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  • Transformation of Product Management in Telecommunications for Rapid Launch of Next Generation Products

    - by raul.goycoolea
    @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }a:link, span.MsoHyperlink { color: blue; text-decoration: underline; }a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed { color: purple; text-decoration: underline; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } The Telecom industry continues to evolve through disruptive products, uncertain markets, shorter product lifecycles and convergence of technologies. Today’s market has moved from network centric to consumer centric and focuses primarily on the customer experience. It has resulted in several product management challenges such as an increased complexity and volume of offerings, creating product variants, accelerating time-to-market, ability to provide multiple product views for varied stakeholders, leveraging OSS intelligence to BSS layer, product co-creation and increasing audit and security concerns for service providers. The document discusses how enterprise product management enabled by PLM-based product catalogue solutions helps to launch next generation products rapidly in the context of the Telecommunication Industry.   1.0.       Introduction   Figure 1: Business Scenario   Modern business demands the launch of complex products in a very short timeframe and effecting changes in the price plan faster without IT intervention. One of the key transformation initiatives companies are focusing on is in the area of product management transformation and operational efficiency improvement. As part of these initiatives, companies are investing in best- in-class COTs-based Product Management solutions developed on industry-wide standards.   The new COTs packages are planned to integrate with existing or new B/OSS systems to provide a strategic end-to-end agile solution for reduced time-to-market and order journey time. In addition, system rationalization is being undertaken to phase out legacy systems and migrate to strategic systems.   2.0.       An Overview of Product Management in Telecom   Product data in telecom is multi- dimensional and difficult to manage. It increased significantly due to the complexity of the product, product offerings on the converged network, increased volume of offerings, bundled offering structures and ever increasing regulatory requirements.   In addition, the shrinking product lifecycle in telecom makes it difficult to manage the dynamic product data. Mergers and acquisitions coupled with organic growth pose major challenges in product portfolio management. It is a roadblock in the journey towards becoming an agile organization.       Figure 2: Complexity in Product Management   Network Technology’ is the new dimension in telecom product management where the same products are realized through different networks i.e., Soiled network to Converged network. Consequently, the product solution is different.     Figure 3: Current Scenario - Pain Points in Product Management   The major business implications arising out of the current scenario are slow time-to-market and an inefficient process that affects innovation.   3.0. Transformation of Next Generation Product Management   Companies must focus on their Product Management Transformation Journey in the areas of:   ·       Management of single truth of product information across the organization/geographies which is currently managed in heterogeneous systems   ·       Management of the Intellectual Property (IP) on the product concept and partnership in the design of discrete components to integrate into the system   ·       Leveraging structured and unstructured product data within the extended enterprise to extract consumer insights and drive innovation   ·       Management of effective operational separation to comply with regulatory bodies   ·       Reuse of existing designs and add relevant features such as value-added services to enable effective product bundling     Figure 4: Next generation needs   PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions efficiently address the above requirements and act as an enabler towards product management transformation and rapid product launch.   4.0. PLM-based Enterprise Product Management     Figure 5: PLM-based Enterprise Product Mastering   Enterprise Product Management (EPM) enables the business to manage complex product attributes of data in complex environments. Product Mastering helps create a 'single view' of the product by creating a business-driven, IT-supported environment where a global 'single truth record' is created, managed and reused.   4.1 The Business Case for Telco PLM-based solutions for Enterprise Product Management   ·       Telco PLM-based Product Mastering solutions provide a centralized authoring environment for product definition and control of all product data and rules   ·       PLM packages are designed to support multiple perspectives of product data (ordering perspective, billing perspective, provisioning perspective)   ·       Maintains relationships/links between different elements of the entire product definition   ·       Telco PLM packages are specialized in next generation lifecycle management requirements of products such as revision and state management, test and release management, role management and impact analysis)   ·       Takes into consideration all aspects of OSS product requirements compared to CRM product catalogue solutions where the product data managed is mostly order oriented and transactional     ·       New breed of Telco PLM packages are designed with 'open' standards such as SID and eTOM. They are interoperable, support integration frameworks such as subscription and notification.   ·       Telco PLM packages have developed good collaboration frameworks to integrate suppliers and partners into the product development value chain   4.2 Various Architectures/Approaches for Product Mastering using Telco PLM systems   4. 2.a Single Central Product Management (Mastering) Approach   Figure 6: Single Central Product Management (Master) Approach       This approach is implemented across verticals such as aerospace and automotive. It focuses on a physically centralized product master to which other sources are dependent on. The product definition data (Product bundles, service bundles, price plans, offers and discounts, product configuration rules and market campaigns) is created and maintained physically in a centralized environment. In addition, the product definition/authoring environment is centralized. The existing legacy product definition data available in CRM product catalogue, billing catalogue and the legacy product catalogue is migrated to the centralized PLM-based Enterprise Product Management solution.   Architectural changes must be made in the existing business landscape of applications to create and revise data because the applications have to refer to the central repository for approvals and validation of product configurations. It is achieved by modifying how the applications write data or how the applications can be adapted to use the rules to be managed and published.   Complete product configuration validation will be done in enterprise / central product catalogue and final configuration will be sent to the B/OSS system through the SOA compliant product distribution architecture. The approach/architecture enables greater control in terms of product data management and product data governance.   4.2.b Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture     Figure 7: Federated Product Management (Mastering) Architecture   In the federated product mastering approach, the basic unique product definition data (product id, description product hierarchy, basic price plans and simple product design rules) will be centrally created and will be maintained. And, the advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers & discount plans) will be created in respective down stream OSS systems. The advanced product definition (Product bundling, promotions, offers and discount plans) will be created in respective downstream OSS systems.   For example, basic product definitions such as attributes, product hierarchy and basic price plans will be created and maintained in Enterprise/Central product reference catalogue and distributed to downstream OSS systems. Respective downstream OSS systems build product bundles, promotions, advanced price plans over the basic product definition and master the advanced product definition. Central reference database accesses the respective other source product master data and assembles a point-in-time consolidated view of the product. The approach is typically adapted in some merger and acquisition scenarios where there is a low probability of a central physical authority managing the data. In addition, the migration effort in this case is minimal and there are no big architectural changes to the organization application landscape. However, this approach will not result in better product data management and data governance.   5.0 Customer Scenario – Before EPC deployment   A leading global telecommunications service provider wanted to launch a quad play and triple play service offering in the shortest possible lead time. The service provider was offering Broadband and VoIP services to customers. The company wanted to reuse a majority of the Broadband services and price plans and bundle them with new wireless and IPTV services for quad play and triple play. The challenges in launching the new service offerings were:       Figure 8: Triple Play Plan   ·       Broadband product data was stored in multiple product catalogues (CRM catalogue, Billing catalogue, spread sheets)   ·       Product managers spent a lot of time performing tasks involving duplication or re-keying of data. Manual effort caused errors, cost and time over-runs.   ·       No effective product and price data governance mechanism. Price change issues arising from the lack of data consistency across systems resulted in leakage of customer value and revenue.   ·       Product data had re-usability issues and was not in a structured format. It resulted in uncontrolled product portfolio creation and product management issues.   ·       Lack of enterprise product model resulted into product distribution challenges and thus delays in product launch.   ·       Designers are constrained by existing legacy product management solutions to model product/service requirements and product configuration rules such as upgrading, downgrading and cross selling.    5.1 Customer Scenario - After EPC deployment     Figure 9: SOA-based end-to-end EPC Solution   The company deployed PLM-based Enterprise Product Catalogue solutions to launch quad play service after evaluating various product catalogues. The broadband product offering, service and price data were migrated to the new system, and the product and price plan hierarchy for new offerings were created using the entities defined in the Enterprise Product Model. Supplier product catalogue data such as routers and set up boxes were loaded onto the new solution through SOA-based web service. Price plans and configuration rules were built in the new system. The validated final product configurations were extracted from the product catalogue in a SID format and were distributed to the downstream B/OSS systems through exposed SOA-based web services. The transformations required for the B/OSS system were handled using the transformation layer as part of the solution.   6.0 How PLM enabled Product Management Transformation         Figure 10: Product Management Transformation     PLM-based Product Catalogue Solution helped the customer reduce the product launch cycle time by 30% and enable transformation of Product Management for next generation services.   7.0 Conclusion   On the one hand, the telecom industry is undergoing changes due to disruptions, uncertain product markets and increased complexity of products. On the other hand, the ARPU is decreasing year-on-year. Communications Service Providers are embarking on convergence, bundled service offerings, flexibility to cross-sell and up-sell, introduce new value-added services, leverage Web 2.0 concepts and network capabilities. Consequently, large scale IT transformation initiatives to improve their ARPU supporting network and business transformations are a business imperative. Product Management has become a focus area. Companies are investing in best-in- class COTS solutions to reduce time-to-market, ensure rapid service delivery and improve operational efficiency. An efficient PLM-based enterprise product mastering solution plays a key role in achieving zero touch automation and rapid product launch.   References:   1.     Preston G.Smith, Donald G.Reineristsem, Van Nostrand Reinhold “Developing Products in Half the time”.   2.     John G. Innes, "Achieving Successful Product Change", Pitman Publishing.   3.     D T Pham and R M Setchi (16th Jan, 2001) "Authoring environment for documentation development" University of Wales Cardiff, U.K., Proceedings on Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 215, Part B.   4.     Oracle Product Hub for Communications:   http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/master-data-management/product-hub-082059.html  

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 31, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 31, 2011Popular ReleasesNearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v6.0: Version 6.0 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine, containing new features: Authentication using Membership Provider for SQL Server and MySql Spam prevention: Flood Control Moderation: Flag messages Content management: Pages: Create pages (about us/contact/texts) through web administration Allow nearforums to run as an IIS subapp Migrated Facebook Connect to OAuth 2.0 Visit the project Roadmap for more details.NetOffice - The easiest way to use Office in .NET: NetOffice Release 0.8b: Changes: - fix critical issue 15922(AccessViolationException) once and for all update is strongly recommended Includes: - Runtime Binaries and Source Code for .NET Framework:......v2.0, v3.0, v3.5, v4.0 - Tutorials in C# and VB.Net:..............................................................COM Proxy Management, Events, etc. - Examples in C# and VB.Net:............................................................Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access - COMAddin Examples in C# and VB....Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 1.5.4186: Updates the API in response to Facebook's recent change of policy: All Graph Api accessing feeds or posts must provide a AccessToken.SharePoint Farm Poster: SharePoint Farm Poster: SharePoint Farm Poster is generated by a PowerShell Script. Run this script under the Farm Admin Account. After downloading, unblock the file in the Property Window. Current version is beta : v0.3.0VCC: Latest build, v2.1.40530.0: Automatic drop of latest buildServiio for Windows Home Server: Beta Release 0.5.2.0: Ready for widespread beta. Synchronized build number to Serviio version to avoid confusion.AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta4: ??AcDown?????????????,??????????????,????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??:????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64),?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta4 2011-5-31?? ???Bilibili.us????? ???? ?? ???"????" ???Bilibili.us??? ??????? ?? ??????? ?? ???????? ?? ?? ???Bilibili.us?????(??????????????????) ??????(6.cn)?????(????) ?? ?????Acfun?????????? ?????????????? ???QQ???????? ????????????Discussion...Terraria Map Generator: TerrariaMapTool 1.0.0.2 Beta: Version 1.0.0.2 Beta Release - Now has a Gui - Draws backgrounds (May still not be exact) - Hopefully fixed support on DirectX 9 machine.CodeCopy Auto Code Converter: Code Copy v0.1: Full add-in, setup project source code and setup fileEnhSim: EnhSim 2.4.5 ALPHA: 2.4.5 ALPHAThis release supports WoW patch 4.1 at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Added in the T12 s...TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v2.4.1: Added Piggy Bank editor and fixed some minor bugs.Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.02: What is new in kooboo cms 3.02 The most important updates of this version is the Kooboo site builder, an unique and creative web design tool, design an professional website and export to Kooboo CMS. See: http://www.sitekin.com Add Version contorl on View, Layout and other elements. Add user CMS language selection, user can select a language to use on their CMS backend. Add User profile provider, you can use now stop website user information on a SQL database. Previously it stored on XML...mojoPortal: 2.3.6.6: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2366-released Note that we have separate deployment packages for .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0 The deployment package downloads on this page are pre-compiled and ready for production deployment, they contain no C# source code. To download the source code see the Source Code Tab I recommend getting the latest source code using TortoiseHG, you can get the source code corresponding to this release here.Terraria World Creator: Terraria World Creator: Version 1.01 Fixed a bug that would cause the application to crash. Re-named the Application.VidCoder: 0.9.0: New startup UI for one-click scanning of discs or opening a file/folder. New seek bar on the preview window to make switching previews easier (you can click anywhere on the bar). Added gradient backgrounds to the main window to visually group the sections. Added Open Video File and Open Video Folder options to the File menu. Moved preview button to be in line with the other control buttons. Fixed settings getting in a weird state if they were saved without an output folder being chos...General Media Access WebService: 0.2.0.0 Beta: Updated GMA release with sorting/ordering mechanisms. Several bug fixes.Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: All-In-One Code Framework 2011-05-26: Alternatively, you can install Sample Browser or Sample Browser VS extension, and download the code samples from Sample Browser. Improved and Newly Added Examples:For an up-to-date code sample index, please refer to All-In-One Code Framework Sample Catalog. NEW Samples for Dynamics Sample Description Owner CSDynamicsNAVWebServices The code sample shows syntax for calling Dynamics NAV Web Services. Lars Lohndorf-Larsen NEW Samples for WPF Sample Description Owner CSWPFDataGridCustomS...Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.1: Update May 26th Added Chest Filtering, this allows chests only containing certain items to have their symbol drawn. (Its under advanced settings tab) GUI elements (checkboxes/etc) are persistant between uses of the application Beta Worlds (i.e. Release #38) will work properly Symbols can be enabled or disabled on a per symbol basis Chest Information tab which is just a dump of the current chest information Meterorite is now visible as a bright magenta pink Application defaults to ...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.1 RC: *Added: Compatibility with jQuery 1.6.1 Rendering of enumerables with images and/or customizable strings improved the client side tempate engine added new parameters to the template definition binding all new knockout bindings helpers have been fully implemented added a new overload for defining the client-side ViewModel The SetTme method has the option to store the theme in a permanent cookie If no CSS class is provided for the watermark of a TypedTextBox the watermark class of the current t...patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk - Documentation Only Drop - May 24: To get the latest code, please see the previous drop here. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The following chapters (provided in CHM or PDF format) are ready for community review. Our team very much appreciates your feedback and technical review. All documentation feedback should be posted in the Issue Tracker; if required, a document can be attached along with the feedback. Architecture jQuery UI Widgets Server-Side Implementation Security Unit Testing Web Applications Widget Q...New Projects#liveDB: liveDB is an in-memory database engine for Microsoft .NET providing full ACID support, lightning fast performance and offering a significant reduction of development and operational costs. liveDB is built on Live Domain Technology(TM).8 hours: 8hours Private studyABox2d: A port of Box 2d game engine doing it has an exercise to study how the game engine work.ADempiere.NET: If I have enough time and support I we will translate this into .NETAlmonaster: Almonaster is a turn-based multi-player war game. It is free for all players and comes with absolutely no warranty. The game is fully web-based and requires no downloads, Javascript, Java or ActiveX controls. ASPone API: ASPone partnerské API (aplikacní programové rozhraní) je rozhraní pro vytvorené a urcené pro partnery spolecnosti ASPone, s.r.o. Pomocí tohoto aplikacního rozhraní mužete zautomatizovat radu úkonu, které by pomocí webového rozhraní mohly být casove nárocnejší nebo vyžadují interakci cloveka. API umožnuje zautomatizovat radu úkonu souvisejících se správou domén, doménových kontaktu, webhostingu, databází, serveru a mnoha dalších. Pro zjednodušení práce s API jsou již pripraveni dva ukázkový...CodeCopy Auto Code Converter: This add-in project converts c# and vb.net codes in visual studio.drms: Data Resource Management SystemDrop Down CheckBoxList control (DropDownCheckBoxes): DropDownCheckBoxes is an ASP.NET server control directly inheriting standard ASP.NET CheckBoxList control and fully it supports parent's API (except members responsible for rendering and styling). Thus in most cases CheckBoxList control can be simply replaced with DropDownCheckBoxes with no need to change any data binding code or event handlers. In normal state the control is displayed as a select (DropDownList) control. Clicking the expand button shows a list with check boxes. When the se...Extended Registration module for Orchard CMS: This project has a dependency on the Contrib.Profile module. With this module enabled, users must fill out any parts you add to the User ContentItem in the Registration page. Ideal if you require additional information from your users.GreenWay: Car navigation softwareHost Profiles: Host Profiles is small tool to control, switch and management the hosts file of the computer. The hosts file is located in "c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts".HRM System MVVM sample code: This is the sample WPF MVVM application that i've described in my blog posts. I hope to give you a clear view of mvvm and other commonly used patterns.Mi Game Library: Ever wanted to store all the games you own into one place that you, could then later come see and search also with your own personal wish list!Micorrhiza: Micorrhiza is a client-server solution written in C# for voice- and video-communications between users in local and global networks.MPlayer.NET for Windows Forms & WPF: MPlayer.NET is a wrapper around MPlayer executable. It's developed on .NET platform and includes visual controls for both Windows Forms and WPF applications.MyGet - NuGet-as-a-Service: This project is the source for http://myget.org. MyGet offers you the possibility to create your own, private, filtered NuGet feed for use in the Visual Studio Package Manager. It can contain packages from the official NuGet feed as well as your private packages, hosted on MyGet.MZExtensions: A collection of handy C# Extension Methods.NCAds: NCadsNetSync: Universal file synchronization agent.OLE 1C7.7: OLE 1C7.7 ?????????? ??????? ??? ??????? ? 1?7.7 ????????? OLE ??????????.Pear 2.5: Pear 2.5 is a web browser which has MetroUI which is also known for WP7. Pear 2.5's graphics is totally made up with MetroUI and looks stunning when browse. This version has 3 builds - 2 alpha builds and 1 gamma delta (beta) build. It's developed in VB.NET which is the easiest.ProjectOne: ProjectOne is a Open Community Information Sharing Website regarding Realty as its primary source.russomi: russomiSopaco Server Foundation 1.x: The one earlier version of my server infrastructure(SSF, Sopaco Server Foundation 1.x, owned by ??)。 Network Layer Based On MINA, message meta in 1.x is hard coded to 6bytes message header like this struct NetworkMessageHeader { short msgId; int msgLength; } struct NetworkMTray Timer: A simple timer/stopwatch which runs fromt he system tray. I started it as a hobby learning project to understand the Win32 API. Now open sourcing it to get more inputs about the same, and at the same time it may prove helpful to othersVENSOFT DIPERCAX: Proyecto Final del Curso de Proyectos II de la Universidad Privada del NorteWindows Phone Blog Menu: A Silverlight navigation control that looks like a Windows Phone 7. The live tiles are links to websites. Use this control on your blog or website to show your love for WP7. It is a creative way to link to external sites you are interested in.

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  • Is Social Media The Vital Skill You Aren’t Tracking?

    - by HCM-Oracle
    By Mark Bennett - Originally featured in Talent Management Excellence The ever-increasing presence of the workforce on social media presents opportunities as well as risks for organizations. While on the one hand, we read about social media embarrassments happening to organizations, on the other we see that social media activities by workers and candidates can enhance a company’s brand and provide insight into what individuals are, or can become, influencers in the social media sphere. HR can play a key role in helping organizations make the most value out of the activities and presence of workers and candidates, while at the same time also helping to manage the risks that come with the permanence and viral nature of social media. What is Missing from Understanding Our Workforce? “If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three-times more productive.”  Lew Platt, Former Chairman, President, CEO, Hewlett-Packard  What Lew Platt recognized was that organizations only have a partial understanding of what their workforce is capable of. This lack of understanding impacts the company in several negative ways: 1. A particular skill that the company needs to access in one part of the organization might exist somewhere else, but there is no record that the skill exists, so the need is unfulfilled. 2. As market conditions change rapidly, the company needs to know strategic options, but some options are missed entirely because the company doesn’t know that sufficient capability already exists to enable those options. 3. Employees may miss out on opportunities to demonstrate how their hidden skills could create new value to the company. Why don’t companies have that more complete picture of their workforce capabilities – that is, not know what they know? One very good explanation is that companies put most of their efforts into rating their workforce according to the jobs and roles they are filling today. This is the essence of two important talent management processes: recruiting and performance appraisals.  In recruiting, a set of requirements is put together for a job, either explicitly or indirectly through a job description. During the recruiting process, much of the attention is paid towards whether the candidate has the qualifications, the skills, the experience and the cultural fit to be successful in the role. This makes a lot of sense.  In the performance appraisal process, an employee is measured on how well they performed the functions of their role and in an effort to help the employee do even better next time, they are also measured on proficiency in the competencies that are deemed to be key in doing that job. Again, the logic is impeccable.  But in both these cases, two adages come to mind: 1. What gets measured is what gets managed. 2. You only see what you are looking for. In other words, the fact that the current roles the workforce are performing are the basis for measuring which capabilities the workforce has, makes them the only capabilities to be measured. What was initially meant to be a positive, i.e. identify what is needed to perform well and measure it, in order that it can be managed, comes with the unintended negative consequence of overshadowing the other capabilities the workforce has. This also comes with an employee engagement price, for the measurements and management of workforce capabilities is to typically focus on where the workforce comes up short. Again, it makes sense to do this, since improving a capability that appears to result in improved performance benefits, both the individual through improved performance ratings and the company through improved productivity. But this is based on the assumption that the capabilities identified and their required proficiencies are the only attributes of the individual that matter. Anything else the individual brings that results in high performance, while resulting in a desired performance outcome, often goes unrecognized or underappreciated at best. As social media begins to occupy a more important part in current and future roles in organizations, businesses must incorporate social media savvy and innovation into job descriptions and expectations. These new measures could provide insight into how well someone can use social media tools to influence communities and decision makers; keep abreast of trends in fast-moving industries; present a positive brand image for the organization around thought leadership, customer focus, social responsibility; and coordinate and collaborate with partners. These measures should demonstrate the “social capital” the individual has invested in and developed over time. Without this dimension, “short cut” methods may generate a narrow set of positive metrics that do not have real, long-lasting benefits to the organization. How Workforce Reputation Management Helps HR Harness Social Media With hundreds of petabytes of social media data flowing across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, businesses are tapping technology solutions to effectively leverage social for HR. Workforce reputation management technology helps organizations discover, mobilize and retain talent by providing insight into the social reputation and influence of the workforce while also helping organizations monitor employee social media policy compliance and mitigate social media risk.  There are three major ways that workforce reputation management technology can play a strategic role to support HR: 1. Improve Awareness and Decisions on Talent Many organizations measure the skills and competencies that they know they need today, but are unaware of what other skills and competencies their workforce has that could be essential tomorrow. How about whether your workforce has the reputation and influence to make their skills and competencies more effective? Many organizations don’t have insight into the social media “reach” their workforce has, which is becoming more critical to business performance. These features help organizations, managers, and employees improve many talent processes and decision making, including the following: Hiring and Assignments. People and teams with higher reputations are considered more valuable and effective workers. Someone with high reputation who refers a candidate also can have high credibility as a source for hires.   Training and Development. Reputation trend analysis can impact program decisions regarding training offerings by showing how reputation and influence across the workforce changes in concert with training. Worker reputation impacts development plans and goal choices by helping the individual see which development efforts result in improved reputation and influence.   Finding Hidden Talent. Managers can discover hidden talent and skills amongst employees based on a combination of social profile information and social media reputation. Employees can improve their personal brand and accelerate their career development.  2. Talent Search and Discovery The right technology helps organizations find information on people that might otherwise be hidden. By leveraging access to candidate and worker social profiles as well as their social relationships, workforce reputation management provides companies with a more complete picture of what their knowledge, skills, and attributes are and what they can in turn access. This more complete information helps to find the right talent both outside the organization as well as the right, perhaps previously hidden talent, within the organization to fill roles and staff projects, particularly those roles and projects that are required in reaction to fast-changing opportunities and circumstances. 3. Reputation Brings Credibility Workforce reputation management technology provides a clearer picture of how candidates and workers are viewed by their peers and communities across a wide range of social reputation and influence metrics. This information is less subject to individual bias and can impact critical decision-making. Knowing the individual’s reputation and influence enables the organization to predict how well their capabilities and behaviors will have a positive effect on desired business outcomes. Many roles that have the highest impact on overall business performance are dependent on the individual’s influence and reputation. In addition, reputation and influence measures offer a very tangible source of feedback for workers, providing them with insight that helps them develop themselves and their careers and see the effectiveness of those efforts by tracking changes over time in their reputation and influence. The following are some examples of the different reputation and influence measures of the workforce that Workforce Reputation Management could gather and analyze: Generosity – How often the user reposts other’s posts. Influence – How often the user’s material is reposted by others.  Engagement – The ratio of recent posts with references (e.g. links to other posts) to the total number of posts.  Activity – How frequently the user posts. (e.g. number per day)  Impact – The size of the users’ social networks, which indicates their ability to reach unique followers, friends, or users.   Clout – The number of references and citations of the user’s material in others’ posts.  The Vital Ingredient of Workforce Reputation Management: Employee Participation “Nothing about me, without me.” Valerie Billingham, “Through the Patient’s Eyes”, Salzburg Seminar Session 356, 1998 Since data resides primarily in social media, a question arises: what manner is used to collect that data? While much of social media activity is publicly accessible (as many who wished otherwise have learned to their chagrin), the social norms of social media have developed to put some restrictions on what is acceptable behavior and by whom. Disregarding these norms risks a repercussion firestorm. One of the more recognized norms is that while individuals can follow and engage with other individual’s public social activity (e.g. Twitter updates) fairly freely, the more an organization does this unprompted and without getting permission from the individual beforehand, the more likely the organization risks a totally opposite outcome from the one desired. Instead, the organization must look for permission from the individual, which can be met with resistance. That resistance comes from not knowing how the information will be used, how it will be shared with others, and not receiving enough benefit in return for granting permission. As the quote above about patient concerns and rights succinctly states, no one likes not feeling in control of the information about themselves, or the uncertainty about where it will be used. This is well understood in consumer social media (i.e. permission-based marketing) and is applicable to workforce reputation management. However, asking permission leaves open the very real possibility that no one, or so few, will grant permission, resulting in a small set of data with little usefulness for the company. Connecting Individual Motivation to Organization Needs So what is it that makes an individual decide to grant an organization access to the data it wants? It is when the individual’s own motivations are in alignment with the organization’s objectives. In the case of workforce reputation management, when the individual is motivated by a desire for increased visibility and career growth opportunities to advertise their skills and level of influence and reputation, they are aligned with the organizations’ objectives; to fill resource needs or strategically build better awareness of what skills are present in the workforce, as well as levels of influence and reputation. Individuals can see the benefit of granting access permission to the company through multiple means. One is through simple social awareness; they begin to discover that peers who are getting more career opportunities are those who are signed up for workforce reputation management. Another is where companies take the message directly to the individual; we think you would benefit from signing up with our workforce reputation management solution. Another, more strategic approach is to make reputation management part of a larger Career Development effort by the company; providing a wide set of tools to help the workforce find ways to plan and take action to achieve their career aspirations in the organization. An effective mechanism, that facilitates connecting the visibility and career growth motivations of the workforce with the larger context of the organization’s business objectives, is to use game mechanics to help individuals transform their career goals into concrete, actionable steps, such as signing up for reputation management. This works in favor of companies looking to use workforce reputation because the workforce is more apt to see how it fits into achieving their overall career goals, as well as seeing how other participation brings additional benefits.  Once an individual has signed up with reputation management, not only have they made themselves more visible within the organization and increased their career growth opportunities, they have also enabled a tool that they can use to better understand how their actions and behaviors impact their influence and reputation. Since they will be able to see their reputation and influence measurements change over time, they will gain better insight into how reputation and influence impacts their effectiveness in a role, as well as how their behaviors and skill levels in turn affect their influence and reputation. This insight can trigger much more directed, and effective, efforts by the individual to improve their ability to perform at a higher level and become more productive. The increased sense of autonomy the individual experiences, in linking the insight they gain to the actions and behavior changes they make, greatly enhances their engagement with their role as well as their career prospects within the company. Workforce reputation management takes the wide range of disparate data about the workforce being produced across various social media platforms and transforms it into accessible, relevant, and actionable information that helps the organization achieve its desired business objectives. Social media holds untapped insights about your talent, brand and business, and workforce reputation management can help unlock them. Imagine - if you could find the hidden secrets of your businesses, how much more productive and efficient would your organization be? Mark Bennett is a Director of Product Strategy at Oracle. Mark focuses on setting the strategic vision and direction for tools that help organizations understand, shape, and leverage the capabilities of their workforce to achieve business objectives, as well as help individuals work effectively to achieve their goals and navigate their own growth. His combination of a deep technical background in software design and development, coupled with a broad knowledge of business challenges and thinking in today’s globalized, rapidly changing, technology accelerated economy, has enabled him to identify and incorporate key innovations that are central to Oracle Fusion’s unique value proposition. Mark has over the course of his career been in charge of the design, development, and strategy of Talent Management products and the design and development of cutting edge software that is better equipped to handle the increasingly complex demands of users while also remaining easy to use. Follow him @mpbennett

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  • EM12c Release 4: New Compliance features including DB STIG Standard

    - by DaveWolf
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Enterprise Manager’s compliance framework is a powerful and robust feature that provides users the ability to continuously validate their target configurations against a specified standard. Enterprise Manager’s compliance library is filled with a wide variety of standards based on Oracle’s recommendations, best practices and security guidelines. These standards can be easily associated to a target to generate a report showing its degree of conformance to that standard. ( To get an overview of  Database compliance management in Enterprise Manager see this screenwatch. ) Starting with release 12.1.0.4 of Enterprise Manager the compliance library will contain a new standard based on the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) for Oracle Database 11g. According to the DISA website, “The STIGs contain technical guidance to ‘lock down’ information systems/software that might otherwise be vulnerable to a malicious computer attack.” In essence, a STIG is a technical checklist an administrator can follow to secure a system or software. Many US government entities are required to follow these standards however many non-US government entities and commercial companies base their standards directly or partially on these STIGs. You can find more information about the Oracle Database and other STIGs on the DISA website. The Oracle Database 11g STIG consists of two categories of checks, installation and instance. Installation checks focus primarily on the security of the Oracle Home while the instance checks focus on the configuration of the running database instance itself. If you view the STIG compliance standard in Enterprise Manager, you will see the rules organized into folders corresponding to these categories. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 -"/ /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The rule names contain a rule ID ( DG0020 for example ) which directly map to the check name in the STIG checklist along with a helpful brief description. The actual description field contains the text from the STIG documentation to aid in understanding the purpose of the check. All of the rules have also been documented in the Oracle Database Compliance Standards reference documentation. In order to use this standard both the OMS and agent must be at version 12.1.0.4 as it takes advantage of several features new in this release including: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Agent-Side Compliance Rules Manual Compliance Rules Violation Suppression Additional BI Publisher Compliance Reports /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Agent-Side Compliance Rules Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Agent-side compliance rules are essentially the result of a tighter integration between Configuration Extensions and Compliance Rules. If you ever created customer compliance content in past versions of Enterprise Manager, you likely used Configuration Extensions to collect additional information into the EM repository so it could be used in a Repository compliance rule. This process although powerful, could be confusing to correctly model the SQL in the rule creation wizard. With agent-side rules, the user only needs to choose the Configuration Extension/Alias combination and that’s it. Enterprise Manager will do the rest for you. This tighter integration also means their lifecycle is managed together. When you associate an agent-side compliance standard to a target, the required Configuration Extensions will be deployed automatically for you. The opposite is also true, when you unassociated the compliance standard, the Configuration Extensions will also be undeployed. The Oracle Database STIG compliance standard is implemented as an agent-side standard which is why you simply need to associate the standard to your database targets without previously deploying the associated Configuration Extensions. You can learn more about using Agent-Side compliance rules in the screenwatch Using Agent-Side Compliance Rules on Enterprise Manager's Lifecycle Management page on OTN. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Manual Compliance Rules Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} There are many checks in the Oracle Database STIG as well as other common standards which simply cannot be automated. This could be something as simple as “Ensure the datacenter entrance is secured.” or complex as Oracle Database STIG Rule DG0186 – “The database should not be directly accessible from public or unauthorized networks”. These checks require a human to perform and attest to its successful completion. Enterprise Manager now supports these types of checks in Manual rules. When first associated to a target, each manual rule will generate a single violation. These violations must be manually cleared by a user who is in essence attesting to its successful completion. The user is able to permanently clear the violation or give a future date on which the violation will be regenerated. Setting a future date is useful when policy dictates a periodic re-validation of conformance wherein the user will have to reperform the check. The optional reason field gives the user an opportunity to provide details of the check results. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Violation Suppression There are situations that require the need to permanently or temporarily suppress a legitimate violation or finding. These include approved exceptions and grace periods. Enterprise Manager now supports the ability to temporarily or permanently suppress a violation. Unlike when you clear a manual rule violation, suppression simply removes the violation from the compliance results UI and in turn its negative impact on the score. The violation still remains in the EM repository and can be accounted for in compliance reports. Temporarily suppressing a violation can give users a grace period in which to address an issue. If the issue is not addressed within the specified period, the violation will reappear in the results automatically. Again the user may enter a reason for the suppression which will be permanently saved with the event along with the suppressing user ID. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Additional BI Publisher compliance reports As I am sure you have learned by now, BI Publisher now ships and is integrated with Enterprise Manager 12.1.0.4. This means users can take full advantage of the powerful reporting engine by using the Oracle provided reports or building their own. There are many new compliance related reports available in 12.1.0.4 covering all aspects including the association status, library as well as summary and detailed results reports.  10 New Compliance Reports Compliance Summary Report Example showing STIG results Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Conclusion Together with the Oracle Database 11g STIG compliance standard these features provide a complete solution for easily auditing and reporting the security posture of your Oracle Databases against this well known benchmark. You can view an overview presentation and demo in the screenwatch Using the STIG Compliance Standard on Enterprise Manager's Lifecycle Management page on OTN. Additional EM12c Compliance Management Information Compliance Management - Overview ( Presentation ) Compliance Management - Custom Compliance on Default Data (How To) Compliance Management - Custom Compliance using SQL Configuration Extension (How To) Compliance Management - Customer Compliance using Command Configuration Extension (How To)

