLARE @AggregateTable TABLE     (       member_no INT ,       AveragePayment MONEY ,       TotalPaid MONEY ,       NumberOfPayments MONEY     ) INSERT  @AggregateTable         SELECT  member_no 'Member Number' ,                 AVG(payment_amt) 'Average Payment' ,                 SUM(payment_amt) 'Total Paid' ,                 COUNT(Payment_No) 'Number Of Payments'         FROM    dbo.payment         GROUP BY member_no         HAVING  COUNT(Payment_No) > 1   SELECT  at.member_no 'Member Number' ,         m.lastname ,         m.firstname ,         at.NumberOfPayments 'Number Of Payments' ,         at.AveragePayment 'Average Payment' ,         at.TotalPaid 'Total Paid' FROM    @AggregateTable at         JOIN dbo.member m ON m.member_no = at.member_no In the interest of keeping things in groupings of 4, I removed the last query from the previous batch and added the table variable query.  Here’s what I got:     Since we first insert into the table variable, then we read from it, the Execution Plan renders 2 steps.  BUT, the combination of the 2 steps is only 22% of the batch.  It is actually faster than the other methods even though it is treated as 2 separate queries in the Execution Plan.  The argument I often hear against Table Variables is that SQL only estimates 1 row for the table size in the Execution Plan.  While this is true, the estimate does not come in to play until you read from the table variable.  In this case, the table variable had 6,706 rows, but it still outperformed the other queries.  People argue that table variables should only be used for hash or lookup tables.  The fact is, you have control of what you put IN to the variable, so as long as you keep it within reason, these results suggest that a table variable is a viable alternative to sub-queries. If anyone does volume testing on this theory, I would be interested in the results.  My suspicion is that there is a breaking point where efficiency goes down the tubes immediately, and it would be interesting to see where the threshold is. Coding SQL is a matter of style.  If you’ve been around since they introduced DB2, you were probably taught a little differently than a recent computer science graduate.  If you have a company standard, I strongly recommend you follow it.    If you do not have a standard, generally speaking, there is no right or wrong answer when talking about the efficiency of these types of queries, and certainly no hard-and-fast rule.  Volume and infrastructure will dictate a lot when it comes to performance, so your results may vary in your environment.  Download the database and try it!

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• AWS: setting up auto-scale for EC2 instances

