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• Exchange 2010 DAG Creation and Configuration – Part 1

  If you’re using Exchange 2010, then you’re probably interested in using the new Database Availability Group feature for your High Availability needs. The DAG is superbly powerful technology, but you’d better make sure yours is 100% correctly configured. Neil Hobson walks us through what we need to know, using a two-node DAG as an example.

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• Stocks with Ext JS Charts

  An example to display stock indexes in an Ext JS chart. Including an introduction to Ext JS, a simple introductory Ext JS example, and an introduction to the new charts feature. Concludes with a more comprehensive demo showing some more of Ext’s features.

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• Prioritizing Product Features

  - by Robert May

  A very common task in Agile Environments is prioritization.  Teams that are functioning well will prioritize new features, old features, the backlog, and any other source of stories for the team, and they’ll do it regularly. Not all teams are good at prioritizing according to the real return on investment that building stories will yield to the company.  This is unfortunate.  Too often, teams end up building features that are less valuable, and everyone seems to know it except perhaps the product owner!  Most features built into software are never even used.  Clearly, not much return for features that go unused. So how does a company avoid building features that add little value to the company?  This is a tough question to answer, but usually, this prioritization starts at the top with the executives of the company.  After all, they’re responsible for the overall vision of the company. Here’s what I recommend: Know your market. Know your customers and users. Know where you’re going and what you want to achieve. Implement the Vision Know Your Market We often see companies that don’t know their market.  Personally, I’m surprised by this.  These companies don’t know who their competitors are, don’t know what features make their product desirable in the market, and in many cases, get by with saying, “I’ve been doing this for XX years.  I know what the market wants!”  In many cases, they equate “marketing” with “advertising” and don’t understand the difference. This is almost never true.  Good companies will spend significant amounts of time and money finding out who they’re competing against and what makes their competitors successful in the marketplace.  Good companies understand that marketing involves more than just advertising.  Often, marketing is mostly research and analysis, not sales.  Until you understand your market, you cannot know what features will give you the best return on your investment dollar. Good companies have a marketing department and can answer the next important step which is to know your customers and your users. Know your Customers and Users First, note that I included both customers and users.  They’re often not the same thing.  Users use the product that you build.  Customers buy the product that you build.  It’s a subtle difference, but too often, I’ve seen companies that focus exclusively on one or the other and are not successful simply because they ignore an important part of the group. If your company is doing appropriate marketing, you know that these are two different aspects of your product and that both deserve attention to have a product that is successful in your target market.  Your marketing department should be spending a lot of time understanding these personas and then conveying that information to the company. I’m always surprised when development teams think that they can build a product that people want to use without understanding the users of that product.  Developers think differently than most people in the world.  They know what the computer is doing.  The computer isn’t magic to them.  So when they assume that they know how to build something, they bring with them quite a bit of baggage.  Never assume that you know your customer unless you’re regularly having interaction with them.  Also, don’t just leave this to Marketing or Product Management.  Take them time to get your developers out with the customers as well.  Developers are very smart people, and often, seeing how someone uses their software inspires them to make a much better product. Very often, because the users and customers aren’t know, teams will spend a significant amount of time building apps that are super flexible and configurable so that any possible combination of feature can be used.  This demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the customer.  Most configuration questions can quickly be answered by talking to the customer.  In most cases, if your software requires significant setup and configuration before its usable, you probably don’t know your customers and users very well. Until you know your customers, you cannot know what features will be most valuable to your customers and you cannot build those features in a way that your customers can use. Know Where You’re Going and What You Want to Achieve Many companies suffer from not having a plan.  Executives will tell the team to make them a plan.  The team, not knowing their market and customers and users, will come up with a plan that doesn’t reflect reality and doesn’t consider ROI.  Management then wonders why the product is doing poorly in the market place. Instead of leaving this up to the teams, as executives, work with Marketing to understand what broad categories of features will sell the most product in the marketplace.  Then, once you’ve determined that, give this vision to the team and let them run with it.  Revise the vision as needed, but avoid changing streams frequently.  Sure, sometimes you need to, but often, executives will change priorities many times a month, leading to nothing more than confusion.  If the team has a vision, they’ll be able to execute that vision far better than they could otherwise. By knowing what products are most important, you can set budgetary goals and guidelines that will help you achieve the vision that was created. Implement the Vision Creating the vision is often where the general executives stop participating in the plan.  The team is responsible for implementing that vision.  Executives should attend showcases and and should remain aware of the progress that the team is making towards meeting the vision, however. Once a broad vision has been created, the team should break that vision down into minimal market features (MMF).  These MMFs should be sized using story points so that, using the team’s velocity, an estimated cost can be determined for each feature.  The product management team should then try to quantify the relative value of the MMFs based on customer feedback and interviews.  Once the value and cost of creating the feature is understood, a return on investment can be calculated.  The features should then be prioritized with the MMF’s that have the highest value and lowest cost rising to the top of features to implement.  Don’t let politics get in the way! Once the MMF’s have been prioritized, they should go through release planning to schedule them for implementation. Conclusion By having a good grasp on the strategy of the company, your Agile teams can be much more effective.  Each and every story the team is implementing will roll up into features that matter to the company and provide ROI to them.  The steps outlined in this post should be repeated on a regular basis.  I recommend reviewing them at least once per quarter to make sure that the vision hasn’t shifted and that the teams are still working on what matters most to the company. Technorati Tags: Agile,Product Owner,ROI

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• Configuring JPA Primary key sequence generators