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  • Windows Azure: Announcing release of Windows Azure SDK 2.2 (with lots of goodies)

    - by ScottGu
    Earlier today I blogged about a big update we made today to Windows Azure, and some of the great new features it provides. Today I’m also excited to also announce the release of the Windows Azure SDK 2.2. Today’s SDK release adds even more great features including: Visual Studio 2013 Support Integrated Windows Azure Sign-In support within Visual Studio Remote Debugging Cloud Services with Visual Studio Firewall Management support within Visual Studio for SQL Databases Visual Studio 2013 RTM VM Images for MSDN Subscribers Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET Updated Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets and ScriptCenter The below post has more details on what’s available in today’s Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release.  Also head over to Channel 9 to see the new episode of the Visual Studio Toolbox show that will be available shortly, and which highlights these features in a video demonstration. Visual Studio 2013 Support Version 2.2 of the Window Azure SDK is the first official version of the SDK to support the final RTM release of Visual Studio 2013. If you installed the 2.1 SDK with the Preview of Visual Studio 2013 we recommend that you upgrade your projects to SDK 2.2.  SDK 2.2 also works side by side with the SDK 2.0 and SDK 2.1 releases on Visual Studio 2012: Integrated Windows Azure Sign In within Visual Studio Integrated Windows Azure Sign-In support within Visual Studio is one of the big improvements added with this Windows Azure SDK release.  Integrated sign-in support enables developers to develop/test/manage Windows Azure resources within Visual Studio without having to download or use management certificates.  You can now just right-click on the “Windows Azure” icon within the Server Explorer inside Visual Studio and choose the “Connect to Windows Azure” context menu option to connect to Windows Azure: Doing this will prompt you to enter the email address of the account you wish to sign-in with: You can use either a Microsoft Account (e.g. Windows Live ID) or an Organizational account (e.g. Active Directory) as the email.  The dialog will update with an appropriate login prompt depending on which type of email address you enter: Once you sign-in you’ll see the Windows Azure resources that you have permissions to manage show up automatically within the Visual Studio Server Explorer (and you can start using them): With this new integrated sign in experience you are now able to publish web apps, deploy VMs and cloud services, use Windows Azure diagnostics, and fully interact with your Windows Azure services within Visual Studio without the need for a management certificate.  All of the authentication is handled using the Windows Azure Active Directory associated with your Windows Azure account (details on this can be found in my earlier blog post). Integrating authentication this way end-to-end across the Service Management APIs + Dev Tools + Management Portal + PowerShell automation scripts enables a much more secure and flexible security model within Windows Azure, and makes it much more convenient to securely manage multiple developers + administrators working on a project.  It also allows organizations and enterprises to use the same authentication model that they use for their developers on-premises in the cloud.  It also ensures that employees who leave an organization immediately lose access to their company’s cloud based resources once their Active Directory account is suspended. Filtering/Subscription Management Once you login within Visual Studio, you can filter which Windows Azure subscriptions/regions are visible within the Server Explorer by right-clicking the “Filter Services” context menu within the Server Explorer.  You can also use the “Manage Subscriptions” context menu to mange your Windows Azure Subscriptions: Bringing up the “Manage Subscriptions” dialog allows you to see which accounts you are currently using, as well as which subscriptions are within them: The “Certificates” tab allows you to continue to import and use management certificates to manage Windows Azure resources as well.  We have not removed any functionality with today’s update – all of the existing scenarios that previously supported management certificates within Visual Studio continue to work just fine.  The new integrated sign-in support provided with today’s release is purely additive. Note: the SQL Database node and the Mobile Service node in Server Explorer do not support integrated sign-in at this time. Therefore, you will only see databases and mobile services under those nodes if you have a management certificate to authorize access to them.  We will enable them with integrated sign-in in a future update. Remote Debugging Cloud Resources within Visual Studio Today’s Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release adds support for remote debugging many types of Windows Azure resources. With live, remote debugging support from within Visual Studio, you are now able to have more visibility than ever before into how your code is operating live in Windows Azure.  Let’s walkthrough how to enable remote debugging for a Cloud Service: Remote Debugging of Cloud Services To enable remote debugging for your cloud service, select Debug as the Build Configuration on the Common Settings tab of your Cloud Service’s publish dialog wizard: Then click the Advanced Settings tab and check the Enable Remote Debugging for all roles checkbox: Once your cloud service is published and running live in the cloud, simply set a breakpoint in your local source code: Then use Visual Studio’s Server Explorer to select the Cloud Service instance deployed in the cloud, and then use the Attach Debugger context menu on the role or to a specific VM instance of it: Once the debugger attaches to the Cloud Service, and a breakpoint is hit, you’ll be able to use the rich debugging capabilities of Visual Studio to debug the cloud instance remotely, in real-time, and see exactly how your app is running in the cloud. Today’s remote debugging support is super powerful, and makes it much easier to develop and test applications for the cloud.  Support for remote debugging Cloud Services is available as of today, and we’ll also enable support for remote debugging Web Sites shortly. Firewall Management Support with SQL Databases By default we enable a security firewall around SQL Databases hosted within Windows Azure.  This ensures that only your application (or IP addresses you approve) can connect to them and helps make your infrastructure secure by default.  This is great for protection at runtime, but can sometimes be a pain at development time (since by default you can’t connect/manage the database remotely within Visual Studio if the security firewall blocks your instance of VS from connecting to it). One of the cool features we’ve added with today’s release is support that makes it easy to enable and configure the security firewall directly within Visual Studio.  Now with the SDK 2.2 release, when you try and connect to a SQL Database using the Visual Studio Server Explorer, and a firewall rule prevents access to the database from your machine, you will be prompted to add a firewall rule to enable access from your local IP address: You can simply click Add Firewall Rule and a new rule will be automatically added for you. In some cases, the logic to detect your local IP may not be sufficient (for example: you are behind a corporate firewall that uses a range of IP addresses) and you may need to set up a firewall rule for a range of IP addresses in order to gain access. The new Add Firewall Rule dialog also makes this easy to do.  Once connected you’ll be able to manage your SQL Database directly within the Visual Studio Server Explorer: This makes it much easier to work with databases in the cloud. Visual Studio 2013 RTM Virtual Machine Images Available for MSDN Subscribers Last week we released the General Availability Release of Visual Studio 2013 to the web.  This is an awesome release with a ton of new features. With today’s Windows Azure update we now have a set of pre-configured VM images of VS 2013 available within the Windows Azure Management Portal for use by MSDN customers.  This enables you to create a VM in the cloud with VS 2013 pre-installed on it in with only a few clicks: Windows Azure now provides the fastest and easiest way to get started doing development with Visual Studio 2013. Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET (Preview) Having the ability to automate the creation, deployment, and tear down of resources is a key requirement for applications running in the cloud.  It also helps immensely when running dev/test scenarios and coded UI tests against pre-production environments. Today we are releasing a preview of a new set of Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET.  These new libraries make it easy to automate tasks using any .NET language (e.g. C#, VB, F#, etc).  Previously this automation capability was only available through the Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets or to developers who were willing to write their own wrappers for the Windows Azure Service Management REST API. Modern .NET Developer Experience We’ve worked to design easy-to-understand .NET APIs that still map well to the underlying REST endpoints, making sure to use and expose the modern .NET functionality that developers expect today: Portable Class Library (PCL) support targeting applications built for any .NET Platform (no platform restriction) Shipped as a set of focused NuGet packages with minimal dependencies to simplify versioning Support async/await task based asynchrony (with easy sync overloads) Shared infrastructure for common error handling, tracing, configuration, HTTP pipeline manipulation, etc. Factored for easy testability and mocking Built on top of popular libraries like HttpClient and Json.NET Below is a list of a few of the management client classes that are shipping with today’s initial preview release: .NET Class Name Supports Operations for these Assets (and potentially more) ManagementClient Locations Credentials Subscriptions Certificates ComputeManagementClient Hosted Services Deployments Virtual Machines Virtual Machine Images & Disks StorageManagementClient Storage Accounts WebSiteManagementClient Web Sites Web Site Publish Profiles Usage Metrics Repositories VirtualNetworkManagementClient Networks Gateways Automating Creating a Virtual Machine using .NET Let’s walkthrough an example of how we can use the new Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET to fully automate creating a Virtual Machine. I’m deliberately showing a scenario with a lot of custom options configured – including VHD image gallery enumeration, attaching data drives, network endpoints + firewall rules setup - to show off the full power and richness of what the new library provides. We’ll begin with some code that demonstrates how to enumerate through the built-in Windows images within the standard Windows Azure VM Gallery.  We’ll search for the first VM image that has the word “Windows” in it and use that as our base image to build the VM from.  We’ll then create a cloud service container in the West US region to host it within: We can then customize some options on it such as setting up a computer name, admin username/password, and hostname.  We’ll also open up a remote desktop (RDP) endpoint through its security firewall: We’ll then specify the VHD host and data drives that we want to mount on the Virtual Machine, and specify the size of the VM we want to run it in: Once everything has been set up the call to create the virtual machine is executed asynchronously In a few minutes we’ll then have a completely deployed VM running on Windows Azure with all of the settings (hard drives, VM size, machine name, username/password, network endpoints + firewall settings) fully configured and ready for us to use: Preview Availability via NuGet The Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET are now available via NuGet. Because they are still in preview form, you’ll need to add the –IncludePrerelease switch when you go to retrieve the packages. The Package Manager Console screen shot below demonstrates how to get the entire set of libraries to manage your Windows Azure assets: You can also install them within your .NET projects by right clicking on the VS Solution Explorer and using the Manage NuGet Packages context menu command.  Make sure to select the “Include Prerelease” drop-down for them to show up, and then you can install the specific management libraries you need for your particular scenarios: Open Source License The new Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET make it super easy to automate management operations within Windows Azure – whether they are for Virtual Machines, Cloud Services, Storage Accounts, Web Sites, and more.  Like the rest of the Windows Azure SDK, we are releasing the source code under an open source (Apache 2) license and it is hosted at https://github.com/WindowsAzure/azure-sdk-for-net/tree/master/libraries if you wish to contribute. PowerShell Enhancements and our New Script Center Today, we are also shipping Windows Azure PowerShell 0.7.0 (which is a separate download). You can find the full change log here. Here are some of the improvements provided with it: Windows Azure Active Directory authentication support Script Center providing many sample scripts to automate common tasks on Windows Azure New cmdlets for Media Services and SQL Database Script Center Windows Azure enables you to script and automate a lot of tasks using PowerShell.  People often ask for more pre-built samples of common scenarios so that they can use them to learn and tweak/customize. With this in mind, we are excited to introduce a new Script Center that we are launching for Windows Azure. You can learn about how to scripting with Windows Azure with a get started article. You can then find many sample scripts across different solutions, including infrastructure, data management, web, and more: All of the sample scripts are hosted on TechNet with links from the Windows Azure Script Center. Each script is complete with good code comments, detailed descriptions, and examples of usage. Summary Visual Studio 2013 and the Windows Azure SDK 2.2 make it easier than ever to get started developing rich cloud applications. Along with the Windows Azure Developer Center’s growing set of .NET developer resources to guide your development efforts, today’s Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release should make your development experience more enjoyable and efficient. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. 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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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 06, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, April 06, 2012Popular ReleasesBetter Explorer: Better Explorer 2.0.0.861 Alpha: - fixed new folder button operation not work well in some situations - removed some unnecessary code like subclassing that is not needed anymore - Added option to make Better Exlorer default (at least for WIN+E operations) - Added option to enable file operation replacements (like Terracopy) to work with Better Explorer - Added some basic usability to "Share" button - Other fixesLightFarsiDictionary - ??????? ??? ?????/???????: LightFarsiDictionary - v1: LightFarsiDictionary - v1WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.3: Version: 2.5.0.3 (Milestone 3): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete [O] WAF: Mark the StringBuilderExtensions class as obsolete because the AppendInNewLine method can be replaced with string.Jo...Community TFS Build Extensions: April 2012: Release notes to follow...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.65.2: Aside from many bug fixes we now have Conditional Formatting The conditional formatting was sponsored by http://www.bewing.nl (big thanks) New on v0.65.1 Fixed issue when loading conditional formatting with default values for icon sets New on v0.65.2 Fixed issue loading conditional formatting Improved inserts performanceLiberty: v3.2.0.0 Release 4th April 2012: Change Log-Added -Halo 3 support (invincibility, ammo editing) -Halo 3: ODST support (invincibility, ammo editing) -The file transfer page now shows its progress in the Windows 7 taskbar -"About this build" settings page -Reach Change what an object is carrying -Reach Change which node a carried object is attached to -Reach Object node viewer and exporter -Reach Change which weapons you are carrying from the object editor -Reach Edit the weapon controller of vehicles and turrets -An error dia...MSBuild Extension Pack: April 2012: Release Blog Post The MSBuild Extension Pack April 2012 release provides a collection of over 435 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Active Directory, Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, FTP, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, AsyncExec, CAB Files, Code Signing, DynamicExecute, File Detokenisation, GUID’...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.01.05: Major Highlights Fixed issue that stopped users from creating vocabularies when the portal ID was not zero Fixed issue that caused modules configured to be displayed on all pages to be added to the wrong container in new pages Fixed page quota restriction issue in the Ribbon Bar Removed restriction that would not allow users to use a dash in page names. Now users can create pages with names like "site-map" Fixed issue that was causing the wrong container to be loaded in modules wh...51Degrees.mobi - Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 2.1.3.1: One Click Install from NuGet Changes to Version 2.1.3.11. [assembly: AllowPartiallyTrustedCallers] has been added back into the AssemblyInfo.cs file to prevent failures with other assemblies in Medium trust environments. 2. The Lite data embedded into the assembly has been updated to include devices from December 2011. The 42 new RingMark properties will return Unknown if RingMark data is not available. Changes to Version 2.1.2.11Code Changes 1. The project is now licenced under the Mozilla...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 2.0.0: Added Support for Mvc4 beta and WebApi The SafeqQuery and HttpSafeQuery IQueryable implementations that works as wrappers aroung any IQueryable to protect it from unwished queries. "Client Side" pager specialized in paging javascript data coming either from a remote data source, or from local data. LinQ like fluent javascript api to build queries either against remote data sources, or against local javascript data, with exactly the same interface. There are 3 different query objects exp...ExtAspNet: ExtAspNet v3.1.2: ExtAspNet - ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???,????? AJAX ?????????? ExtAspNet ????? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET 2.0 ???,????? AJAX ??????????。 ExtAspNet ??????? JavaScript,?? CSS,?? UpdatePanel,?? ViewState,?? WebServices ???????。 ??????: IE 7.0, Firefox 3.6, Chrome 3.0, Opera 10.5, Safari 3.0+ ????:Apache License 2.0 (Apache) ??:http://extasp.net/ ??:http://bbs.extasp.net/ ??:http://extaspnet.codeplex.com/ ??:http://sanshi.cnblogs.com/ ????: +2012-04-04 v3.1.2 -??IE?????????????BUG(??"about:blank"?...nopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.50: Highlight features & improvements: • Significant performance optimization. • Allow store owners to create several shipments per order. Added a new shipping status: “Partially shipped”. • Pre-order support added. Enables your customers to place a Pre-Order and pay for the item in advance. Displays “Pre-order” button instead of “Buy Now” on the appropriate pages. Makes it possible for customer to buy available goods and Pre-Order items during one session. It can be managed on a product variant ...WiX Toolset: WiX v3.6 RC0: WiX v3.6 RC0 (3.6.2803.0) provides support for VS11 and a more stable Burn engine. For more information see Rob's blog post about the release: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2012/4/3/WiX-v3.6-Release-Candidate-Zero-availableSageFrame: SageFrame 2.0: Sageframe is an open source ASP.NET web development framework developed using ASP.NET 3.5 with service pack 1 (sp1) technology. It is designed specifically to help developers build dynamic website by providing core functionality common to most web applications.iTuner - The iTunes Companion: iTuner 1.5.4475: Fix to parse empty playlists in iTunes LibraryDocument.Editor: 2012.2: Whats New for Document.Editor 2012.2: New Save Copy support New Page Setup support Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsDotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 1.2 with Examples: Tested and adapted to the latest version of Highcharts 2.2.1 Fixed Issue 359: Not implemented serialization array of type: System.Drawing.Color[] Fixed Issue 364: Crosshairs defined as array of CrosshairsForamt generates bad Highchart code For the example project: Added newest version of Highcharts 2.2.1 Added new demos to How To's section: Bind Data From Dictionary Bind Data From Object List Custom Theme Tooltip Crosshairs Theming The Reset Button Plot Band EventsVidCoder: 1.3.2: Added option for the minimum title length to scan. Added support to enable or disable LibDVDNav. Added option to prompt to delete source files after clearing successful completed items. Added option to disable remembering recent files and folders. Tweaked number box to only select all on a quick click.MJP's DirectX 11 Samples: Light Indexed Deferred Rendering: Implements light indexed deferred using per-tile light lists calculated in a compute shader, as well as a traditional deferred renderer that uses a compute shader for per-tile light culling and per-pixel shading.Pcap.Net: Pcap.Net 0.9.0 (66492): Pcap.Net - March 2012 Release Pcap.Net is a .NET wrapper for WinPcap written in C++/CLI and C#. It Features almost all WinPcap features and includes a packet interpretation framework. Version 0.9.0 (Change Set 66492)March 31, 2012 release of the Pcap.Net framework. Follow Pcap.Net on Google+Follow Pcap.Net on Google+ Files Pcap.Net.DevelopersPack.0.9.0.66492.zip - Includes all the tutorial example projects source files, the binaries in a 3rdParty directory and the documentation. It include...New Projects.Net Mutation Testing Tool: This tool will help for making and unit testing mutation changes. Mutation tests improve unit tests and applications.African Honey Bee Application Suite: This is the home of the software behind the African Honey Bee community enrichment project.Create Schema: Object extension method that generates schema creation scripts in SQL (MS SQL SERVER) from c# classes to rapidly get database tables from an existing class structure. Just edit the scripts (they are just guesses of how the database should look) to make them fit your database needs and then run them as a query in SQL Server. Check out vecklare.blogspot.se for more examples. CrtTfsDemo: demo project to test code review tool integration with tfsDolphins Salaam: This Library is a Cross Platform, UDP Broadcast solution for Peer to Peer network client detection. It is written in pure C# and is Mono and .Net compatible. It has been tested on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbox and it is expected to be compatible with every other Mono compatible platform. The library is ready to use out of box and there is almost zero configurations needed for it to start working, regarding that, it is also flexible and configurable for your needs.Enhanced Content Query Webpart: This Enhanced Content Query Webpart for SharePoint 2010 is meant for the advanced application developer. You will be able to create any rollup of pages of any Content Type(s), Site Column(s) from any subsite(s) with (any) style you want. Xslt skills are required.fangxue: huijiaFrameworkComponent: frameworkcomponent 4 companyFsXna3DGame: 3D game written in XNA and F# (still very much a work in progress)GeoLock: GeoLock is a proof of concept (PoC). GeoLock demonstrates how to retrieve geolocation data from surrounding Wi-Fi networks triangulation without Global Positioning System (GPS) hardware. grab-libs: A quick hack to bundle up the shared libraries needed to run an i386 executable on an x86_64 machine.Logical Game Of Life: Make Logic Component with a game of life algoritmMagic Box: Magic Box is the application for "hiding" files in NTFS file system. NTFS Alternate Data Streams are used for this.Notes: Application to create fast notes on your Windows Phone.Orchard Google Infographics: **NOTE: Only works with Orchard >= v1.4** This module leverages Google's Infographics api for generating QR codes for each content item that uses the Orchard.Autoroute part. The api documentation may be found at https://developers.google.com/chart/infographics/docs/qr_codesOutlook Calendar Cleaner: If you port your email from a Lotus Notes server to Exchange Server or to Office 365, your Mac Outlook calendar items may be missing. This includes calendar appointments and meeting requests. This may include items that were ported over and also new items created after the port.Polarity: Polarity is a plugin-oriented bot written in C# for deviantArt chat written with simplicity and ease of use for plugin developers as the number one goal.Pool Game Paradise: Pool Game Club of Augmentum Inc. Wuhan Site.RCT2 DatChecker: A utility for Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 that catalogs, displays, and helps manage object files (*.DAT). Examine objects frame by frame or copy object images to the clipboard. Sort objects by size, type, or content. Use DatChecker to find and remove unwanted or duplicate objects, or RecipeML Manager: This project creates C# classes that support the RecipeML standard. It also enhances that standard to support full daily and weekly menus.s0t0o0c0k3246352543: 345234324324324324ScoutGames: scout games portalSharePoint All Page Scripting: This solution is the skeleton of the JavaScript loading in all pages on the SharePoint site collection. This solution can be deployed as a "sandbox solution". Supports the Office365 of course. ??????????SharePoint ?????????????????????????Java?????????????。 ????????????????????????。 ???、????Office365?????????。testtom04052012git02: testtom04052012git02testtom04052012tfs01: testtom04052012tfs01testtom04052012tfs03: testtom04052012tfs03Visual Studio Pattern Automation Toolkit (VSPAT): VSPAT is a set of development and deployment tools from Microsoft that generate and execute Visual Studio extensions called 'Pattern Toolkits' that redeliver best practices, expertise and proven solutions faster, more reliably and more consistently. If you are an *IT professional* are you are looking to build and deploy custom solutions that include proven best practices to improve quality, consistency and time to market. And if you wish to spend significantly less time having to learn all...Wet: Wet, the game.WPF Data Editors: WPF Data Editor controls contains most of editor controls in WPF.xSolon Instructions: Framework to run scripts

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  • SQLAuthority News – Job Interviewing the Right Way (and for the Right Reasons) – Guest Post by Feodor Georgiev

    - by pinaldave
    Feodor Georgiev is a SQL Server database specialist with extensive experience of thinking both within and outside the box. He has wide experience of different systems and solutions in the fields of architecture, scalability, performance, etc. Feodor has experience with SQL Server 2000 and later versions, and is certified in SQL Server 2008. Feodor has written excellent article on Job Interviewing the Right Way. Here is his article in his own language. A while back I was thinking to start a blog post series on interviewing and employing IT personnel. At that time I had just read the ‘Smart and gets things done’ book (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/05.html) and I was hyped up on some debatable topics regarding finding and employing the best people in the branch. I have no problem with hiring the best of the best; it’s just the definition of ‘the best of the best’ that makes things a bit more complicated. One of the fundamental books one can read on the topic of interviewing is the one mentioned above. If you have not read it, then you must do so; not because it contains the ultimate truth, and not because it gives the answers to most questions on the subject, but because the book contains an extensive set of questions about interviewing and employing people. Of course, a big part of these questions have different answers, depending on location, culture, available funds and so on. (What works in the US may not necessarily work in the Nordic countries or India, or it may work in a different way). The only thing that is valid regardless of any external factor is this: curiosity. In my belief there are two kinds of people – curious and not-so-curious; regardless of profession. Think about it – professional success is directly proportional to the individual’s curiosity + time of active experience in the field. (I say ‘active experience’ because vacations and any distractions do not count as experience :)  ) So, curiosity is the factor which will distinguish a good employee from the not-so-good one. But let’s shift our attention to something else for now: a few tips and tricks for successful interviews. Tip and trick #1: get your priorities straight. Your status usually dictates your priorities; for example, if the person looking for a job has just relocated to a new country, they might tend to ignore some of their priorities and overload others. In other words, setting priorities straight means to define the personal criteria by which the interview process is lead. For example, similar to the following questions can help define the criteria for someone looking for a job: How badly do I need a (any) job? Is it more important to work in a clean and quiet environment or is it important to get paid well (or both, if possible)? And so on… Furthermore, before going to the interview, the candidate should have a list of priorities, sorted by the most importance: e.g. I want a quiet environment, x amount of money, great helping boss, a desk next to a window and so on. Also it is a good idea to be prepared and know which factors can be compromised and to what extent. Tip and trick #2: the interview is a two-way street. A job candidate should not forget that the interview process is not a one-way street. What I mean by this is that while the employer is interviewing the potential candidate, the job seeker should not miss the chance to interview the employer. Usually, the employer and the candidate will meet for an interview and talk about a variety of topics. In a quality interview the candidate will be presented to key members of the team and will have the opportunity to ask them questions. By asking the right questions both parties will define their opinion about each other. For example, if the candidate talks to one of the potential bosses during the interview process and they notice that the potential manager has a hard time formulating a question, then it is up to the candidate to decide whether working with such person is a red flag for them. There are as many interview processes out there as there are companies and each one is different. Some bigger companies and corporates can afford pre-selection processes, 3 or even 4 stages of interviews, small companies usually settle with one interview. Some companies even give cognitive tests on the interview. Why not? In his book Joel suggests that a good candidate should be pampered and spoiled beyond belief with a week-long vacation in New York, fancy hotels, food and who knows what. For all I can imagine, an interview might even take place at the top of the Eifel tower (right, Mr. Joel, right?) I doubt, however, that this is the optimal way to capture the attention of a good employee. The ‘curiosity’ topic What I have learned so far in my professional experience is that opinions can be subjective. Plus, opinions on technology subjects can also be subjective. According to Joel, only hiring the best of the best is worth it. If you ask me, there is no such thing as best of the best, simply because human nature (well, aside from some physical limitations, like putting your pants on through your head :) ) has no boundaries. And why would it have boundaries? I have seen many curious and interesting people, naturally good at technology, though uninterested in it as one  can possibly be; I have also seen plenty of people interested in technology, who (in an ideal world) should have stayed far from it. At any rate, all of this sums up at the end to the ‘supply and demand’ factor. The interview process big-bang boils down to this: If there is a mutual benefit for both the employer and the potential employee to work together, then it all sorts out nicely. If there is no benefit, then it is much harder to get to a common place. Tip and trick #3: word-of-mouth is worth a thousand words Here I would just mention that the best thing a job candidate can get during the interview process is access to future team members or other employees of the new company. Nowadays the world has become quite small and everyone knows everyone. Look at LinkedIn, look at other professional networks and you will realize how small the world really is. Knowing people is a good way to become more approachable and to approach them. Tip and trick #4: Be confident. It is true that for some people confidence is as natural as breathing and others have to work hard to express it. Confidence is, however, a key factor in convincing the other side (potential employer or employee) that there is a great chance for success by working together. But it cannot get you very far if it’s not backed up by talent, curiosity and knowledge. Tip and trick #5: The right reasons What really bothers me in Sweden (and I am sure that there are similar situations in other countries) is that there is a tendency to fill quotas and to filter out candidates by criteria different from their skill and knowledge. In job ads I see quite often the phrases ‘positive thinker’, ‘team player’ and many similar hints about personality features. So my guess here is that discrimination has evolved to a new level. Let me clear up the definition of discrimination: ‘unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice’. And prejudice is the ‘partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation’. In other words, there is not much difference whether a job candidate is filtered out by race, gender or by personality features – it is all a bad habit. And in reality, there is no proven correlation between the technology knowledge paired with skills and the personal features (gender, race, age, optimism). It is true that a significantly greater number of Darwin awards were given to men than to women, but I am sure that somewhere there is a paper or theory explaining the genetics behind this. J This topic actually brings to mind one of my favorite work related stories. A while back I was working for a big company with many teams involved in their processes. One of the teams was occupying 2 rooms – one had the team members and was full of light, colorful posters, chit-chats and giggles, whereas the other room was dark, lighted only by a single monitor with a quiet person in front of it. Later on I realized that the ‘dark room’ person was the guru and the ultimate problem-solving-brain who did not like the chats and giggles and hence was in a separate room. In reality, all severe problems which the chatty and cheerful team members could not solve and all emergencies were directed to ‘the dark room’. And thus all worked out well. The moral of the story: Personality has nothing to do with technology knowledge and skills. End of story. Summary: I’d like to stress the fact that there is no ultimately perfect candidate for a job, and there is no such thing as ‘best-of-the-best’. From my personal experience, the main criteria by which I measure people (co-workers and bosses) is the curiosity factor; I know from experience that the more curious and inventive a person is, the better chances there are for great achievements in their field. Related stories: (for extra credit) 1) Get your priorities straight. A while back as a consultant I was working for a few days at a time at different offices and for different clients, and so I was able to compare and analyze the work environments. There were two different places which I compared and recently I asked a friend of mine the following question: “Which one would you prefer as a work environment: a noisy office full of people, or a quiet office full of faulty smells because the office is rarely cleaned?” My friend was puzzled for a while, thought about it and said: “Hmm, you are talking about two different kinds of pollution… I will probably choose the second, since I can clean the workplace myself a bit…” 2) The interview is a two-way street. One time, during a job interview, I met a potential boss that had a hard time phrasing a question. At that particular time it was clear to me that I would not have liked to work under this person. According to my work religion, the properly asked question contains at least half of the answer. And if I work with someone who cannot ask a question… then I’d be doing double or triple work. At another interview, after the technical part with the team leader of the department, I was introduced to one of the team members and we were left alone for 5 minutes. I immediately jumped on the occasion and asked the blunt question: ‘What have you learned here for the past year and how do you like your job?’ The team member looked at me and said ‘Nothing really. I like playing with my cats at home, so I am out of here at 5pm and I don’t have time for much.’ I was disappointed at the time and I did not take the job offer. I wasn’t that shocked a few months later when the company went bankrupt. 3) The right reasons to take a job: personality check. A while back I was asked to serve as a job reference for a coworker. I agreed, and after some weeks I got a phone call from the company where my colleague was applying for a job. The conversation started with the manager’s question about my colleague’s personality and about their social skills. (You can probably guess what my internal reaction was… J ) So, after 30 minutes of pouring common sense into the interviewer’s head, we finally agreed on the fact that a shy or quiet personality has nothing to do with work skills and knowledge. Some years down the road my former colleague is taking the manager’s position as the manager is demoted to a different department. Reference: Feodor Georgiev, Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, Readers Contribution, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 02, 2012