  - by Elton Stoneman

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2013/10/16/aws-setting-up-auto-scale-for-ec2-instances.aspxWith Amazon Web Services, there’s no direct equivalent to Azure Worker Roles – no Elastic Beanstalk-style application for .NET background workers. But you can get the auto-scale part by configuring an auto-scaling group for your EC2 instance. This is a step-by-step guide, that shows you how to create the auto-scaling configuration, which for EC2 you need to do with the command line, and then link your scaling policies to CloudWatch alarms in the Web console. I’m using queue size as my metric for CloudWatch,  which is a good fit if your background workers are pulling messages from a queue and processing them.  If the queue is getting too big, the “high” alarm will fire and spin up a new instance to share the workload. If the queue is draining down, the “low” alarm will fire and shut down one of the instances. To start with, you need to manually set up your app in an EC2 VM, for a background worker that would mean hosting your code in a Windows Service (I always use Topshelf). If you’re dual-running Azure and AWS, then you can isolate your logic in one library, with a generic entry point that has Start() and Stop()  functions, so your Worker Role and Windows Service are essentially using the same code. When you have your instance set up with the Windows Service running automatically, and you’ve tested it starts up and works properly from a reboot, shut the machine down and take an image of the VM, using Create Image (EBS AMI) from the Web Console: When that completes, you’ll have your own AMI which you can use to spin up new instances, and you’re ready to create your auto-scaling group. You need to dip into the command-line tools for this, so follow this guide to set up the AWS autoscale command line tool. Now we’re ready to go. 1. Create a launch configuration This launch configuration tells AWS what to do when a new instance needs to be spun up. You create it with the as-create-launch-config command, which looks like this: as-create-launch-config sc-xyz-launcher # name of the launch config --image-id ami-7b9e9f12 # id of the AMI you extracted from your VM --region eu-west-1 # which region the new instance gets created in --instance-type t1.micro # size of the instance to create --group quicklaunch-1 #security group for the new instance 2. Create an auto-scaling group The auto-scaling group links to the launch config, and defines the overall configuration of the collection of instances: as-create-auto-scaling-group sc-xyz-asg # auto-scaling group name --region eu-west-1 # region to create in --launch-configuration sc-xyz-launcher # name of the launch config to invoke for new instances --min-size 1 # minimum number of nodes in the group --max-size 5 # maximum number of nodes in the group --default-cooldown 300 # period to wait (in seconds) after each scaling event, before checking if another scaling event is required --availability-zones eu-west-1a eu-west-1b eu-west-1c # which availability zones you want your instances to be allocated in – multiple entries means EC@ will use any of them 3. Create a scale-up policy The policy dictates what will happen in response to a scaling event being triggered from a “high” alarm being breached. It links to the auto-scaling group; this sample results in one additional node being spun up: as-put-scaling-policy scale-up-policy # policy name -g sc-psod-woker-asg # auto-scaling group the policy works with --adjustment 1 # size of the adjustment --region eu-west-1 # region --type ChangeInCapacity # type of adjustment, this specifies a fixed number of nodes, but you can use PercentChangeInCapacity to make an adjustment relative to the current number of nodes, e.g. increasing by 50% 4. Create a scale-down policy The policy dictates what will happen in response to a scaling event being triggered from a “low” alarm being breached. It links to the auto-scaling group; this sample results in one node from the group being taken offline: as-put-scaling-policy scale-down-policy -g sc-psod-woker-asg "--adjustment=-1" # in Windows, use double-quotes to surround a negative adjustment value –-type ChangeInCapacity --region eu-west-1 5. Create a “high” CloudWatch alarm We’re done with the command line now. In the Web Console, open up the CloudWatch view and create a new alarm. This alarm will monitor your metrics and invoke the scale-up policy from your auto-scaling group, when the group is working too hard. Configure your metric – this example will fire the alarm if there are more than 10 messages in my queue for over a minute: Then link the alarm to the scale-up policy in your group: 6. Create a “low” CloudWatch alarm The opposite of step 4, this alarm will trigger when the instances in your group don’t have enough work to do (e.g fewer than 2 messages in the queue for 1 minute), and will invoke the scale-down policy. And that’s it. You don’t need your original VM as the auto-scale group has a minimum number of nodes connected. You can test out the scaling by flexing your CloudWatch metric – in this example, filling up a queue from a  stub publisher – and watching AWS create new nodes as required, then stopping the publisher and watch AWS kill off the spare nodes.

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• Simple Excel Export with EPPlus

  - by Jesse Taber

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2013/10/30/simple-excel-export-with-epplus.aspxAnyone I’ve ever met who works with an application that sits in front of a lot of data loves it when they can get that data exported to an Excel file for them to mess around with offline. As both developer and end user of a little website project that I’ve been working on, I found myself wanting to be able to get a bunch of the data that the application was collecting into an Excel file. The great thing about being both an end user and a developer on a project is that you can build the features that you really want! While putting this feature together I came across the fantastic EPPlus library. This library is certainly very well known and popular, but I was so impressed with it that I thought it was worth a quick blog post. This library is extremely powerful; it lets you create and manipulate Excel 2007/2010 spreadsheets in .NET code with a high degree of flexibility. My only gripe with the project is that they are not touting how insanely easy it is to build a basic Excel workbook from a simple data source. If I were running this project the approach I’m about to demonstrate in this post would be front and center on the landing page for the project because it shows how easy it really is to get started and serves as a good way to ease yourself in to some of the more advanced features. The website in question uses RavenDB, which means that we’re dealing with POCOs to model the data throughout all layers of the application. I love working like this so when it came time to figure out how to export some of this data to an Excel spreadsheet I wanted to find a way to take an IEnumerable<T> and just have it dumped to Excel with each item in the collection being modeled as a single row in the Excel worksheet. Consider the following class: public class Employee { public int Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public decimal HourlyRate { get; set; } public DateTime HireDate { get; set; } } Now let’s say we have a collection of these represented as an IEnumerable<Employee> and we want to be able to output it to an Excel file for offline querying/manipulation. As it turns out, this is dead simple to do with EPPlus. Have a look: public void ExportToExcel(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, FileInfo targetFile) { using (var excelFile = new ExcelPackage(targetFile)) { var worksheet = excelFile.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet1"); worksheet.Cells["A1"].LoadFromCollection(Collection: employees, PrintHeaders: true); excelFile.Save(); } } That’s it. Let’s break down what’s going on here: Create a ExcelPackage to model the workbook (Excel file). Note that the ‘targetFile’ value here is a FileInfo object representing the location on disk where I want the file to be saved. Create a worksheet within the workbook. Get a reference to the top-leftmost cell (addressed as A1) and invoke the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, passing it our collection of Employee objects. Behind the scenes this is reflecting over the properties of the type provided and pulling out any public members to become columns in the resulting Excel output. The ‘PrintHeaders’ parameter tells EPPlus to grab the name of the property and put it in the first row. Save the Excel file All of the heavy lifting here is being done by the ‘LoadFromCollection’ method, and that’s a good thing. Now, this was really easy to do, but it has some limitations. Using this approach you get a very plain, un-styled Excel worksheet. The column widths are all set to the default. The number format for all cells is ‘General’ (which proves particularly interesting if you have a DateTime property in your data source). I’m a “no frills” guy, so I wasn’t bothered at all by trading off simplicity for style and formatting. That said, EPPlus has tons of samples that you can download that illustrate how to apply styles and formatting to cells and a ton of other advanced features that are way beyond the scope of this post.

