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• What's up with LDoms: Part 1 - Introduction & Basic Concepts

  - by Stefan Hinker

  LDoms - the correct name is Oracle VM Server for SPARC - have been around for quite a while now.  But to my surprise, I get more and more requests to explain how they work or to give advise on how to make good use of them.  This made me think that writing up a few articles discussing the different features would be a good idea.  Now - I don't intend to rewrite the LDoms Admin Guide or to copy and reformat the (hopefully) well known "Beginners Guide to LDoms" by Tony Shoumack from 2007.  Those documents are very recommendable - especially the Beginners Guide, although based on LDoms 1.0, is still a good place to begin with.  However, LDoms have come a long way since then, and I hope to contribute to their adoption by discussing how they work and what features there are today.  In this and the following posts, I will use the term "LDoms" as a common abbreviation for Oracle VM Server for SPARC, just because it's a lot shorter and easier to type (and presumably, read). So, just to get everyone on the same baseline, lets briefly discuss the basic concepts of virtualization with LDoms.  LDoms make use of a hypervisor as a layer of abstraction between real, physical hardware and virtual hardware.  This virtual hardware is then used to create a number of guest systems which each behave very similar to a system running on bare metal:  Each has its own OBP, each will install its own copy of the Solaris OS and each will see a certain amount of CPU, memory, disk and network resources available to it.  Unlike some other type 1 hypervisors running on x86 hardware, the SPARC hypervisor is embedded in the system firmware and makes use both of supporting functions in the sun4v SPARC instruction set as well as the overall CPU architecture to fulfill its function. The CMT architecture of the supporting CPUs (T1 through T4) provide a large number of cores and threads to the OS.  For example, the current T4 CPU has eight cores, each running 8 threads, for a total of 64 threads per socket.  To the OS, this looks like 64 CPUs.  The SPARC hypervisor, when creating guest systems, simply assigns a certain number of these threads exclusively to one guest, thus avoiding the overhead of having to schedule OS threads to CPUs, as do typical x86 hypervisors.  The hypervisor only assigns CPUs and then steps aside.  It is not involved in the actual work being dispatched from the OS to the CPU, all it does is maintain isolation between different guests. Likewise, memory is assigned exclusively to individual guests.  Here,  the hypervisor provides generic mappings between the physical hardware addresses and the guest's views on memory.  Again, the hypervisor is not involved in the actual memory access, it only maintains isolation between guests. During the inital setup of a system with LDoms, you start with one special domain, called the Control Domain.  Initially, this domain owns all the hardware available in the system, including all CPUs, all RAM and all IO resources.  If you'd be running the system un-virtualized, this would be what you'd be working with.  To allow for guests, you first resize this initial domain (also called a primary domain in LDoms speak), assigning it a small amount of CPU and memory.  This frees up most of the available CPU and memory resources for guest domains.  IO is a little more complex, but very straightforward.  When LDoms 1.0 first came out, the only way to provide IO to guest systems was to create virtual disk and network services and attach guests to these services.  In the meantime, several different ways to connect guest domains to IO have been developed, the most recent one being SR-IOV support for network devices released in version 2.2 of Oracle VM Server for SPARC. I will cover these more advanced features in detail later.  For now, lets have a short look at the initial way IO was virtualized in LDoms: For virtualized IO, you create two services, one "Virtual Disk Service" or vds, and one "Virtual Switch" or vswitch.  You can, of course, also create more of these, but that's more advanced than I want to cover in this introduction.  These IO services now connect real, physical IO resources like a disk LUN or a networt port to the virtual devices that are assigned to guest domains.  For disk IO, the normal case would be to connect a physical LUN (or some other storage option that I'll discuss later) to one specific guest.  That guest would be assigned a virtual disk, which would appear to be just like a real LUN to the guest, while the IO is actually routed through the virtual disk service down to the physical device.  For network, the vswitch acts very much like a real, physical ethernet switch - you connect one physical port to it for outside connectivity and define one or more connections per guest, just like you would plug cables between a real switch and a real system. For completeness, there is another service that provides console access to guest domains which mimics the behavior of serial terminal servers. The connections between the virtual devices on the guest's side and the virtual IO services in the primary domain are created by the hypervisor.  It uses so called "Logical Domain Channels" or LDCs to create point-to-point connections between all of these devices and services.  These LDCs work very similar to high speed serial connections and are configured automatically whenever the Control Domain adds or removes virtual IO. To see all this in action, now lets look at a first example.  I will start with a newly installed machine and configure the control domain so that it's ready to create guest systems. In a first step, after we've installed the software, let's start the virtual console service and downsize the primary domain.  root@sun # ldm list NAME STATE FLAGS CONS VCPU MEMORY UTIL UPTIME primary active -n-c-- UART 512 261632M 0.3% 2d 13h 58m root@sun # ldm add-vconscon port-range=5000-5100 \ primary-console primary root@sun # svcadm enable vntsd root@sun # svcs vntsd STATE STIME FMRI online 9:53:21 svc:/ldoms/vntsd:default root@sun # ldm set-vcpu 16 primary root@sun # ldm set-mau 1 primary root@sun # ldm start-reconf primary root@sun # ldm set-memory 7680m primary root@sun # ldm add-config initial root@sun # shutdown -y -g0 -i6 So what have I done: I've defined a range of ports (5000-5100) for the virtual network terminal service and then started that service.  The vnts will later provide console connections to guest systems, very much like serial NTS's do in the physical world. Next, I assigned 16 vCPUs (on this platform, a T3-4, that's two cores) to the primary domain, freeing the rest up for future guest systems.  I also assigned one MAU to this domain.  A MAU is a crypto unit in the T3 CPU.  These need to be explicitly assigned to domains, just like CPU or memory.  (This is no longer the case with T4 systems, where crypto is always available everywhere.) Before I reassigned the memory, I started what's called a "delayed reconfiguration" session.  That avoids actually doing the change right away, which would take a considerable amount of time in this case.  Instead, I'll need to reboot once I'm all done.  I've assigned 7680MB of RAM to the primary.  That's 8GB less the 512MB which the hypervisor uses for it's own private purposes.  You can, depending on your needs, work with less.  I'll spend a dedicated article on sizing, discussing the pros and cons in detail. Finally, just before the reboot, I saved my work on the ILOM, to make this configuration available after a powercycle of the box.  (It'll always be available after a simple reboot, but the ILOM needs to know the configuration of the hypervisor after a power-cycle, before the primary domain is booted.) Now, lets create a first disk service and a first virtual switch which is connected to the physical network device igb2. We will later use these to connect virtual disks and virtual network ports of our guest systems to real world storage and network. root@sun # ldm add-vds primary-vds root@sun # ldm add-vswitch net-dev=igb2 switch-primary primary You are free to choose whatever names you like for the virtual disk service and the virtual switch.  I strongly recommend that you choose names that make sense to you and describe the function of each service in the context of your implementation.  For the vswitch, for example, you could choose names like "admin-vswitch" or "production-network" etc. This already concludes the configuration of the control domain.  We've freed up considerable amounts of CPU and RAM for guest systems and created the necessary infrastructure - console, vts and vswitch - so that guests systems can actually interact with the outside world.  The system is now ready to create guests, which I'll describe in the next section. For further reading, here are some recommendable links: The LDoms 2.2 Admin Guide The "Beginners Guide to LDoms" The LDoms Information Center on MOS LDoms on OTN