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, March 02, 2012Popular ReleasesMedia Companion: MC 3.433b Release: General More GUI tweaks (mostly imperceptible!) Updates for mc_com.exe TV The 'Watched' button has been re-instigated Added TV Menu sub-option to search ALL for new Episodes (includes locked shows) Movies Added 'Source' field (eg DVD, Bluray, HDTV), customisable in Advanced Preferences (try it out, let us know how it works!) Added HTML <<format>> tag with optional parameters for video container, source, and resolution (updated HTML tags to be added to Documentation shortly) Known Issu...Picturethrill: Version 2.3.2.0: Release includes Self-Update feature for Picturethrill. What that means for users is that they are always guaranteed to have a fresh copy of Picturethrill on their computers with all latest fixes. When Picturethrill adds a new website to get pictures from, you will get it too!THE NVL Maker: The NVL Maker Ver 3.11: SIM??????,TRA??????, ????????????????,??????~(??????????????????) ??: 115?? ???? http://115.com/file/bewo7t11#THENVLMakerver3.11sim.zip MediaFire ???? http://www.mediafire.com/?wj9dmk3eb70mdzt 3.11 ??? ???: ·????????????UNICODE????????????????????(??Data.xp3) ·?????.?(https://sites.google.com/site/hiyuadv/) ?????????krkrcht.exe ·?????????Editor.exe,????????krkrcht.exe?? ??: ·Wizard.exe??,BUG??,?????????????? ·????(Code)???,???????????????, ·??3.10?,???????????????,?????????????? ...Simple MVVM Toolkit for Silverlight, WPF and Windows Phone: Simple MVVM Toolkit v3.0.0.0: Added support for Silverlight 5.0 and Windows Phone 7.1. Upgraded project templates and samples. Upgraded installer. There are some new prerequisites required for this version, namely Silverlight 5 Tools, Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 5 (until the SDK is released), Windows Phone 7.1 SDK. Because it is in the experimental band, I have also removed the dependency on the Silverlight Testing Framework. You can use it if you wish, but the Ria Services project template no longer uses ...CODE Framework: 4.0.20301: The latest version adds a number of new features to the WPF system (such as stylable and testable messagebox support) as well as various new features throughout the system (especially in the Utilities namespace).MyRouter (Virtual WiFi Router): MyRouter 1.0.1 (Beta): A friendlier User Interface. A logger file to catch exceptions so you may send it to use to improve and fix any bugs that may occur. A feedback form because we always love hearing what you guy's think of MyRouter. Check for update menu item for you to stay up to date will the latest changes. Facebook fan page so you may spread the word and share MyRouter with friends and family And Many other exciting features were sure your going to love!WPF Sound Visualization Library: WPF SVL 0.3 (Source, Binaries, Examples, Help): Version 0.3 of WPFSVL. This includes three new controls: an equalizer, a digital clock, and a time editor.Cocktail: Cocktail v0.4: PrerequisitesVisual Studio 2010 with SP1 (any edition but Express) SQL Server Express (included automatically with most Visual Studio installs) Optional: Silverlight 4 or 5 Note: Install Silverlight 4 Tools and then the Silverlight 4 Toolkit. Likewise for Silverlight 5 Tools and the Silverlight 5 Toolkit DevForce Universal Express 6.1.6 or greater Included in the Cocktail download, DevForce Universal Express requires registration) Important: Install DevForce after all other compo...ZXing.Net: ZXing.Net 0.4.0.0: sync with rev. 2196 of the java version important fix for RGBLuminanceSource generating barcode bitmaps Windows Phone demo client (only tested with emulator, because I don't have a Windows Phone) Barcode generation support for Windows Forms demo client Webcam support for Windows Forms demo clientOrchard Project: Orchard 1.4: Please read our release notes for Orchard 1.4: http://docs.orchardproject.net/Documentation/Orchard-1-4-Release-Notes.NET Assembly Information: Assembly Information 2.1.0.1: - Fixed the issue in which AnyCPU binaries were shown as 32bit - Added support to show the errors in-case if some dlls failed to load.FluentData -Micro ORM with a fluent API that makes it simple to query a database: FluentData version 1.2: New features: - QueryValues method - Added support for automapping to enumerations (both int and string are supported). Fixed 2 reported issues.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.15: 3.6.0.15 28-Feb-2012 • Fix: The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state. Work Item 10435: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10435 • Fix: Made StorageCache thread safe. Thanks to tangrl. • Fix: Members property of SqlAzManApplicationGroup is not functioning. Thanks to tangrl. Work Item 10267: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/10267 • Fix: Indexer are making database calls. Thanks to t...SCCM Client Actions Tool: Client Actions Tool v1.1: SCCM Client Actions Tool v1.1 is the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added stop button to stop the ongoing process. Added action "Query update status". Added option "saveOnlineComputers" in config.ini to enable saving list of online computers from last session. Default value for "LatestClientVersion" set to SP2 R3 (4.00.6487.2157). Wuauserv service manual startup mode is considered healthy on Windows 7. Errors are now suppressed in checkReleases...Document.Editor: 2012.1: Whats new for Document.Editor 2012.1: Improved Recent Documents list Improved Insert Shape Improved Dialogs Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsSharpCompress - a fully native C# library for RAR, 7Zip, Zip, Tar, GZip, BZip2: SharpCompress 0.8: API Updates: SOLID Extract Method for Archives (7Zip and RAR). ExtractAllEntries method on Archive classes will extract archives as a streaming file. This can offer better 7Zip extraction performance if any of the entries are solid. The IsSolid method on 7Zip archives will return true if any are solid. Removed IExtractionListener was removed in favor of events. Unit tests show example. Bug fixes: PPMd passes tests plus other fixes (Thanks Pavel) Zip used to always write a Post Descri...Social Network Importer for NodeXL: SocialNetImporter(v.1.3): This new version includes: - Download new networks for Facebook fan pages. - New options for downloading more posts - Bug fixes To use the new graph data provider, do the following: Unzip the Zip file into the "PlugIns" folder that can be found in the NodeXL installation folder (i.e "C:\Program Files\Social Media Research Foundation\NodeXL Excel Template\PlugIns") Open NodeXL template and you can access the new importer from the "Import" menuContent Slider Module for DotNetNuke: 01.02.00: This release has the following updates and new features: Feature: One-Click Enabling of Pager Setting Feature: Cache Sliders for Performance Feature: Configurable Cache Setting Enhancement: Transitions can be Selected Bug: Secure Folder Images not Viewable Bug: Sliders Disappear on Postback Bug: Remote Images Cause Error Bug: Deleted Images Cause Error System Requirements DotNetNuke v06.00.00 or newer .Net Framework v3.5 SP1 or newer SQL Server 2005 or newerImage Resizer for Windows: Image Resizer 3 Preview 3: Here is yet another iteration toward what will eventually become Image Resizer 3. This release is stable. However, I'm calling it a preview since there are still many features I'd still like to add before calling it complete. Updated on February 28 to fix an issue with installing on multi-user machines. As usual, here is my progress report. Done Preview 3 Fix: 3206 3076 3077 5688 Fix: 7420 Fix: 7527 Fix: 7576 7612 Preview 2 6308 6309 Fix: 7339 Fix: 7357 Preview 1 UI...Finestra Virtual Desktops: 2.5.4500: This is a bug fix release for version 2.5. It fixes several things and adds a couple of minor features. See the 2.5 release notes for more information on the major new features in that version. Important - If Finestra crashes on startup for you, you must install the Visual C++ 2010 runtime from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5555. Fixes a bug with window animations not refreshing the screen on XP and with DWM off Fixes a bug with with crashing on XP due to a bug in t...New ProjectsaSMS.dll: aSMS.dll is an open source library to provide developer to convert a message (SMS) to PDU and convert PDU to message (SMS). aSMS.dll can be consumed by Windows Form Application, Windows Presentation Fundation, Console Application, ASP.NET Web Application, etc.Convert Number To Letter: you can convert number to persian Letter. ?????? ??? ?????? ???????? ??? ???? ??? ?? ?? ???? ????? ????? ????CRM 2011 Remove Children From Parent Entity Form: This CRM 2011 solution will allow to Remove Child entity records from Parent Entity Form.Cygnus: Cygnus v2GovDev for TFS: Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2010 is the collaboration platform at the core of Microsoft’s application lifecycle management solution. In addition to core features like source control, build automation and work-item tracking, TFS enables teams to align projects with industry processes such as Agile, Scrum and CMMi via the use of customable XML Process Templates. Since 2005, TFS has been a welcomed addition to the Microsoft developer tool line-up by Government Agencies of all siz...Historia: Historia est un logiciel d'aide à la création de roman.Infiltrator - code profiler module for Orchard: Infiltrator is a simple profiler for Orchard, built as a module. Metro App: The Metro App for Windows 8Mouse Gesture Library: <Mouse Gesture Library> makes it easier for <.net Framework users> to build <WPF Applications>Netduino Multithreaded Webserver and DataLogger: Home logger is for logging sensor outputs and serving the collected data via webpages. It runs on the Netduino Plus. Using the .net micro framework 4.2 Written in C#. 1 x logging thread 1 x web dispatcher thread 4 x request handler threads (configurable) Also includes text file upload. Not much space left.Orchard DateTimeRange: DateTimeRange is a module for the Orchard CMS 1.4 (http://orchardproject.net/). It is a Module that adds an extra field that you can use in your content types. The field contains a configurable start - end date/time range or period. It is developed in C#, ASP.Net MVC and works with Orchard CMS 1.4 or higher.QLTB: Qu?n Lý Thi?t B? 2012QuickSpecsFinder: Una piccola utilità, abbozzata, per il recupero delle info di base di un personal computer (Memoria, Disco, Processore...)Simple Interpreted Assembler: Simple Interpreted Assembler is an IDE + Interpreter for a simplistic Assembly looking language I created. It is stack based ala' the CIL found in .NET.SkyWay: Sandbox mmo gametesttom03012012hg01: testtom03012012hg01testtom03012012hg04: testtom03012012hg04testtom03012012tfs02: testtom03012012tfs02Tiny Forum: The forum application built upon apworks framework.UPS Address Validation: Library uses UPS Address Validation API to validate address with possible parameters such as city, State, postal code, and etc. Additional information can be found at [url:https://www.ups.com/upsdeveloperkit/downloadresource?loc=en_US]. A sample test program validates all postal codes.Visual Studio LightSwitch application DB script generator: Introduction: ExportDatabaseScript tool is used to generate Sql server DB script from the LightSwitch internal database. Take a situation, We are developing the LightSwitch business application and we are using the internal database [ApplicationData] for storing Data. As our apW8Hackathon2012: W8Hackathon2012Windows Phone Commands for VS2010: The Windows Phone Commands is an open-source project built on top of. Microsoft Net 4.0, framework. This effort provides a powerful tool to assist the development phone for windows 7.1 as Isolate Storage Explorer (with copies of folders and files), Deployer, Build integrated, etc.Zdravlje na kvadrat: Program za vodenje fitness centra.ZobiesOnYourLawn-express: java learn

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, June 16, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Thursday, June 16, 2011Popular ReleasesTibiaPingFixer: TibiaPingFixer v.1.0: TibiaPingFixer v.1.0TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v3.1 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This version adds tool tips. Almost every picture box you mouse over will tell you what item is in that box. I have also cleaned up the GUI a little more to make things easier on my end. There are various bug fixes including ones associated with opening different characters in the same instance of the program. As always, please bring any bugs you find to my attention.CommonLibrary.NET: CommonLibrary.NET - 0.9.7 Beta: A collection of very reusable code and components in C# 3.5 ranging from ActiveRecord, Csv, Command Line Parsing, Configuration, Holiday Calendars, Logging, Authentication, and much more. Samples in <root>\src\Lib\CommonLibrary.NET\Samples CommonLibrary.NET 0.9.7Documentation 6738 6503 New 6535 Enhancements 6583 6737DropBox Linker: DropBox Linker 1.2: Public sub-folders are now monitored for changes as well (thanks to mcm69) Automatic public sync folder detection (thanks to mcm69) Non-Latin and special characters encoded correctly in URLs Pop-ups are now slot-based (use first free slot and will never be overlapped — test it while previewing timeout) Public sync folder setting is hidden when auto-detected Timeout interval is displayed in popup previews A lot of major and minor code refactoring performed .NET Framework 4.0 Client...Terraria World Viewer: Version 1.3: Update June 15th Removed "Draw Markers" checkbox from main window because of redundancy/confusing. (Select all or no items from the Settings tab for the same effect.) Fixed Marker preferences not being saved. It is now possible to render more than one map without having to restart the application. World file will not be locked while the world is being rendered. Note: The World Viewer might render an inaccurate map or even crash if Terraria decides to modify the World file during the pro...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.1.5 RC: Added Extended Dropdown allows a prompt item to be inserted as first element. RequiredAttribute, if present, trggers if no element is chosen Client side javascript function to set/get the values of DateTimeInput, TypedTextBox, TypedEditDisplay, and to bind/unbind a "change" handler The selected page in the pager is applied the attribute selected-page="selected" that can be used in the definition of CSS rules to style the selected page items controls now interpret a null value as an empr...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco CMS 5.0 CTP 1: Umbraco 5 Community Technology Preview Umbraco 5 will be the next version of everyone's favourite, friendly ASP.NET CMS that already powers over 100,000 websites worldwide. Try out our first CTP of version 5 today! If you're new to Umbraco and would like to get a quick low-down on our popular and easy-to-learn approach to content management, check out our intro video here. What's in the v5 CTP box? This is a preview version of version 5 and includes support for the following familiar Umbr...Ribbon Browser for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Ribbon Browser (1.0.514.30): Initial releaseCoding4Fun Kinect Toolkit: Coding4Fun.Kinect Toolkit: Version 1.0Kinect Mouse Cursor: Kinect Mouse Cursor v1.0: The initial release of the Kinect Mouse Cursor project!patterns & practices: Project Silk: Project Silk Community Drop 11 - June 14, 2011: Changes from previous drop: Many code changes: please see the readme.mht for details. New "Client Data Management and Caching" chapter. Updated "Application Notifications" chapter. Updated "Architecture" chapter. Updated "jQuery UI Widget" chapter. Updated "Widget QuickStart" appendix and code. Guidance Chapters Ready for Review The Word documents for the chapters are included with the source code in addition to the CHM to help you provide feedback. The PDF is provided as a separat...Orchard Project: Orchard 1.2: Build: 1.2.41 Published: 6/14/2010 How to Install Orchard To install Orchard using Web PI, follow these instructions: http://www.orchardproject.net/docs/Installing-Orchard.ashx. Web PI will detect your hardware environment and install the application. Alternatively, to install the release manually, download the Orchard.Web.1.2.41.zip file. http://orchardproject.net/docs/Manually-installing-Orchard-zip-file.ashx The zip contents are pre-built and ready-to-run. Simply extract the contents o...PowerGUI Visual Studio Extension: PowerGUI VSX 1.3.4: Changes - Got rid of suppressed exceptions on assemblies loading at project startup - Fixed Issue #28535 "No Print Support" - Enabled IntelliSence commands wich are supported by ActiPro Syntax Editor control: ToggleBookmark, NextBookmark, PreviousBookmark, ShowMemberList - Added missing Import directives in PS Script project template - Fixed exception occurring on debug start - Fixed an issue: after creating a new PS project, a debugging session hung being run for the second timeSnippet Designer: Snippet Designer 1.4.0: Snippet Designer 1.4.0 for Visual Studio 2010 Change logSnippet Explorer ChangesReworked language filter UI to work better in the side bar. Added result count drop down which lets you choose how many results to see. Language filter and result count choices are persisted after Visual Studio is closed. Added file name to search criteria. Search is now case insensitive. Snippet Editor Changes Snippet Editor ChangesAdded menu option for the $end$ symbol which indicates where the c...Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.4.1: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation is the best way to detect and redirect mobile devices and their capabilities on ASP.NET and is being used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re highly confident in our software and we recommend all users update to this version. Changes to Version 1.0.4.1Changed the BlackberryHandler and BlackberryVersion6Handler to have equal CONFIDENCE values to ensure they both get a chance at detecting BlackBerry version 4&5 and version 6 devices. Prior to thi...Rawr: Rawr 4.1.06: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...AcDown????? - Anime&Comic Downloader: AcDown????? v3.0 Beta6: ??AcDown?????????????,?????????????,????、????。?????Acfun????? ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7 ????????????? ??:????????Windows XP???,?????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)?.NET Framework 2.0???(x64),?????"?????????"??? ??v3.0 Beta6 ?????(imanhua.com)????? ???? ?? ??"????","?????","?????","????"?????? "????"?????"????????"?? ??????????? ?????????????? ?????????????/???? ?? ????Windows 7???????????? ????????? ?? ????????????? ???????/??????????? ???????????? ?? ?? ?????(imanh...Pulse: Pulse Beta 2: - Added new wallpapers provider http://wallbase.cc. Supports english search, multiple keywords* - Improved font rendering in Options window - Added "Set wallpaper as logon background" option* - Fixed crashes if there is no internet connection - Fixed: Rewalls downloads empty images sometimes - Added filters* Note 1: wallbase provider supports only english search. Rewalls provider supports only russian search but Pulse automatically translates your english keyword into russian using Google Tr...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.7: Version: 2.0.0.7 (Milestone 7): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.0 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2010) The unit test projects require Visual Studio 2010 Professional Remark The sample applications are using Microsoft’s IoC container MEF. However, the WPF Application Framework (WAF) doesn’t force you to use the same IoC container in your application. You can use ...Windows Azure VM Assistant: AzureVMAssist V1.0.0.5: AzureVMAssist V1.0.0.5 (Debug) - Test Release VersionNew ProjectsASP.NET REST Services Framework: This framework provides capability to work with backend server-side .NET code via REST services from client-side javascript or other types of client code. REST-service component is a server-side framework that allows easy creation and working with REST services within any ASP.NET application. Ones a REST-service is defined it can be consumed via regular URL, or using client-side javascript call that resembles the standard C# style function call that is expected to be used within server-sid...ASP.NET, MVC, Learning: This project is for MojtabaSahraei's blog ResourceAuto Downloads Service: ADSrv (Auto Downloads Service) is a windows services (based on BITS) to add, remove and track downloads from several text files.BizTalk BDD Sample: This project is to go alongside the videos I have recently done about BDD and acceptance testing in BizTalk development.Bluvee Boxer: Video conveter for the WD TV Live Hub.Clomibep: PL: Zaawansowany system zarzadzania trescia Clomibep. EN: Advenced content managment system ClomibepCVPAT: CVPAT is a Process Automation ToolDigital Life Assistant Framework: DLAEF SharePoint 2010 web parts: SharePoint 2010 visual web parts ( SharePoint 2010 only ) Please change "Deploy.cmd" with the correct SharePoint site url, then run it from the SharePoint 2010 server.Entity Framework Query Visualizer: This is a visual studio debug visualizer for retrieving the SQL query generated by the Entity Framework at run time. In order to install this visualizer, you need to copy the downloaded DLL file ( EntityFrameworkLinqQueryVisualizer.dll ) to "C:\Users\<User Name>\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Visualizers" folderHighYouth: HighYouthHMM-CMS: CMS pour le site HMMICompas: Sample startup siteKontrolDJNET: KontrolDJ.NET is: * A midi translator for KontrolDJ KDJ500 controller: This software is designed to work with Traktor Pro 2.0.1, Traktor Pro 1.0.1 or Traktor 3.4. (4 Decks support, Led feedback, Soft Takeover, ...) * An HID to Midi translator for all your gamepads, joysticks, ... This software is designed to work with Windows XP SP3, Vista and Seven. OS: Windows XP SP3, Vista and Seven (32 or 64bits). LevelZap: LevelZap is a Windows Explorer add-on that adds an item to the contextual menu on all folders allowing the user to "zap" the folder by moving all files/folders within it up one level, then deleting the folder itself. Works on Windows XP or later, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.Locadora de Veiculos: Locadora de Veiculos - Projeto teste da pós graduaçãoMediator Framework: LINQ DataSource Integration FrameworkMetin2 Patcher: This project is a patcher. First Release Under ConstructionMVC Obsidian: Obsidian aims at creating a solid Quickstart solution for MVC3 projects.Orchard Delete Content Type: This Orchard modules provides a feature to delete dynamic content types.Osbourne Shell (Forth-like scripting language for .NET): I wrote it under the influence of LSD. There are a lot of architectural & codding mistakes and I do not want to even try to correct them. So, enjoy, lol.PowerShell EventLogWatcher Module: A PowerShell module that provides some additional functions to enhance PowerShell Eventing in relation to Windows Event Log events. Subscriptions can be made and actions taken when new events are written to a log. In a sense, this can be used as "poor mans" auditing system.Present it now!: PresentItNow allows to present the desktop to others on the LAN. Since SharedView does not work with IE9 and Netmeeting is not working on Vista/Windows 7 there is a need for a tool to be able to share the desktop with others on the LAN. This is a simple tool written in C#.Quadruple 128-bit Floating Point Library: 128-bit floating point library with 64 effective bits of precision (vs. 53 for the built-in Double type) and a 64 bit exponent (vs. 11 for Doubles). Greater range avoids under/overflows and makes log arithmetic unnecessary.Ribbon Browser for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: This tool helps developer to browse ribbons in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It makes easier to identify ribbon controls properties.Rsp.Windows.Forms: This project includes several custom Button types, Windows Form types, a numeric textbox and a custom MessageBox class. * RoundedButton - A button with rounded corners. * ShadedButton - A button with customizable shine. * ColorizedButton - A button with customizable Tint color for specified background image. * NumericTextBox - Textbox allowing only numeric input. * MsgBoxUI - Alternative to Windows MessageBox with a nicer look. * ShadowedForm - Windows form with a shadow. ...SocialTFS: SocialTFS is an extension of the Team Foundation Server which provides members of a global software team with information collected from Enterprise 2.0 applications, such as professional social networks and corporate microblogging. SocialTFS makes it easier for members of large distributed software teams to get in touch with each other, using corporate microblogging services (first StatusNet, then Yammer) and professional SNS profiles (Ohloh and LinkedIn). SocialTFS is part of a researc...SQLite Code Generator: Contains a stand alone GUI application and a Visual Studio Custom Tool for automatically generating a .NET data access layer code for objects in a SQLite database.Taste : state machines made easy: Taste is a lightweight state machine implementation for .NET. Its main purpose is to simplify the implementation of complex ViewModels in WPF and Silverlight applications, where the code to execute, the commands to enable and their effects depend on the current state of the View.Tau: TauTelerik MVC Music Store: This project has Telerik OpenAccess ORM as its database access logic and is entirely based of http://mvcmusicstore.codeplex.com/ . TextFileToGrid: This is the library made specifically to render the text file data stored in tabular form into data grid view.TFS Scrumboard: TFS Scrumboard is an extension to TFS 2010 Web Access, providing easy planning and managing of workitem progress.Umbraco Advertising Management: This is the home page for the Umbraco Advertising Management Project. Umbraco CMS is an .NET opensource CMS. This project has just started, you can download the source code of the initial version. The objective of this project is to create a package that would provide a new toVAI: The goal of this project is to create a home entertainment solution focused on various forms of user interaction such as audio, video, and traditional.XBee DSS service for Robotics Studio: This is a Microsoft Robotics Studio DSS service used to communicate with XBee devices. It is able to send messages to remote end devices and receive data samples from them. It is built on top of the Grommet library.????: ??:???

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 19, 2013

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 19, 2013Popular ReleasesSQL Compact Query Analyzer: 1.0.1.25676: Beta build of SQL Compact Query Analyzer Bug fixes: - Resolved issue where the application crashes when loading a database that contains tables without a primary key Features: - Displays database information (database version, filename, size, creation date) - Displays schema summary (number of tables, columns, primary keys, identity fields, nullable fields) - Displays the information schema views - Displays column information (database type, clr type, max length, allows null, etc) - Support...xFunc: xFunc (2.2.2.0): Added: hex, bin, oct numbers; gcd (greatest common factor) and lcm (least common multiple); Fixed: the "undef" function;Prism Model Factory Extensions: 1.0.0.0: Initial releaseCODE Framework: 4.0.30618.0: See change notes in the documentation section for details on what's new. Note: If you download the class reference help file with, you have to right-click the file, pick "Properties", and then unblock the file, as many browsers flag the file as blocked during download (for security reasons) and thus hides all content.Toolbox for Dynamics CRM 2011: XrmToolBox (v1.2013.6.18): XrmToolbox improvement Use new connection controls (use of Microsoft.Xrm.Client.dll) New display capabilities for tools (size, image and colors) Added prerequisites check Added Most Used Tools feature Tools improvementNew toolSolution Transfer Tool (v1.0.0.0) developed by DamSim Updated toolView Layout Replicator (v1.2013.6.17) Double click on source view to display its layoutXml All tools list Access Checker (v1.2013.6.17) Attribute Bulk Updater (v1.2013.6.18) FetchXml Tester (v1.2013.6.1...Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.570b: New* Movie - using XBMC TMDB - now renames movies if option selected. * Movie - using Xbmc Tmdb - Actor images saved from TMDb if option selected. Fixed* Movie - Checks for poster.jpg against missing poster filter * Movie - Fixed continual scraping of vob movie file (not DVD structure) * Both - Correctly display audio channels * Both - Correctly populate audio info in nfo's if multiple audio tracks. * Both - added icons and checked for DTS ES and Dolby TrueHD audio tracks. * Both - Stream d...LINQ Extensions Library: 1.0.4.2: New to release 1.0.4.2 Custom sorting extensions that perform up to 50% better than LINQ OrderBy, ThenBy extensions... Extensions allow for fine tuning of the sort by controlling the algorithm each sort uses.ExtJS based ASP.NET Controls: FineUI v3.3.0: ??FineUI ?? ExtJS ??? ASP.NET ???。 FineUI??? ?? No JavaScript,No CSS,No UpdatePanel,No ViewState,No WebServices ???????。 ?????? IE 7.0、Firefox 3.6、Chrome 3.0、Opera 10.5、Safari 3.0+ ???? Apache License v2.0 ?:ExtJS ?? GPL v3 ?????(http://www.sencha.com/license)。 ???? ??:http://fineui.com/bbs/ ??:http://fineui.com/demo/ ??:http://fineui.com/doc/ ??:http://fineui.codeplex.com/ FineUI???? ExtJS ?????????,???? ExtJS ?。 ????? FineUI ? ExtJS ?:http://fineui.com/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthrea...CMake Tools for Visual Studio: CMake Tools for Visual Studio 1.0 RC2: This is the second release candidate of CMake Tools for Visual Studio 1.0, which contains the following bug fixes and enhancements: The CMake Editor is now available for file extension mapping and in the Open With dialog box. A bug that caused CMake IntelliSense to appear when editing ordinary text files has been fixed. Commenting characters are now properly placed for large blocks of code. Smart indentation now behaves correctly when the cursor is not at the end of the line. Function...BarbaTunnel: BarbaTunnel 8.0: Check Version History for more information about this release.ExpressProfiler: ExpressProfiler v1.5: [+] added Start time, End time event columns [+] added SP:StmtStarting, SP:StmtCompleted events [*] fixed bug with Audit:Logout eventpatterns & practices: Data Access Guidance: Data Access Guidance Drop4 2013.06.17: Drop 4Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.94: add dstLine and dstCol attributes to the -Analyze output in XML mode. un-combine leftover comma-separates expression statements after optimizations are complete so downstream tools don't stack-overflow on really deep comma trees. add support for using a single source map generator instance with multiple runs of MinifyJavaScript, assuming that the results are concatenated to the same output file.Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 4.1.1: The stable release of Kooboo CMS 4.1.0 with fixed the following issues: https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/1 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/11 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/13 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/15 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/19 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/20 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/24 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/43 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/45 https://github.com/Kooboo/CMS/issues/46 https://github....VidCoder: 1.5.0 Beta: The betas have started up again! If you were previously on the beta track you will need to install this to get back on it. That's because you can now run both the Beta and Stable version of VidCoder side-by-side! Note that the OpenCL and Intel QuickSync changes being tested by HandBrake are not in the betas yet. They will appear when HandBrake integrates them into the main branch. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5590. This adds a new FDK AAC encoder. The FAAC encoder has been removed and now...Employee Info Starter Kit: v6.0 - ASP.NET MVC Edition: Release Home - Getting Started - Hands on Coding Walkthrough – Technology Stack - Design & Architecture EISK v6.0 – ASP.NET MVC edition bundles most of the greatest and successful platforms, frameworks and technologies together, to enable web developers to learn and build manageable and high performance web applications with rich user experience effectively and quickly. User End SpecificationsCreating a new employee record Read existing employee records Update an existing employee reco...OLAP PivotTable Extensions: Release 0.8.1: Use the 32-bit download for... Excel 2007 Excel 2010 32-bit (even Excel 2010 32-bit on a 64-bit operating system) Excel 2013 32-bit (even Excel 2013 32-bit on a 64-bit operating system) Use the 64-bit download for... Excel 2010 64-bit Excel 2013 64-bit Just download and run the EXE. There is no need to uninstall the previous release. If you have problems getting the add-in to work, see the Troubleshooting Installation wiki page. The new features in this release are: View #VALUE! Err...WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 3.0.0.440: Version: 3.0.0.440 (Release Candidate): This release contains the source code of the WPF Application Framework (WAF) and the sample applications. Please build the whole solution before you start one of the sample applications. Requirements .NET Framework 4.5 (The package contains a solution file for Visual Studio 2012) Changelog Legend: [B] Breaking change; [O] Marked member as obsolete Samples: Use ValueConverters via StaticResource instead of x:Static. Other Downloads Downloads OverviewBlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.1: 2013.06.13 Ver5.9.1 (1) Web??????SSI?#include???、CGI?????????????????????? (2) ???????????????????????????Free language translator and file converter: Free Language Translator 3.3: some bug fixes and a new link to video tutorials on Youtube.New ProjectsA model oriented programming language and IDE for model driven development: Mo+ Solution Builder is a model oriented programming language and integrated development environment for effective model driven development.ActiveWindowsStoreAppFromWin32: This is a dome of how to active Windows Store App From MFC and pass value to itAjax Jquery ASP.NET Control Toolkit: User Controls to facilitate ASP.NET integration to Ajax and JQuery components.Animations: empresaAricie - Distributed Caching Provider: Aricie - Distributed Caching Provider is a DotNetNuke module and a DNN caching provider, which leverages distributed caching technologies (AppFabric, Memcached)Background Action Pool<TParam, TReturn> (.Net Task Pool): Provides a generic typed Pool for running Tasks/Funcs in an extra thread with return value and various parameters for every task Bordecal.ImportsSorter: Visual Studio add-in for sorting imports/using blocksCodagenic Bootstrap Theme: Codagenic Ecommerce 3 ThemeeBook: eBook is an engine designed to perform text mining on TEI based document.Microsoft CRM 2011 RESTful Grid: MIcrosoft CRM 2011 RESTful Grid CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Destroy) data operations.MyHandsCursor 1.0: MyHandsCursor is a demo application that uses the Kinect for Windows SDK 1.7 .mylib2: mylib2nodejs chat server: nodejs websocket jquery chat serverPiGraph: Ph?n m?n h? tr? kh?o sát hàm s? - Pixels Ð?i H?c Khoa H?c T? Nhiên TP.HCM - Khoa Công Ngh? Thông TinPurpleKnife: The Swiss Army Knife for Extreme Networks XOS switches.PVMapper Desktop: PVMapper Open Source TeamSSQForecast: TESTStored Procedure Pager: Stored Procedure Pager is an open source asp.net/mvc user pager control.The most important feature is support for Stored Procedure.Tetris Online: A 2-player Tetris game you play against another person on the internet.ubdblib: A library providing multipolar model parameterization of electron density using ubdb aspherical atom data bank.Umbraco Multi User Picker: Multi User Picker is an Umbraco datatype for selecting one or more users.UnLinkAlbumTracks: Unlinks tracks in Windows Media Player, allowing them to have their album info updated independently.Vis på Google Maps hvor medlemmerne bor: This project is only relevant for people living in Denmark Ud fra en CSV-fil genererer dette lille program en KML fil indeholdende et koordinatsæt for hvor adresse i CSV-filen. Dette kan f.eks. bruges til at vise hvor medlemmerne af en forening bor.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, December 11, 2010