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• Cloud Computing Architecture Patterns: Don’t Focus on the Client

  - by BuckWoody

  Normally I try to put topics in the positive in other words "Do this" not "Don't do that". Sometimes its clearer to focus on what *not* to do. Popular development processes often start with screen mockups, or user input descriptions. In a scale-out pattern like Cloud Computing on Windows Azure, that's the wrong place to start. Start with the Data    Instead, I recommend that you start with the data that a process requires. That data might be temporary or persisted, but starting with the data and its requirements helps to define not only the storage engine you need but also drives everything from security to the integrity of the application. For instance, assume the requirements show that the user must enter their phone number, and that this datum is used in a contact management system further down the application chain. For that datum, you can determine what data type you need (U.S. only or International?) the security requirements, whether it needs ACID compliance, how it will be searched, indexed and so on. From one small data point you can extrapolate out your options for storing and processing the data. Here's the interesting part, which begins to break the patterns that we've used for decades: all of the data doesn't have the same requirements. The phone number might be best suited for a list, or an element, or a string, with either BASE or ACID requirements, based on how it is used. That means we don't have to dump everything into XML, an RDBMS, a NoSQL engine, or a flat file exclusively. In fact, one record might use all of those depending on the use-case requirements. Next Is Data Management  With the data defined, we can move on to how to store the data. Again, the requirements now dictate whether we need a full relational calculus or set-based operations, or we can choose another method based on the requirements for the data. And breaking another pattern its OK to store in more than once, in more than one location. We do this all the time for reporting systems and Business Intelligence systems, so this is a pattern we need to think about even for OLTP data. Move to Data Transport How does the data get around? We can use a connection-based method, sending the data along a transport to the storage engine, but in some cases we may want to use a cache, a queue, the Service Bus, or Complex Event Processing. Finally, Data Processing Most RDBMS engines, NoSQL, and certainly Big Data engines not only store data, but can process and manipulate it as well. Its doubtful that you'll calculate that phone number right? Well, if you're the phone company, you most certainly will. And so we see that even once we've chosen the data type, storage and engine, the same element can have different computing requirements based on how it is used. Sure, We Need A Front-End At Some Point Not all data is entered by human hands in fact most data isn't. We don't really need a Graphical User Interface (GUI) we need some way for a GUI to get data into and out of the systems listed earlier.   But when we do need to allow users to enter or examine data, that should be left to the GUI that best fits the device the user has. Ever tried to use an application designed for a web browser on a phone? Or one designed for a tablet on a phone? Its usually quite painful. The siren song of "We'll just write one interface for all devices" is strong, and has beguiled many an unsuspecting architect. But they just don't work out.   Instead, focus on the data, its transport and processing. Create API calls or a message system that allows for resilient transport to the device or interface, and let it do what it does best. References Microsoft Architecture Journal:   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/bb410935.aspx Patterns and Practices:   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff921345.aspx Windows Azure iOS, Android, Windows 8 Mobile Devices SDK: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/mobile/tutorials/get-started-ios/ Windows Azure Facebook SDK: http://ntotten.com/2013/03/14/using-windows-azure-mobile-services-with-the-facebook-sdk-for-windows-phone/