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• Looking into Entity Framework Code First Migrations

  - by nikolaosk

  In this post I will introduce you to Code First Migrations, an Entity Framework feature introduced in version 4.3 back in February of 2012.I have extensively covered Entity Framework in this blog. Please find my other Entity Framework posts here .   Before the addition of Code First Migrations (4.1,4.2 versions), Code First database initialisation meant that Code First would create the database if it does not exist (the default behaviour - CreateDatabaseIfNotExists). The other pattern we could use is DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges which means that Entity Framework, will drop the database if it realises that model has changes since the last time it created the database.The final pattern is DropCreateDatabaseAlways which means that Code First will recreate the database every time one runs the application.That is of course fine for the development database but totally unacceptable and catastrophic when you have a production database. We cannot lose our data because of the work that Code First works.Migrations solve this problem.With migrations we can modify the database without completely dropping it.We can modify the database schema to reflect the changes to the model without losing data.In version EF 5.0 migrations are fully included and supported. I will demonstrate migrations with a hands-on example.Let me say a few words first about Entity Framework first. The .Net framework provides support for Object Relational Mappingthrough EF. So EF is a an ORM tool and it is now the main data access technology that microsoft works on. I use it quite extensively in my projects. Through EF we have many things out of the box provided for us. We have the automatic generation of SQL code.It maps relational data to strongly types objects.All the changes made to the objects in the memory are persisted in a transactional way back to the data store. You can find in this post an example on how to use the Entity Framework to retrieve data from an SQL Server Database using the "Database/Schema First" approach.In this approach we make all the changes at the database level and then we update the model with those changes. In this post you can see an example on how to use the "Model First" approach when working with ASP.Net and the Entity Framework.This model was firstly introduced in EF version 4.0 and we could start with a blank model and then create a database from that model.When we made changes to the model , we could recreate the database from the new model. The Code First approach is the more code-centric than the other two. Basically we write POCO classes and then we persist to a database using something called DBContext.Code First relies on DbContext. We create 2,3 classes (e.g Person,Product) with properties and then these classes interact with the DbContext class we can create a new database based upon our POCOS classes and have tables generated from those classes.We do not have an .edmx file in this approach.By using this approach we can write much easier unit tests.DbContext is a new context class and is smaller,lightweight wrapper for the main context class which is ObjectContext (Schema First and Model First).Let's move on to our hands-on example.I have installed VS 2012 Ultimate edition in my Windows 8 machine. 1)  Create an empty asp.net web application. Give your application a suitable name. Choose C# as the development language2) Add a new web form item in your application. Leave the default name.3) Create a new folder. Name it CodeFirst .4) Add a new item in your application, a class file. Name it Footballer.cs. This is going to be a simple POCO class.Place this class file in the CodeFirst folder.The code follows    public class Footballer     {         public int FootballerID { get; set; }         public string FirstName { get; set; }         public string LastName { get; set; }         public double Weight { get; set; }         public double Height { get; set; }              }5) We will have to add EF 5.0 to our project. Right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer and select Manage NuGet Packages... for it.In the window that will pop up search for Entity Framework and install it.Have a look at the picture below   If you want to find out if indeed EF version is 5.0 version is installed have a look at the References. Have a look at the picture below to see what you will see if you have installed everything correctly.Have a look at the picture below 6) Then we need to create a context class that inherits from DbContext.Add a new class to the CodeFirst folder.Name it FootballerDBContext.Now that we have the entity classes created, we must let the model know.I will have to use the DbSet<T> property.The code for this class follows     public class FootballerDBContext:DbContext     {         public DbSet<Footballer> Footballers { get; set; }             }    Do not forget to add  (using System.Data.Entity;) in the beginning of the class file 7) We must take care of the connection string. It is very easy to create one in the web.config.It does not matter that we do not have a database yet.When we run the DbContext and query against it , it will use a connection string in the web.config and will create the database based on the classes.I will use the name "FootballTraining" for the database.In my case the connection string inside the web.config, looks like this    <connectionStrings>    <add name="CodeFirstDBContext" connectionString="server=.;integrated security=true; database=FootballTraining" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>                       </connectionStrings>8) Now it is time to create Linq to Entities queries to retrieve data from the database . Add a new class to your application in the CodeFirst folder.Name the file DALfootballer.csWe will create a simple public method to retrieve the footballers. The code for the class followspublic class DALfootballer     {         FootballerDBContext ctx = new FootballerDBContext();         public List<Footballer> GetFootballers()         {             var query = from player in ctx.Footballers select player;             return query.ToList();         }     } 9) Place a GridView control on the Default.aspx page and leave the default name.Add an ObjectDataSource control on the Default.aspx page and leave the default name. Set the DatasourceID property of the GridView control to the ID of the ObjectDataSource control.(DataSourceID="ObjectDataSource1" ). Let's configure the ObjectDataSource control. Click on the smart tag item of the ObjectDataSource control and select Configure Data Source. In the Wizzard that pops up select the DALFootballer class and then in the next step choose the GetFootballers() method.Click Finish to complete the steps of the wizzard.Build and Run your application.  10) Obviously you will not see any records coming back from your database, because we have not inserted anything. The database is created, though.Have a look at the picture below.  11) Now let's change the POCO class. Let's add a new property to the Footballer.cs class.        public int Age { get; set; } Build and run your application again. You will receive an error. Have a look at the picture below 12) That was to be expected.EF Code First Migrations is not activated by default. We have to activate them manually and configure them according to your needs. We will open the Package Manager Console from the Tools menu within Visual Studio 2012.Then we will activate the EF Code First Migration Features by writing the command “Enable-Migrations”.  Have a look at the picture below. This adds a new folder Migrations in our project. A new auto-generated class Configuration.cs is created.Another class is also created [CURRENTDATE]_InitialCreate.cs and added to our project.The Configuration.cs  is shown in the picture below. The [CURRENTDATE]_InitialCreate.cs is shown in the picture below  13) ??w we are ready to migrate the changes in the database. We need to run the Add-Migration Age command in Package Manager ConsoleAdd-Migration will scaffold the next migration based on changes you have made to your model since the last migration was created.In the Migrations folder, the file 201211201231066_Age.cs is created.Have a look at the picture below to see the newly generated file and its contents. Now we can run the Update-Database command in Package Manager Console .See the picture above.Code First Migrations will compare the migrations in our Migrations folder with the ones that have been applied to the database. It will see that the Age migration needs to be applied, and run it.The EFMigrations.CodeFirst.FootballeDBContext database is now updated to include the Age column in the Footballers table.Build and run your application.Everything will work fine now.Have a look at the picture below to see the migrations applied to our table. 14) We may want it to automatically upgrade the database (by applying any pending migrations) when the application launches.Let's add another property to our Poco class.          public string TShirtNo { get; set; }We want this change to migrate automatically to the database.We go to the Configuration.cs we enable automatic migrations.     public Configuration()        {            AutomaticMigrationsEnabled = true;        } In the Page_Load event handling routine we have to register the MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion database initializer. A database initializer simply contains some logic that is used to make sure the database is setup correctly.   protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)        {            Database.SetInitializer(new MigrateDatabaseToLatestVersion<FootballerDBContext, Configuration>());        } Build and run your application. It will work fine. Have a look at the picture below to see the migrations applied to our table in the database. Hope it helps!!!  