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, December 11, 2010Popular ReleasesEnhSim: EnhSim 2.2.1 ALPHA: 2.2.1 ALPHAThis release adds in the changes for 4.03a. at level 85 To use this release, you must have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=A7B7A05E-6DE6-4D3A-A423-37BF0912DB84 To use the GUI you must have the .NET 4.0 Framework installed. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992 - Updated th...NuGet (formerly NuPack): NuGet 1.0 Release Candidate: NuGet is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third party libraries into a .NET application during development. This release is a Visual Studio 2010 extension and contains the the Package Manager Console and the Add Package Dialog. This new build targets the newer feed (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=206669) and package format. See http://nupack.codeplex.com/documentation?title=Nuspe...Free Silverlight & WPF Chart Control - Visifire: Visifire Silverlight, WPF Charts v3.6.5 Released: Hi, Today we are releasing final version of Visifire, v3.6.5 with the following new feature: * New property AutoFitToPlotArea has been introduced in DataSeries. AutoFitToPlotArea will bring bubbles inside the PlotArea in order to avoid clipping of bubbles in bubble chart. You can visit Visifire documentation to know more. http://www.visifire.com/visifirechartsdocumentation.php Also this release includes few bug fixes: * Chart threw exception while adding new Axis in Chart using Vi...PHPExcel: PHPExcel 1.7.5 Production: DonationsDonate via PayPal via PayPal. If you want to, we can also add your name / company on our Donation Acknowledgements page. PEAR channelWe now also have a full PEAR channel! Here's how to use it: New installation: pear channel-discover pear.pearplex.net pear install pearplex/PHPExcel Or if you've already installed PHPExcel before: pear upgrade pearplex/PHPExcel The official page can be found at http://pearplex.net. Want to contribute?Please refer the Contribute page.DNN Simple Article: DNNSimpleArticle Module V00.00.03: The initial release of the DNNSimpleArticle module (labelled V00.00.03) There are C# and VB versions of this module for this initial release. No promises that going forward there will be packages for both languages provided for future releases. This module provides the following functionality Create and display articles Display a paged list of articles Articles get created as DNN ContentItems Categorization provided through DNN Taxonomy SEO functionality for article display providi...UOB & ME: UOB_ME 2.5: latest versionAutoLoL: AutoLoL v1.4.3: AutoLoL now supports importing the build pages from Mobafire.com as well! Just insert the url to the build and voila. (For example: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/unforgivens-guide-how-to-build-a-successful-mordekaiser-24061) Stable release of AutoChat (It is still recommended to use with caution and to read the documentation) It is now possible to associate *.lolm files with AutoLoL to quickly open them The selected spells are now displayed in the masteries tab for qu...SubtitleTools: SubtitleTools 1.2: - Added auto insertion of RLE (RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING) Unicode character for the RTL languages. - Fixed delete rows issue.PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7: This is a final stable release of PHP Manager 1.1 for IIS 7. This is a minor incremental release that contains all the functionality available in 53121 plus additional features listed below: Improved detection logic for existing PHP installations. Now PHP Manager detects the location to php.ini file in accordance to the PHP specifications Configuring date.timezone. PHP Manager can automatically set the date.timezone directive which is required to be set starting from PHP 5.3 Ability to ...Algorithmia: Algorithmia 1.1: Algorithmia v1.1, released on December 8th, 2010.SuperSocket, an extensible socket application framework: SuperSocket 1.0 SP1: Fixed bugs: fixed a potential bug that the running state hadn't been updated after socket server stopped fixed a synchronization issue when clearing timeout session fixed a bug in ArraySegmentList fixed a bug on getting configuration valueMy Web Pages Starter Kit: 1.3.1 Production Release (Security HOTFIX): Due to a critical security issue, it's strongly advised to update the My Web Pages Starter Kit to this version. Possible attackers could misuse the image upload to transmit any type of file to the website. If you already have a running version of My Web Pages Starter Kit 1.3.0, you can just replace the ftb.imagegallery.aspx file in the root directory with the one attached to this release.ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome (jQuery Ajax helpers): 1.4: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager new stuff: popup WhiteSpaceFilterAttribute tested on mozilla, safari, chrome, opera, ie 9b/8/7/6nopCommerce. ASP.NET open source shopping cart: nopCommerce 1.90: To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/releasenotes.aspx).TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0.0 - Preview 4: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Note: This code is currently preview quality. Preview 4 ChangesReintroduced fluent interface support via satellite assembly Added entities support, entity segmentation, and ITweetable/ITweeter interfaces for client development Numerous fixes reported by preview users Preview 3 ChangesNumerous fixes and improvements to core engine Twitter API coverage: a...myCollections: Version 1.2: New in version 1.2: Big performance improvement. New Design (Added Outlook style View, New detail view, New Groub By...) Added Sort by Media Added Manage Movie Studio Zoom preference is now saved. Media name are now editable. Added Portuguese version You can now Hide details panel Add support for FLAC tags You can now imports books from BibTex Xml file BugFixingmytrip.mvc (CMS & e-Commerce): mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta: mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta web Web for install hosting System Requirements: NET 4.0, MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src System Requirements: Visual Studio 2010 or Web Deweloper 2010 MSSQL 2008 or MySql (auto creation table to database) if .\SQLEXPRESS auto creation database (App_Data folder) Connector/Net 6.3.4, MVC3 RC WARNING For run and debug mytrip.mvc 1.0.49.0 beta src download and ...Power Assert .NET: Power Assert 1.0.1: Minor bugfixes, added PAssert.Throws method to ensure that an operation throws an exceptionExcelLite: Lite Excel Binaries: "Lite Excel Binaries" contains two required Silverlight DLLs Following samples require reference of the "Excel Lite Binaries" , "Writing Image to Excel" is an example silverlight application for writing silverlight image to excel "Writing Data to Excel" is example application of how to write/export silverlight data to an excel file using Excel Lite "Reading Excel file" is sample application demonstrating excel reading with ExcelLiteMenu and Context Menu for Silverlight 4.0: Silverlight Menu and Context Menu v2.3 Beta: - Added keyboard navigation support with access keys - Shortcuts like Ctrl-Alt-A are now supported(where the browser permits it) - The PopupMenuSeparator is now completely based on the PopupMenuItem class - Moved item manipulation code to a partial class in PopupMenuItemsControl.cs - Moved menu management and keyboard navigation code to the new PopupMenuManager class - Simplified the layout by removing the RootGrid element(all content is now placed in OverlayCanvas and is accessed by the new ...New Projectsbuildandrelease: SCM continuous intergration cruisecontrol.net buildandrelease installer automation testing virtual machine infrastructureContent Link Web Part: The ContentLink webpart works like the ContentEditor webpart in ContentLink mode, but does not require you to configure anonymous access. ContentLink is useful for showing common content stored in a central document library for use across different site-collections.CoralCube: Dieses Projekt hat das Ziel eine gute Core zu entwickeln.CRM_Contabil: Criado para uso em escritórios de contabilidade, onde o cliente faz chamadas p/empresa ou chamadas entre funcionários da própria empresa.A empresa manterá um banco de dados com soluções em respeito a dúvidas do cliente e saberá qual cliente utiliza mais seus serviços.CsvImporter: Csv importer is a robust application to make bulk imports to a MSSQL Database. I'm looking forward to add oracle support. This importer works like many web admin importers,except this let you know the register is inserting in a determinate moment, successful and failed query's.CWS - Client Web Services Framework: Client Web Service is a different concept for script reference at client-side. The idea behind client web services is to abstract the concept of client scripts behind the concept of client services. The script reference process is fully encapsulated inside CWS api. Enjoy!DirectDraw APIs Usage in WinCE and WinMobile: DDrawTest application shows how to use the Hardware layers of display controller of different application processor in WinCE and Windows Mobile devices.EasyMapping: EasyMapping makes OR Mapping Configuration easy, writing code easy The first version only support SQLSever Framework version: 3.5 Language: C# ExcelLite: ExcelLite is a C#/Silverlight library for Silverlight applications that can read and write MS Excel files without COM interaction. You can manipulate MS Excel files totally on client side as this library using Binary excel format to read and write data to excel files.Frozen Bubble XNA: A port of the well known Linux game Frozen Bubble from Perl to c# and XNA. The ported game runs on Windows and Windows Phone 7.GetThatList: With GetThatList people will find an easy way to copy a music playlist and its songs to another location, being another folder or a remote computer. It is designed so that it can be exposed to the final user as an standalone application or a Shell extension for playlist files.lightsurfer: Generate and smooth terrain landshaft easily. C++, DirectX 10 and UI in WPF in perspective.microstockUploader: Uploads multiple JPEG images with additional files (RAW, EPS) to multiple microstocks. Supports FTP resume. Supports buggy routers which drop FTP connection after some timeout.Network Monopolizer: Network Monopolizer is a simple program that monopolizes your network. when run, it will overrun your current network with requests, thus it won't work correctly anymore. It contacts five sites a millisecond. This can be used mainly at an airport.niensiesta: No naps!QScript: QScript is a contract-oriented language that supports runtime contract inference, on-fly object construction, lambdas. The main idea of QScript is to provide maximum functionality with minimum efforts.Sequin Sequence Mining Library: Sequin is an open source sequence mining library written in C#.Sitefinity Controls: Sitefinity Controls is a collection of custom controls developed for Sitefinity that I thought might be useful for others. It is developed in C#.Surfix: Surfix is an open source framework built on top of .net Framework. It Provide a set of capabilities and modules such as: Logging, Extension methods for ado.net entity framework, Localization Module, Security Module and so on. This framework is built on top a database Sql Server,.Umbraco AD and Default Membership Provider: This is a Membership provider for Umbraco. It support AD authentication, but only if the user account is already created by the admin in Umbraco. It also support the default Umbraco user authentication at the same time if desired.Wayne's Financial Tracker: Track your finances with this simple to use tool.Weople: Weople is game developed in XNA by a team of students of the "Politecnico di Milano". Our group will participate with Weople to Imagine Cup 2011.WorldListening: This app is able to get news and blog from websites ,and read it with MS SAPI.WPF Diagramming: Tool for draw diagramsYakeen Network Applications Framework: This project is Network Application Server Simulator and Benchmark for modeling networks applications servers, I'm working on this project right now, any help will be appreciated.

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  • CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 12, 2011

    CodePlex Daily Summary for Saturday, March 12, 2011Popular ReleasesXML Explorer: XML Explorer 4.0.2: Changes in 4.0: This release is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile. Changed XSD validation to use the schema specified by the XML documents. Added a VS style Error List, double-clicking an error takes you to the offending node. XPathNavigator schema validation finally gives SourceObject (was fixed in .NET 4). Added Namespaces window and better support for XPath expressions in documents with a default namespace. Added ExpandAll and CollapseAll toolbar buttons (in a...Mobile Device Detection and Redirection: 1.0.0.0: Stable Release 51 Degrees.mobi Foundation has been in beta for some time now and has been used on thousands of websites worldwide. We’re now highly confident in the product and have designated this release as stable. We recommend all users update to this version. New Capabilities MappingsTo improve compatibility with other libraries some new .NET capabilities are now populated with wurfl data: “maximumRenderedPageSize” populated with “max_deck_size” “rendersBreaksAfterWmlAnchor” populated ...ASP.NET MVC Project Awesome, jQuery Ajax helpers (controls): 1.7.3: A rich set of helpers (controls) that you can use to build highly responsive and interactive Ajax-enabled Web applications. These helpers include Autocomplete, AjaxDropdown, Lookup, Confirm Dialog, Popup Form, Popup and Pager added interactive search for the lookupWPF Inspector: WPF Inspector 0.9.7: New Features in Version 0.9.7 - Support for .NET 3.5 and 4.0 - Multi-inspection of the same process - Property-Filtering for multiple keywords e.g. "Height Width" - Smart Element Selection - Select Controls by clicking CTRL, - Select Template-Parts by clicking CTRL+SHIFT - Possibility to hide the element adorner (over the context menu on the visual tree) - Many bugfixes??????????: All-In-One Code Framework ??? 2011-03-10: http://download.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1codechs&DownloadId=216140 ??,????。??????????All-In-One Code Framework ???,??20?Sample!!????,?????。http://i3.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=1code&DownloadId=128165 ASP.NET ??: CSASPNETBingMaps VBASPNETRemoteUploadAndDownload CS/VBASPNETSerializeJsonString CSASPNETIPtoLocation CSASPNETExcelLikeGridView ....... Winform??: FTPDownload FTPUpload MultiThreadedWebDownloader...Rawr: Rawr 4.1.0: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a Release of the WPF version, most of the general issues have been resolved. If you have a problem, please follow the Posting Guidelines and put it into the Issue Tracker. Whe...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1.2 for IIS 7: This is a localization release of PHP Manager for IIS 7. It contains all the functionality available in 56962 plus a few bug fixes (see change list for more details). Most importantly this release is translated into five languages: German - the translation is provided by Christian Graefe Dutch - the translation is provided by Harrie Verveer Turkish - the translation is provided by Yusuf Oztürk Japanese - the translation is provided by Kenichi Wakasa Russian - the translation is provid...TweetSharp: TweetSharp v2.0.0: Documentation for this release may be found at http://tweetsharp.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=UserGuide&referringTitle=Documentation. Beta ChangesAdded user streams support Serialization is not attempted for Twitter 5xx errors Fixes based on feedback Third Party Library VersionsHammock v1.2.0: http://hammock.codeplex.com Json.NET 4.0 Release 1: http://json.codeplex.comMicrosoft All-In-One Code Framework - a centralized code sample library: Visual Studio 2008 Code Samples 2011-03-09: Code samples for Visual Studio 2008Office Web.UI: Version 2.4: After having lost all modifications done for 2.3. I finally did it again... Have a look at http://www.officewebui.com/change-log Also, the documentation continues to grow... http://www.officewebui.com/category/kb ThanksmyCollections: Version 1.3: New in version 1.3 : Added Editor management for Books Added Amazon API for Books Us, Fr, De Added Amazon Us, Fr, De for Movies Added The MovieDB for Fr and De Added Author for Books Added Editor and Platform for Games Added Amazon Us, De for Games Added Studio for XXX Added Background for XXX Bug fixing with Softonic API Bug fixing with IMDB UI improvement Removed GraceNote Added Amazon Us,Fr, De for Series Added TVDB Fr and De for Series Added Tracks for Musi...Facebook Graph Toolkit: Facebook Graph Toolkit 1.1: Version 1.1 (8 Mar 2011)new Dialog class for redirecting users to Facebook dialogs new Async publishing methods new Check for Extended Permissions option fixed bug: inappropiate condition of redirecting to login in Api class fixed bug: IframeRedirect method not workingpatterns & practices : Composite Services: Composite Services Guidance - CTP2: Overview The Composite Services guidance (codename Reykjavik) provides best practices and capabilities for applying industry-known SOA design patterns when building robust, connected, service-oriented composite enterprise applications. These capabilities are implemented as a set of reusable components for analytic tracing, service virtualization, metadata centralization and versioning, and policy centralization as well as exception management, included in this release. Changes in this CTP ...Python Tools for Visual Studio: 1.0 Beta 1: Beta 1You can't install IronPython Tools for Visual Studio side-by-side with Python Tools for Visual Studio. A race condition sometimes causes local MPI debugging to miss breakpoints. When MPI jobs on a cluster fail they don’t get cleaned up correctly, which can cause debugging to stall because the associated MPI job is stuck in the queue. The "Threads" view has a race condition which can cause it not to display properly at times. VS2010 shortcuts that are pinned to the taskbar are so...DotNetAge -a lightweight Mvc jQuery CMS: DotNetAge 2: What is new in DotNetAge 2.0 ? Completely update DJME to DJME2, enhance user experience ,more beautiful and more interactively visit DJME project home to lean more about DJME http://www.dotnetage.com/sites/home/djme.html A new widget engine has came! Faster and easiler. Runtime performance enhanced. SEO enhanced. UI Designer enhanced. A new web resources explorer. Page manager enhanced. BlogML supports added that allows you import/export your blog data to/from dotnetage publishi...Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.0 Beta: Files in this downloadkooboo_CMS.zip: The kooboo application files Content_DBProvider.zip: Additional content database implementation of MSSQL,SQLCE, RavenDB and MongoDB. Default is XML based database. To use them, copy the related dlls into web root bin folder and remove old content provider dlls. Content provider has the name like "Kooboo.CMS.Content.Persistence.SQLServer.dll" View_Engines.zip: Supports of Razor, webform and NVelocity view engine. Copy the dlls into web root bin folder t...IronPython: 2.7 Release Candidate 2: On behalf of the IronPython team, I am pleased to announce IronPython 2.7 Release Candidate 2. The releases contains a few minor bug fixes, including a working webbrowser module. Please see the release notes for 61395 for what was fixed in previous releases.LINQ to Twitter: LINQ to Twitter Beta v2.0.20: Mono 2.8, Silverlight, OAuth, 100% Twitter API coverage, streaming, extensibility via Raw Queries, and added documentation.Minemapper: Minemapper v0.1.6: Once again supports biomes, thanks to an updated Minecraft Biome Extractor, which added support for the new Minecraft beta v1.3 map format. Updated mcmap to support new biome format.Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.3.0 Release: This release supports the Sandcastle June 2010 Release (v2.6.10621.1). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release is compiled under .NET 4.0, supports Visual Studio 2010 solutions and projects as documentation sources, and adds support for projects targeting the Silverlight Framework. This release uses the Sandcastle Guided Installation package used by Sandcastle Styles. Download and extract to a folder and then run SandcastleI...New Projects8428-3127-6884-4328: No summary providedAngua R.P.G. Engine: The Angua R.P.G. Engine is a C# open-source system for playing turn-based Role-Playing Games over the Internet or TCP/IP based networks. AppServices - SOA for greenhorns: AppServices is a simple service container. It can inject services to any public or private property or field with declared ServiceAttribute. It supports Windows Forms, WPF and ASP.NET. Silverlight is not tested yet, but it should do also. AppServices simplifies service referenceAxHibernate: AxHibernate aims to produce a POCO-mapped style domain-library for Dynamics AX. I.e., an AX business-connector-ignorant ORM domain library for Dynamics Ax.Business localizer, translation: Translation and localization software used in your business. Help to localize resource file on top of .NET Microsoft stack.cloudsync: cloudsyncDaily Deals .Net - Groupon Clone: Daily Deals .Net is a "daily deals" application based on the .net technology. Utilizing MVC 3 to provide a Groupon-like experience. This project needs your support. Please sign up today to help bring a viable daily deals project to the .Net open source world. ENGUILABE.INFO - Descubre un nuevo mundo: codigo reutilizable y aprendibleeuler 40: euler 40euler 42: euler 42gibon: gibbon blog+portfolio+communitiHoley Ship: Battleship project.Improved CAPTCHA Control ASP.NET 2.0 C#: Improved C# port of Jeff Atwood's custom CAPTCHA control (image verification against robots).IslandUnit: IslandUnit helps you isolate the dependencies of your system with an fluent interface that makes easier to produce mocks and stubs with existing frameworks (Moq, NMock, NBuilder, AutoPoco) and put the isolated dependencies in IoC containers, leaving your system highly testable.KidsChores: Helps keep tracks of to do list for kids, allowing them to earn points, allowances, etc.Local Copy SharePoint Items: The "Local Copy SharePoint Items" is a PowerShell (v1) written script to grab all documents out of libraries/lists from a given SharePoint 2007 site. Get yourself exited to run this script as folliowing: .\LCSPI.ps1 -url http://moss2007 -bkploc c:\destination mkfashio: mkfashion MyTest: MyTestNaja, a Cobra IDE: Naja (a.k.a. Cobra IDE) is an Integrated Development Environment for the Cobra programming language (www.cobra-language.com). NDasm: Visual Studio add-in that displays IL code for any managed method in your .Net solution. Helpful for studying .Net platform. For example now you can easily see what happens when you are declaring delegate type or how your cool lambda expression actually looks like. olympicgameslondon: The aim of the Olympicgameslondon project is to provide a platform where sports professionals and athletes can broadcast themselves, individuals/supporters, Londoners, visitors etc can post views, share information and find interesting news about the London 2012 Olympic games.Populate SharePoint Form Fields from QueryString via Javascript: This project makes it possible to pre-fill SharePoint Edit form fields using JavaScript and field values passed via querystring - without server-side deployment.Project Server: Xin chào t?t c? các thành viên c?a team th?c t?p t?t nghi?p c?a công ty Toàn C?u Th?nh. Ðây là server du?c dùng d? giúp d? m?i ngu?i ch?nh s?a project c?a m?t m?t cách d? dàng nh?t trong quá trình làm vi?c nhóm. Support: ngtrongtri@yahoo.com.vnPure Midi: Pure Midi - Handling midi communication in .NET with full sequencing support and arranger like musical styles playing.Relative Time: Render a TimeSpan object as something that's consumable by humans like "about 9 minutes ago" or "yesterday".RPG Character Creation: RPG Character Creation makes it easier to create and maintain characters using the Avalon 2.0 ruleset. It is developed in C#.SearchBox for WPF: Customizable search box for WPF with auto-complete capabilities.Sebro: Sebro is a freelance-like platform for the SEO related market. The main feature of the platform is an automated tracking and statistics gathering of work and strongly formalized criteria of its completion or failure.ShoppingApp2: Project will cover basics of creating ASP.NET application. Aim of project is creating application which will help users, via web, to manage their home budget. Socket Redirection for Terminal Services: Socket Redirection for Terminal Services allows to connect to the Internet on a machine, which does not has access to I-net, using another machine in the network, which has that access. Sort Calculator: it is a c# sort calculator that generates randomly array numbers and implements several sorting algorithms.SpSource 2010: Port of SPSource to work with VS 2010 Tools for SharePoint 2010SQL Script Executer: SQL Executer makes it easy to deploy, execute multiple scripts on SQL Server as you could do in VS 2008. In Visual Studio 2008's Database Project, one had an option to select multiple sql files and Run them on choosen DB. Visual Studio 2010, doesn't come with this functionality. Test By Wire: Test by wire is a unit test framework, which handles automatic setup and orchestration of test-target and dependencies. In addition Test By Wire features an automatic mocking feature, that is interfaces with pure BDD style syntax. Time Manager System: The TMS (Time Manager System) allows you to plan, organize and schedule your daily activities. The TMS is based on the Pomodoro Technique that improves your productivity.Windows Azure Service Instances Auto Scaling: Windows Azure Service Instances Auto Scaling is a way for dynamically scaling-up and scaling-down the instances number of a running hosted service. In this version this management is done based on a time schedule by an Azure Worker Role.

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  • Project Management Helps AmeriCares Deliver International Aid

    - by Sylvie MacKenzie, PMP
    Excerpt from PROFIT - ORACLE - by Alison Weiss Handle with Care Sound project management helps AmeriCares bring international aid to those in need. The stakes are always high for AmeriCares. On a mission to restore health and save lives during times of disaster, the nonprofit international relief and humanitarian aid organization delivers donated medicines, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid to people in the U.S. and around the globe. Founded in 1982 with the express mission of responding as quickly and efficiently as possible to help people in need, the Stamford, Connecticut-based AmeriCares has delivered more than US$10.5 billion in aid to 147 countries over the past three decades. Launch the Slideshow “It’s critically important to us that we steward all the donations and that the medical supplies and medicines get to people as quickly as possible with no loss,” says Kate Sears, senior vice president for finance and technology at AmeriCares. “Whether we’re shipping IV solutions to victims of cholera in Haiti or antibiotics to Somali famine victims, we need to get the medicines there sooner because it means more people will be helped and lives improved or even saved.” Ten years ago, the tracking systems used by AmeriCares associates were paper-based. In recent years, staff started using spreadsheets, but the tracking processes were not standardized between teams. “Every team was tracking completely different information,” says Megan McDermott, senior associate, Sub-Saharan Africa partnerships, at AmeriCares. “It was just a few key things. For example, we tracked the date a shipment was supposed to arrive and the date we got reports from our partner that a hospital received aid on their end.” While the data was accurate, much detail was being lost in the process. AmeriCares management knew it could do a better job of tracking this enterprise data and in 2011 took a significant step by implementing Oracle’s Primavera P6 Professional Project Management. “It’s a comprehensive solution that has helped us improve the monitoring and controlling processes. It has allowed us to do our distribution better,” says Sears. In addition, the implementation effort has been a change agent, helping AmeriCares leadership rethink project management across the entire organization. Initially, much of the focus was on standardizing processes, but staff members also learned the importance of thinking proactively to prevent possible problems and evaluating results to determine if goals and objectives are truly being met. Such data about process efficiency and overall results is critical not only to AmeriCares staff but also to the donors supporting the organization’s life-saving missions. Efficiency Saves Lives One of AmeriCares’ core operations is to gather product donations from the private sector, establish where the most-urgent needs are, and solicit monetary support to send the aid via ocean cargo or airlift to welfare- and health-oriented nongovernmental organizations, hospitals, health networks, and government ministries based in areas in need. In 2011 alone, AmeriCares sent more than 3,500 shipments to 95 countries in response to both ongoing humanitarian needs and more than two dozen emergencies, including deadly tornadoes and storms in the U.S. and the devastating tsunami in Japan. When it comes to nonprofits in general, donors want to know that the charitable organizations they support are using funds wisely. Typically, nonprofits are evaluated by donors in terms of efficiency, an area where AmeriCares has an excellent reputation: 98 percent of expenses go directly to supporting programs and less than 2 percent represent administrative and fundraising costs. Donors, however, should look at more than simple efficiency, says Peter York, senior partner and chief research and learning officer at TCC Group, a nonprofit consultancy headquartered in New York, New York. They should also look at whether organizations have the systems in place to sustain their missions and continue to thrive. An expert on nonprofit organizational management, York has spent years studying sustainable charitable organizations. He defines them as nonprofits that are able to achieve the ongoing financial support to stay relevant and continue doing core mission work. In his analysis of well over 2,500 larger nonprofits, York has found that many are not sustaining, and are actually scaling back in size. “One of the biggest challenges of nonprofit sustainability is the general public’s perception that every dollar donated has to go only to the delivery of service,” says York. “What our data shows is that there are some fundamental capacities that have to be there in order for organizations to sustain and grow.” York’s research highlights the importance of data-driven leadership at successful nonprofits. “You’ve got to have the tools, the systems, and the technologies to get objective information on what you do, the people you serve, and the results you’re achieving,” says York. “If leaders don’t have the knowledge and the data, they can’t make the strategic decisions about programs to take organizations to the next level.” Historically, AmeriCares associates have used time-tested and cost-effective strategies to ship and then track supplies from donation to delivery to their destinations in designated time frames. When disaster strikes, AmeriCares ships by air and generally pulls out all the stops to deliver the most urgently needed aid within the first few days and weeks. Then, as situations stabilize, AmeriCares turns to delivering sea containers for the postemergency and ongoing aid so often needed over the long term. According to McDermott, getting a shipment out the door is fairly complicated, requiring as many as five different AmeriCares teams collaborating together. The entire process can take months—from when products are received in the warehouse and deciding which recipients to allocate supplies to, to getting customs and governmental approvals in place, actually shipping products, and finally ensuring that the products are received in-country. Delivering that aid is no small affair. “Our volume exceeds half a billion dollars a year worth of donated medicines and medical supplies, so it’s a sizable logistical operation to bring these products in and get them out to the right place quickly to have the most impact,” says Sears. “We really pride ourselves on our controls and efficiencies.” Adding to that complexity is the fact that the longer it takes to deliver aid, the more dire the human need can be. Any time AmeriCares associates can shave off the complicated aid delivery process can translate into lives saved. “It’s really being able to track information consistently that will help us to see where are the bottlenecks and where can we work on improving our processes,” says McDermott. Setting a Standard Productivity and information management improvements were key objectives for AmeriCares when staff began the process of implementing Oracle’s Primavera solution. But before configuring the software, the staff needed to take the time to analyze the systems already in place. According to Greg Loop, manager of database systems at AmeriCares, the organization received guidance from several consultants, including Rich D’Addario, consulting project manager in the Primavera Global Business Unit at Oracle, who was instrumental in shepherding the critical requirements-gathering phase. D’Addario encouraged staff to begin documenting shipping processes by considering the order in which activities occur and which ones are dependent on others to get accomplished. This exercise helped everyone realize that to be more efficient, they needed to keep track of shipments in a more standard way. “The staff didn’t recognize formal project management methodology,” says D’Addario. “But they did understand what the most important things are and that if they go wrong, an entire project can go off course.” Before, if a boatload of supplies was being sent to Haiti and there was a problem somewhere, a lot of time was taken up finding out where the problem was—because staff was not tracking things in a standard way. As a result, even more time was needed to find possible solutions to the problem and alert recipients that the aid might be delayed. “For everyone to put on the project manager hat and standardize the way every single thing is done means that now the whole organization is on the same page as to what needs to occur from the time a hurricane hits Haiti and when a boat pulls in to unload supplies,” says D’Addario. With so much care taken to put a process foundation firmly in place, configuring the Primavera solution was actually quite simple. Specific templates were set up for different types of shipments, and dashboards were implemented to provide executives with clear overviews of every project in the system. AmeriCares’ Loop reports that system planning, refining, and testing, followed by writing up documentation and training, took approximately four months. The system went live in spring 2011 at AmeriCares’ Connecticut headquarters. While the nonprofit has an international presence, with warehouses in Europe and offices in Haiti, India, Japan, and Sri Lanka, most donated medicines come from U.S. entities and are shipped from the U.S. out to the rest of the world. In addition, all shipments are tracked from the U.S. office. AmeriCares doesn’t expect the Primavera system to take months off the shipping time, especially for sea containers. However, any time saved is still important because it will allow aid to be delivered to people more quickly at a lower overall cost. “If we can trim a day or two here or there, that can translate into lives that we’re saving, especially in emergency situations,” says Sears. A Cultural Change Beyond the measurable benefits that come with IT-driven process improvement, AmeriCares management is seeing a change in culture as a result of the Primavera project. One change has been treating every shipment of aid as a project, and everyone involved with facilitating shipments as a project manager. “This is a revolutionary concept for us,” says McDermott. “Before, we were used to thinking we were doing logistics—getting a container from point A to point B without looking at it as one project and really understanding what it meant to manage it.” AmeriCares staff is also happy to report that collaboration within the organization is much more efficient. When someone creates a shipment in the Primavera system, the same shared template is used, which means anyone can log in to the system to see the status of a shipment. Knowledgeable staff can access a shipment project to help troubleshoot a problem. Management can easily check the status of projects across the organization. “Dashboards are really useful,” says McDermott. “Instead of going into the details of each project, you can just see the high-level real-time information at a glance.” The new system is helping team members focus on proactively managing shipments rather than simply reacting when problems occur. For example, when a container is shipped, documents must be included for customs clearance. Now, the shipping template has built-in reminders to prompt team members to ask for copies of these documents from freight forwarders and to follow up with partners to discover if a shipment is on time. In the past, staff may not have worked on securing these documents until they’d been notified a shipment had arrived in-country. Another benefit of capturing and adopting best practices within the Primavera system is that staff training is easier. “Capturing the processes in documented steps and milestones allows us to teach new staff members how to do their jobs faster,” says Sears. “It provides them with the knowledge of their predecessors so they don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel.” With the Primavera system already generating positive results, management is eager to take advantage of advanced capabilities. Loop is working on integrating the company’s proprietary inventory management system with the Primavera system so that when logistics or warehousing operators input data, the information will automatically go into the Primavera system. In the past, this information had to be manually keyed into spreadsheets, often leading to errors. Mining Historical Data Another feature on the horizon for AmeriCares is utilizing Primavera P6 Professional Project Management reporting capabilities. As the system begins to include more historical data, management soon will be able to draw on this information to conduct analysis that has not been possible before and create customized reports. For example, at the beginning of the shipment process, staff will be able to use historical data to more accurately estimate how long the approval process should take for a particular country. This could help ensure that food and medicine with limited shelf lives do not get stuck in customs or used beyond their expiration dates. The historical data in the Primavera system will also help AmeriCares with better planning year to year. The nonprofit’s staff has always put together a plan at the beginning of the year, but this has been very challenging simply because it is impossible to predict disasters. Now, management will be able to look at historical data and see trends and statistics as they set current objectives and prepare for future need. In addition, this historical data will provide AmeriCares management with the ability to review year-end data and compare actual project results with goals set at the beginning of the year—to see if desired outcomes were achieved and if there are areas that need improvement. It’s this type of information that is so valuable to donors. And, according to York, project management software can play a critical role in generating the data to help nonprofits sustain and grow. “It is important to invest in systems to help replicate, expand, and deliver services,” says York. “Project management software can help because it encourages nonprofits to examine program or service changes and how to manage moving forward.” Sears believes that AmeriCares donors will support the return on investment the organization will achieve with the Primavera solution. “It won’t be financial returns, but rather how many more people we can help for a given dollar or how much more quickly we can respond to a need,” says Sears. “I think donors are receptive to such arguments.” And for AmeriCares, it is all about the future and increasing results. The project management environment currently may be quite simple, but IT staff plans to expand the complexity and functionality as the organization grows in its knowledge of project management and the goals it wants to achieve. “As we use the system over time, we’ll continue to refine our best practices and accumulate more data,” says Sears. “It will advance our ability to make better data-driven decisions.”