  - by pachunoori.vinay.kumar(at)oracle.com

  This article describes the JPA feature of generating and assigning the unique sequence numbers to JPA entity .This article provides information on jpa sequence generator annotations and its usage. UseCase Description Adding a new Employee to the organization using Employee form should assign unique employee Id. Following description provides the detailed steps to implement the generation of unique employee numbers using JPA generators feature Steps to configure JPA Generators 1.Generate Employee Entity using "Entities from Table Wizard". View image2.Create a Database Connection and select the table "Employee" for which entity will be generated and Finish the wizards with default selections. View image 3.Select the offline database sources-Schema-create a Sequence object or you can copy to offline db from online database connection. View image 4.Open the persistence.xml in application navigator and select the Entity "Employee" in structure view and select the tab "Generators" in flat editor. 5.In the Sequence Generator section,enter name of sequence "InvSeq" and select the sequence from drop down list created in step3. View image 6.Expand the Employees in structure view and select EmployeeId and select the "Primary Key Generation" tab.7.In the Generated value section,select the "Use Generated value" check box ,select the strategy as "Sequence" and select the Generator as "InvSeq" defined step 4. View image   Following annotations gets added for the JPA generator configured in JDeveloper for an entity To use a specific named sequence object (whether it is generated by schema generation or already exists in the database) you must define a sequence generator using a @SequenceGenerator annotation. Provide a unique label as the name for the sequence generator and refer the name in the @GeneratedValue annotation along with generation strategy  For  example,see the below Employee Entity sample code configured for sequence generation. EMPLOYEE_ID is the primary key and is configured for auto generation of sequence numbers. EMPLOYEE_SEQ is the sequence object exist in database.This sequence is configured for generating the sequence numbers and assign the value as primary key to Employee_id column in Employee table. @SequenceGenerator(name="InvSeq", sequenceName = "EMPLOYEE_SEQ")   @Entity public class Employee implements Serializable {    @Id    @Column(name="EMPLOYEE_ID", nullable = false)    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE, generator="InvSeq")   private Long employeeId; }   @SequenceGenerator @GeneratedValue @SequenceGenerator - will define the sequence generator based on a  database sequence object Usage: @SequenceGenerator(name="SequenceGenerator", sequenceName = "EMPLOYEE_SEQ") @GeneratedValue - Will define the generation strategy and refers the sequence generator  Usage:     @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.SEQUENCE, generator="name of the Sequence generator defined in @SequenceGenerator")

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• Java Spotlight Episode 138: Paul Perrone on Life Saving Embedded Java

  - by Roger Brinkley

  Interview with Paul Perrone, founder and CEO of Perrone Robotics, on using Java Embedded to test autonomous vehicle operations for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that will save lives. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link: Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News JDK 8 is Feature Complete Java SE 7 Update 25 Released What should the JCP be doing? 2013 Duke's Choice Award Nominations Another Quick update to Code Signing Article on OTN Events June 24, Austin JUG, Austin, TX June 25, Virtual Developer Day - Java, EMEA, 10AM CEST Jul 16-19, Uberconf, Denver, USA Jul 22-24, JavaOne Shanghai, China Jul 29-31, JVM Summit Language, Santa Clara Sep 11-12, JavaZone, Oslo, Norway Sep 19-20, Strange Loop, St. Louis Sep 22-26 JavaOne San Francisco 2013, USA Feature Interview Paul J. Perrone is founder/CEO of Perrone Robotics. Paul architected the Java-based general-purpose robotics and automation software platform known as “MAX”. Paul has overseen MAX’s application to rapidly field self-driving robotic cars, unmanned air vehicles, factory and road-side automation applications, and a wide range of advanced robots and automaton applications. He fielded a self-driving autonomous robotic dune buggy in the historic 2005 Grand Challenge race across the Mojave desert and a self-driving autonomous car in the 2007 Urban Challenge through a city landscape. His work has been featured in numerous televised and print media including the Discovery Channel, a theatrical documentary, scientific journals, trade magazines, and international press. Since 2008, Paul has also been working as the chief software engineer, CTO, and roboticist automating rock star Neil Young’s LincVolt, a 1959 Lincoln Continental retro-fitted as a fully autonomous extended range electric vehicle. Paul has been an engineer, author of books and articles on Java, frequent speaker on Java, and entrepreneur in the robotics and software space for over 20 years. He is a member of the Java Champions program, recipient of three Duke Awards including a Gold Duke and Lifetime Achievement Award, has showcased Java-based robots at five JavaOne keynotes, and is a frequent JavaOne speaker and show floor participant. He holds a B.S.E.E. from Rutgers University and an M.S.E.E. from the University of Virginia. What’s Cool Shenandoah: A pauseless GC for OpenJDK

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• Copying Chinese Characters from PDF

  - by Kevin

  I am on a Windows 7 laptop, which I believe comes pre installed with all the language packs to my knowledge. I can see Chinese characters with no issues and normally can copy them fine. (From browser to Microsoft Office works great). I have many PDFs with chinese characters in them, whenever I try to copy them and paste them into another program such as a browser, Microsoft Office, ect I just get strange foreign characters such as: This is copying a line. It is in this order: Chinese characters, pinyin (chinese in roman letters), and then the Englis translation. ,ô t¯ing w?o shu¯o listen to me The pinyin is also getting messed up, as the tonal marks (accents) about each letter are moving to a space of their own. Any ideas on to how to fix this? Thank you very much!

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• SQL SERVER – Working with FileTables in SQL Server 2012 – Part 1 – Setting Up Environment

  - by pinaldave

  Filestream is a very interesting feature, and an enhancement of FileTable with Filestream is equally exciting. Today in this post, we will learn how to set up the FileTable Environment in SQL Server. The major advantage of FileTable is it has Windows API compatibility for file data stored within an SQL Server database. In simpler words, FileTables remove a barrier so that SQL Server can be used for the storage and management of unstructured data that are currently residing as files on file servers. Another advantage is that the Windows Application Compatibility for their existing Windows applications enables to see these data as files in the file system. This way, you can use SQL Server to access the data using T-SQL enhancements, and Windows can access the file using its applications. So for the first step, you will need to enable the Filestream feature at the database level in order to use the FileTable. -- Enable Filestream EXEC sp_configure filestream_access_level, 2 RECONFIGURE GO -- Create Database CREATE DATABASE FileTableDB ON PRIMARY (Name = FileTableDB, FILENAME = 'D:\FileTable\FTDB.mdf'), FILEGROUP FTFG CONTAINS FILESTREAM (NAME = FileTableFS, FILENAME='D:\FileTable\FS') LOG ON (Name = FileTableDBLog, FILENAME = 'D:\FileTable\FTDBLog.ldf') WITH FILESTREAM (NON_TRANSACTED_ACCESS = FULL, DIRECTORY_NAME = N'FileTableDB'); GO Now, you can run the following code and figure out if FileStream options are enabled at the database level. -- Check the Filestream Options SELECT DB_NAME(database_id), non_transacted_access, non_transacted_access_desc FROM sys.database_filestream_options; GO You can see the resultset of the above query which returns resultset as the following image shows. As you can see , the file level access is set to 2 (filestream enabled). Now let us create the filetable in the newly created database. -- Create FileTable Table USE FileTableDB GO CREATE TABLE FileTableTb AS FileTable WITH (FileTable_Directory = 'FileTableTb_Dir'); GO Now you can select data using a regular select table. SELECT * FROM FileTableTb GO It will return all the important columns which are related to the file. It will provide details like filesize, archived, file types etc. You can also see the FileTable in SQL Server Management Studio. Go to Databases >> Newly Created Database (FileTableDB) >> Expand Tables Here, you will see a new folder which says “FileTables”. When expanded, it gives the name of the newly created FileTableTb. You can right click on the newly created table and click on “Explore FileTable Directory”. This will open up the folder where the FileTable data will be stored. When you click on the option, it will open up the following folder in my local machine where the FileTable data will be stored: \\127.0.0.1\mssqlserver\FileTableDB\FileTableTb_Dir In tomorrow’s blog post as Part 2, we will go over two methods of inserting the data into this FileTable. Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Filestream