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• Persisting settings without using Options dialog in Visual Studio

  - by Utkarsh Shigihalli

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/onlyutkarsh/archive/2013/11/02/persisting-settings-without-using-options-dialog-in-visual-studio.aspxIn one of my previous blog post we have seen persisting settings using Visual Studio's options dialog. Visual Studio options has many advantages in automatically persisting user options for you. However, during our latest Team Rooms extension development, we decided to provide our users; ability to use our preferences directly from Team Explorer. The main reason was that we had only one simple option for user and we thought it is cumbersome for user to go to Tools –> Options dialog to change this. Another reason was, we wanted to highlight this setting to user as soon as he is using our extension.   So if you are in such a scenario where you do not want to use VS options window, but still would like to persist the settings, this post will guide you through. Visual Studio SDK provides two ways to persist settings in your extensions. One is using DialogPage as shown in my previous post. Another way is to use by implementing IProfileManager interface which I will explain in this post. Please note that the class implementing IProfileManager should be independent class. This is because, VS instantiates this class during Tools –> Import and Export Settings. IProfileManager provides 2 different sets of methods (total 4 methods) to persist the settings. They are LoadSettingsFromXml and SaveSettingsToXml – Implement these methods to persist settings to disk from VS settings storage. The VS will persist your settings along with other options to disk. LoadSettingsFromStorage and SaveSettingsToStorage – Implement these methods to persist settings to local storage, usually it be registry. VS calls LoadSettingsFromStorage method when it is initializing the package too. We are going to use the 2nd set of methods for this example. First, we are creating a separate class file called UserOptions.cs. Please note that, we also need to implement IComponent, which can be done by inheriting Component along with IProfileManager. [ComVisible(true)] [Guid("XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX")] public class UserOptions : Component, IProfileManager { private const string SUBKEY_NAME = "TForVS2013"; private const string TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING = "TrayNotifications"; ... } Define the property so that it can be used to set and get from other classes. public bool TrayNotifications { get; set; } Implement the members of IProfileManager. public void LoadSettingsFromStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. TrayNotifications = Convert.ToBoolean(reg.GetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, true)); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { TrayNotifications = true; ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void LoadSettingsFromXml(IVsSettingsReader reader) { reader.ReadSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, out _isTrayNotificationsEnabled); TrayNotifications = (_isTrayNotificationsEnabled == 1); } public void ResetSettings() { } public void SaveSettingsToStorage() { RegistryKey reg = null; try { using (reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.OpenSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME, true)) { if (reg != null) { // Key already exists, so just update this setting. reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } else { reg = Package.UserRegistryRoot.CreateSubKey(SUBKEY_NAME); reg.SetValue(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications); } } } catch (TeamRoomException exception) { ExceptionReporting.Report(exception); } finally { if (reg != null) { reg.Close(); } } } public void SaveSettingsToXml(IVsSettingsWriter writer) { writer.WriteSettingBoolean(TRAY_NOTIFICATIONS_STRING, TrayNotifications ? 1 : 0); } Let me elaborate on the method implementation. The Package class provides UserRegistryRoot (which is HKCU\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0 for VS2013) property which can be used to create and read the registry keys. So basically, in the methods above, I am checking if the registry key exists already and if not, I simply create it. Also, in case there is an exception I return the default values. If the key already exists, I update the value. Also, note that you need to make sure that you close the key while exiting from the method. Very simple right? Accessing and settings is simple too. We just need to use the exposed property. UserOptions.TrayNotifications = true; UserOptions.SaveSettingsToStorage(); Reading settings is as simple as reading a property. UserOptions.LoadSettingsFromStorage(); var trayNotifications = UserOptions.TrayNotifications; Lastly, the most important step. We need to tell Visual Studio shell that our package exposes options using the UserOptions class. For this we need to decorate our package class with ProvideProfile attribute as below. [ProvideProfile(typeof(UserOptions), "TForVS2013", "TeamRooms", 110, 110, false, DescriptionResourceID = 401)] public sealed class TeamRooms : Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package { ... } That's it. If everything is alright, once you run the package you will also see your options appearing in "Import Export settings" window, which allows you to export your options.