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  • Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

    - by mbcrump
    Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created.  Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases  including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands.  For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

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  • Windows Azure: Backup Services Release, Hyper-V Recovery Manager, VM Enhancements, Enhanced Enterprise Management Support

    - by ScottGu
    This morning we released a huge set of updates to Windows Azure.  These new capabilities include: Backup Services: General Availability of Windows Azure Backup Services Hyper-V Recovery Manager: Public preview of Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager Virtual Machines: Delete Attached Disks, Availability Set Warnings, SQL AlwaysOn Configuration Active Directory: Securely manage hundreds of SaaS applications Enterprise Management: Use Active Directory to Better Manage Windows Azure Windows Azure SDK 2.2: A massive update of our SDK + Visual Studio tooling support All of these improvements are now available to use immediately.  Below are more details about them. Backup Service: General Availability Release of Windows Azure Backup Today we are releasing Windows Azure Backup Service as a general availability service.  This release is now live in production, backed by an enterprise SLA, supported by Microsoft Support, and is ready to use for production scenarios. Windows Azure Backup is a cloud based backup solution for Windows Server which allows files and folders to be backed up and recovered from the cloud, and provides off-site protection against data loss. The service provides IT administrators and developers with the option to back up and protect critical data in an easily recoverable way from any location with no upfront hardware cost. Windows Azure Backup is built on the Windows Azure platform and uses Windows Azure blob storage for storing customer data. Windows Server uses the downloadable Windows Azure Backup Agent to transfer file and folder data securely and efficiently to the Windows Azure Backup Service. Along with providing cloud backup for Windows Server, Windows Azure Backup Service also provides capability to backup data from System Center Data Protection Manager and Windows Server Essentials, to the cloud. All data is encrypted onsite before it is sent to the cloud, and customers retain and manage the encryption key (meaning the data is stored entirely secured and can’t be decrypted by anyone but yourself). Getting Started To get started with the Windows Azure Backup Service, create a new Backup Vault within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Click New->Data Services->Recovery Services->Backup Vault to do this: Once the backup vault is created you’ll be presented with a simple tutorial that will help guide you on how to register your Windows Servers with it: Once the servers you want to backup are registered, you can use the appropriate local management interface (such as the Microsoft Management Console snap-in, System Center Data Protection Manager Console, or Windows Server Essentials Dashboard) to configure the scheduled backups and to optionally initiate recoveries. You can follow these tutorials to learn more about how to do this: Tutorial: Schedule Backups Using the Windows Azure Backup Agent This tutorial helps you with setting up a backup schedule for your registered Windows Servers. Additionally, it also explains how to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to set up a custom backup schedule. Tutorial: Recover Files and Folders Using the Windows Azure Backup Agent This tutorial helps you with recovering data from a backup. Additionally, it also explains how to use Windows PowerShell cmdlets to do the same tasks. Below are some of the key benefits the Windows Azure Backup Service provides: Simple configuration and management. Windows Azure Backup Service integrates with the familiar Windows Server Backup utility in Windows Server, the Data Protection Manager component in System Center and Windows Server Essentials, in order to provide a seamless backup and recovery experience to a local disk, or to the cloud. Block level incremental backups. The Windows Azure Backup Agent performs incremental backups by tracking file and block level changes and only transferring the changed blocks, hence reducing the storage and bandwidth utilization. Different point-in-time versions of the backups use storage efficiently by only storing the changes blocks between these versions. Data compression, encryption and throttling. The Windows Azure Backup Agent ensures that data is compressed and encrypted on the server before being sent to the Windows Azure Backup Service over the network. As a result, the Windows Azure Backup Service only stores encrypted data in the cloud storage. The encryption key is not available to the Windows Azure Backup Service, and as a result the data is never decrypted in the service. Also, users can setup throttling and configure how the Windows Azure Backup service utilizes the network bandwidth when backing up or restoring information. Data integrity is verified in the cloud. In addition to the secure backups, the backed up data is also automatically checked for integrity once the backup is done. As a result, any corruptions which may arise due to data transfer can be easily identified and are fixed automatically. Configurable retention policies for storing data in the cloud. The Windows Azure Backup Service accepts and implements retention policies to recycle backups that exceed the desired retention range, thereby meeting business policies and managing backup costs. Hyper-V Recovery Manager: Now Available in Public Preview I’m excited to also announce the public preview of a new Windows Azure Service – the Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager (HRM). Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager helps protect your business critical services by coordinating the replication and recovery of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 SP1 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 private clouds at a secondary location. With automated protection, asynchronous ongoing replication, and orderly recovery, the Hyper-V Recovery Manager service can help you implement Disaster Recovery and restore important services accurately, consistently, and with minimal downtime. Application data in an Hyper-V Recovery Manager scenarios always travels on your on-premise replication channel. Only metadata (such as names of logical clouds, virtual machines, networks etc.) that is needed for orchestration is sent to Azure. All traffic sent to/from Azure is encrypted. You can begin using Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery today by clicking New->Data Services->Recovery Services->Hyper-V Recovery Manager within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  You can read more about Windows Azure Hyper-V Recovery Manager in Brad Anderson’s 9-part series, Transform the datacenter. To learn more about setting up Hyper-V Recovery Manager follow our detailed step-by-step guide. Virtual Machines: Delete Attached Disks, Availability Set Warnings, SQL AlwaysOn Today’s Windows Azure release includes a number of nice updates to Windows Azure Virtual Machines.  These improvements include: Ability to Delete both VM Instances + Attached Disks in One Operation Prior to today’s release, when you deleted VMs within Windows Azure we would delete the VM instance – but not delete the drives attached to the VM.  You had to manually delete these yourself from the storage account.  With today’s update we’ve added a convenience option that now allows you to either retain or delete the attached disks when you delete the VM:   We’ve also added the ability to delete a cloud service, its deployments, and its role instances with a single action. This can either be a cloud service that has production and staging deployments with web and worker roles, or a cloud service that contains virtual machines.  To do this, simply select the Cloud Service within the Windows Azure Management Portal and click the “Delete” button: Warnings on Availability Sets with Only One Virtual Machine In Them One of the nice features that Windows Azure Virtual Machines supports is the concept of “Availability Sets”.  An “availability set” allows you to define a tier/role (e.g. webfrontends, databaseservers, etc) that you can map Virtual Machines into – and when you do this Windows Azure separates them across fault domains and ensures that at least one of them is always available during servicing operations.  This enables you to deploy applications in a high availability way. One issue we’ve seen some customers run into is where they define an availability set, but then forget to map more than one VM into it (which defeats the purpose of having an availability set).  With today’s release we now display a warning in the Windows Azure Management Portal if you have only one virtual machine deployed in an availability set to help highlight this: You can learn more about configuring the availability of your virtual machines here. Configuring SQL Server Always On SQL Server Always On is a great feature that you can use with Windows Azure to enable high availability and DR scenarios with SQL Server. Today’s Windows Azure release makes it even easier to configure SQL Server Always On by enabling “Direct Server Return” endpoints to be configured and managed within the Windows Azure Management Portal.  Previously, setting this up required using PowerShell to complete the endpoint configuration.  Starting today you can enable this simply by checking the “Direct Server Return” checkbox: You can learn more about how to use direct server return for SQL Server AlwaysOn availability groups here. Active Directory: Application Access Enhancements This summer we released our initial preview of our Application Access Enhancements for Windows Azure Active Directory.  This service enables you to securely implement single-sign-on (SSO) support against SaaS applications (including Office 365, SalesForce, Workday, Box, Google Apps, GitHub, etc) as well as LOB based applications (including ones built with the new Windows Azure AD support we shipped last week with ASP.NET and VS 2013). Since the initial preview we’ve enhanced our SAML federation capabilities, integrated our new password vaulting system, and shipped multi-factor authentication support. We've also turned on our outbound identity provisioning system and have it working with hundreds of additional SaaS Applications: Earlier this month we published an update on dates and pricing for when the service will be released in general availability form.  In this blog post we announced our intention to release the service in general availability form by the end of the year.  We also announced that the below features would be available in a free tier with it: SSO to every SaaS app we integrate with – Users can Single Sign On to any app we are integrated with at no charge. This includes all the top SAAS Apps and every app in our application gallery whether they use federation or password vaulting. Application access assignment and removal – IT Admins can assign access privileges to web applications to the users in their active directory assuring that every employee has access to the SAAS Apps they need. And when a user leaves the company or changes jobs, the admin can just as easily remove their access privileges assuring data security and minimizing IP loss User provisioning (and de-provisioning) – IT admins will be able to automatically provision users in 3rd party SaaS applications like Box, Salesforce.com, GoToMeeting, DropBox and others. We are working with key partners in the ecosystem to establish these connections, meaning you no longer have to continually update user records in multiple systems. Security and auditing reports – Security is a key priority for us. With the free version of these enhancements you'll get access to our standard set of access reports giving you visibility into which users are using which applications, when they were using them and where they are using them from. In addition, we'll alert you to un-usual usage patterns for instance when a user logs in from multiple locations at the same time. Our Application Access Panel – Users are logging in from every type of devices including Windows, iOS, & Android. Not all of these devices handle authentication in the same manner but the user doesn't care. They need to access their apps from the devices they love. Our Application Access Panel will support the ability for users to access access and launch their apps from any device and anywhere. You can learn more about our plans for application management with Windows Azure Active Directory here.  Try out the preview and start using it today. Enterprise Management: Use Active Directory to Better Manage Windows Azure Windows Azure Active Directory 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 (allowing you to seamlessly integrate with the directory you already have).  With today’s Windows Azure release we are integrating Windows Azure Active Directory even more within the core Windows Azure management experience, and enabling an even richer enterprise security offering.  Specifically: 1) All Windows Azure accounts now have a default Windows Azure Active Directory created for them.  You can create and map any users you want into this directory, and grant administrative rights to manage resources in Windows Azure to these users. 2) You can keep this directory entirely hosted in the cloud – or optionally sync it with your on-premises Windows Server Active Directory.  Both options are free.  The later approach is ideal for companies that wish to use their corporate user identities to sign-in and manage Windows Azure resources.  It also ensures that if an employee leaves an organization, his or her access control rights to the company’s Windows Azure resources are immediately revoked. 3) The Windows Azure Service Management APIs have been updated to support using Windows Azure Active Directory credentials to sign-in and perform management operations.  Prior to today’s release customers had to download and use management certificates (which were not scoped to individual users) to perform management operations.  We still support this management certificate approach (don’t worry – nothing will stop working).  But we think the new Windows Azure Active Directory authentication support enables an even easier and more secure way for customers to manage resources going forward.  4) The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release (which is also shipping today) includes built-in support for the new Service Management APIs that authenticate with Windows Azure Active Directory, and now allow you to create and manage Windows Azure applications and resources directly within Visual Studio using your Active Directory credentials.  This, combined with updated PowerShell scripts that also support Active Directory, enables an end-to-end enterprise authentication story with Windows Azure. Below are some details on how all of this works: Subscriptions within a Directory As part of today’s update, we have associated all existing Window Azure accounts with a Windows Azure Active Directory (and created one for you if you don’t already have one). When you login to the Windows Azure Management Portal you’ll now see the directory name in the URI of the browser.  For example, in the screen-shot below you can see that I have a “scottgu” directory that my subscriptions are hosted within: Note that you can continue to use Microsoft Accounts (formerly known as Microsoft Live IDs) to sign-into Windows Azure.  These map just fine to a Windows Azure Active Directory – so there is no need to create new usernames that are specific to a directory if you don’t want to.  In the scenario above I’m actually logged in using my @hotmail.com based Microsoft ID which is now mapped to a “scottgu” active directory that was created for me.  By default everything will continue to work just like you used to before. Manage your Directory You can manage an Active Directory (including the one we now create for you by default) by clicking the “Active Directory” tab in the left-hand side of the portal.  This will list all of the directories in your account.  Clicking one the first time will display a getting started page that provides documentation and links to perform common tasks with it: You can use the built-in directory management support within the Windows Azure Management Portal to add/remove/manage users within the directory, enable multi-factor authentication, associate a custom domain (e.g. mycompanyname.com) with the directory, and/or rename the directory to whatever friendly name you want (just click the configure tab to do this).  You can also setup the directory to automatically sync with an on-premises Active Directory using the “Directory Integration” tab. Note that users within a directory by default do not have admin rights to login or manage Windows Azure based resources.  You still need to explicitly grant them co-admin permissions on a subscription for them to login or manage resources in Windows Azure.  You can do this by clicking the Settings tab on the left-hand side of the portal and then by clicking the administrators tab within it. Sign-In Integration within Visual Studio If you install the new Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release, you can now connect to Windows Azure from directly inside Visual Studio without having to download any management certificates.  You can now just right-click on the “Windows Azure” icon within the Server Explorer and choose the “Connect to Windows Azure” context menu option to do so: Doing this will prompt you to enter the email address of the username you wish to sign-in with (make sure this account is a user in your directory with co-admin rights on a subscription): You can use either a Microsoft Account (e.g. Windows Live ID) or an Active Directory based Organizational account as the email.  The dialog will update with an appropriate login prompt depending on which type of email address you enter: Once you sign-in you’ll see the Windows Azure resources that you have permissions to manage show up automatically within the Visual Studio server explorer and be available to start using: No downloading of management certificates required.  All of the authentication was handled using your Windows Azure Active Directory! Manage Subscriptions across Multiple Directories If you have already have multiple directories and multiple subscriptions within your Windows Azure account, we have done our best to create a good default mapping of your subscriptions->directories as part of today’s update.  If you don’t like the default subscription-to-directory mapping we have done you can click the Settings tab in the left-hand navigation of the Windows Azure Management Portal and browse to the Subscriptions tab within it: If you want to map a subscription under a different directory in your account, simply select the subscription from the list, and then click the “Edit Directory” button to choose which directory to map it to.  Mapping a subscription to a different directory takes only seconds and will not cause any of the resources within the subscription to recycle or stop working.  We’ve made the directory->subscription mapping process self-service so that you always have complete control and can map things however you want. Filtering By Directory and Subscription Within the Windows Azure Management Portal you can filter resources in the portal by subscription (allowing you to show/hide different subscriptions).  If you have subscriptions mapped to multiple directory tenants, we also now have a filter drop-down that allows you to filter the subscription list by directory tenant.  This filter is only available if you have multiple subscriptions mapped to multiple directories within your Windows Azure Account:   Windows Azure SDK 2.2 Today we are also releasing a major update of our Windows Azure SDK.  The Windows Azure SDK 2.2 release adds some great new features including: Visual Studio 2013 Support Integrated Windows Azure Sign-In support within Visual Studio Remote Debugging Cloud Services with Visual Studio Firewall Management support within Visual Studio for SQL Databases Visual Studio 2013 RTM VM Images for MSDN Subscribers Windows Azure Management Libraries for .NET Updated Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets and ScriptCenter I’ll post a follow-up blog shortly with more details about all of the above. Additional Updates In addition to the above enhancements, today’s release also includes a number of additional improvements: AutoScale: Richer time and date based scheduling support (set different rules on different dates) AutoScale: Ability to Scale to Zero Virtual Machines (very useful for Dev/Test scenarios) AutoScale: Support for time-based scheduling of Mobile Service AutoScale rules Operation Logs: Auditing support for Service Bus management operations Today we also shipped a major update to the Windows Azure SDK – Windows Azure SDK 2.2.  It has so much goodness in it that I have a whole second blog post coming shortly on it! :-) Summary Today’s Windows Azure release enables a bunch of great new scenarios, and enables a much richer enterprise authentication offering. If you don’t already have a Windows Azure account, you can sign-up for a free trial and start using all of the above features today.  Then visit the Windows Azure Developer Center to learn more about how to build apps with it. 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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  • Ancillary Objects: Separate Debug ELF Files For Solaris

    - by Ali Bahrami
    We introduced a new object ELF object type in Solaris 11 Update 1 called the Ancillary Object. This posting describes them, using material originally written during their development, the PSARC arc case, and the Solaris Linker and Libraries Manual. ELF objects contain allocable sections, which are mapped into memory at runtime, and non-allocable sections, which are present in the file for use by debuggers and observability tools, but which are not mapped or used at runtime. Typically, all of these sections exist within a single object file. Ancillary objects allow them to instead go into a separate file. There are different reasons given for wanting such a feature. One can debate whether the added complexity is worth the benefit, and in most cases it is not. However, one important case stands out — customers with very large 32-bit objects who are not ready or able to make the transition to 64-bits. We have customers who build extremely large 32-bit objects. Historically, the debug sections in these objects have used the stabs format, which is limited, but relatively compact. In recent years, the industry has transitioned to the powerful but verbose DWARF standard. In some cases, the size of these debug sections is large enough to push the total object file size past the fundamental 4GB limit for 32-bit ELF object files. The best, and ultimately only, solution to overly large objects is to transition to 64-bits. However, consider environments where: Hundreds of users may be executing the code on large shared systems. (32-bits use less memory and bus bandwidth, and on sparc runs just as fast as 64-bit code otherwise). Complex finely tuned code, where the original authors may no longer be available. Critical production code, that was expensive to qualify and bring online, and which is otherwise serving its intended purpose without issue. Users in these risk adverse and/or high scale categories have good reasons to push 32-bits objects to the limit before moving on. Ancillary objects offer these users a longer runway. Design The design of ancillary objects is intended to be simple, both to help human understanding when examining elfdump output, and to lower the bar for debuggers such as dbx to support them. The primary and ancillary objects have the same set of section headers, with the same names, in the same order (i.e. each section has the same index in both files). A single added section of type SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY is added to both objects, containing information that allows a debugger to identify and validate both files relative to each other. Given one of these files, the ancillary section allows you to identify the other. Allocable sections go in the primary object, and non-allocable ones go into the ancillary object. A small set of non-allocable objects, notably the symbol table, are copied into both objects. As noted above, most sections are only written to one of the two objects, but both objects have the same section header array. The section header in the file that does not contain the section data is tagged with the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section header flag to indicate its placeholder status. Compiler writers and others who produce objects can set the SUNW_SHF_PRIMARY section header flag to mark non-allocable sections that should go to the primary object rather than the ancillary. If you don't request an ancillary object, the Solaris ELF format is unchanged. Users who don't use ancillary objects do not pay for the feature. This is important, because they exist to serve a small subset of our users, and must not complicate the common case. If you do request an ancillary object, the runtime behavior of the primary object will be the same as that of a normal object. There is no added runtime cost. The primary and ancillary object together represent a logical single object. This is facilitated by the use of a single set of section headers. One can easily imagine a tool that can merge a primary and ancillary object into a single file, or the reverse. (Note that although this is an interesting intellectual exercise, we don't actually supply such a tool because there's little practical benefit above and beyond using ld to create the files). Among the benefits of this approach are: There is no need for per-file symbol tables to reflect the contents of each file. The same symbol table that would be produced for a standard object can be used. The section contents are identical in either case — there is no need to alter data to accommodate multiple files. It is very easy for a debugger to adapt to these new files, and the processing involved can be encapsulated in input/output routines. Most of the existing debugger implementation applies without modification. The limit of a 4GB 32-bit output object is now raised to 4GB of code, and 4GB of debug data. There is also the future possibility (not currently supported) to support multiple ancillary objects, each of which could contain up to 4GB of additional debug data. It must be noted however that the 32-bit DWARF debug format is itself inherently 32-bit limited, as it uses 32-bit offsets between debug sections, so the ability to employ multiple ancillary object files may not turn out to be useful. Using Ancillary Objects (From the Solaris Linker and Libraries Guide) By default, objects contain both allocable and non-allocable sections. Allocable sections are the sections that contain executable code and the data needed by that code at runtime. Non-allocable sections contain supplemental information that is not required to execute an object at runtime. These sections support the operation of debuggers and other observability tools. The non-allocable sections in an object are not loaded into memory at runtime by the operating system, and so, they have no impact on memory use or other aspects of runtime performance no matter their size. For convenience, both allocable and non-allocable sections are normally maintained in the same file. However, there are situations in which it can be useful to separate these sections. To reduce the size of objects in order to improve the speed at which they can be copied across wide area networks. To support fine grained debugging of highly optimized code requires considerable debug data. In modern systems, the debugging data can easily be larger than the code it describes. The size of a 32-bit object is limited to 4 Gbytes. In very large 32-bit objects, the debug data can cause this limit to be exceeded and prevent the creation of the object. To limit the exposure of internal implementation details. Traditionally, objects have been stripped of non-allocable sections in order to address these issues. Stripping is effective, but destroys data that might be needed later. The Solaris link-editor can instead write non-allocable sections to an ancillary object. This feature is enabled with the -z ancillary command line option. $ ld ... -z ancillary[=outfile] ...By default, the ancillary file is given the same name as the primary output object, with a .anc file extension. However, a different name can be provided by providing an outfile value to the -z ancillary option. When -z ancillary is specified, the link-editor performs the following actions. All allocable sections are written to the primary object. In addition, all non-allocable sections containing one or more input sections that have the SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY section header flag set are written to the primary object. All remaining non-allocable sections are written to the ancillary object. The following non-allocable sections are written to both the primary object and ancillary object. .shstrtab The section name string table. .symtab The full non-dynamic symbol table. .symtab_shndx The symbol table extended index section associated with .symtab. .strtab The non-dynamic string table associated with .symtab. .SUNW_ancillary Contains the information required to identify the primary and ancillary objects, and to identify the object being examined. The primary object and all ancillary objects contain the same array of sections headers. Each section has the same section index in every file. Although the primary and ancillary objects all define the same section headers, the data for most sections will be written to a single file as described above. If the data for a section is not present in a given file, the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section header flag is set, and the sh_size field is 0. This organization makes it possible to acquire a full list of section headers, a complete symbol table, and a complete list of the primary and ancillary objects from either of the primary or ancillary objects. The following example illustrates the underlying implementation of ancillary objects. An ancillary object is created by adding the -z ancillary command line option to an otherwise normal compilation. The file utility shows that the result is an executable named a.out, and an associated ancillary object named a.out.anc. $ cat hello.c #include <stdio.h> int main(int argc, char **argv) { (void) printf("hello, world\n"); return (0); } $ cc -g -zancillary hello.c $ file a.out a.out.anc a.out: ELF 32-bit LSB executable 80386 Version 1 [FPU], dynamically linked, not stripped, ancillary object a.out.anc a.out.anc: ELF 32-bit LSB ancillary 80386 Version 1, primary object a.out $ ./a.out hello worldThe resulting primary object is an ordinary executable that can be executed in the usual manner. It is no different at runtime than an executable built without the use of ancillary objects, and then stripped of non-allocable content using the strip or mcs commands. As previously described, the primary object and ancillary objects contain the same section headers. To see how this works, it is helpful to use the elfdump utility to display these section headers and compare them. The following table shows the section header information for a selection of headers from the previous link-edit example. Index Section Name Type Primary Flags Ancillary Flags Primary Size Ancillary Size 13 .text PROGBITS ALLOC EXECINSTR ALLOC EXECINSTR SUNW_ABSENT 0x131 0 20 .data PROGBITS WRITE ALLOC WRITE ALLOC SUNW_ABSENT 0x4c 0 21 .symtab SYMTAB 0 0 0x450 0x450 22 .strtab STRTAB STRINGS STRINGS 0x1ad 0x1ad 24 .debug_info PROGBITS SUNW_ABSENT 0 0 0x1a7 28 .shstrtab STRTAB STRINGS STRINGS 0x118 0x118 29 .SUNW_ancillary SUNW_ancillary 0 0 0x30 0x30 The data for most sections is only present in one of the two files, and absent from the other file. The SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section header flag is set when the data is absent. The data for allocable sections needed at runtime are found in the primary object. The data for non-allocable sections used for debugging but not needed at runtime are placed in the ancillary file. A small set of non-allocable sections are fully present in both files. These are the .SUNW_ancillary section used to relate the primary and ancillary objects together, the section name string table .shstrtab, as well as the symbol table.symtab, and its associated string table .strtab. It is possible to strip the symbol table from the primary object. A debugger that encounters an object without a symbol table can use the .SUNW_ancillary section to locate the ancillary object, and access the symbol contained within. The primary object, and all associated ancillary objects, contain a .SUNW_ancillary section that allows all the objects to be identified and related together. $ elfdump -T SUNW_ancillary a.out a.out.anc a.out: Ancillary Section: .SUNW_ancillary index tag value [0] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0x8724 [1] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1 a.out [2] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0x8724 [3] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1a3 a.out.anc [4] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0xfbe2 [5] ANC_SUNW_NULL 0 a.out.anc: Ancillary Section: .SUNW_ancillary index tag value [0] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0xfbe2 [1] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1 a.out [2] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0x8724 [3] ANC_SUNW_MEMBER 0x1a3 a.out.anc [4] ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM 0xfbe2 [5] ANC_SUNW_NULL 0 The ancillary sections for both objects contain the same number of elements, and are identical except for the first element. Each object, starting with the primary object, is introduced with a MEMBER element that gives the file name, followed by a CHECKSUM that identifies the object. In this example, the primary object is a.out, and has a checksum of 0x8724. The ancillary object is a.out.anc, and has a checksum of 0xfbe2. The first element in a .SUNW_ancillary section, preceding the MEMBER element for the primary object, is always a CHECKSUM element, containing the checksum for the file being examined. The presence of a .SUNW_ancillary section in an object indicates that the object has associated ancillary objects. The names of the primary and all associated ancillary objects can be obtained from the ancillary section from any one of the files. It is possible to determine which file is being examined from the larger set of files by comparing the first checksum value to the checksum of each member that follows. Debugger Access and Use of Ancillary Objects Debuggers and other observability tools must merge the information found in the primary and ancillary object files in order to build a complete view of the object. This is equivalent to processing the information from a single file. This merging is simplified by the primary object and ancillary objects containing the same section headers, and a single symbol table. The following steps can be used by a debugger to assemble the information contained in these files. Starting with the primary object, or any of the ancillary objects, locate the .SUNW_ancillary section. The presence of this section identifies the object as part of an ancillary group, contains information that can be used to obtain a complete list of the files and determine which of those files is the one currently being examined. Create a section header array in memory, using the section header array from the object being examined as an initial template. Open and read each file identified by the .SUNW_ancillary section in turn. For each file, fill in the in-memory section header array with the information for each section that does not have the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT flag set. The result will be a complete in-memory copy of the section headers with pointers to the data for all sections. Once this information has been acquired, the debugger can proceed as it would in the single file case, to access and control the running program. Note - The ELF definition of ancillary objects provides for a single primary object, and an arbitrary number of ancillary objects. At this time, the Oracle Solaris link-editor only produces a single ancillary object containing all non-allocable sections. This may change in the future. Debuggers and other observability tools should be written to handle the general case of multiple ancillary objects. ELF Implementation Details (From the Solaris Linker and Libraries Guide) To implement ancillary objects, it was necessary to extend the ELF format to add a new object type (ET_SUNW_ANCILLARY), a new section type (SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY), and 2 new section header flags (SHF_SUNW_ABSENT, SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY). In this section, I will detail these changes, in the form of diffs to the Solaris Linker and Libraries manual. Part IV ELF Application Binary Interface Chapter 13: Object File Format Object File Format Edit Note: This existing section at the beginning of the chapter describes the ELF header. There's a table of object file types, which now includes the new ET_SUNW_ANCILLARY type. e_type Identifies the object file type, as listed in the following table. NameValueMeaning ET_NONE0No file type ET_REL1Relocatable file ET_EXEC2Executable file ET_DYN3Shared object file ET_CORE4Core file ET_LOSUNW0xfefeStart operating system specific range ET_SUNW_ANCILLARY0xfefeAncillary object file ET_HISUNW0xfefdEnd operating system specific range ET_LOPROC0xff00Start processor-specific range ET_HIPROC0xffffEnd processor-specific range Sections Edit Note: This overview section defines the section header structure, and provides a high level description of known sections. It was updated to define the new SHF_SUNW_ABSENT and SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY flags and the new SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY section. ... sh_type Categorizes the section's contents and semantics. Section types and their descriptions are listed in Table 13-5. sh_flags Sections support 1-bit flags that describe miscellaneous attributes. Flag definitions are listed in Table 13-8. ... Table 13-5 ELF Section Types, sh_type NameValue . . . SHT_LOSUNW0x6fffffee SHT_SUNW_ancillary0x6fffffee . . . ... SHT_LOSUNW - SHT_HISUNW Values in this inclusive range are reserved for Oracle Solaris OS semantics. SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY Present when a given object is part of a group of ancillary objects. Contains information required to identify all the files that make up the group. See Ancillary Section. ... Table 13-8 ELF Section Attribute Flags NameValue . . . SHF_MASKOS0x0ff00000 SHF_SUNW_NODISCARD0x00100000 SHF_SUNW_ABSENT0x00200000 SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY0x00400000 SHF_MASKPROC0xf0000000 . . . ... SHF_SUNW_ABSENT Indicates that the data for this section is not present in this file. When ancillary objects are created, the primary object and any ancillary objects, will all have the same section header array, to facilitate merging them to form a complete view of the object, and to allow them to use the same symbol tables. Each file contains a subset of the section data. The data for allocable sections is written to the primary object while the data for non-allocable sections is written to an ancillary file. The SHF_SUNW_ABSENT flag is used to indicate that the data for the section is not present in the object being examined. When the SHF_SUNW_ABSENT flag is set, the sh_size field of the section header must be 0. An application encountering an SHF_SUNW_ABSENT section can choose to ignore the section, or to search for the section data within one of the related ancillary files. SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY The default behavior when ancillary objects are created is to write all allocable sections to the primary object and all non-allocable sections to the ancillary objects. The SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY flag overrides this behavior. Any output section containing one more input section with the SHF_SUNW_PRIMARY flag set is written to the primary object without regard for its allocable status. ... Two members in the section header, sh_link, and sh_info, hold special information, depending on section type. Table 13-9 ELF sh_link and sh_info Interpretation sh_typesh_linksh_info . . . SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY The section header index of the associated string table. 0 . . . Special Sections Edit Note: This section describes the sections used in Solaris ELF objects, using the types defined in the previous description of section types. It was updated to define the new .SUNW_ancillary (SHT_SUNW_ANCILLARY) section. Various sections hold program and control information. Sections in the following table are used by the system and have the indicated types and attributes. Table 13-10 ELF Special Sections NameTypeAttribute . . . .SUNW_ancillarySHT_SUNW_ancillaryNone . . . ... .SUNW_ancillary Present when a given object is part of a group of ancillary objects. Contains information required to identify all the files that make up the group. See Ancillary Section for details. ... Ancillary Section Edit Note: This new section provides the format reference describing the layout of a .SUNW_ancillary section and the meaning of the various tags. Note that these sections use the same tag/value concept used for dynamic and capabilities sections, and will be familiar to anyone used to working with ELF. In addition to the primary output object, the Solaris link-editor can produce one or more ancillary objects. Ancillary objects contain non-allocable sections that would normally be written to the primary object. When ancillary objects are produced, the primary object and all of the associated ancillary objects contain a SHT_SUNW_ancillary section, containing information that identifies these related objects. Given any one object from such a group, the ancillary section provides the information needed to identify and interpret the others. This section contains an array of the following structures. See sys/elf.h. typedef struct { Elf32_Word a_tag; union { Elf32_Word a_val; Elf32_Addr a_ptr; } a_un; } Elf32_Ancillary; typedef struct { Elf64_Xword a_tag; union { Elf64_Xword a_val; Elf64_Addr a_ptr; } a_un; } Elf64_Ancillary; For each object with this type, a_tag controls the interpretation of a_un. a_val These objects represent integer values with various interpretations. a_ptr These objects represent file offsets or addresses. The following ancillary tags exist. Table 13-NEW1 ELF Ancillary Array Tags NameValuea_un ANC_SUNW_NULL0Ignored ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM1a_val ANC_SUNW_MEMBER2a_ptr ANC_SUNW_NULL Marks the end of the ancillary section. ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM Provides the checksum for a file in the c_val element. When ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM precedes the first instance of ANC_SUNW_MEMBER, it provides the checksum for the object from which the ancillary section is being read. When it follows an ANC_SUNW_MEMBER tag, it provides the checksum for that member. ANC_SUNW_MEMBER Specifies an object name. The a_ptr element contains the string table offset of a null-terminated string, that provides the file name. An ancillary section must always contain an ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM before the first instance of ANC_SUNW_MEMBER, identifying the current object. Following that, there should be an ANC_SUNW_MEMBER for each object that makes up the complete set of objects. Each ANC_SUNW_MEMBER should be followed by an ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM for that object. A typical ancillary section will therefore be structured as: TagMeaning ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUMChecksum of this object ANC_SUNW_MEMBERName of object #1 ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUMChecksum for object #1 . . . ANC_SUNW_MEMBERName of object N ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUMChecksum for object N ANC_SUNW_NULL An object can therefore identify itself by comparing the initial ANC_SUNW_CHECKSUM to each of the ones that follow, until it finds a match. Related Other Work The GNU developers have also encountered the need/desire to support separate debug information files, and use the solution detailed at http://sourceware.org/gdb/onlinedocs/gdb/Separate-Debug-Files.html. At the current time, the separate debug file is constructed by building the standard object first, and then copying the debug data out of it in a separate post processing step, Hence, it is limited to a total of 4GB of code and debug data, just as a single object file would be. They are aware of this, and I have seen online comments indicating that they may add direct support for generating these separate files to their link-editor. It is worth noting that the GNU objcopy utility is available on Solaris, and that the Studio dbx debugger is able to use these GNU style separate debug files even on Solaris. Although this is interesting in terms giving Linux users a familiar environment on Solaris, the 4GB limit means it is not an answer to the problem of very large 32-bit objects. We have also encountered issues with objcopy not understanding Solaris-specific ELF sections, when using this approach. The GNU community also has a current effort to adapt their DWARF debug sections in order to move them to separate files before passing the relocatable objects to the linker. The details of Project Fission can be found at http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission. The goal of this project appears to be to reduce the amount of data seen by the link-editor. The primary effort revolves around moving DWARF data to separate .dwo files so that the link-editor never encounters them. The details of modifying the DWARF data to be usable in this form are involved — please see the above URL for details.