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, November 11, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, November 11, 2012Popular ReleasesZXMAK2: Version 2.7.2.0: show extended rzx error info fix reset lag for PROFI ULA 5.xx fix reset behavior fix PROFI ULA timings (thanks to solegstar) fix #FF port for PROFI ULA add ATM710 memory module add new predefined machine configs: ATM Turbo 2, PROFI 3.XX???????: Monitor 2012-11-11: This is the first releaseVidCoder: 1.4.5 Beta: Removed the old Advanced user interface and moved x264 preset/profile/tune there instead. The functionality is still available through editing the options string. Added ability to specify the H.264 level. Added ability to choose VidCoder's interface language. If you are interested in translating, we can get VidCoder in your language! Updated WPF text rendering to use the better Display mode. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5045. Removed logic that forced the .m4v extension in certain ...ImageGlass: Version 1.5: http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc483/phapsuxeko/ImageGlass/1.png v1.5.4401.3015 Thumbnail bar: Increase loading speed Thumbnail image with ratio Support personal customization: mouse up, mouse down, mouse hover, selected item... Scroll to show all items Image viewer Zoom by scroll, or selected rectangle Speed up loading Zoom to cursor point New background design and customization and others... v1.5.4430.483 Thumbnail bar: Auto move scroll bar to selected image Show / Hi...Building Windows 8 Apps with C# and XAML: Full Source Chapters 1 - 10 for Windows 8 Fix 002: This is the full source from all chapters of the book, compiled and tested on Windows 8 RTM. Includes: A fix for the Netflix example from Chapter 6 that was missing a service reference A fix for the ImageHelper issue (images were not being saved) - this was due to the buffer being inadequate and required streaming the writeable bitmap to a buffer first before encoding and savingmyCollections: Version 2.3.2.0: New in this version : Added TheGamesDB.net API for Games and NDS Added Support for Windows Media Center Added Support for myMovies Added Support for XBMC Added Support for Dune HD Added Support for Mede8er Added Support for WD HDTV Added Fast search options Added order by Artist/Album for music You can now create covers and background for games You can now update your ID3 tag with the info of myCollections Fixed several provider Performance improvement New Splash ...Draw: Draw 1.0: Drawing PadPlayer Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows 8 (v1.0): IMPORTANT: List of breaking changes from preview 7 Ability to move control panel or individual elements outside media player. more info... New Entertainment app theme for out of the box support for Windows 8 Entertainment app guidelines. more info... VSIX reference names shortened. Allows seeing plugin name from "Add Reference" dialog without resizing. FreeWheel SmartXML now supports new "Standard" event callback type. Other minor misc fixes and improvements ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmo...WebSearch.Net: WebSearch.Net 3.1: WebSearch.Net is an open-source research platform that provides uniform data source access, data modeling, feature calculation, data mining, etc. It facilitates the experiments of web search researchers due to its high flexibility and extensibility. The platform can be used or extended by any language compatible for .Net 2 framework, from C# (recommended), VB.Net to C++ and Java. Thanks to the large coverage of knowledge in web search research, it is necessary to model the techniques and main...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.10.0: NugetNuGet BlogRead the release blog post for 4.10.0. Whats newMVC support New request pipeline Many, many bugfixes (see the issue tracker for a complete list) Read the documentation for the MVC bits. Breaking changesWe have done all we can not to break backwards compatibility, but we had to do some minor breaking changes: Removed graphicHeadlineFormat config setting from umbracoSettings.config (an old relic from the 3.x days) U4-690 DynamicNode ChildrenAsList was fixed, altering it'...SQL Server Partitioned Table Framework: Partitioned Table Framework Release 1.0: SQL Server 2012 ReleaseSharePoint Manager 2013: SharePoint Manager 2013 Release ver 1.0.12.1106: SharePoint Manager 2013 Release (ver: 1.0.12.1106) is now ready for SharePoint 2013. The new version has an expanded view of the SharePoint object model and has been tested on SharePoint 2013 RTM. As a bonus, the new version is also available for SharePoint 2010 as a separate download.D3D9Client: D3D9Client R7: New release for Orbiter 2010-P1 - Added horizon/sun angle for night-lights into the configuration file (default 10deg) - Some runway lights related bugs are fixed - Added more configuration options for runway lightsFiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 1.2: Verzija 1.2. je, prije svega, odgovor na novu verziju Tehnicke specifikacije (v1.1.) koja je objavljena prije nekoliko dana. Pored novosti vezanih uz (sitne) izmjene u spomenutoj novoj verziji Tehnicke dokumentacije, projekt smo prošili sa nekim dodatnim feature-ima od kojih je vecina proizašla iz vaših prijedloga - hvala :) Novosti u v1.2. su: - Neusuglašenost zahtjeva (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/645) - Sample projekt - iznosi se množe sa 100 (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.c...MFCMAPI: October 2012 Release: Build: 15.0.0.1036 Full release notes at SGriffin's blog. If you just want to run the MFCMAPI or MrMAPI, get the executables. If you want to debug them, get the symbol files and the source. The 64 bit builds will only work on a machine with Outlook 2010 64 bit installed. All other machines should use the 32 bit builds, regardless of the operating system. Facebook BadgeDictationTool: DictationCool-WPF: • Open a media file to start a new dication. • Open a dct file to continue a dictation. • Compare your dictation with original text if exists. • Save your dictation to dct file, and restore it to continue later. • Save the compared result to html file.MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.7: Changelog for 2.3.7 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Improved performance of MP4 Fast and M4V Fast Profiles (no deinterlacing, removed --decomb) 2. Improved priority handling 3. Added support for Pausing and Resume conversions 4. Added support for fallback to source directory if network destination directory is unavailable 5. MCEBuddy now installs ShowAnalyzer during installation 6. Added support for long description atom in iTunesDyanamic Reports (RDLC) - SharePoint 2010 Visual WebPart: Initial Release: This is a Initial Release.HTML Renderer: HTML Renderer 1.0.0.0 (3): Major performance improvement (http://theartofdev.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/how-i-optimized-html-renderer-and-fell-in-love-with-vs-profiler/) Minor fixes raised in issue tracker and discussions.Window Manager: Window Manager 1.0: First releaseNew Projectsarteytex: este es una prueba blockworld: An implementation of a goal stack planner.Customer Note: customer note is windows store applicationDraw: ?????????????：??????、CAD??、????。Football Management: Football Management System is web management system for football (soccer) leagues, teams and players. Hijri Converter API: This project is aimed to create a simple RESTful API using VB and ASP.NET to do Hijri-to-Gregorian and Gregorian-to-Hijri conversion.httpclient?????????: httpclient?????????（1）??????????（2）?????????（3）??2012-11-06??，???????。 Imagine Cup 2013: Develop project to Imagine Cup 2013MyAppReji: MyAppN2F Request: The N2F Request object is used to handle interactions between N2F and the global $_REQUEST variable, sanitizing any results which are returned.Orchard Metro Theme: Orchard Metro Theme is a clean and flexible multi-zone theme.Poker Clock And Goodies: poker w8ProjectASPReviewer: Review website for notebooks, tablets and smartphones.Prototype: Its about making an proto type for the final project.Prototype - 7COM0207: 7COM0207 web scripting module, Assignment 2QuickToAD: QuickToAD is a foundational development project for the purpose of jump-starting data-driven application projects.Release Manager: Release Manager is a project to design and develop Windows based Release Management Software.ResW File Code Generator: A Visual Studio 2012 Custom Tool for generating a strongly typed helper class for accessing localized resources from a .ResW file.SEO Tools: This is a website containing some commonly used SEO tools. I have only added a blog ping utility at this time but there is more to come. Thales communicator: A C# library that helps communicate with Thales HSMTrivial: A trivia framework: Trivial is a C# framework that helps you creating custom trivia-like applications.