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• SQL SERVER – Online Index Rebuilding Index Improvement in SQL Server 2012

  - by pinaldave

  Have you ever faced situation when you see something working and you feel it should not be working? Well, I had similar moments few days ago. I know that SQL Server 2008 supports online indexing. However, I also know that I cannot rebuild index ONLINE if I have used VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX) or few other data types. While I held my belief very strongly I came across situation, where I had to go online and do little bit reading from Book Online. Here is the similar example. First of all – run following code in SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. USE TempDB GO CREATE TABLE TestTable (ID INT, FirstCol NVARCHAR(10), SecondCol NVARCHAR(MAX)) GO CREATE CLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TestTable] ON TestTable (ID) GO CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX [IX_TestTable_Cols] ON TestTable (FirstCol) INCLUDE (SecondCol) GO USE [tempdb] GO ALTER INDEX [IX_TestTable_Cols] ON [dbo].[TestTable] REBUILD WITH (ONLINE = ON) GO DROP TABLE TestTable GO Now run the same code in SQL Server 2012 version. Observe the difference between both of the execution. You will be get following resultset. In SQL Server 2008/R2 it will throw following error: Msg 2725, Level 16, State 2, Line 1 An online operation cannot be performed for index ‘IX_TestTable_Cols’ because the index contains column ‘SecondCol’ of data type text, ntext, image, varchar(max), nvarchar(max), varbinary(max), xml, or large CLR type. For a non-clustered index, the column could be an include column of the index. For a clustered index, the column could be any column of the table. If DROP_EXISTING is used, the column could be part of a new or old index. The operation must be performed offline. In SQL Server 2012 it will run successfully and will not throw any error. Command(s) completed successfully. I always thought it will throw an error if there is VARCHAR(MAX) or NVARCHAR(MAX) used in table schema definition. When I saw this result it was clear to me that it will be for sure not bug enhancement in SQL Server 2012. For matter for the fact, I always wanted this feature to be added in SQL Server Engine as this will enable ONLINE Index Rebuilding for mission critical tables which needs to be always online. I quickly searched online and landed on Jacob Sebastian’s blog where he has blogged about it as well. Well, is there any other new feature in SQL Server 2012 which gave you good surprise? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• VS 2010 Debugger Improvements (BreakPoints, DataTips, Import/Export)

  - by ScottGu

  This is the twenty-first in a series of blog posts I’m doing on the VS 2010 and .NET 4 release.  Today’s blog post covers a few of the nice usability improvements coming with the VS 2010 debugger.  The VS 2010 debugger has a ton of great new capabilities.  Features like Intellitrace (aka historical debugging), the new parallel/multithreaded debugging capabilities, and dump debuging support typically get a ton of (well deserved) buzz and attention when people talk about the debugging improvements with this release.  I’ll be doing blog posts in the future that demonstrate how to take advantage of them as well.  With today’s post, though, I thought I’d start off by covering a few small, but nice, debugger usability improvements that were also included with the VS 2010 release, and which I think you’ll find useful. Breakpoint Labels VS 2010 includes new support for better managing debugger breakpoints.  One particularly useful feature is called “Breakpoint Labels” – it enables much better grouping and filtering of breakpoints within a project or across a solution.  With previous releases of Visual Studio you had to manage each debugger breakpoint as a separate item. Managing each breakpoint separately can be a pain with large projects and for cases when you want to maintain “logical groups” of breakpoints that you turn on/off depending on what you are debugging.  Using the new VS 2010 “breakpoint labeling” feature you can now name these “groups” of breakpoints and manage them as a unit. Grouping Multiple Breakpoints Together using a Label Below is a screen-shot of the breakpoints window within Visual Studio 2010.  This lists all of the breakpoints defined within my solution (which in this case is the ASP.NET MVC 2 code base): The first and last breakpoint in the list above breaks into the debugger when a Controller instance is created or released by the ASP.NET MVC Framework. Using VS 2010, I can now select these two breakpoints, right-click, and then select the new “Edit labels…” menu command to give them a common label/name (making them easier to find and manage): Below is the dialog that appears when I select the “Edit labels” command.  We can use it to create a new string label for our breakpoints or select an existing one we have already defined.  In this case we’ll create a new label called “Lifetime Management” to describe what these two breakpoints cover: When we press the OK button our two selected breakpoints will be grouped under the newly created “Lifetime Management” label: Filtering/Sorting Breakpoints by Label We can use the “Search” combobox to quickly filter/sort breakpoints by label.  Below we are only showing those breakpoints with the “Lifetime Management” label: Toggling Breakpoints On/Off by Label We can also toggle sets of breakpoints on/off by label group.  We can simply filter by the label group, do a Ctrl-A to select all the breakpoints, and then enable/disable all of them with a single click: Importing/Exporting Breakpoints VS 2010 now supports importing/exporting breakpoints to XML files – which you can then pass off to another developer, attach to a bug report, or simply re-load later.  To export only a subset of breakpoints, you can filter by a particular label and then click the “Export breakpoint” button in the Breakpoints window: Above I’ve filtered my breakpoint list to only export two particular breakpoints (specific to a bug that I’m chasing down).  I can export these breakpoints to an XML file and then attach it to a bug report or email – which will enable another developer to easily setup the debugger in the correct state to investigate it on a separate machine.  Pinned DataTips Visual Studio 2010 also includes some nice new “DataTip pinning” features that enable you to better see and track variable and expression values when in the debugger.  Simply hover over a variable or expression within the debugger to expose its DataTip (which is a tooltip that displays its value)  – and then click the new “pin” button on it to make the DataTip always visible: You can “pin” any number of DataTips you want onto the screen.  In addition to pinning top-level variables, you can also drill into the sub-properties on variables and pin them as well.  Below I’ve “pinned” three variables: “category”, “Request.RawUrl” and “Request.LogonUserIdentity.Name”.  Note that these last two variable are sub-properties of the “Request” object.   Associating Comments with Pinned DataTips Hovering over a pinned DataTip exposes some additional UI within the debugger: Clicking the comment button at the bottom of this UI expands the DataTip - and allows you to optionally add a comment with it: This makes it really easy to attach and track debugging notes: Pinned DataTips are usable across both Debug Sessions and Visual Studio Sessions Pinned DataTips can be used across multiple debugger sessions.  This means that if you stop the debugger, make a code change, and then recompile and start a new debug session - any pinned DataTips will still be there, along with any comments you associate with them.  Pinned DataTips can also be used across multiple Visual Studio sessions.  This means that if you close your project, shutdown Visual Studio, and then later open the project up again – any pinned DataTips will still be there, along with any comments you associate with them. See the Value from Last Debug Session (Great Code Editor Feature) How many times have you ever stopped the debugger only to go back to your code and say: $#@! – what was the value of that variable again??? One of the nice things about pinned DataTips is that they keep track of their “last value from debug session” – and you can look these values up within the VB/C# code editor even when the debugger is no longer running.  DataTips are by default hidden when you are in the code editor and the debugger isn’t running.  On the left-hand margin of the code editor, though, you’ll find a push-pin for each pinned DataTip that you’ve previously setup: Hovering your mouse over a pinned DataTip will cause it to display on the screen.  Below you can see what happens when I hover over the first pin in the editor - it displays our debug session’s last values for the “Request” object DataTip along with the comment we associated with them: This makes it much easier to keep track of state and conditions as you toggle between code editing mode and debugging mode on your projects. Importing/Exporting Pinned DataTips As I mentioned earlier in this post, pinned DataTips are by default saved across Visual Studio sessions (you don’t need to do anything to enable this). VS 2010 also now supports importing/exporting pinned DataTips to XML files – which you can then pass off to other developers, attach to a bug report, or simply re-load later. Combined with the new support for importing/exporting breakpoints, this makes it much easier for multiple developers to share debugger configurations and collaborate across debug sessions. Summary Visual Studio 2010 includes a bunch of great new debugger features – both big and small.  Today’s post shared some of the nice debugger usability improvements. All of the features above are supported with the Visual Studio 2010 Professional edition (the Pinned DataTip features are also supported in the free Visual Studio 2010 Express Editions)  I’ll be covering some of the “big big” new debugging features like Intellitrace, parallel/multithreaded debugging, and dump file analysis in future blog posts.  Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• SEO Articles - Save Money With the Right Company