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  • Hosted bug tracking system with mercurial repositories (Summary of options & request for opinions)

    - by Mark Booth
    The Question What hosted mercurial repository/bug tracking system or systems have you used? Would you recommend it to others? Are there serious flaws, either in the repository hosting or the bug tracking features that would make it difficult to recommend it? Do you have any other experiences with it or opinions of it that you would like to share? If you have used other non mercurial hosted repository/bug tracking systems, how does it compare? (If I understand correctly, the best format for this type of community-wiki style question is one answer per option, if you have experienced if several) Background I have been looking into options for setting up a bug/issue tracking database and found some valuable advice in this thread and this. But then I got to thinking that a hosted solution might not only solve the problem of tracking bugs, but might also solve the problem we have accessing our mercurial source code repositories while at customer sites around the world. Since we currently have no way to serve mercurial repositories over ssl, when I am at a customer site I have to connect my laptop via VPN to my work network and access the mercurial repositories over a samba share (even if it is just to synce twice a day). This is excruciatingly slow on high latency networks and can be impossible with some customers' firewalls. Even if we could run a TRAC or Redmine server here (thanks turnkey), I'm not sure it would be much quicker as our internet connection is over-stretched as it is. What I would like is for developers to be able to be able to push/pull to/from a remote repository, servicing engineers to be able to pull from a remote repository and for customers (both internal and external) to be able to submit bug/issue reports. Initial options The two options I found were Assembla and Jira. Looking at Assembla I thought the 'group' price looked reasonable, but after enquiring, found that each workspace could only contain a single repository. Since each of our products might have up to a dozen repositories (mostly for libraries) which need to be managed seperately for each product, I could see it getting expensive really quickly. On the plus side, it appears that 'users' are just workspace members, so you can have as many client users (people who can only submit support tickets and track their own tickets) without using up your user allocation. Jira only charges based on the number of users, unfortunately client users also count towards this, if you want them to be able to track their tickets. If you only want clients to be able to submit untracked issues, you can let them submit anonymously, but that doesn't feel very professional to me. More options Looking through MercurialHosting page that @Paidhi suggested, I've added the options which appear to offer private repositories, along with another that I found with a web search. Prices are as per their website today (29th March 2010). Corrections welcome in the future. Anyway, here is my summary, according to the information given on their websites: Assembla, http://www.assembla.com/, looks to be a reasonable price, but suffers only one repository per workspace, so three projects with 6 repos each would use up most of the spaces associated with a $99/month professional account (20 spaces). Bug tracking is based on Trac. Mercurial+Trac support was announced in a blog entry in 2007, but they only list SVN and Git on their Features web page. Cost: $24, $49, $99 & $249/month for 40, 40, unlimited, unlimited users and 1, 10, 20, 100 workspaces. SSL based push/pull? Website https login. BitBucket, http://bitbucket.org/plans/, is primarily a mercurial hosting site for open source projects, with SSL support, but they have an integrated bug tracker and they are cheap for private repositories. It has it’s own issues tracker, but also integrates with Lighthouse & FogBugz. Cost: $0, $5, $12, $50 & $100/month for 1, 5, 15, 25 & 150 private repositories. SSL based push/pull. No https on website login, but supports OpenID, so you can chose an OpenID provider with https login. Codebase HQ, http://www.codebasehq.com/, supports Hg and is almost as cheap as BitBucket. Cost: £5, £13, £21 & £40/month for 3, 15, 30 & 60 active projects, unlimited repositories, unlimited users (except 10 users at £5/month) and 0.5, 2, 4 & 10GB. SSL based push/pull? Website https login? Firefly, http://www.activestate.com/firefly/, by ActiveState looks interesting, but the website is a little light on details, such as whether you can only have one repository per project or not. Cost: $9, $19, & £39/month for 1, 5 & 30 private projects, with a 0.5, 1.5 & 3 GB storage limit. SSL based push/pull? Website https login. Jira, http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/, isn’t limited by the number of repositories you can have, but by ‘user’. It could work out quite expensive if we want client users to be able to track their issues, since they would need a full user account to be created for them. Also, while there is a Mercurial extension to support jira, there is no ‘Advanced integration’ for Mercurial from Atlassian Fisheye. Cost: $150, $300, $400, $500, $700/month for 10, 25, 50, 100, 100+ users. SSL based push/pull? Website https login. Kiln & FogBugz On Demand, http://fogcreek.com/Kiln/IntrotoOnDemand.html, integrates Kilns mercurial DVCS features with FogBugz, where the combined package is much cheaper than the component parts. Also, the Fogbugz integration is supposedly excellent. *8’) Cost: £30/developer/month ($5/d/m more than either on their own). SSL based push/pull? SourceRepo, http://sourcerepo.com/, also supports HG and is even cheaper than BitBucket & Codebase. Cost: $4, $7 & $13/month for 1, unlimited & unlimited repositories/trac/redmine instances and 500MB, 1GB & 3GB storage. SSL based push/pull. Website https login. Edit: 29th March 2010 & Bounty I split this question into sections, made the questions themselves more explicit, added other options from the research I have done since my first posting and made this community wiki, since I now understand what CW is for. *8') Also, I've added a bounty to encourage people to offer their opinions. At the end of the bounty period, I will award the bounty to whoever writes the best review (good or bad), irrespective of the number of up/down votes it gets. Given that it's probably more important to avoid bad providers than find the absolute best one, 'bad reviews' could be considered more important than good ones.

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  • Windows 7 intermittently drops wired internet/lan connection.

    - by CraigTP
    In a nutshell, my Windows 7 Ultimate PC intermittently drops it's internet connection. Why? Background: My PC is wired to my ADSL modem/router which is directly connected to the phone line. I also have wireless connectivity turned on within the router for a laptop to connect wirelessly. Every few hours or so, when using my PC, I find I cannot access the internet and pages will not load. Eventually, Windows7 will update the network icon in the task-tray to show the exclamation mark symbol on the network icon. Opening up the Network And Sharing Centre will show the red cross between the "Multiple Networks" and "The Internet". Here's a picture of the "Network And Sharing Centre" (grabbed when everything was working!) As you can see, I'm running Sun's VirtualBox on this machine and that creates a Network connection for itself. This doesn't seem to affect the intermittent dropping (i.e. the intermittent drops occur whether the VirtualBox connection is in use or not). When the connection does drop, I cannot access any internet pages, nor can I access the router's web admin page at http://192.168.1.1/, so I'm assuming I've lost all local LAN access too. It's definitely not the router (or the internet connection itself) as my laptop, using the wireless connection (and running Vista Home Premium) continues to be able to access the internet (and the router's web admin pages) just fine. Every time this happens, I can immediately restore all internet and LAN access by opening Network Adapter page, disabling the "Local Area Connection" and then re-enabling it. Give it a few seconds and everything is fine again. I assume this is because, beneath the GUI, it's effectively doing an "ipconfig /release" then "ipconfig /renew". Why does this happen in the first place, though? I've googled for this and seen quite a few other people (even on MSDN/Technet forums) experiencing the same or almost the same problem, but with no clear resolution. Suggestions of turning off IPv6 on the LAN adapter, and ensuring there's no power management "sleeping" the network adapter have been tried but do not cure the problem. There does not seem to be any particular sequence of events that cause it to happen either. I've had it go twice in 20 minutes when just randomly browsing the web with no other traffic, and I've also had it go once then not go again for 2-3 hours with the same sort of usage. Can anyone tell me why this is happening and how to make it stop? EDIT: Additional information based upon the answer provided so far: Firstly, I forgot the mention that this is Windows 7 64 bit if that makes any difference at all. I mentioned that I don't think the VirtualBox network adpater is causing this problem in any way, and I also have VirtualBox installed on two other machines, one running Vista Home Premium and the other running XP. Neither of these machine experience the same network connectivity issues as the Windows 7 machine. The IP assignment for the Windows 7 machine is the same both before and after the "drop". I have a DHCP server on the router issuing IP Addresses, however my Windows 7 machine uses a static address. Here's the output from "ipconfig": Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.2(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Within the system's event logs, the only event that relates to the connection dropping is a "DNS Client Event" and this is generated after the connection has dropped and is an event detailing that DNS information can't be found for whatever website I may be trying to access, just as the connection drops: Log Name: System Source: Microsoft-Windows-DNS-Client Event ID: 1014 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: User: NETWORK SERVICE Description: Name resolution for the name weather.service.msn.com timed out after none of the configured DNS servers responded. The network adapter chipset is Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller and I have confirmed that this is the correct chipset for the motherboard (Asus M4A77TD PRO), and in fact, Windows Update installed an updated driver for this on 12/Jan/2009. The details of the update say that it's a Realtek software update from December 2009. Incidentally, I was still having the same intermittent problems prior to this update. It seems to have made no difference at all. EDIT 2 (1 Feb 2010): In my quest to solve this problem, I have discovered some more interesting information. On another forum, someone suggested that I should try running Windows in "Safe Mode With Networking" and see if the problem continues to occur. This was a fantastic suggestion and I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner myself. So, I proceeded to run in Safe Mode with Networking for a number of hours, and amazingly, the "drops" didn't occur once. It was a positive discovery, however, due to the intermittent nature of the original problem, I wasn't completely convinced that the problem was cured. One thing I did note is that the fan on my GFX card was running alot louder than normal. This is due to the fact that I have an ASUS ENGTS250 graphics card (http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=B6imcoax3MRY42f3) which had a known problem with a noisy fan until a BIOS update fixed the issue. (See the "Manufacturer Response" here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121334 for details). Well, running in safe mode had the fan running (incorrectly) at full speed (as it did before the BIOS update), but with an (apparently) stable network connection. Obviously some driver was not loaded for the GFX card when in Safe Mode so this got me thinking about the GFX card (since the very noisy fan was quite obvious when running in Safe Mode). I rebooted into normal mode, and found that Nvidia had a very up-to-date new driver for my GFX card (only about 1 week old), so I downloaded the appropriate driver and installed it. After installation and a reboot, I was able to use my PC for an entire day with NO NETWORK DROPS!!! This was on Saturday. However, on the Sunday, I also had my PC for pretty much the entire day and experienced 2 network drops. No other changes have been made to my PC in this time. So, the story seems to be that updating my graphics card drivers seems to have improved (if not completely fixed) the issue, however, I'm still searching for a proper fix for this problem. Hopefully, this information may help anyone who may have additional ideas as to why this problem is occuring in the first place. (And why does new GFX card drivers have anything to do with the network?) I appreciate everyone's feedback so far. However, I'll have to ask once more if anyone has any further ideas of how to fix this particular problem? Thanks in advance.

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  • How to automatically remove Flash history/privacy trail? Or stop Flash from storing it?

    - by Arjan van Bentem
    Many people have heard about third-party cookies, and some browsers even block those by default. Some people may even be using Private Browsing modes. However, only few seem to realise that Adobe's Flash player also leaves a cross-browser trail on your local hard drive, and allows for sending cookie-like information back to the server, including third-party sites. And because it is a plugin, Flash does not take any of the browser's privacy settings into account. Sorry for the long post, but first some details about why using Flash raises a privacy concern, followed by the results of my tests: The Flash player keeps a cross-browser history of the domain names of the Flash-sites your computer has visited. Unlike your browser's history, this history is not limited to a certain number of days. History is also recorded while using so-called Private Browsing modes. It is stored on your hard drive (though, as described below, without going to Adobe's site you won't know what is stored). I am not sure if any date and time information is kept about each visit, but to see the domain names: right-click on some Flash content, open the settings dialog, and click the Help icon or click the Advanced button within the Privacy tab. This opens a browser to the help pages on Adobe.com, where one can click through to the Website Storage Settings panel. One can clear the existing list, but one cannot stop it from being recorded again. Flash allows for storing data on your local hard drive, using so-called Local Shared Objects (aka "Flash Cookies"). Just like HTTP cookies, this data can be sent back to the server, for tracking purposes. They are cross-browser, have no expiration date, and no user defined maximum lifetime can be set in the Flash preferences either. These not being HTTP cookies, they are (of course) not blocked by a browser's cookies preferences and are not removed when the normal HTTP cookies are deleted. Adobe has announced that version 10.1 will obey Private Browsing in most popular browsers, but unfortunately no word about also removing the data whenever normal cookies are deleted manually. And its implementation might be confusing: [..] if the browser is in normal browsing mode when the Flash Player instance is created, then that particular instance will forever be in normal browsing mode (private browsing is turned off). Accordingly, toggling private browsing on or off without refreshing the page or closing the private browsing window will not impact Flash Player. Local Shared Objects are not limited to the site you visit, and third-party storage is enabled by default. At the Global Storage Settings panel one can deselect the default Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer. Because of the cross-browser and expiration-less nature (and the fact that few people know about it), I feel that the cross-browser third-party Flash Cookies are more dangerous for visitor tracking than third-party normal HTTP cookies. They are even used to restore plain HTTP cookies that the user tried to delete: "All advertisers, websites and networks use cookies for targeted advertising, but cookies are under attack. According to current research they are being erased by 40% of users creating serious problems," says Mookie Tenembaum, founder of United Virtualities. "From simple frequency capping to the more sophisticated behavioral targeting, cookies are an essential part of any online ad campaign. PIE ["Persistent Identification Element"] will give publishers and third-party providers a persistent backup to cookies effectively rendering them unassailable", adds Tenembaum. [..] To justify this tracking mechanism, UV's Tenembaum said, "The user is not proficient enough in technology to know if the cookie is good or bad, or how it works." When selecting None (zero KB) for Specify the amount of disk space that website websites that you haven't yet visited can use to store information on your computer, and checking Never ask again then some sites do not work. However, the same site might work when setting it to None but without selecting Never ask again, and then choose Deny whenever prompted. Both options would result in zero KB of data being allowed, but the behaviour differs. The plugin also provides a Flash Player cache for Adobe-signed files. I guess these files are not an issue. So: how to automatically delete that information? On a Mac, one can find a settings.sol file and a folder for each visited Flash-website in: $HOME/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer/sys/ Deleting the settings.sol file and all the folders in sys, removes the trail from the settings panels. However, the actual Local Shared Ojects are elsewhere (see Wikipedia for locations on other operating systems), in a randomly named subfolder of: $HOME/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/#SharedObjects But then: how to remove this automatically? Simply removing the folders and the settings.sol file every now and then (like by using launchd or Windows' Task Scheduler) may interfere with active browsers. Or is it safe to assume that, given the cross-browser nature, the plugin would not care if things are removed while it is active? Only clearing during log-off may not work for those who hibernate all the time. Firefox users can install BetterPrivacy or Objection to delete the Local Shared Objects (for all others browsers as well). I don't know if that also deletes the trail of website domain names. Or: how to stop Flash from storing a history trail? Change of plans: I'm currently testing prohibiting Flash to write to its own sys and #SharedObjects folders. So far, Flash has not tried to restore permissions (though, when deleting the folders, Flash will of course recreate them). I've not encountered any problems but this may take some while to validate, using multiple browsers and sites. I've not yet found a log that reports errors. On a Mac: cd "$HOME/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player/macromedia.com/support/flashplayer" rm -r sys/* chmod u-w sys cd "$HOME/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/Flash Player" # preserve the randomly named subfolders (only preserving the latest would suffice; see below) rm -r \#SharedObjects/*/* chmod -R u-w \#SharedObjects I guess the above chmods cannot be achieved on an old Windows system (I'm not sure about XP and Vista?). Though maybe on Windows one could replace the folders sys and #SharedObjects with dummy files with the same names? Anyone? Obviously, keeping Flash from storing those Local Shared Objects for all sites may cause problems. Some test results (Flash 10 on Mac OS X): When blocking the sys folder (even when leaving the #SharedObjects folder writable) then YouTube won't remember your volume settings while viewing multiple videos. Temporarily allowing write access to the blocked folders while visiting trusted sites (to only create folders for domains you like, maybe including references in settings.sol) solves that. This way, for YouTube, Flash could be allowed to write to sys/#s.ytimg.com and #SharedObjects/s.ytimg.com, while Flash could not create new folders for other domains. One may also need to make settings.sol read-only afterwards, or delete it again. When blocking both the sys and #SharedObjects folders, YouTube and Vimeo work fine (though they might not remember any settings). However, Bits on the Run refuses to even show the video player. This is solved by temporarily unblocking the #SharedObjects folder, to allow Flash to create a subfolder with some random name. Within this folder, it would create yet another folder for the current Flash website (content.bitsontherun.com). Removing that website-specific folder, and blocking both #SharedObjects and the randomly named subfolder, still seems to allow Bits on the Run to operate, even though it still cannot write anything to disk. So: the existence of the randomly named subfolder (even when write protected) is important for some sites. When I first found the #SharedObjects folder, it held many subfolders with random names, some created on the very same day. I wonder when Flash decides it wants a new folder, and how it determines (and remembers) that random name. For a moment I considered not blocking write access for sys and #SharedObjects, but explicitly creating read-only folders for well-known third-party tracking domains (like based on a list from, for example, AdBlock Plus). That way, any other domain could still create Local Shared Objects. But the list would be long, and the domains from AdBlock Plus are probably all third-party domains anyway, so disabling Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer might have the very same result. Any experience anyone? (Final notes: if the above links to the settings panels do not work in the future, then use the URL that is known to Flash player as a starting point: www.adobe.com/go/settingsmanager. See also "You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again" at Wired.com -- which uses Flash cookies itself as well... For the very suspicious using Time Machine: you may want to exclude both folders, for each user, and remove the trace that is already on your backup.)

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  • 26 Days: Countdown to Oracle OpenWorld 2012

    - by Michael Snow
    Welcome to our countdown to Oracle OpenWorld! Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is just around the corner. In less than 26 days, San Francisco will be invaded by an expected 50,000 people from all over the world. Here on the Oracle WebCenter team, we’ve all been working to help make the experience a great one for all our WebCenter customers. For a sneak peak  – we’ll be spending this week giving you a teaser of what to look forward to if you are joining us in San Francisco from September 30th through October 4th. We have Oracle WebCenter sessions covering all topics imaginable. Take a look and use the tools we provide to build out your schedule in advance and reserve your seats in your favorite sessions.  That gives you plenty of time to plan for your week with us in San Francisco. If unfortunately, your boss denied your request to attend - there are still some ways that you can join in the experience virtually On-Demand. This year - we are expanding even more up North of Market Street and will be taking over Union Square as well. Check out this map of San Francisco to get a sense of how much of a footprint Oracle OpenWorld has grown to this year. With so much to see and so many sessions to learn from - its no wonder that people get excited. Add to that a good mix of fun and all of the possible WebCenter sessions you could attend - you won't want to sleep at all to take full advantage of such an opportunity. We'll also have our annual WebCenter Customer Appreciation reception - stay tuned this week for some more info on registration to make sure you'll be able to join us. If you've been following the America's Cup at all and believe in EXTREME PERFORMANCE you'll definitely want to take a look at this video from last year's OpenWorld Keynote. 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Important OpenWorld Links:  Attendee / Presenters Toolkit Oracle Schedule Builder WebCenter Sessions (listed in the catalog under Fusion Middleware as "Portals, Sites, Content, and Collaboration" ) Oracle Music Festival - AMAZING Line up!!  Oracle Customer Appreciation Night -LOOK HERE!! Oracle OpenWorld LIVE On-Demand Here are all the WebCenter sessions broken down by day for your viewing pleasure. Monday, October 1st CON8885 - Simplify CRM Engagement with Contextual Collaboration Are your sales teams disconnected and disengaged? Do you want a tool for easily connecting expertise across your organization and providing visibility into the complete sales process? Do you want a way to enhance and retain organization knowledge? Oracle Social Network is the answer. Attend this session to learn how to make CRM easy, effective, and efficient for use across virtual sales teams. Also learn how Oracle Social Network can drive sales force collaboration with natural conversations throughout the sales cycle, promote sales team productivity through purposeful social networking without the noise, and build cross-team knowledge by integrating conversations with CRM and other business applications. CON8268 - Oracle WebCenter Strategy: Engaging Your Customers. Empowering Your Business Oracle WebCenter is a user engagement platform for social business, connecting people and information. Attend this session to learn about the Oracle WebCenter strategy, and understand where Oracle is taking the platform to help companies engage customers, empower employees, and enable partners. Business success starts with ensuring that everyone is engaged with the right people and the right information and can access what they need through the channel of their choice—Web, mobile, or social. Are you giving customers, employees, and partners the best-possible experience? Come learn how you can! ¶ HOL10208 - Add Social Capabilities to Your Enterprise Applications Oracle Social Network enables you to add real-time collaboration capabilities into your enterprise applications, so that conversations can happen directly within your business systems. In this hands-on lab, you will try out the Oracle Social Network product to collaborate with other attendees, using real-time conversations with document sharing capabilities. Next you will embed social capabilities into a sample Web-based enterprise application, using embedded UI components. Experts will also write simple REST-based integrations, using the Oracle Social Network API to programmatically create social interactions. ¶ CON8893 - Improve Employee Productivity with Intuitive and Social Work Environments Social technologies have already transformed the ways customers, employees, partners, and suppliers communicate and stay informed. Forward-thinking organizations today need technologies and infrastructures to help them advance to the next level and integrate social activities with business applications to deliver a user experience that simplifies business processes and enterprise application engagement. Attend this session to hear from an innovative Oracle Social Network customer and learn how you can improve productivity with intuitive and social work environments and empower your employees with innovative social tools to enable contextual access to content and dynamic personalization of solutions. ¶ CON8270 - Oracle WebCenter Content Strategy and Vision Oracle WebCenter provides a strategic content infrastructure for managing documents, images, e-mails, and rich media files. With a single repository, organizations can address any content use case, such as accounts payable, HR onboarding, document management, compliance, records management, digital asset management, or Website management. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter will address new use cases as well as new integrations with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications, leveraging your investments by making your users more productive and error-free. ¶ CON8269 - Oracle WebCenter Sites Strategy and Vision Oracle’s Web experience management solution, Oracle WebCenter Sites, enables organizations to use the online channel to drive customer acquisition and brand loyalty. It helps marketers and business users easily create and manage contextually relevant, social, interactive online experiences across multiple channels on a global scale. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter Sites will provide you with the tools, capabilities, and integrations you need in order to continue to address your customers’ evolving requirements for engaging online experiences and keep moving your business forward. ¶ CON8896 - Living with SharePoint SharePoint is a popular platform, but it’s not always the best fit for Oracle customers. In this session, you’ll discover the technical and nontechnical limitations and pitfalls of SharePoint and learn about Oracle alternatives for collaboration, portals, enterprise and Web content management, social computing, and application integration. The presentation shows you how to integrate with SharePoint when business or IT requirements dictate and covers cloud-based (Office 365) and on-premises versions of SharePoint. Presented by a former Microsoft director of SharePoint product management and backed by independent customer research, this session will prepare you to answer the question “Why don’t we just use SharePoint for that?’ the next time it comes up in your organization. ¶ CON7843 - Content-Enabling Enterprise Processes with Oracle WebCenter Organizations today continually strive to automate business processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Many business processes are content-intensive and unstructured, requiring ad hoc collaboration, and distributed in nature, requiring many approvals and generating huge volumes of paper. In this session, learn how Oracle and SYSTIME have partnered to help a customer content-enable its enterprise with Oracle WebCenter Content and Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g and integrate them with Oracle Applications. ¶ CON6114 - Tape Robotics’ Newest Superhero: Now Fueled by Oracle Software For small, midsize, and rapidly growing businesses that want the most energy-efficient, scalable storage infrastructure to meet their rapidly growing data demands, Oracle’s most recent addition to its award-winning tape portfolio leverages several pieces of Oracle software. With Oracle Linux, Oracle WebLogic, and Oracle Fusion Middleware tools, the library achieves a higher level of usability than previous products while offering customers a familiar interface for management, plus ease of use. This session examines the competitive advantages of the tape library and how Oracle software raises customer satisfaction. Learn how the combination of Oracle engineered systems, Oracle Secure Backup, and Oracle’s StorageTek tape libraries provide end-to-end coverage of your data. ¶ CON9437 - Mobile Access Management With more than five billion mobile devices on the planet and an increasing number of users using their own devices to access corporate data and applications, securely extending identity management to mobile devices has become a hot topic. This session focuses on how to extend your existing identity management infrastructure and policies to securely and seamlessly enable mobile user access. CON7815 - Customer Experience Online in Cloud: Oracle WebCenter Sites, Oracle ATG Apps, Oracle Exalogic Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle’s ATG product line together can provide a compelling marketing and e-commerce experience. When you couple them with the extreme performance of Oracle Exalogic, you’ll see unmatched scalability that provides you with a true cloud-based solution. In this session, you’ll learn how running Oracle WebCenter Sites and ATG applications on Oracle Exalogic delivers both a private and a public cloud experience. Find out what it takes to get these systems working together and delivering engaging Web experiences. Even if you aren’t considering Oracle Exalogic today, the rich Web experience of Oracle WebCenter, paired with the depth of the ATG product line, can provide your business full support, from merchandising through sale completion. ¶ CON8271 - Oracle WebCenter Portal Strategy and Vision To innovate and keep a competitive edge, organizations need to leverage the power of agile and responsive Web applications. Oracle WebCenter Portal enables you to do just that, by delivering intuitive user experiences for enterprise applications to drive innovation with composite applications and mashups. Attend this session to learn firsthand from customers how Oracle WebCenter Portal extends the value of existing enterprise applications, business processes, and content; delivers a superior business user experience; and maximizes limited IT resources. ¶ CON8880 - The Connected Customer Experience Begins with the Online Channel There’s a lot of talk these days about how to connect the customer journey across various touchpoints—from Websites and e-commerce to call centers and in-store—to provide experiences that are more relevant and engaging and ultimately gain competitive edge. Doing it all at once isn’t a realistic objective, so where do you start? Come to this session, and hear about three steps you can take that can help you begin your journey toward delivering the connected customer experience. You’ll hear how Oracle now has an integrated digital marketing platform for your corporate Website, your e-commerce site, your self-service portal, and your marketing and loyalty campaigns, and you’ll learn what you can do today to begin executing on your customer experience initiatives. ¶ GEN11451 - General Session: Building Mobile Applications with Oracle Cloud With the prevalence of smart mobile devices, companies are facing an increased demand to provide access to data and applications from new channels. However, developing applications for mobile devices poses some unique challenges. Come to this session to learn how Oracle addresses these challenges, offering a simpler way to develop and deploy cross-device mobile applications. See how Oracle Cloud enables you to access applications, data, and services from mobile channels in an easier way.  CON8272 - Oracle Social Network Strategy and Vision One key way of increasing employee productivity is by bringing people, processes, and information together—providing new social capabilities to enable business users to quickly correspond and collaborate on business activities. Oracle WebCenter provides a user engagement platform with social and collaborative technologies to empower business users to focus on their key business processes, applications, and content in the context of their role and process. Attend this session to hear how the latest social capabilities in Oracle Social Network are enabling organizations to transform themselves into social businesses.  --- Tuesday, October 2nd HOL10194 - Enterprise Content Management Simplified: Oracle WebCenter Content’s Next-Generation UI Regardless of the nature of your business, unstructured content underpins many of its daily functions. Whether you are working with traditional presentations, spreadsheets, or text documents—or even with digital assets such as images and multimedia files—your content needs to be accessible and manageable in convenient and intuitive ways to make working with the content easier. Additionally, you need the ability to easily share documents with coworkers to facilitate a collaborative working environment. Come to this session to see how Oracle WebCenter Content’s next-generation user interface helps modern knowledge workers easily manage personal and enterprise documents in a collaborative environment.¶ CON8877 - Develop a Mobile Strategy with Oracle WebCenter: Engage Customers, Employees, and Partners Mobile technology has gone from nice-to-have to a cornerstone of user engagement. Mobile access enables users to have information available at their fingertips, enabling them to take action the moment they make a decision, interact in the moment of convenience, and take advantage of new service offerings in their preferred channels. All your employees have your mobile applications in their pocket; now what are you going to do? It is a critical step for companies to think through what their employees, customers, and partners really need on their devices. Attend this session to see how Oracle WebCenter enables you to better engage your customers, employees, and partners by providing a unified experience across multiple channels. ¶ CON9447 - Enabling Access for Hundreds of Millions of Users How do you grow your business by identifying, authenticating, authorizing, and federating users on the Web, leveraging social identity and the open source OAuth protocol? How do you scale your access management solution to support hundreds of millions of users? With social identity support out of the box, Oracle’s access management solution is also benchmarked for 250-million-user deployment according to real-world customer scenarios. In this session, you will learn about the social identity capability and the 250-million-user benchmark testing of Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Adaptive Access Manager running on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata. ¶ HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity. ¶ CON2906 - Get Proactive: Best Practices for Maintaining Oracle Fusion Middleware You chose Oracle Fusion Middleware products to help your organization deliver superior business results. Now learn how to take full advantage of your software with all the great tools, resources, and product updates you’re entitled to through Oracle Support. In this session, Oracle product experts provide proven best practices to help you work more efficiently, plan and prepare for upgrades and patching more effectively, and manage risk. Topics include configuration management tools, remote diagnostics, My Oracle Support Community, and My Oracle Support Lifecycle Advisors. New users and Oracle Fusion Middleware experts alike are guaranteed to leave with fresh ideas and practical, easy-to-implement next steps. ¶ CON8878 - Oracle WebCenter’s Cloud Strategy: From Social and Platform Services to Mashups Cloud computing represents a paradigm shift in how we build applications, automate processes, collaborate, and share and in how we secure our enterprise. Additionally, as you adopt cloud-based services in your organization, it’s likely that you will still have many critical on-premises applications running. With these mixed environments, multiple user interfaces, different security, and multiple datasources and content sources, how do you start evolving your strategy to account for these challenges? Oracle WebCenter offers a complete array of technologies enabling you to solve these challenges and prepare you for the cloud. Attend this session to learn how you can use Oracle WebCenter in the cloud as well as create on-premises and cloud application mash-ups. ¶ CON8901 - Optimize Enterprise Business Processes with Oracle WebCenter and Oracle BPM Do you have business processes that span multiple applications? Are you grappling with how to have visibility across these business processes; how to manage content that is associated with these processes; and, most importantly, how to model and optimize these business processes? Attend this session to hear how Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Process Management provide a unique set of integrated solutions to provide a composite application dashboard across these business processes and offer a solution for content-centric business processes. ¶ CON8883 - Deliver Engaging Interfaces to Oracle Applications with Oracle WebCenter Critical business processes live within enterprise applications, and application users need to manage and execute these processes as effectively as possible. Oracle provides a comprehensive user engagement platform to increase user productivity and optimize overall processes within Oracle Applications—Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards product families—and third-party applications. Attend this session to learn how you can integrate these applications with Oracle WebCenter to deliver composite application dashboards to your end users—whether they are your customers, partners, or employees—for enhanced usability and Web 2.0–enabled enterprise portals.¶ Wednesday, October 3rd CON8895 - Future-Ready Intranets: How Aramark Re-engineered the Application Landscape There are essential techniques and technologies you can use to deliver employee portals that garner higher productivity, improve business efficiency, and increase user engagement. Attend this session to learn how you can leverage Oracle WebCenter Portal as a user engagement platform for bringing together business process management, enterprise content management, and business intelligence into a highly relevant and integrated experience. Hear how Aramark has leveraged Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to deliver a unified workspace providing simpler navigation and processing, consolidation of tools, easy access to information, integrated search, and single sign-on. ¶ CON8886 - Content Consolidation: Save Money, Increase Efficiency, and Eliminate Silos Organizations are looking for ways to save money and be more efficient. With content in many different places, it’s difficult to know where to look for a document and whether the document is the most current version. With Oracle WebCenter, content can be consolidated into one best-of-breed repository that is secure, scalable, and integrated with your business processes and applications. Users can find the content they need, where they need it, and ensure that it is the right content. This session covers content challenges that affect your business; content consolidation that can lead to savings in storage and administration costs and can lower risks; and how companies are realizing savings. ¶ CON8911 - Improve Online Experiences for Customers and Partners with Self-Service Portals Are you able to provide your customers and partners an easy-to-use online self-service experience? Are you processing high-volume transactions and struggling with call center bottlenecks or back-end systems that won’t integrate, causing order delays and customer frustration? Are you looking to target content such as product and service offerings to your end users? This session shares approaches to providing targeted delivery as well as strategies and best practices for transforming your business by providing an intuitive user experience for your customers and partners. ¶ CON6156 - Top 10 Ways to Integrate Oracle WebCenter Content This session covers 10 common ways to integrate Oracle WebCenter Content with other enterprise applications and middleware. It discusses out-of-the-box modules that provide expanded features in Oracle WebCenter Content—such as enterprise search, SOA, and BPEL—as well as developer tools you can use to create custom integrations. The presentation also gives guidance on which integration option may work best in your environment. ¶ HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity. ¶ CON7817 - Migration to Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g Customers today continually strive to automate business processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. The accounts payable process—which is often distributed in nature, requires many approvals, and generates huge volumes of paper invoices—is automated by many customers. In this session, learn how Oracle and SYSTIME have partnered to help a customer migrate its existing Oracle Imaging and Process Management Release 7.6 to the latest Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g and integrate it with Oracle’s JD Edwards family of products. ¶ CON8910 - How to Engage Customers Across Web, Mobile, and Social Channels Whether on desktops at the office, on tablets at home, or on mobile phones when on the go, today’s customers are always connected. To engage today’s customers, you need to make the online customer experience connected and consistent across a host of devices and multiple channels, including Web, mobile, and social networks. Managing this multichannel environment can result in lots of headaches without the right tools. Attend this session to learn how Oracle WebCenter Sites solves the challenge of multichannel customer engagement. ¶ HOL10206 - Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g: Transforming the Content Contributor Experience Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g makes it easy for marketers and business users to contribute to and manage Websites with the new visual, contextual, and intuitive Web authoring interface. In this hands-on lab, you will create and manage content for a sports-themed Website, using many of the new and enhanced features of the 11g release. ¶ CON8900 - Building Next-Generation Portals: An Interactive Customer Panel Discussion Social and collaborative technologies have changed how people interact, learn, and collaborate, and providing a modern, social Web presence is imperative to remain competitive in today’s market. Can your business benefit from a more collaborative and interactive portal environment for employees, customers, and partners? Attend this session to hear from Oracle WebCenter Portal customers as they share their strategies and best practices for providing users with a modern experience that adapts to their needs and includes personalized access to content in context. The panel also addresses how customers have benefited from creating next-generation portals by migrating from older portal technologies to Oracle WebCenter Portal. ¶ CON9625 - Taking Control of Oracle WebCenter Security Organizations are increasingly looking to extend their Oracle WebCenter portal for social business, to serve external users and provide seamless access to the right information. In particular, many organizations are extending Oracle WebCenter in a business-to-business scenario requiring secure identification and authorization of business partners and their users. This session focuses on how customers are leveraging, securing, and providing access control to Oracle WebCenter portal and mobile solutions. You will learn best practices and hear real-world examples of how to provide flexible and granular access control for Oracle WebCenter deployments, using Oracle Platform Security Services and Oracle Access Management Suite product offerings. ¶ CON8891 - Extending Social into Enterprise Applications and Business Processes Oracle Social Network is an extensible social platform that enables contextual collaboration within enterprise applications and business processes, providing relevant data from across various enterprise systems in one place. Attend this session to see how an Oracle Social Network customer is integrating multiple applications—such as CRM, HCM, and business processes—into Oracle Social Network and Oracle WebCenter to enable individuals and teams to solve complex cross-organizational business problems more effectively by utilizing the social enterprise. ¶ Thursday, October 4th CON8899 - Becoming a Social Business: Stories from the Front Lines of Change What does it really mean to be a social business? How can you change our organization to embrace social approaches? What pitfalls do you need to avoid? In this lively panel discussion, customer and industry thought leaders in social business explore these topics and more as they share their stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly that can happen when embracing social methods and technologies to improve business success. Using moderated questions and open Q&A from the audience, the panel discusses vital topics such as the critical factors for success, the major issues to avoid, how to gain senior executive support for social efforts, how to handle undesired behavior, and how to measure business impact. It takes a thought-provoking look at becoming a social business from the inside. ¶ CON6851 - Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to Create Vendor Portals Large manufacturers of grocery items routinely find themselves depending on the inventory management expertise of their wholesalers and distributors. Inventory costs can be managed more efficiently by the manufacturers if they have better insight into the inventory levels of items carried by their distributors. This creates a unique opportunity for distributors and wholesalers to leverage this knowledge into a revenue-generating subscription service. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Oracle WebCenter Portal play a key part in enabling creation of business-managed business intelligence portals for vendors. This session discusses one customer that implemented this by leveraging Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. ¶ CON8879 - Provide a Personalized and Consistent Customer Experience in Your Websites and Portals Your customers engage with your company online in different ways throughout their journey—from prospecting by acquiring information on your corporate Website to transacting through self-service applications on your customer portal—and then the cycle begins again when they look for new products and services. Ensuring that the customer experience is consistent and personalized across online properties—from branding and content to interactions and transactions—can be a daunting task. Oracle WebCenter enables you to speak and interact with your customers with one voice across your Websites and portals by providing an integrated platform for delivery of self-service and engagement that unifies and personalizes the online experience. Learn more in this session. ¶ CON8898 - Land Mines, Potholes, and Dirt Roads: Navigating the Way to ECM Nirvana Ten years ago, people were predicting that by this time in history, we’d be some kind of utopian paperless society. As we all know, we’re not there yet, but are we getting closer? What is keeping companies from driving down the road to enterprise content management bliss? Most people understand that using ECM as a central platform enables organizations to expedite document-centric processes, but most business processes in organizations are still heavily paper-based. Many of these processes could be automated and improved with an ECM platform infrastructure. In this panel discussion, you’ll hear from Oracle WebCenter customers that have already solved some of these challenges as they share their strategies for success and roads to avoid along your journey. ¶ CON8908 - Oracle WebCenter Portal: Creating and Using Content Presenter Templates Oracle WebCenter Portal applications use task flows to display and integrate content stored in the Oracle WebCenter Content server. Among the most flexible task flows is Content Presenter, which renders various types of content on an Oracle WebCenter Portal page. Although Oracle WebCenter Portal comes with a set of predefined Content Presenter templates, developers can create their own templates for specific rendering needs. This session shows the lifecycle of developing Content Presenter task flows, including how to create, package, import, modify at runtime, and use such templates. In addition to simple examples with Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) UI elements to render the content, it shows how to use other UI technologies, CSS files, and JavaScript libraries. ¶ CON8897 - Using Web Experience Management to Drive Online Marketing Success Every year, the online channel becomes more imperative for driving organizational top-line revenue, but for many companies, mastering how to best market their products and services in a fast-evolving online world with high customer expectations for personalized experiences can be a complex proposition. Come to this panel discussion, and hear directly from online marketers how they are succeeding today by using Web experience management to drive marketing success, using capabilities such as targeting and optimization, user-generated content, mobile site publishing, and site visitor personalization to deliver engaging online experiences. ¶ CON8892 - Oracle’s Journey to Social Business Social business is a revolution, one that is causing rapidly accelerating change in how companies and customers engage with one another and how employees work together. Oracle’s goal in becoming a social business is to create a socially connected organization in which working collaboratively across geographical locations, lines of business, and management chains is second nature, enabling innovative solutions to business challenges. We can achieve this by connecting the right people, finding the right content, communicating with the right people, collaborating at the right time, and building the right communities in the right context—all ready in the CLOUD. Attend this session to see how Oracle is transforming itself into a social business. ¶  ------------ If you've read all the way to the end here - we are REALLY looking forward to seeing you in San Francisco.