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• New Features in ASP.NET Web API 2 - Part I

  - by dwahlin

  I’m a big fan of ASP.NET Web API. It provides a quick yet powerful way to build RESTful HTTP services that can easily be consumed by a variety of clients. While it’s simple to get started using, it has a wealth of features such as filters, formatters, and message handlers that can be used to extend it when needed. In this post I’m going to provide a quick walk-through of some of the key new features in version 2. I’ll focus on some two of my favorite features that are related to routing and HTTP responses and cover additional features in a future post.   Attribute Routing Routing has been a core feature of Web API since it’s initial release and something that’s built into new Web API projects out-of-the-box. However, there are a few scenarios where defining routes can be challenging such as nested routes (more on that in a moment) and any situation where a lot of custom routes have to be defined. For this example, let’s assume that you’d like to define the following nested route:   /customers/1/orders   This type of route would select a customer with an Id of 1 and then return all of their orders. Defining this type of route in the standard WebApiConfig class is certainly possible, but it isn’t the easiest thing to do for people who don’t understand routing well. Here’s an example of how the route shown above could be defined:   public static class WebApiConfig { public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config) { config.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "CustomerOrdersApiGet", routeTemplate: "api/customers/{custID}/orders", defaults: new { custID = 0, controller = "Customers", action = "Orders" } ); config.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "DefaultApi", routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}", defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional } ); GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Insert(0, new JsonpFormatter()); } } .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; }   With attribute based routing, defining these types of nested routes is greatly simplified. To get started you first need to make a call to the new MapHttpAttributeRoutes() method in the standard WebApiConfig class (or a custom class that you may have created that defines your routes) as shown next:   public static class WebApiConfig { public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config) { // Allow for attribute based routes config.MapHttpAttributeRoutes(); config.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "DefaultApi", routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}", defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional } ); } } Once attribute based routes are configured, you can apply the Route attribute to one or more controller actions. Here’s an example:   [HttpGet] [Route("customers/{custId:int}/orders")] public List<Order> Orders(int custId) { var orders = _Repository.GetOrders(custId); if (orders == null) { throw new HttpResponseException(new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound)); } return orders; }   This example maps the custId route parameter to the custId parameter in the Orders() method and also ensures that the route parameter is typed as an integer. The Orders() method can be called using the following route: /customers/2/orders   While this is extremely easy to use and gets the job done, it doesn’t include the default “api” string on the front of the route that you might be used to seeing. You could add “api” in front of the route and make it “api/customers/{custId:int}/orders” but then you’d have to repeat that across other attribute-based routes as well. To simply this type of task you can add the RoutePrefix attribute above the controller class as shown next so that “api” (or whatever the custom starting point of your route is) is applied to all attribute routes: [RoutePrefix("api")] public class CustomersController : ApiController { [HttpGet] [Route("customers/{custId:int}/orders")] public List<Order> Orders(int custId) { var orders = _Repository.GetOrders(custId); if (orders == null) { throw new HttpResponseException(new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.NotFound)); } return orders; } }   There’s much more that you can do with attribute-based routing in ASP.NET. Check out the following post by Mike Wasson for more details.   Returning Responses with IHttpActionResult The first version of Web API provided a way to return custom HttpResponseMessage objects which were pretty easy to use overall. However, Web API 2 now wraps some of the functionality available in version 1 to simplify the process even more. A new interface named IHttpActionResult (similar to ActionResult in ASP.NET MVC) has been introduced which can be used as the return type for Web API controller actions. To return a custom response you can use new helper methods exposed through ApiController such as: Ok NotFound Exception Unauthorized BadRequest Conflict Redirect InvalidModelState Here’s an example of how IHttpActionResult and the helper methods can be used to cleanup code. This is the typical way to return a custom HTTP response in version 1:   public HttpResponseMessage Delete(int id) { var status = _Repository.DeleteCustomer(id); if (status) { return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK); } else { throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.NotFound); } } With version 2 we can replace HttpResponseMessage with IHttpActionResult and simplify the code quite a bit:   public IHttpActionResult Delete(int id) { var status = _Repository.DeleteCustomer(id); if (status) { //return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK); return Ok(); } else { //throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.NotFound); return NotFound(); } } You can also cleanup post (insert) operations as well using the helper methods. Here’s a version 1 post action:   public HttpResponseMessage Post([FromBody]Customer cust) { var newCust = _Repository.InsertCustomer(cust); if (newCust != null) { var msg = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Created); msg.Headers.Location = new Uri(Request.RequestUri + newCust.ID.ToString()); return msg; } else { throw new HttpResponseException(HttpStatusCode.Conflict); } } This is what the code looks like in version 2:   public IHttpActionResult Post([FromBody]Customer cust) { var newCust = _Repository.InsertCustomer(cust); if (newCust != null) { return Created<Customer>(Request.RequestUri + newCust.ID.ToString(), newCust); } else { return Conflict(); } } More details on IHttpActionResult and the different helper methods provided by the ApiController base class can be found here. Conclusion Although there are several additional features available in Web API 2 that I could cover (CORS support for example), this post focused on two of my favorites features. If you have .NET 4.5.1 available then I definitely recommend checking the new features out. Additional articles that cover features in ASP.NET Web API 2 can be found here.