  Article marketing is one of the key elements of any online marketing plan and you can optimize this feature with the right kind of SEO articles. However you have to be careful of choosing the articles, as important as it is to get a provider who can give you quality content you have to be sure that you also have search engine optimization related factors implemented in the articles.

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• Subterranean IL: Filter exception handlers

  - by Simon Cooper

  Filter handlers are the second type of exception handler that aren't accessible from C#. Unlike the other handler types, which have defined conditions for when the handlers execute, filter lets you use custom logic to determine whether the handler should be run. However, similar to a catch block, the filter block does not get run if control flow exits the block without throwing an exception. Introducing filter blocks An example of a filter block in IL is the following: .try { // try block } filter { // filter block endfilter }{ // filter handler } or, in v1 syntax, TryStart: // try block TryEnd: FilterStart: // filter block HandlerStart: // filter handler HandlerEnd: .try TryStart to TryEnd filter FilterStart handler HandlerStart to HandlerEnd In the v1 syntax there is no end label specified for the filter block. This is because the filter block must come immediately before the filter handler; the end of the filter block is the start of the filter handler. The filter block indicates to the CLR whether the filter handler should be executed using a boolean value on the stack when the endfilter instruction is run; true/non-zero if it is to be executed, false/zero if it isn't. At the start of the filter block, and the corresponding filter handler, a reference to the exception thrown is pushed onto the stack as a raw object (you have to manually cast to System.Exception). The allowed IL inside a filter block is tightly controlled; you aren't allowed branches outside the block, rethrow instructions, and other exception handling clauses. You can, however, use call and callvirt instructions to call other methods. Filter block logic To demonstrate filter block logic, in this example I'm filtering on whether there's a particular key in the Data dictionary of the thrown exception: .try { // try block } filter { // Filter starts with exception object on stack // C# code: ((Exception)e).Data.Contains("MyExceptionDataKey") // only execute handler if Contains returns true castclass [mscorlib]System.Exception callvirt instance class [mscorlib]System.Collections.IDictionary [mscorlib]System.Exception::get_Data() ldstr "MyExceptionDataKey" callvirt instance bool [mscorlib]System.Collections.IDictionary::Contains(object) endfilter }{ // filter handler // Also starts off with exception object on stack callvirt instance string [mscorlib]System.Object::ToString() call void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(string) } Conclusion Filter exception handlers are another exception handler type that isn't accessible from C#, however, just like fault handlers, the behaviour can be replicated using a normal catch block: try { // try block } catch (Exception e) { if (!FilterLogic(e)) throw; // handler logic } So, it's not that great a loss, but it's still annoying that this functionality isn't directly accessible. Well, every feature starts off with minus 100 points, so it's understandable why something like this didn't make it into the C# compiler ahead of a different feature.