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  • Why should you choose Oracle WebLogic 12c instead of JBoss EAP 6?

    - by Ricardo Ferreira
    In this post, I will cover some technical differences between Oracle WebLogic 12c and JBoss EAP 6, which was released a couple days ago from Red Hat. This article claims to help you in the evaluation of key points that you should consider when choosing for an Java EE application server. In the following sections, I will present to you some important aspects that most customers ask us when they are seriously evaluating for an middleware infrastructure, specially if you are considering JBoss for some reason. I would suggest that you keep the following question in mind while you are reading the points: "Why should I choose JBoss instead of WebLogic?" 1) Multi Datacenter Deployment and Clustering - D/R ("Disaster & Recovery") architecture support is embedded on the WebLogic Server 12c product. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct D/R support included, Red Hat relies on third-part tools with higher prices. When you consider a middleware solution to host your business critical application, you should worry with every architectural aspect that are related with the solution. Fail-over support is one little aspect of a truly reliable solution. If you do not worry about D/R, your solution will not be reliable. Having said that, with Red Hat and JBoss EAP 6, you have this extra cost that will increase considerably the total cost of ownership of the solution. As we commonly hear from analysts, open-source are not so cheaper when you start seeing the big picture. - WebLogic Server 12c supports advanced LAN clustering, detection of death servers and have a common alert framework. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has limited LAN clustering support with no server death detection. They do not generate any alerts when servers goes down (only if you buy JBoss ON which is a separated technology, but until now does not support JBoss EAP 6) and manual intervention are required when servers goes down. In most cases, admin people must rely on "kill -9", "tail -f someFile.log" and "ps ax | grep java" commands to manage failures and clustering anomalies. - WebLogic Server 12c supports the concept of Node Manager, which is a separated process that runs on the physical | virtual servers that allows extend the administration of the cluster to WebLogic managed servers that are often distributed across multiple machines and geographic locations. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no equivalent technology. Whole server instances must be managed individually. - WebLogic Server 12c Node Manager supports Coherence to boost performance when managing servers. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no similar technology. There is no way to coordinate JBoss and infiniband instances provided by JBoss using high throughput and low latency protocols like InfiniBand. The Node Manager feature also allows another very important feature that JBoss EAP lacks: secure the administration. When using WebLogic Node Manager, all the administration tasks are sent to the managed servers in a secure tunel protected by a certificate, which means that the transport layer that separates the WebLogic administration console from the managed servers are secured by SSL. - WebLogic Server 12c are now integrated with OTD ("Oracle Traffic Director") which is a web server technology derived from the former Sun iPlanet Web Server. This software complements the web server support offered by OHS ("Oracle HTTP Server"). Using OTD, WebLogic instances are load-balanced by a high powerful software that knows how to handle SDP ("Socket Direct Protocol") over InfiniBand, which boost performance when used with engineered systems technologies like Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand only offers support to Apache Web Server with custom modules created to deal with JBoss clusters, but only across standard TCP/IP networks.  2) Application and Runtime Diagnostics - WebLogic Server 12c have diagnostics capabilities embedded on the server called WLDF ("WebLogic Diagnostic Framework") so there is no need to rely on third-part tools. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no diagnostics capabilities. Their only diagnostics tool is the log generated by the application server. Admin people are encouraged to analyse thousands of log lines to find out what is going on. - WebLogic Server 12c complement WLDF with JRockit MC ("Mission Control"), which provides to administrators and developers a complete insight about the JVM performance, behavior and possible bottlenecks. WebLogic Server 12c also have an classloader analysis tool embedded, and even a log analyzer tool that enables administrators and developers to view logs of multiple servers at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand relies on third-part tools to do something similar. Again, only log searching are offered to find out whats going on. - WebLogic Server 12c offers end-to-end traceability and monitoring available through Oracle EM ("Enterprise Manager"), including monitoring of business transactions that flows through web servers, ESBs, application servers and database servers, all of this with high deep JVM analysis and diagnostics. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand, even using JBoss ON ("Operations Network"), which is a separated technology, does not support those features. Red Hat relies on third-part tools to provide direct Oracle database traceability across JVMs. One of those tools are Oracle EM for non-Oracle middleware that manage JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere and IIS transparently. - WebLogic Server 12c with their JRockit support offers a tool called JRockit Flight Recorder, which can give developers a complete visibility of a certain period of application production monitoring with zero extra overhead. This automatic recording allows you to deep analyse threads latency, memory leaks, thread contention, resource utilization, stack overflow damages and GC ("Garbage Collection") cycles, to observe in real time stop-the-world phenomenons, generational, reference count and parallel collects and mutator threads analysis. JBoss EAP 6 don't even dream to support something similar, even because they don't have their own JVM. 3) Application Server Administration - WebLogic Server 12c offers a complete administration console complemented with scripting and macro-like recording capabilities. A single WebLogic console can managed up to hundreds of WebLogic servers belonging to the same domain. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited console and provides a XML centric administration. JBoss, after ten years, started the development of a rudimentary centralized administration that still leave a lot of administration tasks aside, so admin people and developers must touch scripts and XML configuration files for most advanced and even simple administration tasks. This lead applications to error prone and risky deployments. Even using JBoss ON, JBoss EAP are not able to offer decent administration features for admin people which must be high skilled in JBoss internal architecture and its managing capabilities. - Oracle EM is available to manage multiple domains, databases, application servers, operating systems and virtualization, with a complete end-to-end visibility. JBoss ON does not provide management capabilities across the complete architecture, only basic monitoring. Even deployment must be done aside JBoss ON which does no integrate well with others softwares than JBoss. Until now, JBoss ON does not supports JBoss EAP 6, so even their minimal support for JBoss are not available for JBoss EAP 6 leaving customers uncovered and subject to high skilled JBoss admin people. - WebLogic Server 12c has the same administration model whatever is the topology selected by the customer. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand differentiates between two operational models: standalone-mode and domain-mode, that are not consistent with each other. Depending on the mode used, the administration skill is different. - WebLogic Server 12c has no point-of-failures processes, and it does not need to define any specialized server. Domain model in WebLogic is available for years (at least ten years or more) and is production proven. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand needs special processes to garantee JBoss integrity, the PC ("Process-Controller") and the HC ("Host-Controller"). Different from WebLogic, the domain model in JBoss is quite new (one year at tops) of maturity, and need to mature considerably until start doing things like WebLogic domain model does. - WebLogic Server 12c supports parallel deployment model which enables some artifacts being deployed at the same time. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have any similar feature. Every deployment are done atomically in the containers. This means that if you have a huge EAR (an EAR of 120 MB of size for instance) and deploy onto JBoss EAP 6, this EAR will take some minutes in order to starting accept thread requests. The same EAR deployed onto WebLogic Server 12c will reduce the deployment time at least in 2X compared to JBoss. 4) Support and Upgrades - WebLogic Server 12c has patch management available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no patch management available, each JBoss EAP instance should be patched manually. To achieve such feature, you need to buy a separated technology called JBoss ON ("Operations Network") that manage this type of stuff. But until now, JBoss ON does not support JBoss EAP 6 so, in practice, JBoss EAP 6 does not have this feature. - WebLogic Server 12c supports previuous WebLogic domains without any reconfiguration since its kernel is robust and mature since its creation in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a proven lack of supportability between JBoss AS 4, 5, 6 and 7. Different kernels and messaging engines were implemented in JBoss stack in the last five years reveling their incapacity to create a well architected and proven middleware technology. - WebLogic Server 12c has patch prescription based on customer configuration. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such capability. People need to create ticket supports and have their installations revised by Red Hat support guys to gain some patch prescription from them. - Oracle WebLogic Server independent of the version has 8 years of support of new patches and has lifetime release of existing patches beyond that. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand provides patches for a specific application server version up to 5 years after the release date. JBoss EAP 4 and previous versions had only 4 years. A good question that Red Hat will argue to answer is: "what happens when you find issues after year 5"?  5) RAC ("Real Application Clusters") Support - WebLogic Server 12c ships with a specific JDBC driver to leverage Oracle RAC clustering capabilities (Fast-Application-Notification, Transaction Affinity, Fast-Connection-Failover, etc). Oracle JDBC thin driver are also available. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand ships only the standard Oracle JDBC thin driver. Load balancing with Oracle RAC are not supported. Manual intervention in case of planned or unplanned RAC downtime are necessary. In JBoss EAP 6, situation does not reestablish automatically after downtime. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called Active GridLink for Oracle RAC which provides up to 3X performance on OLTP applications. This seamless integration between WebLogic and Oracle database enable more value added to critical business applications leveraging their investments in Oracle database technology and Oracle middleware. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no performance gains at all, even when admin people implement some kind of connection-pooling tuning. - WebLogic Server 12c also supports transaction and web session affinity to the Oracle RAC, which provides aditional gains of performance. This is particularly interesting if you are creating a reliable solution that are distributed not only in an LAN cluster, but into a different data center. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. 6) Standards and Technology Support - WebLogic Server 12c is fully Java EE 6 compatible and production ready since december of 2011. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand became fully compatible with Java EE 6 only in the community version after three months, and production ready only in a few days considering that this article was written in June of 2012. Red Hat says that they are the masters of innovation and technology proliferation, but compared with Oracle and even other proprietary vendors like IBM, they historically speaking are lazy to deliver the most newest technologies and standards adherence. - Oracle is the steward of Java, driving innovation into the platform from commercial and open-source vendors. Red Hat on the other hand does not have its own JVM and relies on third-part JVMs to complete their application server offer. 95% of Red Hat customers are using Oracle HotSpot as JVM, which means that without Oracle involvement, their support are limited exclusively to the application server layer and we all know that most problems are happens in the JVM layer. - WebLogic Server 12c supports natively JDK 7, which empower developers to explore the maximum of the Java platform productivity when writing code. This feature differentiate WebLogic from others application servers (except GlassFish that are also managed by Oracle) because the usage of JDK 7 introduce such remarkable productivity features like the "try-with-resources" enhancement, catching multiple exceptions with one try block, Strings in the switch statements, JVM improvements in terms of JDBC, I/O, networking, security, concurrency and of course, the most important feature of Java 7: native support for multiple non-Java languages. More features regarding JDK 7 can be found here. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not support JDK 7 officially, they comment in their community version that "Java SE 7 can be used with JBoss 7" which does not gives you any guarantees of enterprise support for JDK 7. - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c supports integration with Spring framework allowing Spring applications to use WebLogic special transaction manager, exposing bean interfaces to WebLogic MBeans to take advantage of all WebLogic monitoring and administration advantages. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no special integration with Spring. In fact, Red Hat offers a suspicious package called "JBoss Web Platform" that in theory supports Spring, but in practice this package does not offers any special integration. It is just a facility for Red Hat customers to have support from both JBoss and Spring technology using the same customer support. 7) Lightweight Development - Oracle WebLogic Server 12c and Oracle GlassFish are completely integrated and can share applications without any modifications. Starting with the 12c version, WebLogic now understands natively GlassFish deployment descriptors and specific configurations in order to offer you a truly and reliable migration path from a community Java EE application server to a enterprise middleware product like WebLogic. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no support to natively reuse an existing (or still in development) application from JBoss AS community server. Users of JBoss suffer of critical issues during deployment time that includes: changing the libraries and dependencies of the application, patching the DTD or XSD deployment descriptors, refactoring of the application layers due classloading issues and anomalies, rebuilding of persistence, business and web layers due issues with "usage of the certified version of an certain dependency" or "frameworks that Red Hat potentially does not recommend" etc. If you have the culture or enterprise IT directive of developing Java EE applications using community middleware to in a certain future, transition to enterprise (supported by a vendor) middleware, Oracle WebLogic plus Oracle GlassFish offers you a more sustainable solution. - WebLogic Server 12c has a very light ZIP distribution (less than 165 MB). JBoss EAP 6 ZIP size is around 130 MB, together with JBoss ON you have more 100 MB resulting in a higher download footprint. This is particularly interesting if you plan to use automated setup of application server instances (for example, to rapidly setup a development or staging environment) using Maven or Hudson. - WebLogic Server 12c has a complete integration with Maven allowing developers to setup WebLogic domains with few commands. Tasks like downloading WebLogic, installation, domain creation, data sources deployment are completely integrated. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a limited offer integration with those tools.  - WebLogic Server 12c has a startup mode called WLX that turns-off EJB, JMS and JCA containers leaving enabled only the web container with Java EE 6 web profile. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such feature, you need to disable manually the containers that you do not want to use. - WebLogic Server 12c supports fastswap, which enables you to change classes without redeployment. This is particularly interesting if you are developing patches for the application that is already deployed and you do not want to redeploy the entire application. This is the same behavior that most application servers offers to JSP pages, but with WebLogic Server 12c, you have the same feature for Java classes in general. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no such support. Even JBoss EAP 5 does not support this until now. 8) JMS and Messaging - WebLogic Server 12c has a proven and high scalable JMS implementation since its initial release in 1995. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a still immature technology called HornetQ, which was introduced in JBoss EAP 5 replacing everything that was implemented in the previous versions. Red Hat loves to introduce new technologies across JBoss versions, playing around with customers and their investments. And when they are asked about why they have changed the implementation and caused such a mess, their answer is always: "the previous implementation was inadequate and not aligned with the community strategy so we are creating a new a improved one". This Red Hat practice leads to uncomfortable investments that in a near future (sometimes less than a year) will be affected in someway. - WebLogic Server 12c has troubleshooting and monitoring features included on the WebLogic console and WLDF. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no direct monitoring on the console, activity is reflected only on the logs, no debug logs available in case of JMS issues. - WebLogic Server 12c has extremely good performance and scalability. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has a JMS storage mechanism relying on Oracle database or MySQL. This means that if an issue in production happens and Red Hat affirms that an performance issue is happening due to database problems, they will not support you on the performance issue. They will orient you to call Oracle instead. - WebLogic Server 12c supports messaging enterprise features like SAF ("Store and Forward"), Distributed Queues/Topics and Foreign JMS providers support that leverage JMS implementations without compromise developer code making things completely transparent. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand do not even dream to support such features. 9) Caching and Grid - Coherence, which is the leading and most mature data grid technology from Oracle, is available since early 2000 and was integrated with WebLogic in 2009. Coherence and WebLogic clusters can be both managed from WebLogic administrative console. Even Node Manager supports Coherence. JBoss on the other hand discontinued JBoss Cache, which was their caching implementation just like they did with the messaging implementation (JBossMQ) which was a issue for long term customers. JBoss EAP 6 ships InfiniSpan version 1.0 which is immature and lack a proven record of successful cases and reliability. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called ActiveCache which uses Coherence to, without any code changes, replicate HTTP sessions from both WebLogic and other application servers like JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere, GlassFish and even Microsoft IIS. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does have such support and even when they do in the future, they probably will support only their own application server. - Coherence can be used to manage both L1 and L2 cache levels, providing support to Oracle TopLink and others JPA compliant implementations, even Hibernate. JBoss EAP 6 and Infinispan on the other hand supports only Hibernate. And most important of all: Infinispan does not have any successful case of L1 or L2 caching level support using Hibernate, which lead us to reflect about its viability. 10) Performance - WebLogic Server 12c is certified with Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud and can run unchanged applications at this engineered system. This approach can benefit customers from Exalogic optimization's of both kernel and JVM layers to boost performance in terms of 10X for web, OLTP, JMS and grid applications. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no investment on engineered systems: customers do not have the choice to deploy on a Java ultra fast system if their project becomes relevant and performance issues are detected. - WebLogic Server 12c maintains a performance gain across each new release: starting on WebLogic 5.1, the overall performance gain has been close to 4X, which close to a 20% gain release by release. JBoss on the other hand does not provide SPECJAppServer or SPECJEnterprise performance benchmarks. Their so called "performance gains" remains hidden in their customer environments, which lead us to think if it is true or not since we will never get access to those environments. - WebLogic Server 12c has industry performance benchmarks with submissions across platforms and configurations leading SPECJ. Oracle WebLogic leads SPECJAppServer performance in multiple categories, fitting all customer topologies like: dual-node, single-node, multi-node and multi-node with RAC. JBoss... again, does not provide any SPECJAppServer performance benchmarks. - WebLogic Server 12c has a feature called work manager which allows your application to embrace new performance levels based on critical resource utilization of the CPUs usage. Work managers prioritizes work and allocates threads based on an execution model that takes into account administrator-defined parameters and actual run-time performance and throughput. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand has no compared feature and probably they never will. Not supporting such feature like work managers, JBoss EAP 6 forces admin people and specially developers to uncover performance gains in a intrusive way, rewriting the code and doing performance refactorings. 11) Professional Services Support - WebLogic Server 12c and any other technology sold by Oracle give customers the possibility of hire OCS ("Oracle Consulting Services") to manage critical scenarios, deployment assistance of new applications, high skilled consultancy of architecture, best practices and people allocation together with customer teams. All OCS services are available without any restrictions, having the customer bought software from Oracle or just starting their implementation before any acquisition. JBoss EAP 6 or Red Hat to be more specifically, only offers professional services if you buy subscriptions from them. If you are developing a new critical application for your business and need the help of Red Hat for a serious issue or architecture decision, they will probably say: "OK... I can help you but after you buy subscriptions from me". Red Hat also does not allows their professional services consultants to manage environments that uses community based software. They will probably force you to first buy a subscription, download their "enterprise" version and them, optionally hire their consultants. - Oracle provides you our university to educate your team into our technologies, including of course specialized trainings of WebLogic application server. At any time and location, you can hire Oracle to train your team so you get trustful knowledge according to your specific needs. Certifications for the products are also available if your technical people desire to differentiate themselves as professionals. Red Hat on the other hand have a limited pool of resources to train your team in their technologies. Basically they are selling training and certification for RHEL ("Red Hat Enterprise Linux") but if you demand more specialized training in JBoss middleware, they will probably connect you to some "certified" partner localized training since they are apparently discontinuing their education center, at least here in Brazil. They were not able to reproduce their success with RHEL education to their middleware division since they need first sell the subscriptions to after gives you specialized training. And again, they only offer you specialized training based on their enterprise version (EAP in the case of JBoss) which means that the courses will be a quite outdated. There are reports of developers that took official training's from Red Hat at this year (2012) and in a certain JBoss advanced course, Red Hat supposedly covered JBossMQ as the messaging subsystem, and even the printed material provided was based on JBossMQ since the training was created for JBoss EAP 4.3. 12) Encouraging Transparency without Ulterior Motives - WebLogic Server 12c like any other software from Oracle can be downloaded any time from anywhere, you should only possess an OTN ("Oracle Technology Network") credential and you can download any enterprise software how many times you want. And is not some kind of "trial" version. It is the official binaries that will be running for ever in your data center. Oracle does not encourages the usage of "specific versions" of our software. The binaries you buy from Oracle are the same binaries anyone in the world could download and use for testing and personal education. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand are not available for download unless you buy a subscription and get access to the Red Hat enterprise repositories. If you need to test, learn or just start creating your application using Red Hat's middleware software, you should download it from the community website. You are not allowed to download the enterprise version that, according to Red Hat are more secure, reliable and robust. But no one of us want to start the development of a software with an unsecured, unreliable and not scalable middleware right? So what you do? You are "invited" by Red Hat to buy subscriptions from them to get access to the "cool" version of the software. - WebLogic Server 12c prices are publicly available in the Oracle website. If you want to know right now how much WebLogic will cost to your organization, just click here and get access to our price list. In the case of WebLogic, check out the "US Oracle Technology Commercial Price List". Oracle also encourages you to get in touch with a sales representative to discuss discounts that would make possible the investment into our technology. But you are not required to do this, only if you are interested in buying our technology or maybe you want to discuss some discount scenarios. JBoss EAP 6 on the other hand does not have its cost publicly available in Red Hat's website or in any other media, at least is not so easy to get such information. The only link you will possibly find in their website is a "Contact a Sales Representative" link. This is not a very good relationship between an customer and an vendor. This is not an example of transparency, mainly when the software are sold as open. In this situations, customers expects to see the software prices publicly available, so they can have the chance to decide, based on the existing features of the software, if the cost is fair or not. Conclusion Oracle WebLogic is the most mature, secure, reliable and scalable Java EE application server of the market, and have a proven record of success around the globe to prove it's majority. Don't lose the chance to discover today how WebLogic could fit your needs and sustain your global IT middleware strategy, no matter if your strategy are completely based on the Cloud or not.

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  • Ping "replies" from same computer with 'Destination host unreachable' (no route to other computer)

    - by Srekel
    I've got two computers in a LAN behind a wireless router. One has XP with ip 192.168.1.2 This one has W7 with ip 192.168.1.7 If I try to ping the other one from this computer, I get this: C:\Users\Srekel>ping 192.168.1.2 Pinging 192.168.1.2 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Reply from 192.168.1.7: Destination host unreachable. Ping statistics for 192.168.1.2: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Tracert gives the same result: C:\Users\Srekel>tracert 192.168.1.2 Tracing route to 192.168.1.2 over a maximum of 30 hops 1 Kakburken4 [192.168.1.7] reports: Destination host unreachable. Trace complete. Although I can ping and tracert the router without any problems. I have disabled the firewalls on both computers. The router is set to use DHCP (if that matters). Here is the output from "route". C:\Users\Srekel>route print =========================================================================== Interface List 13...00 25 86 df c6 89 ......TP-LINK Wireless N Adapter 12...e0 cb 4e 26 b9 84 ......Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller #2 11...e0 cb 4e 26 be 94 ......Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller 1...........................Software Loopback Interface 1 16...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2 14...00 00 00 00 00 00 00 e0 Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface =========================================================================== IPv4 Route Table =========================================================================== Active Routes: Network Destination Netmask Gateway Interface Metric 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.7 20 127.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 127.0.0.1 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 127.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 192.168.1.7 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 192.168.1.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 224.0.0.0 240.0.0.0 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 127.0.0.1 306 255.255.255.255 255.255.255.255 On-link 192.168.1.7 276 =========================================================================== Persistent Routes: None IPv6 Route Table =========================================================================== Active Routes: If Metric Network Destination Gateway 14 58 ::/0 On-link 1 306 ::1/128 On-link 14 58 2001::/32 On-link 14 306 2001:0:5ef5:73ba:881:20c1:3f57:fef8/128 On-link 14 306 fe80::/64 On-link 14 306 fe80::881:20c1:3f57:fef8/128 On-link 1 306 ff00::/8 On-link 14 306 ff00::/8 On-link =========================================================================== Persistent Routes: None I've set up and debugged a few networks in my life but I'm not really an advanced network user, so I'm not sure what might be wrong. Any ideas? Oh, and pinging this computer from the other computer doesn't work either. EDIT: Adding arp output: C:\Users\Srekel>arp -a Interface: 192.168.1.7 --- 0xd Internet Address Physical Address Type 192.168.1.1 00-1f-33-ef-28-01 dynamic 192.168.1.255 ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff static 224.0.0.22 01-00-5e-00-00-16 static 224.0.0.252 01-00-5e-00-00-fc static 239.255.255.250 01-00-5e-7f-ff-fa static 255.255.255.255 ff-ff-ff-ff-ff-ff static Adding ipconfig... C:\Users\Srekel>ipconfig /all Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Kakburken4 Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : TP-LINK Wireless N Adapter Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-25-86-DF-C6-89 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.7(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : 09 April 2010 23:09:45 Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : 10 April 2010 23:09:45 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller #2 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : E0-CB-4E-26-B9-84 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : E0-CB-4E-26-BE-94 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes Tunnel adapter isatap.{74D5C406-894E-4000-8DE7-6AAEBF7C8382}: Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2 Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:5ef5:73ba:881:20c1:3f57:fef8(Preferred) Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::881:20c1:3f57:fef8%14(Preferred) Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : :: NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

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  • OpenVPN - Windows 8 to Windows 2008 Server, not connecting