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• Remote Debug Windows Azure Cloud Service

  - by Shaun

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/11/02/remote-debug-windows-azure-cloud-service.aspxOn the 22nd of October Microsoft Announced the new Windows Azure SDK 2.2. It introduced a lot of cool features but one of it shocked most, which is the remote debug support for Windows Azure Cloud Service (a.k.a. WACS).   Live Debug is Nightmare for Cloud Application When we are developing against public cloud, debug might be the most difficult task, especially after the application had been deployed. In order to minimize the debug effort, Microsoft provided local emulator for cloud service and storage once the Windows Azure platform was announced. By using local emulator developers could be able run their application on local machine with almost the same behavior as running on Windows Azure, and that could be debug easily and quickly. But when we deployed our application to Azure, we have to use log, diagnostic monitor to debug, which is very low efficient. Visual Studio 2012 introduced a new feature named "anonymous remote debug" which allows any workstation under any user could be able to attach the remote process. This is less secure comparing the authenticated remote debug but much easier and simpler to use. Now in Windows Azure SDK 2.2, we could be able to attach our application from our local machine to Windows Azure, and it's very easy.   How to Use Remote Debugger First, let's create a new Windows Azure Cloud Project in Visual Studio and selected ASP.NET Web Role. Then create an ASP.NET WebForm application. Then right click on the cloud project and select "publish". In the publish dialog we need to make sure the application will be built in debug mode, since .NET assembly cannot be debugged in release mode. I enabled Remote Desktop as I will log into the virtual machine later in this post. It's NOT necessary for remote debug. And selected "advanced settings" tab, make sure we checked "Enable Remote Debugger for all roles". In WACS, a cloud service could be able to have one or more roles and each role could be able to have one or more instances. The remote debugger will be enabled for all roles and all instances if we checked. Currently there's no way for us to specify which role(s) and which instance(s) to enable. Finally click "publish" button. In the windows azure activity window in Visual Studio we can find some information about remote debugger. To attache remote process would be easy. Open the "server explorer" window in Visual Studio and expand "cloud services" node, find the cloud service, role and instance we had just published and wanted to debug, right click on the instance and select "attach debugger". Then after a while (it's based on how fast our Internet connect to Windows Azure Data Center) the Visual Studio will be switched to debug mode. Let's add a breakpoint in the default web page's form load function and refresh the page in browser to see what's happen. We can see that the our application was stopped at the breakpoint. The call stack, watch features are all available to use. Now let's hit F5 to continue the step, then back to the browser we will find the page was rendered successfully.   What Under the Hood Remote debugger is a WACS plugin. When we checked the "enable remote debugger" in the publish dialog, Visual Studio will add two cloud configuration settings in the CSCFG file. Since they were appended when deployment, we cannot find in our project's CSCFG file. But if we opened the publish package we could find as below. At the same time, Visual Studio will generate a certificate and included into the package for remote debugger. If we went to the azure management portal we will find there will a certificate under our application which was created, uploaded by remote debugger plugin. Since I enabled Remote Desktop there will be two certificates in the screenshot below. The other one is for remote debugger. When our application was deployed, windows azure system will open related ports for remote debugger. As below you can see there are two new ports opened on my application. Finally, in our WACS virtual machine, windows azure system will copy the remote debug component based on which version of Visual Studio we are using and start. Our application then can be debugged remotely through the visual studio remote debugger. Below is the task manager on the virtual machine of my WACS application.   Summary In this post I demonstrated one of the feature introduced in Windows Azure SDK 2.2, which is Remote Debugger. It allows us to attach our application from local machine to windows azure virtual machine once it had been deployed. Remote debugger is powerful and easy to use, but it brings more security risk. And since it's only available for debug build this means the performance will be worse than release build. Hence we should only use this feature for staging test and bug fix (publish our beta version to azure staging slot), rather than for production.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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