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• Solaris 11 Resources

  - by user12618891

  .. Oracle Solaris 11 (November, 2011) Oracle Solaris 11 Landing Page Download Oracle Solaris 11 Oracle Solaris 11 Documentation Solaris 11 End-of-Life Notices What's New in Oracle Solaris 11 (blog) Oracle Solaris 11 Feature Demo Videos (blog) Solaris 11 Developer Resources (November, 2011) Oracle Solaris 11 ISV Adoption Guide Oracle Solaris 11 Preflight Checker The IPS System Repository (blog) Packaging and Delivering Software with the Image Packaging System - A Developer's Guide How to Create and Publish packages to an IPS Repository on Solaris 11 Solaris 10 Branded zone VM Templates for Solaris 11 (blog) Oracle Solaris 11 Security: What's New For Developers Optimizing Application with Oracle Solaris Studio Tools and CompilersOther Solaris 11 Technology Spotlights (Landing Page)

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• Configuring Centralized Database User Management with Database Enterprise User Security, OVD and DSE

  - by mark.wilcox

  My colleague Olaf Stullich has posted a walk-through complete with screenshots and Viewlets/screencast of configuring OVD to work with DSEE to be the directory for Oracle database Enterprise User Security feature. -- Posted via email from Virtual Identity Dialogue

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• SQLAuthority News Speaking Sessions at TechEd India 3 Sessions 1 Panel Discussion

  Microsoft Tech-Ed India 2010 is considered as the major Technology event of the year for various IT professionals and developers. This event will feature a comprehensive forum in order to learn, connect, explore, and evolve the current technologies we have today. I would recommend this event to you since here you will learn about todays [...]...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• Slides and code for MPI Cluster Debugger

  I've blogged before about the MPI Cluster Debugger in VS2010 that facilitates launching the application on the cluster and attaching the debugger (btw, a shorter version of the screencast I link to there, is here).There have been requests for the code I use in the screencast, so please find a ZIP with that code.There have also been requests for a PowerPoint deck to use when showing this feature to others. Feel free to download some slides I threw together the other day. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• Can't download updates for reinstalled Office 2000 on WinXP OS "expected version not found" error message

  - by mpmadigan

  I replaced HD and reinstalled WinXP Pro and successfully downloaded all of the service packs and security updates. I've reinstalled my licensed version of Office 2000 (upgrade version from Office 97). The software installs and is functional; but when trying to install updates SR-1 or SR-1a or any individual security update I get error message "expected version of product not found". Microsoft no longer provides support for this legacy version of office. I can't find any support documents in Microsoft's database that addresses this issue. This is my sister's computer and I've already come out-of-pocket $100 for hardware (not counting the $$hours of labor). She only uses MS Word for minimal correspondence. No desire to spend $100+ for new version of Office. I would greatly appreciate any suggested fixes for this problem.

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• SQL Server 2008 R2 still requires a trace flag for Lock Pages in Memory

  - by AaronBertrand

  Almost two years ago, I blogged that Lock Pages in Memory was finally available to Standard Edition customers (Enterprise Edition customers had long been deemed smart enough to not abuse this feature). In addition to applying a cumulative update (2005 SP3 CU4 or 2008 SP1 CU2), in order to take advantage of LPIM, you also had to enable trace flag 845. Since the trace flag isn't documented for SQL Server 2008 R2, several of us in the community assumed that it was no longer required (since it was introduced...(read more)

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• Tellago announces SQL Server 2008 R2 BI quick adoption programs

  - by Vishal

  During the last year, we (Tellago) have been involved in various business intelligence initiatives that leverage some emerging BI techniques such as self-service BI or complex event processing (CEP). Specifically, in the last few months, we have partnered with Microsoft to deliver a series of events across the country where we present the different technologies of the SQL Server 2008 R2 BI stack such as PowerPivot, StreamInsight, Ad-Hoc Reporting and Master Data Services. As part of those events, we try to go beyond the traditional technology presentation and provide a series of best practices and lessons we have learned on real world BI projects that leverage these technologies. Now that SQL Server 2008 R2 has been released to manufacturing, we have launched a series of quick adoption programs that are designed to help customers understand how they can embrace the newest additions to Microsoft's BI stack as part of their IT initiatives. The programs are also designed to help customers understand how the new SQL Server features interact with established technologies such as SQL Server Analysis Services or SQL Server Integration Services. We try to keep these adoption programs very practical by doing a lot of prototyping and design sessions that will give our customers a practical glimpse of the capabilities of the technologies and how they can fit in their enterprise architecture roadmap. Here is our official announcement (you can blame my business partner, BI enthusiast, and Tellago's CEO Elizabeth Redding for the marketing pitch ;)): Tellago Marks Microsoft's SQL Server 2008 R2 Launch With Business Intelligence Quick Adoption Program Microsoft launched SQL Server 2008 R2 last week, which delivers several breakthrough business intelligence (BI) capabilities that enable organizations to:  Efficiently process, analyze and mine data Improve IT and developer efficiency Enable highly scalable and well-managed Business Intelligence on a self-service basis for business users The release offers a new feature called PowerPivot, which enables self service BI through connecting business users directly to enterprise data sources and providing improved reporting and analytics. The release also offers Master Data Management which helps enterprises centrally manage critical data assets company-wide and across diverse systems, enabling increased integrity of information over time. Finally, the release includes StreamInsight, which is a framework for implementing Complex Event Processing (CEP) applications on the Microsoft platform. With StreamInsight, IT organizations can implement the infrastructure to process a large volume of events near real time, execute continuous queries against event streams and enable real time business intelligence. As a thought leader in the Business Intelligence community, Tellago has recognized the occasion by launching a series of quick adoption programs to enable the adoption of this new BI technology stack in your enterprise. Our Quick Adoption programs are designed to help you: Brainstorm BI solution options  Architect initial infrastructure components Prototype key features of a solution As a 2-3 day program, our approach is more efficient and cost effective than a traditional Proof of Concept because it allows you to understand the new SQL Server 2008 R2 feature set  while seeing directly how you can leverage it for your business intelligence needs. If you are interested in learning more about the BI capabilities of Microsoft's Business Intelligence stack, including SQL Server 2008 R2, we can help.  As industry experts and software content advisers to Microsoft, Tellago is the place where ideas meet technology expertise.  Let us help you see for yourself the advantages that you can gain from Microsoft's  SQL Server 2008 R2. Email or call for more information - [email protected] or 847-925-2399.