    - by niico
    I have followed this tutorial about setting up an OpenVPN Server on Windows Server - and a client on Windows (in this case Windows 8). The server appears to be running fine - but it is not connecting with this error: Mon Jul 22 19:09:04 2013 Warning: cannot open --log file: C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\log\my-laptop.log: Access is denied. (errno=5) Mon Jul 22 19:09:04 2013 OpenVPN 2.3.2 x86_64-w64-mingw32 [SSL (OpenSSL)] [LZO] [PKCS11] [eurephia] [IPv6] built on Jun 3 2013 Mon Jul 22 19:09:04 2013 MANAGEMENT: TCP Socket listening on [AF_INET]127.0.0.1:25340 Mon Jul 22 19:09:04 2013 Need hold release from management interface, waiting... Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 MANAGEMENT: Client connected from [AF_INET]127.0.0.1:25340 Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 MANAGEMENT: CMD 'state on' Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 MANAGEMENT: CMD 'log all on' Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 MANAGEMENT: CMD 'hold off' Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 MANAGEMENT: CMD 'hold release' Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 Socket Buffers: R=[65536->65536] S=[65536->65536] Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 UDPv4 link local: [undef] Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 UDPv4 link remote: [AF_INET]66.666.66.666:9999 Mon Jul 22 19:09:05 2013 MANAGEMENT: >STATE:1374494945,WAIT,,, Mon Jul 22 19:10:05 2013 TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity) Mon Jul 22 19:10:05 2013 TLS Error: TLS handshake failed Mon Jul 22 19:10:05 2013 SIGUSR1[soft,tls-error] received, process restarting Mon Jul 22 19:10:05 2013 MANAGEMENT: >STATE:1374495005,RECONNECTING,tls-error,, Mon Jul 22 19:10:05 2013 Restart pause, 2 second(s) Note I have changed the IP and port no (it uses a non-standard port for security reasons). That port is open on the hardware firewall. The server logs are showing a connection attempt from my client: TLS: Initial packet from [AF_INET]118.68.xx.xx:65011, sid=081af4ed xxxxxxxx Mon Jul 22 14:19:15 2013 118.68.xx.xx:65011 TLS Error: TLS key negotiation failed to occur within 60 seconds (check your network connectivity) How can I problem solve this & find the problem? Thx Update - Client config file: ############################################## # Sample client-side OpenVPN 2.0 config file # # for connecting to multi-client server. # # # # This configuration can be used by multiple # # clients, however each client should have # # its own cert and key files. # # # # On Windows, you might want to rename this # # file so it has a .ovpn extension # ############################################## # Specify that we are a client and that we # will be pulling certain config file directives # from the server. client # Use the same setting as you are using on # the server. # On most systems, the VPN will not function # unless you partially or fully disable # the firewall for the TUN/TAP interface. ;dev tap dev tun # Windows needs the TAP-Win32 adapter name # from the Network Connections panel # if you have more than one. On XP SP2, # you may need to disable the firewall # for the TAP adapter. ;dev-node MyTap # Are we connecting to a TCP or # UDP server? Use the same setting as # on the server. ;proto tcp proto udp # The hostname/IP and port of the server. # You can have multiple remote entries # to load balance between the servers. remote 00.00.00.00 1194 ;remote 00.00.00.00 9999 ;remote my-server-2 1194 # Choose a random host from the remote # list for load-balancing. Otherwise # try hosts in the order specified. ;remote-random # Keep trying indefinitely to resolve the # host name of the OpenVPN server. Very useful # on machines which are not permanently connected # to the internet such as laptops. resolv-retry infinite # Most clients don't need to bind to # a specific local port number. nobind # Downgrade privileges after initialization (non-Windows only) ;user nobody ;group nobody # Try to preserve some state across restarts. persist-key persist-tun # If you are connecting through an # HTTP proxy to reach the actual OpenVPN # server, put the proxy server/IP and # port number here. See the man page # if your proxy server requires # authentication. ;http-proxy-retry # retry on connection failures ;http-proxy [proxy server] [proxy port #] # Wireless networks often produce a lot # of duplicate packets. Set this flag # to silence duplicate packet warnings. ;mute-replay-warnings # SSL/TLS parms. # See the server config file for more # description. It's best to use # a separate .crt/.key file pair # for each client. A single ca # file can be used for all clients. ca "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\ca.crt" cert "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\my-laptop.crt" key "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\my-laptop.key" # Verify server certificate by checking # that the certicate has the nsCertType # field set to "server". This is an # important precaution to protect against # a potential attack discussed here: # http://openvpn.net/howto.html#mitm # # To use this feature, you will need to generate # your server certificates with the nsCertType # field set to "server". The build-key-server # script in the easy-rsa folder will do this. ns-cert-type server # If a tls-auth key is used on the server # then every client must also have the key. ;tls-auth ta.key 1 # Select a cryptographic cipher. # If the cipher option is used on the server # then you must also specify it here. ;cipher x # Enable compression on the VPN link. # Don't enable this unless it is also # enabled in the server config file. comp-lzo # Set log file verbosity. verb 3 # Silence repeating messages ;mute 20 Server config file: ################################################# # Sample OpenVPN 2.0 config file for # # multi-client server. # # # # This file is for the server side # # of a many-clients <-> one-server # # OpenVPN configuration. # # # # OpenVPN also supports # # single-machine <-> single-machine # # configurations (See the Examples page # # on the web site for more info). # # # # This config should work on Windows # # or Linux/BSD systems. Remember on # # Windows to quote pathnames and use # # double backslashes, e.g.: # # "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\foo.key" # # # # Comments are preceded with '#' or ';' # ################################################# # Which local IP address should OpenVPN # listen on? (optional) ;local 00.00.00.00 # Which TCP/UDP port should OpenVPN listen on? # If you want to run multiple OpenVPN instances # on the same machine, use a different port # number for each one. You will need to # open up this port on your firewall. std 1194 port 1194 # TCP or UDP server? ;proto tcp proto udp # "dev tun" will create a routed IP tunnel, # "dev tap" will create an ethernet tunnel. # Use "dev tap0" if you are ethernet bridging # and have precreated a tap0 virtual interface # and bridged it with your ethernet interface. # If you want to control access policies # over the VPN, you must create firewall # rules for the the TUN/TAP interface. # On non-Windows systems, you can give # an explicit unit number, such as tun0. # On Windows, use "dev-node" for this. # On most systems, the VPN will not function # unless you partially or fully disable # the firewall for the TUN/TAP interface. ;dev tap dev tun # Windows needs the TAP-Win32 adapter name # from the Network Connections panel if you # have more than one. On XP SP2 or higher, # you may need to selectively disable the # Windows firewall for the TAP adapter. # Non-Windows systems usually don't need this. ;dev-node MyTap # SSL/TLS root certificate (ca), certificate # (cert), and private key (key). Each client # and the server must have their own cert and # key file. The server and all clients will # use the same ca file. # # See the "easy-rsa" directory for a series # of scripts for generating RSA certificates # and private keys. Remember to use # a unique Common Name for the server # and each of the client certificates. # # Any X509 key management system can be used. # OpenVPN can also use a PKCS #12 formatted key file # (see "pkcs12" directive in man page). ca "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\ca.crt" cert "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\server.crt" key "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\server.key" # Diffie hellman parameters. # Generate your own with: # openssl dhparam -out dh1024.pem 1024 # Substitute 2048 for 1024 if you are using # 2048 bit keys. dh "C:\\Program Files\\OpenVPN\\config\\dh2048.pem" # Configure server mode and supply a VPN subnet # for OpenVPN to draw client addresses from. # The server will take 10.8.0.1 for itself, # the rest will be made available to clients. # Each client will be able to reach the server # on 10.8.0.1. Comment this line out if you are # ethernet bridging. See the man page for more info. server 10.8.0.0 255.255.255.0 # Maintain a record of client <-> virtual IP address # associations in this file. If OpenVPN goes down or # is restarted, reconnecting clients can be assigned # the same virtual IP address from the pool that was # previously assigned. ifconfig-pool-persist ipp.txt # Configure server mode for ethernet bridging. # You must first use your OS's bridging capability # to bridge the TAP interface with the ethernet # NIC interface. Then you must manually set the # IP/netmask on the bridge interface, here we # assume 10.8.0.4/255.255.255.0. Finally we # must set aside an IP range in this subnet # (start=10.8.0.50 end=10.8.0.100) to allocate # to connecting clients. Leave this line commented # out unless you are ethernet bridging. ;server-bridge 10.8.0.4 255.255.255.0 10.8.0.50 10.8.0.100 # Configure server mode for ethernet bridging # using a DHCP-proxy, where clients talk # to the OpenVPN server-side DHCP server # to receive their IP address allocation # and DNS server addresses. You must first use # your OS's bridging capability to bridge the TAP # interface with the ethernet NIC interface. # Note: this mode only works on clients (such as # Windows), where the client-side TAP adapter is # bound to a DHCP client. ;server-bridge # Push routes to the client to allow it # to reach other private subnets behind # the server. Remember that these # private subnets will also need # to know to route the OpenVPN client # address pool (10.8.0.0/255.255.255.0) # back to the OpenVPN server. ;push "route 192.168.10.0 255.255.255.0" ;push "route 192.168.20.0 255.255.255.0" # To assign specific IP addresses to specific # clients or if a connecting client has a private # subnet behind it that should also have VPN access, # use the subdirectory "ccd" for client-specific # configuration files (see man page for more info). # EXAMPLE: Suppose the client # having the certificate common name "Thelonious" # also has a small subnet behind his connecting # machine, such as 192.168.40.128/255.255.255.248. # First, uncomment out these lines: ;client-config-dir ccd ;route 192.168.40.128 255.255.255.248 # Then create a file ccd/Thelonious with this line: # iroute 192.168.40.128 255.255.255.248 # This will allow Thelonious' private subnet to # access the VPN. This example will only work # if you are routing, not bridging, i.e. you are # using "dev tun" and "server" directives. # EXAMPLE: Suppose you want to give # Thelonious a fixed VPN IP address of 10.9.0.1. # First uncomment out these lines: ;client-config-dir ccd ;route 10.9.0.0 255.255.255.252 # Then add this line to ccd/Thelonious: # ifconfig-push 10.9.0.1 10.9.0.2 # Suppose that you want to enable different # firewall access policies for different groups # of clients. There are two methods: # (1) Run multiple OpenVPN daemons, one for each # group, and firewall the TUN/TAP interface # for each group/daemon appropriately. # (2) (Advanced) Create a script to dynamically # modify the firewall in response to access # from different clients. See man # page for more info on learn-address script. ;learn-address ./script # If enabled, this directive will configure # all clients to redirect their default # network gateway through the VPN, causing # all IP traffic such as web browsing and # and DNS lookups to go through the VPN # (The OpenVPN server machine may need to NAT # or bridge the TUN/TAP interface to the internet # in order for this to work properly). ;push "redirect-gateway def1 bypass-dhcp" # Certain Windows-specific network settings # can be pushed to clients, such as DNS # or WINS server addresses. CAVEAT: # http://openvpn.net/faq.html#dhcpcaveats # The addresses below refer to the public # DNS servers provided by opendns.com. ;push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.222.222" ;push "dhcp-option DNS 208.67.220.220" # Uncomment this directive to allow differenta # clients to be able to "see" each other. # By default, clients will only see the server. # To force clients to only see the server, you # will also need to appropriately firewall the # server's TUN/TAP interface. ;client-to-client # Uncomment this directive if multiple clients # might connect with the same certificate/key # files or common names. This is recommended # only for testing purposes. For production use, # each client should have its own certificate/key # pair. # # IF YOU HAVE NOT GENERATED INDIVIDUAL # CERTIFICATE/KEY PAIRS FOR EACH CLIENT, # EACH HAVING ITS OWN UNIQUE "COMMON NAME", # UNCOMMENT THIS LINE OUT. ;duplicate-cn # The keepalive directive causes ping-like # messages to be sent back and forth over # the link so that each side knows when # the other side has gone down. # Ping every 10 seconds, assume that remote # peer is down if no ping received during # a 120 second time period. keepalive 10 120 # For extra security beyond that provided # by SSL/TLS, create an "HMAC firewall" # to help block DoS attacks and UDP port flooding. # # Generate with: # openvpn --genkey --secret ta.key # # The server and each client must have # a copy of this key. # The second parameter should be '0' # on the server and '1' on the clients. ;tls-auth ta.key 0 # This file is secret # Select a cryptographic cipher. # This config item must be copied to # the client config file as well. ;cipher BF-CBC # Blowfish (default) ;cipher AES-128-CBC # AES ;cipher DES-EDE3-CBC # Triple-DES # Enable compression on the VPN link. # If you enable it here, you must also # enable it in the client config file. comp-lzo # The maximum number of concurrently connected # clients we want to allow. ;max-clients 100 # It's a good idea to reduce the OpenVPN # daemon's privileges after initialization. # # You can uncomment this out on # non-Windows systems. ;user nobody ;group nobody # The persist options will try to avoid # accessing certain resources on restart # that may no longer be accessible because # of the privilege downgrade. persist-key persist-tun # Output a short status file showing # current connections, truncated # and rewritten every minute. status openvpn-status.log # By default, log messages will go to the syslog (or # on Windows, if running as a service, they will go to # the "\Program Files\OpenVPN\log" directory). # Use log or log-append to override this default. # "log" will truncate the log file on OpenVPN startup, # while "log-append" will append to it. Use one # or the other (but not both). ;log openvpn.log ;log-append openvpn.log # Set the appropriate level of log # file verbosity. # # 0 is silent, except for fatal errors # 4 is reasonable for general usage # 5 and 6 can help to debug connection problems # 9 is extremely verbose verb 3 # Silence repeating messages. At most 20 # sequential messages of the same message # category will be output to the log. ;mute 20 I have changed IP's for security

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  • JAVA image transfer problem

    - by user579098
    Hi, I have a school assignment, to send a jpg image,split it into groups of 100 bytes, corrupt it, use a CRC check to locate the errors and re-transmit until it eventually is built back into its original form. It's practically ready, however when I check out the new images, they appear with errors.. I would really appreciate if someone could look at my code below and maybe locate this logical mistake as I can't understand what the problem is because everything looks ok :S For the file with all the data needed including photos and error patterns one could download it from this link:http://rapidshare.com/#!download|932tl2|443122762|Data.zip|739 Thanks in advance, Stefan p.s dont forget to change the paths in the code for the image and error files package networks; import java.io.*; // for file reader import java.util.zip.CRC32; // CRC32 IEEE (Ethernet) public class Main { /** * Reads a whole file into an array of bytes. * @param file The file in question. * @return Array of bytes containing file data. * @throws IOException Message contains why it failed. */ public static byte[] readFileArray(File file) throws IOException { InputStream is = new FileInputStream(file); byte[] data=new byte[(int)file.length()]; is.read(data); is.close(); return data; } /** * Writes (or overwrites if exists) a file with data from an array of bytes. * @param file The file in question. * @param data Array of bytes containing the new file data. * @throws IOException Message contains why it failed. */ public static void writeFileArray(File file, byte[] data) throws IOException { OutputStream os = new FileOutputStream(file,false); os.write(data); os.close(); } /** * Converts a long value to an array of bytes. * @param data The target variable. * @return Byte array conversion of data. * @see http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet216874.html */ public static byte[] toByta(long data) { return new byte[] { (byte)((data >> 56) & 0xff), (byte)((data >> 48) & 0xff), (byte)((data >> 40) & 0xff), (byte)((data >> 32) & 0xff), (byte)((data >> 24) & 0xff), (byte)((data >> 16) & 0xff), (byte)((data >> 8) & 0xff), (byte)((data >> 0) & 0xff), }; } /** * Converts a an array of bytes to long value. * @param data The target variable. * @return Long value conversion of data. * @see http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet216874.html */ public static long toLong(byte[] data) { if (data == null || data.length != 8) return 0x0; return (long)( // (Below) convert to longs before shift because digits // are lost with ints beyond the 32-bit limit (long)(0xff & data[0]) << 56 | (long)(0xff & data[1]) << 48 | (long)(0xff & data[2]) << 40 | (long)(0xff & data[3]) << 32 | (long)(0xff & data[4]) << 24 | (long)(0xff & data[5]) << 16 | (long)(0xff & data[6]) << 8 | (long)(0xff & data[7]) << 0 ); } public static byte[] nextNoise(){ byte[] result=new byte[100]; // copy a frame's worth of data (or remaining data if it is less than frame length) int read=Math.min(err_data.length-err_pstn, 100); System.arraycopy(err_data, err_pstn, result, 0, read); // if read data is less than frame length, reset position and add remaining data if(read<100){ err_pstn=100-read; System.arraycopy(err_data, 0, result, read, err_pstn); }else // otherwise, increase position err_pstn+=100; // return noise segment return result; } /** * Given some original data, it is purposefully corrupted according to a * second data array (which is read from a file). In pseudocode: * corrupt = original xor corruptor * @param data The original data. * @return The new (corrupted) data. */ public static byte[] corruptData(byte[] data){ // get the next noise sequence byte[] noise = nextNoise(); // finally, xor data with noise and return result for(int i=0; i<100; i++)data[i]^=noise[i]; return data; } /** * Given an array of data, a packet is created. In pseudocode: * frame = corrupt(data) + crc(data) * @param data The original frame data. * @return The resulting frame data. */ public static byte[] buildFrame(byte[] data){ // pack = [data]+crc32([data]) byte[] hash = new byte[8]; // calculate crc32 of data and copy it to byte array CRC32 crc = new CRC32(); crc.update(data); hash=toByta(crc.getValue()); // create a byte array holding the final packet byte[] pack = new byte[data.length+hash.length]; // create the corrupted data byte[] crpt = new byte[data.length]; crpt = corruptData(data); // copy corrupted data into pack System.arraycopy(crpt, 0, pack, 0, crpt.length); // copy hash into pack System.arraycopy(hash, 0, pack, data.length, hash.length); // return pack return pack; } /** * Verifies frame contents. * @param frame The frame data (data+crc32). * @return True if frame is valid, false otherwise. */ public static boolean verifyFrame(byte[] frame){ // allocate hash and data variables byte[] hash=new byte[8]; byte[] data=new byte[frame.length-hash.length]; // read frame into hash and data variables System.arraycopy(frame, frame.length-hash.length, hash, 0, hash.length); System.arraycopy(frame, 0, data, 0, frame.length-hash.length); // get crc32 of data CRC32 crc = new CRC32(); crc.update(data); // compare crc32 of data with crc32 of frame return crc.getValue()==toLong(hash); } /** * Transfers a file through a channel in frames and reconstructs it into a new file. * @param jpg_file File name of target file to transfer. * @param err_file The channel noise file used to simulate corruption. * @param out_file The name of the newly-created file. * @throws IOException */ public static void transferFile(String jpg_file, String err_file, String out_file) throws IOException { // read file data into global variables jpg_data = readFileArray(new File(jpg_file)); err_data = readFileArray(new File(err_file)); err_pstn = 0; // variable that will hold the final (transfered) data byte[] out_data = new byte[jpg_data.length]; // holds the current frame data byte[] frame_orig = new byte[100]; byte[] frame_sent = new byte[100]; // send file in chunks (frames) of 100 bytes for(int i=0; i<Math.ceil(jpg_data.length/100); i++){ // copy jpg data into frame and init first-time switch System.arraycopy(jpg_data, i*100, frame_orig, 0, 100); boolean not_first=false; System.out.print("Packet #"+i+": "); // repeat getting same frame until frame crc matches with frame content do { if(not_first)System.out.print("F"); frame_sent=buildFrame(frame_orig); not_first=true; }while(!verifyFrame(frame_sent)); // usually, you'd constrain this by time to prevent infinite loops (in // case the channel is so wacked up it doesn't get a single packet right) // copy frame to image file System.out.println("S"); System.arraycopy(frame_sent, 0, out_data, i*100, 100); } System.out.println("\nDone."); writeFileArray(new File(out_file),out_data); } // global variables for file data and pointer public static byte[] jpg_data; public static byte[] err_data; public static int err_pstn=0; public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { // list of jpg files String[] jpg_file={ "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Images\\photo1.jpg", "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Images\\photo2.jpg", "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Images\\photo3.jpg", "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Images\\photo4.jpg" }; // list of error patterns String[] err_file={ "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Error Pattern\\Error Pattern 1.DAT", "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Error Pattern\\Error Pattern 2.DAT", "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Error Pattern\\Error Pattern 3.DAT", "C:\\Users\\Stefan\\Desktop\\Data\\Error Pattern\\Error Pattern 4.DAT" }; // loop through all jpg/channel combinations and run tests for(int x=0; x<jpg_file.length; x++){ for(int y=0; y<err_file.length; y++){ System.out.println("Transfering photo"+(x+1)+".jpg using Pattern "+(y+1)+"..."); transferFile(jpg_file[x],err_file[y],jpg_file[x].replace("photo","CH#"+y+"_photo")); } } } }

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  • Linux Mint 10 LXDE computer to act as LTSP Server without luck

    - by Rautamiekka
    So I've tried to make our screen-broken HP laptop to also serve as LTSP Server in addition to various other tasks, without luck, which may be cuz I'm running LM10 LXDE while the instructions are for Ubuntu. Excuse my ignorance. The entire output from Terminal after installing LTSP stuff along with a Server kernel and a load of other packages: administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo lt ltrace ltsp-build-client ltsp-chroot ltspfs ltspfsmounter ltsp-info ltsp-localapps ltsp-update-image ltsp-update-kernels ltsp-update-sshkeys administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-update-sshkeys administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-update-kernels find: `/opt/ltsp/': No such file or directory administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-build-client /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/010-chroot-tagging: line 3: /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/ltsp_chroot: No such file or directory error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-update-image Cannot determine assigned port. Assigning to port 2000. mkdir: cannot create directory `/opt/ltsp/i386/etc/ltsp': No such file or directory /usr/sbin/ltsp-update-image: 274: cannot create /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/ltsp/update-kernels.conf: Directory nonexistent /usr/sbin/ltsp-update-image: 274: cannot create /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/ltsp/update-kernels.conf: Directory nonexistent Regenerating kernel... chroot: failed to run command `/usr/share/ltsp/update-kernels': No such file or directory Done. Configuring inetd... Done. Updating pxelinux default configuration...Done. Skipping invalid chroot: /opt/ltsp/i386 chroot: failed to run command `test': No such file or directory administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-chroot chroot: failed to run command `/bin/bash': No such file or directory administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ bash administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ exit exit administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ls /opt/ltsp i386 administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ls /opt/ltsp/i386/ administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-build-client NOTE: Root directory /opt/ltsp/i386 already exists, this will lead to problems, please remove it before trying again. Exiting. error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo rm -rv /opt/ltsp/i386 removed directory: `/opt/ltsp/i386' administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-build-client /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/010-chroot-tagging: line 3: /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/ltsp_chroot: No such file or directory error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ aptitude search ltsp p fts-ltsp-ldap - LDAP LTSP module for the TFTP/Fuse supplicant p ltsp-client - LTSP client environment p ltsp-client-core - LTSP client environment (core) p ltsp-cluster-accountmanager - Account creation and management daemon for LTSP p ltsp-cluster-control - Web based thin-client configuration management p ltsp-cluster-lbagent - LTSP loadbalancer agent offers variables about the state of the ltsp server p ltsp-cluster-lbserver - LTSP loadbalancer server returns the optimal ltsp server to terminal p ltsp-cluster-nxloadbalancer - Minimal NX loadbalancer for ltsp-cluster p ltsp-cluster-pxeconfig - LTSP-Cluster symlink generator p ltsp-controlaula - Classroom management tool with ltsp clients p ltsp-docs - LTSP Documentation p ltsp-livecd - starts an LTSP live server on an Ubuntu livecd session p ltsp-manager - Ubuntu LTSP server management GUI i A ltsp-server - Basic LTSP server environment i ltsp-server-standalone - Complete LTSP server environment i A ltspfs - Fuse based remote filesystem for LTSP thin clients p ltspfsd - Fuse based remote filesystem hooks for LTSP thin clients p ltspfsd-core - Fuse based remote filesystem daemon for LTSP thin clients p python-ltsp - provides ltsp related functions administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo aptitude purge ltsp-server ltsp-server-standalone ltspfs The following packages will be REMOVED: debconf-utils{u} debootstrap{u} dhcp3-server{u} gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio{u} ldm-server{u} libpulse-browse0{u} ltsp-server{p} ltsp-server-standalone{p} ltspfs{p} nbd-server{u} openbsd-inetd{u} pulseaudio{u} pulseaudio-esound-compat{u} pulseaudio-module-x11{u} pulseaudio-utils{u} squashfs-tools{u} tftpd-hpa{u} 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 17 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 6,996kB will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] (Reading database ... 158454 files and directories currently installed.) Removing ltsp-server-standalone ... Purging configuration files for ltsp-server-standalone ... Removing ltsp-server ... Purging configuration files for ltsp-server ... dpkg: warning: while removing ltsp-server, directory '/var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp' not empty so not removed. dpkg: warning: while removing ltsp-server, directory '/var/lib/tftpboot' not empty so not removed. Processing triggers for man-db ... (Reading database ... 158195 files and directories currently installed.) Removing debconf-utils ... Removing debootstrap ... Removing dhcp3-server ... * Stopping DHCP server dhcpd3 [ OK ] Removing gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio ... Removing ldm-server ... Removing pulseaudio-module-x11 ... Removing pulseaudio-esound-compat ... Removing pulseaudio ... * PulseAudio configured for per-user sessions Removing pulseaudio-utils ... Removing libpulse-browse0 ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot Processing triggers for libc-bin ... ldconfig deferred processing now taking place (Reading database ... 157944 files and directories currently installed.) Removing ltspfs ... Processing triggers for man-db ... (Reading database ... 157932 files and directories currently installed.) Removing nbd-server ... Stopping Network Block Device server: nbd-server. Removing openbsd-inetd ... * Stopping internet superserver inetd [ OK ] Removing squashfs-tools ... Removing tftpd-hpa ... tftpd-hpa stop/waiting Processing triggers for ureadahead ... Processing triggers for man-db ... administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo aptitude purge ~c The following packages will be REMOVED: dhcp3-server{p} libpulse-browse0{p} nbd-server{p} openbsd-inetd{p} pulseaudio{p} tftpd-hpa{p} 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 6 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] (Reading database ... 157881 files and directories currently installed.) Removing dhcp3-server ... Purging configuration files for dhcp3-server ... Removing libpulse-browse0 ... Purging configuration files for libpulse-browse0 ... Removing nbd-server ... Purging configuration files for nbd-server ... Removing openbsd-inetd ... Purging configuration files for openbsd-inetd ... Removing pulseaudio ... Purging configuration files for pulseaudio ... Removing tftpd-hpa ... Purging configuration files for tftpd-hpa ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo aptitude install ltsp-server-standalone The following NEW packages will be installed: debconf-utils{a} debootstrap{a} ldm-server{a} ltsp-server{a} ltsp-server-standalone ltspfs{a} nbd-server{a} openbsd-inetd{a} squashfs-tools{a} The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed: dhcp3-server pulseaudio-esound-compat tftpd-hpa 0 packages upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/498kB of archives. After unpacking 2,437kB will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Preconfiguring packages ... Selecting previously deselected package openbsd-inetd. (Reading database ... 157868 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking openbsd-inetd (from .../openbsd-inetd_0.20080125-4ubuntu2_i386.deb) ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... Setting up openbsd-inetd (0.20080125-4ubuntu2) ... * Stopping internet superserver inetd [ OK ] * Starting internet superserver inetd [ OK ] Selecting previously deselected package ldm-server. (Reading database ... 157877 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking ldm-server (from .../ldm-server_2%3a2.1.3-0ubuntu1_all.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package debconf-utils. Unpacking debconf-utils (from .../debconf-utils_1.5.32ubuntu3_all.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package debootstrap. Unpacking debootstrap (from .../debootstrap_1.0.23ubuntu1_all.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package nbd-server. Unpacking nbd-server (from .../nbd-server_1%3a2.9.14-2ubuntu1_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package squashfs-tools. Unpacking squashfs-tools (from .../squashfs-tools_1%3a4.0-8_i386.deb) ... Selecting previously deselected package ltsp-server. GNU nano 2.2.4 File: /etc/ltsp/ltsp-update-image.conf # Configuration file for ltsp-update-image # By default, do not compress the image # as it's reported to make it unstable NO_COMP="-noF -noD -noI -no-exports" [ Switched to /etc/ltsp/ltsp-update-image.conf ] administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ ls /opt/ firefox/ ltsp/ mint-flashplugin/ administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ ls /opt/ltsp/i386/ administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ ls /opt/ltsp/ i386 administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp ltsp-build-client ltsp-chroot ltspfs ltspfsmounter ltsp-info ltsp-localapps ltsp-update-image ltsp-update-kernels ltsp-update-sshkeys administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-build-client NOTE: Root directory /opt/ltsp/i386 already exists, this will lead to problems, please remove it before trying again. Exiting. error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ ^C administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo aptitude purge ltsp ltspfs ltsp-server ltsp-server-standalone administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo aptitude purge ltsp-server The following packages will be REMOVED: ltsp-server{p} 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 1,073kB will be freed. The following packages have unmet dependencies: ltsp-server-standalone: Depends: ltsp-server but it is not going to be installed. The following actions will resolve these dependencies: Remove the following packages: 1) ltsp-server-standalone Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] The following packages will be REMOVED: debconf-utils{u} debootstrap{u} ldm-server{u} ltsp-server{p} ltsp-server-standalone{a} ltspfs{u} nbd-server{u} openbsd-inetd{u} squashfs-tools{u} 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 9 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 2,437kB will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] (Reading database ... 158244 files and directories currently installed.) Removing ltsp-server-standalone ... (Reading database ... 158240 files and directories currently installed.) Removing ltsp-server ... Purging configuration files for ltsp-server ... dpkg: warning: while removing ltsp-server, directory '/var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp' not empty so not removed. dpkg: warning: while removing ltsp-server, directory '/var/lib/tftpboot' not empty so not removed. Processing triggers for man-db ... (Reading database ... 157987 files and directories currently installed.) Removing debconf-utils ... Removing debootstrap ... Removing ldm-server ... Removing ltspfs ... Removing nbd-server ... Stopping Network Block Device server: nbd-server. Removing openbsd-inetd ... * Stopping internet superserver inetd [ OK ] Removing squashfs-tools ... Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo aptitude purge ~c The following packages will be REMOVED: ltsp-server-standalone{p} nbd-server{p} openbsd-inetd{p} 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] (Reading database ... 157871 files and directories currently installed.) Removing ltsp-server-standalone ... Purging configuration files for ltsp-server-standalone ... Removing nbd-server ... Purging configuration files for nbd-server ... Removing openbsd-inetd ... Purging configuration files for openbsd-inetd ... Processing triggers for ureadahead ... administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo rm -rv /var/lib/t teamspeak-server/ tftpboot/ transmission-daemon/ administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo rm -rv /var/lib/tftpboot removed `/var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.cfg/default' removed directory: `/var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.cfg' removed directory: `/var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386' removed directory: `/var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp' removed directory: `/var/lib/tftpboot' administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo find / -name "ltsp" /opt/ltsp administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo rm -rv /opt/ltsp removed directory: `/opt/ltsp/i386' removed directory: `/opt/ltsp' administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo aptitude install ltsp-server-standalone The following NEW packages will be installed: debconf-utils{a} debootstrap{a} ldm-server{a} ltsp-server{a} ltsp-server-standalone ltspfs{a} nbd-server{a} openbsd-inetd{a} squashfs-tools{a} The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed: dhcp3-server pulseaudio-esound-compat tftpd-hpa 0 packages upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/498kB of archives. After unpacking 2,437kB will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Preconfiguring packages ... Selecting previously deselected package openbsd-inetd. (Reading database ... 157868 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking openbsd-inetd (from .../openbsd-inetd_0.20080125-4ubuntu2_i386.deb) ... Processing triggers for man-db ... GNU nano 2.2.4 New Buffer GNU nano 2.2.4 File: /etc/ltsp/dhcpd.conf # # Default LTSP dhcpd.conf config file. # authoritative; subnet 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.2.70 192.168.2.79; option domain-name "jarvinen"; option domain-name-servers 192.168.2.254; option broadcast-address 192.168.2.255; option routers 192.168.2.254; # next-server 192.168.0.1; # get-lease-hostnames true; option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0; option root-path "/opt/ltsp/i386"; if substring( option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9 ) = "PXEClient" { filename "/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.0"; } else { filename "/ltsp/i386/nbi.img"; } } [ Wrote 22 lines ] administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo service dhcp3-server start * Starting DHCP server dhcpd3 [ OK ] administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo ltsp-build-client /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/010-chroot-tagging: line 3: /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/ltsp_chroot: No such file or directory error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ sudo cat /usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/common/010-chroot-tagging case "$MODE" in after-install) echo LTSP_CHROOT=$ROOT >> $ROOT/etc/ltsp_chroot ;; esac administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ cd $ROOT/etc/ltsp_chroot bash: cd: /etc/ltsp_chroot: No such file or directory administrator@rauta-mint-turion ~ $ cd $ROOT/etc/ administrator@rauta-mint-turion /etc $ ls acpi chatscripts emacs group insserv.conf.d logrotate.conf mysql php5 rc6.d smbnetfs.conf UPower adduser.conf ConsoleKit environment group- iproute2 logrotate.d nanorc phpmyadmin rc.local snmp usb_modeswitch.conf alternatives console-setup esound grub.d issue lsb-base nbd-server pm rcS.d sound usb_modeswitch.d anacrontab cron.d firefox gshadow issue.net lsb-base-logging.sh ndiswrapper pnm2ppa.conf request-key.conf ssh ushare.conf apache2 cron.daily firefox-3.5 gshadow- java lsb-release netscsid.conf polkit-1 resolvconf ssl vga apm cron.hourly firestarter gtk-2.0 java-6-sun ltrace.conf network popularity-contest.conf resolv.conf sudoers vim apparmor cron.monthly fonts gtkmathview kbd ltsp NetworkManager ppp rmt sudoers.d vlc apparmor.d crontab foomatic gufw kernel lxdm networks printcap rpc su-to-rootrc vsftpd.conf apport cron.weekly fstab hal kernel-img.conf magic nsswitch.conf profile rsyslog.conf sweeprc w3m apt crypttab ftpusers hdparm.conf kerneloops.conf magic.mime ntp.conf profile.d rsyslog.d sysctl.conf wgetrc at.deny cups fuse.conf host.conf kompozer mailcap obex-data-server protocols samba sysctl.d wildmidi auto-apt dbconfig-common gai.conf hostname ldap mailcap.order ODBCDataSources psiconv sane.d teamspeak-server wodim.conf avahi dbus-1 gamin hosts ld.so.cache manpath.config odbc.ini pulse screenrc terminfo wpa_supplicant bash.bashrc debconf.conf gconf hosts.allow ld.so.conf menu openal purple securetty thunderbird X11 bash_completion debian_version gdb hosts.deny ld.so.conf.d menu-methods openoffice python security timezone xdg bash_completion.d default gdm hp legal mime.types opt python2.6 sensors3.conf transmission-daemon xml bindresvport.blacklist defoma ghostscript ifplugd lftp.conf mke2fs.conf pam.conf python2.7 sensors.d ts.conf xulrunner-1.9.2 blkid.conf deluser.conf gimp inetd.conf libpaper.d modprobe.d pam.d python3.1 services ucf.conf zsh_command_not_found blkid.tab depmod.d gnome init libreoffice modules pango rc0.d sgml udev bluetooth dhcp gnome-system-tools init.d linuxmint motd papersize rc1.d shadow ufw bonobo-activation dhcp3 gnome-vfs-2.0 initramfs-tools locale.alias mplayer passwd rc2.d shadow- updatedb.conf ca-certificates dictionaries-common gnome-vfs-mime-magic inputrc localtime mtab passwd- rc3.d shells update-manager ca-certificates.conf doc-base gre.d insserv logcheck mtab.fuselock pcmcia rc4.d skel update-motd.d calendar dpkg groff insserv.conf login.defs mtools.conf perl rc5.d smb2www update-notifier administrator@rauta-mint-turion /etc $ cd ltsp/ administrator@rauta-mint-turion /etc/ltsp $ ls dhcpd.conf ltsp-update-image.conf administrator@rauta-mint-turion /etc/ltsp $ cat dhcpd.conf # # Default LTSP dhcpd.conf config file. # authoritative; subnet 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.2.70 192.168.2.79; option domain-name "jarvinen"; option domain-name-servers 192.168.2.254; option broadcast-address 192.168.2.255; option routers 192.168.2.254; # next-server 192.168.0.1; # get-lease-hostnames true; option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0; option root-path "/opt/ltsp/i386"; if substring( option vendor-class-identifier, 0, 9 ) = "PXEClient" { filename "/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.0"; } else { filename "/ltsp/i386/nbi.img"; } } administrator@rauta-mint-turion /etc/ltsp $

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