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• Using Table-Valued Parameters With SQL Server Reporting Services

  - by Jesse

  In my last post I talked about using table-valued parameters to pass a list of integer values to a stored procedure without resorting to using comma-delimited strings and parsing out each value into a TABLE variable. In this post I’ll extend the “Customer Transaction Summary” report example to see how we might leverage this same stored procedure from within an SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) report. I’ve worked with SSRS off and on for the past several years and have generally found it to be a very useful tool for building nice-looking reports for end users quickly and easily. That said, I’ve been frustrated by SSRS from time to time when seemingly simple things are difficult to accomplish or simply not supported at all. I thought that using table-valued parameters from within a SSRS report would be simple, but unfortunately I was wrong. Customer Transaction Summary Example Let’s take the “Customer Transaction Summary” report example from the last post and try to plug that same stored procedure into an SSRS report. Our report will have three parameters: Start Date – beginning of the date range for which the report will summarize customer transactions End Date – end of the date range for which the report will summarize customer transactions Customer Ids – One or more customer Ids representing the customers that will be included in the report The simplest way to get started with this report will be to create a new dataset and point it at our Customer Transaction Summary report stored procedure (note that I’m using SSRS 2012 in the screenshots below, but there should be little to no difference with SSRS 2008): When you initially create this dataset the SSRS designer will try to invoke the stored procedure to determine what the parameters and output fields are for you automatically. As part of this process the following dialog pops-up: Obviously I can’t use this dialog to specify a value for the ‘@customerIds’ parameter since it is of the IntegerListTableType user-defined type that we created in the last post. Unfortunately this really throws the SSRS designer for a loop, and regardless of what combination of Data Type, Pass Null Value, or Parameter Value I used here, I kept getting this error dialog with the message, "Operand type clash: nvarchar is incompatible with IntegerListTableType". This error message makes some sense considering that the nvarchar type is indeed incompatible with the IntegerListTableType, but there’s little clue given as to how to remedy the situation. I don’t know for sure, but I think that behind-the-scenes the SSRS designer is trying to give the @customerIds parameter an nvarchar-typed SqlParameter which is causing the issue. When I first saw this error I figured that this might just be a limitation of the dataset designer and that I’d be able to work around the issue by manually defining the parameters. I know that there are some special steps that need to be taken when invoking a stored procedure with a table-valued parameter from ADO .NET, so I figured that I might be able to use some custom code embedded in the report  to create a SqlParameter instance with the needed properties and value to make this work, but the “Operand type clash" error message persisted. The Text Query Approach Just because we’re using a stored procedure to create the dataset for this report doesn’t mean that we can’t use the ‘Text’ Query Type option and construct an EXEC statement that will invoke the stored procedure. In order for this to work properly the EXEC statement will also need to declare and populate an IntegerListTableType variable to pass into the stored procedure. Before I go any further I want to make one point clear: this is a really ugly hack and it makes me cringe to do it. Simply put, I strongly feel that it should not be this difficult to use a table-valued parameter with SSRS. With that said, let’s take a look at what we’ll have to do to make this work. Manually Define Parameters First, we’ll need to manually define the parameters for report by right-clicking on the ‘Parameters’ folder in the ‘Report Data’ window. We’ll need to define the ‘@startDate’ and ‘@endDate’ as simple date parameters. We’ll also create a parameter called ‘@customerIds’ that will be a mutli-valued Integer parameter: In the ‘Available Values’ tab we’ll point this parameter at a simple dataset that just returns the CustomerId and CustomerName of each row in the Customers table of the database or manually define a handful of Customer Id values to make available when the report runs. Once we have these parameters properly defined we can take another crack at creating the dataset that will invoke the ‘rpt_CustomerTransactionSummary’ stored procedure. This time we’ll choose the ‘Text’ query type option and put the following into the ‘Query’ text area: 1: exec('declare @customerIdList IntegerListTableType ' + @customerIdInserts + 2: ' EXEC rpt_CustomerTransactionSummary 3: @startDate=''' + @startDate + ''', 4: @endDate='''+ @endDate + ''', 5: @customerIds=@customerIdList')   By using the ‘Text’ query type we can enter any arbitrary SQL that we we want to and then use parameters and string concatenation to inject pieces of that query at run time. It can be a bit tricky to parse this out at first glance, but from the SSRS designer’s point of view this query defines three parameters: @customerIdInserts – This will be a Text parameter that we use to define INSERT statements that will populate the @customerIdList variable that is being declared in the SQL. This parameter won’t actually ever get passed into the stored procedure. I’ll go into how this will work in a bit. @startDate – This is a simple date parameter that will get passed through directly into the @startDate parameter of the stored procedure on line 3. @endDate – This is another simple data parameter that will get passed through into the @endDate parameter of the stored procedure on line 4. At this point the dataset designer will be able to correctly parse the query and should even be able to detect the fields that the stored procedure will return without needing to specify any values for query when prompted to. Once the dataset has been correctly defined we’ll have a @customerIdInserts parameter listed in the ‘Parameters’ tab of the dataset designer. We need to define an expression for this parameter that will take the values selected by the user for the ‘@customerIds’ parameter that we defined earlier and convert them into INSERT statements that will populate the @customerIdList variable that we defined in our Text query. In order to do this we’ll need to add some custom code to our report using the ‘Report Properties’ dialog: Any custom code defined in