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• SQLAuthority News – Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Released (SP1)

  - by pinaldave

  Last week, I was attending SQLPASS 2012 and I had great fun attending the event. During the event long awaited SQL Serer 2012 Service Pack 1 was released. I am pretty excited with SP1 as new service packs are cumulative updates and upgrade all editions and service levels of SQL Server 2012 to SP1. This service pack contains SQL Server 2012 Cumulative Update 1 (CU1) and Cumulative Update 2 (CU2). The latest SP1 has many new and enhanced features. Here are a few for example: Cross-Cluster Migration of AlwaysOn Availability Groups for OS Upgrade Selective XML Index DBCC SHOW_STATISTICS works with SELECT permission New function returns statistics properties – sys.dm_db_stats_properties SSMS Complete in Express SlipStream Full Installation Business Intelligence highlights with Office and SharePoint Server 2013 Management Object Support Added for Resource Governor DDL Please note that the size of the service pack is near 1 GB. Here is the link to SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1. SQL Server Express is the free and feature rich edition of the SQL Server. It is used with lightweight website and desktop applications. Here is the link to SQL Server 2012 EXPRESS Service Pack 1. Here is the question for you – how long have you been using SQL Server 2012? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Documentation, SQL Download, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Service Pack

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• World Record Performance on PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials Benchmark on SPARC T4-2

  - by Brian

  Oracle's SPARC T4-2 server achieved World Record performance on Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials 9.1 executing 20 Million Journals lines in 8.92 minutes on Oracle Database 11g Release 2 running on Oracle Solaris 11. This is the first result published on this version of the benchmark. The SPARC T4-2 server was able to process 20 million general ledger journal edit and post batch jobs in 8.92 minutes on this benchmark that reflects a large customer environment that utilizes a back-end database of nearly 500 GB. This benchmark demonstrates that the SPARC T4-2 server with PeopleSoft Financials 9.1 can easily process 100 million journal lines in less than 1 hour. The SPARC T4-2 server delivered more than 146 MB/sec of IO throughput with Oracle Database 11g running on Oracle Solaris 11. Performance Landscape Results are presented for PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.1. Results obtained with PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.1 are not comparable to the the previous version of the benchmark, PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.0, due to significant change in data model and supports only batch. PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark, Version 9.1 Solution Under Test Batch (min) SPARC T4-2 (2 x SPARC T4, 2.85 GHz) 8.92 Results from PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark 9.0. PeopleSoft Financials Benchmark, Version 9.0 Solution Under Test Batch (min) Batch with Online (min) SPARC Enterprise M4000 (Web/App) SPARC Enterprise M5000 (DB) 33.09 34.72 SPARC T3-1 (Web/App) SPARC Enterprise M5000 (DB) 35.82 37.01 Configuration Summary Hardware Configuration: 1 x SPARC T4-2 server 2 x SPARC T4 processors, 2.85 GHz 128 GB memory Storage Configuration: 1 x Sun Storage F5100 Flash Array (for database and redo logs) 2 x Sun Storage 2540-M2 arrays and 2 x Sun Storage 2501-M2 arrays (for backup) Software Configuration: Oracle Solaris 11 11/11 SRU 7.5 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2.0.3) PeopleSoft Financials 9.1 Feature Pack 2 PeopleSoft Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.52 latest patch - 8.52.03 Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.5 Java Platform, Standard Edition Development Kit 6 Update 32 Benchmark Description The PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials 9.1 benchmark emulates a large enterprise that processes and validates a large number of financial journal transactions before posting the journal entry to the ledger. The validation process certifies that the journal entries are accurate, ensuring that ChartFields values are valid, debits and credits equal out, and inter/intra-units are balanced. Once validated, the entries are processed, ensuring that each journal line posts to the correct target ledger, and then changes the journal status to posted. In this benchmark, the Journal Edit & Post is set up to edit and post both Inter-Unit and Regular multi-currency journals. The benchmark processes 20 million journal lines using AppEngine for edits and Cobol for post processes. See Also Oracle PeopleSoft Benchmark White Papers oracle.com SPARC T4-2 Server oracle.com OTN PeopleSoft Financial Management oracle.com OTN Oracle Solaris oracle.com OTN Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition oracle.com OTN Disclosure Statement Copyright 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Results as of 1 October 2012.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, November 27, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, November 27, 2011Popular ReleasesTerminals: Version 2 - Beta 4 Release: Beta 4 Refresh Build Dont forget to backup your config files BEFORE upgrading! As usual, please take time to use and abuse this release. We left logging in place, and this is a debug build so be sure to submit your logs on each bug reported, and please do report all bugs! Updated the About form to include the date and time of the build. Useful for CI builds to ensure we have the correct version "Favourites" and "History" save their expanded states after app restarts Code cleanup, secu...MiniTwitter: 1.76: MiniTwitter 1.76 ???? ?? ?????????? User Streams ???????????? User Streams ???????????、??????????????? REST ?????????? ?????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????Media Companion: MC 3.424b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) Movie Show Resolutions... Resolved issue when reverting multiselection of movies to "-none-" Added movie rename support for subtitle files '.srt' & '.sub' Finalised code for '-1' fix - radiobutton to choose either filename or title Fixed issue with Movie Batch Wizard Fanart - ...Advanced Windows Phone Enginering Tool: WPE Downloads: This version of WPE gives you basic updating, restoring, and, erasing for your Windows Phone device.Anno 2070 Assistant: Beta v1.0 (STABLE): Anno 2070 Assistant Beta v1.0 Released! Features Included: Complete Building Layouts for Ecos, Tycoons & Techs Complete Production Chains for Ecos, Tycoons & Techs Completed Credits Screen Known Issues: Not all production chains and building layouts may be on the lists because they have not yet been discovered. However, data is still 99.9% complete. Currently the Supply & Demand, including Calculator screen are disabled until version 1.1.Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.7: Including updated Minecraft Biome Extractor and mcmap to support the new Minecraft 1.0.0 release (new block types, etc).Visual Leak Detector for Visual C++ 2008/2010: v2.2.1: Enhancements: * strdup and _wcsdup functions support added. * Preliminary support for VS 11 added. Bugs Fixed: * Low performance after upgrading from VLD v2.1. * Memory leaks with static linking fixed (disabled calloc support). * Runtime error R6002 fixed because of wrong memory dump format. * version.h fixed in installer. * Some PVS studio warning fixed.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.10: 3.6.0.10 22-Nov-2011 Update: Removed PreEmptive Platform integration (PreEmptive analytics) Removed all PreEmptive attributes Removed PreEmptive.dll assembly references from all projects Added first support to ADAM/AD LDS Thanks to PatBea. Work Item 9775: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/9775VideoLan DotNet for WinForm, WPF & Silverlight 5: VideoLan DotNet for WinForm, WPF, SL5 - 2011.11.22: The new version contains Silverlight 5 library: Vlc.DotNet.Silverlight. A sample could be tested here The new version add and correct many features : Correction : Reinitialize some variables Deprecate : Logging API, since VLC 1.2 (08/20/2011) Add subitem in LocationMedia (for Youtube videos, ...) Update Wpf sample to use Youtube videos Many others correctionsEZ-NFC: Alpha 1: THIS IS AN ALPHA RELEASE. STILL UNSTABLE AND SUBJECT TO ARCHITECTURE CHANGE What is implemented (In alpha) : ACR122L Device Mifare 1K tag Windows frontend#liveDB: liveDB 0.3.2: New featuresNew abstract storage scheme enabling future cloud support New file system structure and naming scheme for snapshots and journal files based on sequence numbers Journal files are never deleted Automatic snapshots during load or shutdown Renamed/added hooks to Model JournalRestored, SnapshotRestored Created an extensible logging facade Journal gets split into 1MB segments (configurable) Integrity checks before during load/create Commands are cloned by default before ...ReactiveMVVM: ReactiveMVVM v1.0: Example 1 property change: public class Example1 : ViewModelBase{ string _Userid; /// <summary> /// person infomation of owner. /// </summary> public string Userid { get { return _Userid; } set { this.RaiseAndSetIfChanged(x => x.Userid, ref _Userid, value, *true*); } // true, broadcast property change message. } //if the property changed to do...... this.ObservableProperty(x => x.Useid) ...IoCWrap: Initial: Initial release of the source code.Code for Rapid C# Windows Development eBook + LINQPad and Data Tools: LinqPad Custom Visualizer Version 1.0: First release of my LinqPad Custom Visualizer. It is compiled against the Any-CPU build of LINQPad v4.36.6 so it can only be used with the LINQPad Beta: v4.36.x. To install unzip to the LinqPad plugins folder.Distributed replay GUI: Distributed Replay Snapin: This is the dll for registering the snapin in mmc.FaST-LMM: FActored Spectrally Transformed Linear Mixed Models: FaSTLMM v1.03 Binaries for Windows and Linux: These files contain the files necessary to run FaSTLMM on Windows or Linux along with the license and users manual. To download FaSTLMM source code, please follow the changeset link located above to the Source Code tab. The FaSTLMM.Win.zip download contains both C++ and CSharp executable versions of FaSTLMM. No installer is required, just UnZip the file into a directory and run from there. Or put the installation directory on your path and run it from anywhere. The C++ version included r...SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack: SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack 1.2.0: Web parts are now fully customizable via html templates (Issue #323) FBA Pack is now completely localizable using resource files. Thank you David Chen for submitting the code as well as Chinese translations of the FBA Pack! The membership request web part now gives the option of having the user enter the password and removing the captcha (Issue # 447) The FBA Pack will now work in a zone that does not have FBA enabled (Another zone must have FBA enabled, and the zone must contain the me...SharePoint 2010 Education Demo Project: Release SharePoint SP1 for Education Solutions: This release includes updates to the Content Packs for SharePoint SP1. All Content Packs have been updated to install successfully under SharePoint SP1SQL Monitor - managing sql server performance: SQLMon 4.1 alpha 6: 1. improved support for schema 2. added find reference when right click on object list 3. added object rename supportBugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.126: First stable release of version 0.9. Upgrades from 0.8 are fully supported and upgrades to future releases will also be supported. This release is now compiled against the .NET 4.0 framework and is a requirement. Because of this the web.config has significantly changed. After upgrading, you will need to configure the authentication settings for user registration and anonymous access again. Please see our installation / upgrade instructions for more details: http://wiki.bugnetproject.c...New Projectsandrewtatham.robocode: Andrew Tatham's Robocode botsClear SharePoint Lists: This project contains the tools used to clear the items from the one or more Lists.Clipboard Editor: How many times have you pasted something in Notepad and then copied the plain text again? We do it all the time to strip formatting from the clipboard. This utility lets you pick which format from the clipboard to keep.CS New Rus: ?? ????? ??????????? ??????. ??? ??? - CS New. ?? ???? ????? ?? ????? ??????????? ??? ? ?????????? ? ???????. ElfDoc: ElfDoc enables you to create word documents from templates, using open xml.HTC RUU .NET: HTC's legendary RUU goes .NET and Open Source.................. You can browse for .nbh file, not locked at current directory and, you can update your device's rom in .NET wayMobileGamePrototype: For now just a skeleton of the architecture.NopCommerce 23 Multi Store Support: NopCommerce 23 Multi Store Support novel: fetch novelOrchard Custom Shapes: Ready to use custom orchard shapes like a table shape.Philosophy Gadget: This gadget helps people associate known works of philosophy with their known authors.ReefTracker: A controller agnostic logging and reporting application for reef aquarium controllers. SQLQuery: SQL QueryWindows Phone Marketplace Viewer: Windows Phone Marketplace Viewer is a single aspx page for asp.net 3+ with no additional dependencies. It will show the top 2000 apps in one of the 3 categories: paid and free together, only paid or only free, for all the marketplace languages.

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• Can I use the Office 2007 Proofing Tools with Office 2010 RTM?

  - by Martin Wiboe

  Hi, I have just downloaded and installed Office 2010 RTM. Overall, it is very nice, but I miss having proofing tools available for my native language, Danish. I have installed the 2007 Proofing Tools, but they do not work with 2010: For this release we have made significant changes in the proofing infrastructure, therefore the Language Packs from previous Office versions including Office 2007 are not compatible with Office 2010. (http://blogs.msdn.com/naturallanguage/archive/2009/07/16/proofing-tools-in-office-2010.aspx) Does anyone know a workaround until the 2010 Proofing Tools are released? Thank you, Martin

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• Looking into ASP.Net MVC 4.0 Mobile Development - part 2

  - by nikolaosk

  In this post I will be continuing my discussion on ASP.Net MVC 4.0 mobile development. You can have a look at my first post on the subject here . Make sure you read it and understand it well before you move one reading the remaining of this post. I will not be writing any code in this post. I will try to explain a few concepts related to the MVC 4.0 mobile functionality. In this post I will be looking into the Browser Overriding feature in ASP.Net MVC 4.0. By that I mean that we override the user agent for a given user session. This is very useful feature for people who visit a site through a device and they experience the mobile version of the site, but what they really want is the option to be able to switch to the desktop view. "Why they might want to do that?", you might wonder.Well first of all the users of our ASP.Net MVC 4.0 application will appreciate that they have the option to switch views while some others will think that they will enjoy more the contents of our website with the "desktop view" since the mobile device they view our site has a quite large display.  Obviously this is only one site. These are just different views that are rendered.To put it simply, browser overriding lets our application treat requests as if they were coming from a different browser rather than the one they are actually from. In order to do that programmatically we must have a look at the System.Web.WebPages namespace and the classes in it. Most specifically the class BrowserHelpers. Have a look at the picture below   In this class we see some extension methods for HttpContext class.These methods are called extensions-helpers methods and we use them to switch to one browser from another thus overriding the current/actual browser. These APIs have effect on layout,views and partial views and will not affect any other ASP.Net Request.Browser related functionality.The overridden browser is stored in a cookie. Let me explain what some of these methods do. SetOverriddenBrowser() -  let us set the user agent string to specific value GetOverriddenBrowser() -  let us get the overridden value ClearOverriddenBrowser() -  let us remove any overridden user agent for the current request   To recap, in our ASP.Net MVC 4.0 applications when our application is viewed in our mobile devices, we can have a link like "Desktop View" for all those who desperately want to see the site with in full desktop-browser version.We then can specify a browser type override. My controller class (snippet of code) that is responsible for handling the switching could be something like that. public class SwitchViewController : Controller{ public RedirectResult SwitchView(bool mobile, string returnUrl){if (Request.Browser.IsMobileDevice == mobile)HttpContext.ClearOverriddenBrowser();elseHttpContext.SetOverriddenBrowser(mobile ? BrowserOverride.Mobile : BrowserOverride.Desktop);return Redirect(returnUrl);}} Hope it helps!!!!

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• Patch Management and System Inventory on a Windows network?

  - by Scott

  What are some good ways to have patch management and systems/hardware inventory for a Windows (Server 2003 or 2008) network? For example, at a minimum knowing the basics for all the machines out on the network such as OS version, patch level, what hotfixes they have, processor, ram, etc. Even better would be knowing more details such as peripherals. Ideally if there were a way to push service packs, and hotfixes (and other software?) to the machines, that would be great. What are some options for this?

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• How to Easily Put a Windows PC into Kiosk Mode With Assigned Access

  - by Chris Hoffman

  Windows 8.1′s Assigned Access feature allows you to easily lock a Windows PC to a single application, such as a web browser. This feature makes it easy for anyone to configure Windows 8.1 devices as point-of-sale or other kiosk systems. In the past, setting up a Windows PC in kiosk mode involved much more work, requiring the use of third-party software, group policy, or Linux distributions designed around kiosk mode. Assigned Access is available on Windows 8.1 RT, Windows 8.1 Professional, and Windows 8.1 Enterprise. The standard edition of Windows 8.1 doesn’t support Assigned Access. Create a User Account for Assigned Access Rather than turn your entire computer into a locked-down kiosk system, Assigned Access allows you to create a separate user account that can only launch a single app — such as a web browser. To set this up, you must be logged into Windows as a user with administrator permissions. First, open the PC settings app — swipe in from the right or press Windows Key + C to open the charms bar, tap Settings, and tap Change PC settings. In the PC settings app, select Accounts and select Other accounts. Use the Add an account button to create a new Windows account. Select  the “Sign in without a Microsoft account” option and select Local account to create a local user account. You could also create a Microsoft account, but you may not want to do this if you just want a locked-down account with only browser access. If you need to install apps from the Windows Store to use in Assigned Access mode, you’ll have to set up a Microsoft account instead of a local account. A local account will still allow you access to the preinstalled apps, such as Internet Explorer. You may want to create a user account with a blank password. This would make it simple for anyone to access kiosk mode, even if the system becomes locked or needs to be rebooted. The account will be created as a standard user account with limited permissions. Leave it as a standard user account — don’t make it an administrator account. Set Up Assigned Access Once you’ve created an account, you’ll first need to sign into it. If you don’t, you’ll see a “This account has no apps” message when trying to enable Assigned Access. Go back to the welcome screen, log in to the new account you created, and allow Windows to go through the first-time account setup process. If you want to use a non-default app in kiosk mode, install it while logged in as that user account. Once you’re done, log out of the other account, log back in as your administrator account, and go back to the Other accounts screen. Click the Set up an account for assigned access option to continue. Select the user account you created and select the app you want to limit the account to. For a web-based kiosk, this can be a web browser such as the Modern version of Internet Explorer. Businesses can also create their own Modern apps and set them to run in kiosk mode in this way. Note that Microsoft’s documentation says “web browsers are not good choices for assigned access” because they require more permissions than average Modern (or “Windows Store”) apps. However, if you want to provide a kiosk for web-browsing, using Assigned Access is a much better option than using Guest Mode and offering up a full Windows desktop. When you’re done, restart your PC and log in as the Assigned Access account. Windows will automatically open the app you chose and won’t allow a user to leave that app. Standard Windows 8 features like the charms bar, app switcher, and Start screen won’t appear. Pressing the Windows key once will do nothing. To sign out of Assigned Access mode, press the Windows key five times — quickly — while signed in. You’ll be sent back to the standard login screen. The account will actually still be logged in and the app will remain running — this method just “locks” the screen and allows another user to log in. Automatically Log Into Assigned Access Whenever your Windows device boots, you can log into the Assigned Access account and turn it into a kiosk system. While this isn’t ideal for all kiosk systems, you may want the device to automatically launch the specific app when it boots without requiring any login process. To do so, you’ll just need to have Windows automatically log into the Assigned Access account when it boots. This option is hidden and not available in the standard Control Panel. You’ll need to use the hidden netplwiz Control Panel tool to set up automatic login on boot. If you didn’t create a password for the user account, leave the Password field empty while configuring this. Security Considerations If you’re using this feature to turn a Windows 8.1 system into a kiosk and leaving it open to the public, remember to consider security. Anyone could come up to the system, press the Windows key five times, and try to log into your standard administrator user account. Ensure the administrator user account has a strong password so people won’t be able to get past the kiosk system’s limitations and tamper with the system. Even Windows 8′s detractors have to admit that it’s an ideal system for a touch-screen kiosk device, running either a browser or another specific application. Assigned Access finally makes this easy to set up on Windows systems in the real world — no IT experience, third-party software, or Linux distributions necessary.     

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