the Report Properties dialog gets embedded into the .rdl of the report itself and (unfortunately) must be written in VB .NET. Note that you can also add references to custom .NET assemblies (which could be written in any language), but that’s outside the scope of this post so we’ll stick with the “quick and dirty” VB .NET approach for now. Here’s the VB .NET code (note that any embedded code that you add here must be defined in a static/shared function, though you can define as many functions as you want): 1: Public Shared Function BuildIntegerListInserts(ByVal variableName As String, ByVal paramValues As Object()) As String 2: Dim insertStatements As New System.Text.StringBuilder() 3: For Each paramValue As Object In paramValues 4: insertStatements.AppendLine(String.Format("INSERT {0} VALUES ({1})", variableName, paramValue)) 5: Next 6: Return insertStatements.ToString() 7: End Function   This method takes a variable name and an array of objects. We use an array of objects here because that is how SSRS will pass us the values that were selected by the user at run-time. The method uses a StringBuilder to construct INSERT statements that will insert each value from the object array into the provided variable name. Once this method has been defined in the custom code for the report we can go back into the dataset designer’s Parameters tab and update the expression for the ‘@customerIdInserts’ parameter by clicking on the button with the “function” symbol that appears to the right of the parameter value. We’ll set the expression to: 1: =Code.BuildIntegerListInserts("@customerIdList ", Parameters!customerIds.Value)   In order to invoke our custom code method we simply need to invoke “Code.<method name>” and pass in any needed parameters. The first parameter needs to match the name of the IntegerListTableType variable that we used in the EXEC statement of our query. The second parameter will come from the Value property of the ‘@customerIds’ parameter (this evaluates to an object array at run time). Finally, we’ll need to edit the properties of the ‘@customerIdInserts’ parameter on the report to mark it as a nullable internal parameter so that users aren’t prompted to provide a value for it when running the report. Limitations And Final Thoughts When I first started looking into the text query approach described above I wondered if there might be an upper limit to the size of the string that can be used to run a report. Obviously, the size of the actual query could increase pretty dramatically if you have a parameter that has a lot of potential values or you need to support several different table-valued parameters in the same query. I tested the example Customer Transaction Summary report with 1000 selected customers without any issue, but your mileage may vary depending on how much data you might need to pass into your query. If you think that the text query hack is a lot of work just to use a table-valued parameter, I agree! I think that it should be a lot easier than this to use a table-valued parameter from within SSRS, but so far I haven’t found a better way. It might be possible to create some custom .NET code that could build the EXEC statement for a given set of parameters automatically, but exploring that will have to wait for another post. For now, unless there’s a really compelling reason or requirement to use table-valued parameters from SSRS reports I would probably stick with the tried and true “join-multi-valued-parameter-to-CSV-and-split-in-the-query” approach for using mutli-valued parameters in a stored procedure.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, March 21, 2010New ProjectsAdaptCMS: AdaptCMS is an open source CMS that is made for complete control of your website, easiness of use and easily adaptable to any type of website. It's...Aura: Aura is a application that calculates average color of desktop background image or whole screen and sets it as Aero Glass color.Boxee Launcher: Boxee Launcher is a simple Windows Media Center add-in that attempts to launch Boxee and manage the windows as seamlessly as possible.ClothingSMS: ClothingSMSEasySL3ColorPicker: Silverlight 3 color picker user control.Fluent Moq Builder: Gives a fluent interface to help with building complex mock objects with Moq, such as mocks of HttpContextBase for help in unit testing ASP.NET MVC.Folder Bookmarks: A simple folder/file bookmark manager. Simple and easy to use. No need to navigate large folder directories, just double-click the bookmark to open...GeocodeThe.Net: GeoCodeThe.Net seeks to promote geographic tagging for all content on the web. It is our belief that anything on the web can and should be geocoded...GNF: GNF is a open source WPF based GPS library controlsHKGolden Express: HKGolden Express is a web application to generate simplified layout of HKGolden forum. HKGolden Express is written in Java EE, it can be deployed o...Informant: Informant provides people with the desire to send mass SMS to specific groups with the ability to do so using Google Voice. Included with Informant...JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: JSON serializer is used to created javascript object notation strings. It was written in the .NET 1.1 framework, and has capabilities of serializ...LightWeight Application Server: LWAS aims to provide the means for non-technical developers using just a web browser to create data-centered applications from user interface desig...MicroHedge: Quant FiNerd Clock: NerdClock is my windows phone 7 test app. A clock for nerds, time reads in binary.PhotoHelper: PhotoHelper makes it easier to organize the photoes, if your photoes are put into different locations, but you think they are the same category, yo...Pylor: An ASP.NET MVC custom attribute that allows the configuration of role based security access rules with similar functionality to the System.Web.Mvc....radiogaga: Access an online data source of internet streaming media and present it using a mixed paradigm of embedded web browser and rich client functionalit...Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task: If you would like to use MSBuild to register a WCF LOB Adapter in a given server, the custom tasks: RegisterWCFLOBAdapter and UnregisterWCFLOBAdapt...Restart Explorer: Utility to start, stop and restart Windows Explorer.Silverlight 4 Netflix Browser: Demonstrates using a WCF Data Client in Silverlight 4 to browse movie titles with the Netflix OData API announced at MIX 10.trayTwittr: With trayTwittr you can easily update your Twitterstatus right from the Systray. The GUI is designed like the Notificationpanels in Windows 7 (e.g....Warensoft Socket Server: Warensoft Socket Server is a solo server, which never cares about the real logical business. While you could process your socket message with IronP...Weka - Message Serialization: Message serialization framework for .net, including Compact Framework.New Releases[Tool] Vczh Visual Studio UnitTest Coverage Analyzer: Coverage Analyzer (beta): Done features: Load Visual Studio Code Coverage XML File (get this file by clicking "Export Results" in "Test->Windows->Code Coverage Results" in V...Aura: Aura Beta 1: Initial releaseBoxee Launcher: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0: BoxeeLauncher Release 1.0.1.0 is the initial, barely-tested release of this Windows Media Center add-in. It should work in Vista Media Center and 7...Controlled Vocabulary: 1.0.0.2: System Requirements Outlook 2007 / 2010 .Net Framework 3.5 Installation 1. Close Outlook (Use Task Manager to ensure no running instances in the b...CycleMania Starter Kit EAP - ASP.NET 4 Problem - Design - Solution: Cyclemania 0.08.33: removed ASP.NET Menu from admin module applied security role filtering to Dashboard panels/tabsDDDSample.Net: 0.7: This is the next major release of DDDSample. This time I give you 4 different versions of the application: Classic (vanilla) with synchronous inter...DirectoryInfoEx: DirectoryInfoEx 0.16: 03-14-10 Version 0.13 o Fixed FileSystemWaterEx ignore remove directory event. o Fixed Removed IDisposable ...Employee Scheduler: Employee Scheduler [2.6]: Fixed clear data methods to handle holiday modification Added buttons to allow holiday and add time exceptions Updated drag/drop and resize of holi...Enovatics Foundation Library: Enovatics Foundation Library V1.4: This version provides the following components : Strongly Typed cache management, CSV management Base classes for SQL Server data access laye...Fluent Moq Builder: Version 0.1: Intial release. Contains (incomplete) builders for HttpRequestBase, HttpContextBase and ControllerContext. Mock methods so far focus around request...Folder Bookmarks: Folder Bookmarks 1.4: This is the latest version of Folder Bookmarks (1.4). It has an installer - it will create a directory 'CPascoe' in My Documents. Once you have ex...Folder Bookmarks: Source Code: This has the all the code for Folder Bookmarks in a Text file.Genesis Smart Client Framework: Genesis Smart Client Framework v1.60.1024.1: This release features the first installer for the Genesis Smart Client Framework. The installer creates the database and set's up the Internet Info...HKGolden Express: HKGoldenExpress (Build 201003201725): New features: (None) Bug fix: (None) Improvements: Added <meta> tag to optimize screen layout for different screen size. Added drop-down li...Home Access Plus+: v3.1.5.0: Version 3.1.5.0 Release Change Log: Fixed CSS for My Computer in List View Ability to remember which view mode you have selected Added HA+ home...IT Tycoon: IT Tycoon 0.2.0: Started refactoring toward more formatted and documented code and XAML.JSON Object Serializer .Net 1.1: jsonSerializer: Basic jsonSerializer binary. Now only handles an object model using reflection. There's no optimization added to the codebase handling .Net Refle...LightWeight Application Server: 0.4.0: 2010-03-20 lwas 0.4.0 This release is intended for c# developers audience only. Developed with MS vWD 2008 Express with .NET 3.5 and writen in c#....Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 Marketing List Member Importer: Nocelab ExcelAddin - Release 2.0: Release note: - new installation procedure - fix some bugs related with the import procedure - errors during the import are displayed in red bold ...MSBuild Mercurial Tasks: 0.2.1 Stable: This release realises the Scenario 2 and provides two MSBuild tasks: HgCommit and HgPush. This task allows to create a new changeset in the current...NetSockets: NetBox (Example): Example application using the NetSockets library.NetSockets: NetSockets: The NetSockets library (DLL)Open Dotnet CMS: Open Dotnet CMS 1.6.2: This release update Open Dotnet CMS Console which now uses the modulare client application framework provided by Viking.Windows.Form library. The ...Open Portal Foundation: Open Portal Foundation V1.4: This release updates templates and theming library, and templates are now thematizable. This release also provides a better sample site and online ...PHPWord: PHPWord 0.6.0 Beta: Changelog: Added support for hyperlinks (inserting and formatting) Added support for GD images (created by PHP) Added support for Full-Table-St...Plurk.NET API and Client Applications: Plurk API Component: Plurk API Component is a wrapper of Plurk HTTP API.Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task: Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task 1.0: Register WCF LOB Adapter MSBuild Task Version 1.0 For more information visit: http://whiteboardworks.com/2010/02/installing-wcf-lob-adapters-wit...SCSI Interface for Multimedia and Block Devices: Release 11 - Complete User-Friendly Burning App!: I made numerous internal and external changes in this release of the program, the most important ones of which are: An intermediate buffer to make ...SharePoint LogViewer: SharePoint LogViewer 1.5.2: This release has following improvements: Scroll position is maintained when log is refreshed Filtering/Sorting performance has been significantly ...ShellLight: ShellLight 0.2.0.0: This is the first feature complete and full functional version of ShellLight. It is still a very simple framework with a limited set of features, b...Silverlight Media Player (3.0): Silverlight Media Player v.02: Silverlight Media Player (2.0/3.0/4.0) major upgrade: initial settings and media elements are stored in external XML filesStardust: Stardust Binaries: Stardust BinariesToolkit.forasp.net Multipurpose Tools for Asp.net written in C#: Beta 1: Beta 1 of csToolkit.dllToolkitVB.net is a set of Multipurpose Tools for Asp.net written in VB: Beta 1: Beta 1 of ToolKitVB.dllTransparent Persistence.Net: TP.Net 0.1.1: This is a minor update that produces separate 2.0 and 3.5 builds. Additionally type to persistence store naming has been enhanced.VCC: Latest build, v2.1.30320.0: Automatic drop of latest buildVisual Studio DSite: Screen Capture Program (Visual C++ 2008): This screen capture program can capture the whole screen of your computer and save it in any picture format you want including gif, bmp, jpg and pn...WPF Dialogs: Version 0.1.3 for .Net 3.5: This is a special version of the "Version 0.1.3" for the .Net-framework 3.5. You can use these library like the .Net 4.0 version. The changes are o...Most Popular ProjectsMetaSharpSavvy DateTimeRawrWBFS ManagerSilverlight ToolkitASP.NET Ajax LibraryMicrosoft SQL Server Product Samples: DatabaseAJAX Control ToolkitLiveUpload to FacebookWindows Presentation Foundation (WPF)Most Active ProjectsLINQ to TwitterRawrOData SDK for PHPjQuery Library for SharePoint Web ServicesDirectQPHPExcelFarseer Physics Enginepatterns & practices – Enterprise LibraryBlogEngine.NETNB_Store - Free DotNetNuke Ecommerce Catalog Module

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• Modern Java alternatives

  - by Ralph

  I'm not sure if stackoverflow is the best forum for this discussion. I have been a Java developer for 14 years and have written an enterprise-level (~500,000 line) Swing application that uses most of the standard library APIs. Recently, I have become disappointed with the progress that the language has made to "modernize" itself, and am looking for an alternative for ongoing development. I have considered moving to the .NET platform, but I have issues with using something the only runs well in Windows (I know about Mono, but that is still far behind Microsoft). I also plan on buying a new Macbook Pro as soon as Apple releases their new rumored Arrandale-based machines and want to develop in an environment that will feel "at home" in Unix/Linux. I have considered using Python or Ruby, but the standard Java library is arguably the largest of any modern language. In JVM-based languages, I looked at Groovy, but am disappointed with its performance. Rumor has it that with the soon-to-be released JDK7, with its InvokeDynamic instruction, this will improve, but I don't know how much. Groovy is also not truly a functional language, although it provides closures and some of the "functional" features on collections. It does not embrace immutability. I have narrowed my search down to two JVM-based alternatives: Scala and Clojure. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. I am looking for the stackoverflow readerships' opinions. I am not an expert at either of these languages; I have read 2 1/2 books on Scala and am currently reading Stu Halloway's book on Clojure. Scala is strongly statically typed. I know the dynamic language folks claim that static typing is a crutch for not doing unit testing, but it does provide a mechanism for compile-time location of a whole class of errors. Scala is more concise than Java, but not as much as Clojure. Scala's inter-operation with Java seems to be better than Clojure's, in that most Java operations are easier to do in Scala than in Clojure. For example, I can find no way in Clojure to create a non-static initialization block in a class derived from a Java superclass. For example, I like the Apache commons CLI library for command line argument parsing. In Java and Scala, I can create a new Options object and add Option items to it in an initialization block as follows (Java code): final Options options = new Options() { { addOption(new Option("?", "help", false, "Show this usage information"); // other options } }; I can't figure out how to the same thing in Clojure (except by using (doit...)), although that may reflect my lack of knowledge of the language. Clojure's collections are optimized for immutability. They rarely require copy-on-write semantics. I don't know if Scala's immutable collections are implemented using similar algorithms, but Rich Hickey (Clojure's inventor) goes out of his way to explain how that language's data structures are efficient. Clojure was designed from the beginning for concurrency (as was Scala) and with modern multi-core processors, concurrency takes on more importance, but I occasionally need to write simple non-concurrent utilities, and Scala code probably runs a little faster for these applications since it discourages, but does not prohibit, "simple" mutability. One could argue that one-off utilities do not have to be super-fast, but sometimes they do tasks that take hours or days to complete. I know that there is no right answer to this "question", but I thought I would open it up for discussion. If anyone has a suggestion for another JVM-based language that can be used for enterprise level development, please list it. Also, it is not my intent to start a flame war. Thanks, Ralph

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, December 12, 2010

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, December 12, 2010Popular ReleasesWii Backup Fusion: Wii Backup Fusion 0.9 Beta: - Aqua or brushed metal style for Mac OS X - Shows selection count beside ID - Game list selection mode via settings - Compare Files <-> WBFS game lists - Verify game images/DVD/WBFS - WIT command line for log (via settings) - Cancel possibility for loading games process - Progress infos while loading games - Localization for dates - UTF-8 support - Shortcuts added - View game infos in browser - Transfer infos for log - All transfer routines rewritten - Extract image from image/WBFS - Support....NETTER Code Starter Pack: v1.0.beta: '.NETTER Code Starter Pack ' contains a gallery of Visual Studio 2010 solutions leveraging latest and new technologies and frameworks based on Microsoft .NET Framework. Each Visual Studio solution included here is focused to provide a very simple starting point for cutting edge development technologies and framework, using well known Northwind database (for database driven scenarios). The current release of this project includes starter samples for the following technologies: ASP.NET Dynamic...WPF Multiple Document Interface (MDI): Beta Release v1.1: WPF.MDI is a library to imitate the traditional Windows Forms Multiple Document Interface (MDI) features in WPF. This is Beta release, means there's still work to do. Please provide feedback, so next release will be better. Features: Position dependency property MdiLayout dependency property Menu dependency property Ctrl + F4, Ctrl + Tab shortcuts should work Behavior: don’t allow negative values for MdiChild position minimized windows: remember position, tile multiple windows, ...EnhSim: 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 value .NET Version: 3.5 sp1My 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).SharePoint Packager: SharePoint Packager release: Full source code and precompiled / ILmerged exeTweetSharp: 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 BugFixingNew ProjectsABR Manager: Fast and small Adobe brushes preset files manager developed in native c++.Aplicativo lembretes: Com esse aplicativo você poderá agentar atividades de forma que quando o dia e a hora do compromisso marcado chegar, o aplicativo ira lembra-lo com um sinal sonoro e visual e até poderá desligar seu pc. O programa ficará em execução de forma discreta no canto direito superiorBrogue: Grevious Sword of Carnage: * 24 damage * makes annoying sound on hitsC# LZF Real-Time Compression Algorithm: Improved C# LZF Compressor, a very small and extremely efficient real-time data compression library. The compression algorithm is extremely fast. Well suited for real-time data intensive applications (e.g.: packet streaming, embedded devices...).GIFT: gift appHeroBeastCodeProject: create a HeroBeastCodeProjects project,opensource my codeiFinance: The wpf/sl solution for personal finance manager.MailOnSocketChange: Send an alert via email, if a certain socket/TCP-connection-changes state on the PC running the MailOnSocketChange applicationMath Teacher for kids: This application will help your kids learn and practice Math. midnc: Proyecto en silverlight para el control interno de registro de actividades y eventosMusicWho: MusicWho compose music. It use biological neuron firing signals to generate music. so, what will the brain sound like? we'll see.Nabaztag Enterprise Services: The goal of the Nabaztag Enterprise Services is to come up with a free .NET implementation of the Nabaztag server. Additionally we think of building a whole platform around the core services using the newsest an coolest .NET technologies.pkEditor: pkEditor is a Poketscript or Pokescript script generator and editor.Second Block: Second Block is an block-based 3D multiplayer game.Share my speed: Coding4Fun Window Phone 7 "Share my speed" applicationSharePoint Image Resizer: Image Resizer allows to create custom policies to control image size of pictures in WSS 3.0/SharePoint 2007.ShoutStreamSource: ShoutStreamSource provides you an implementation of the MediaStreamSource of the ShoutCast protocol for the Windows Phone 7. It makes it possible to play a ShoutCast stream using a MediaElement on the phone.SSIS Reporting Pack: A suite of SQL Server Reporting Services reports that operate over the SSIS catalog in SQL Server code-named DenaliSunshine2011: testTrabalhando com Functoid Table Looping: Usado em conjunto com o Functoid “Table Extractor”, serve para criar estruturas de any registros podendo conter valores de campos, valores constantes, e valores que resultam de outros functoids. VKontakte API SDK: SDK for work with most popular russian social site VKontakte.ruwho's who: iYasmin: Yasmin - A WPF based Anime Database.YiDeSOFT: YiDe is EzDesk~!?????????? ?????: ?????????? ????? ?????????? ? ?????????????? ????????? ??????? ?????????????????? ? ????????? ???????

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 01, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, June 01, 2011Popular ReleasesVidCoder: 0.9.1: Added color coding to the Log window. Errors are highlighted in red, HandBrake logs are in black and VidCoder logs are in dark blue. Moved enqueue button to the right with the other control buttons. Added logic to report failures when errors are logged during the encode or when the encode finishes prematurely. Added Copy button to Log window. Adjusted audio track selection box to always show the full track name. Changed encode job progress bar to also be colored yellow when the enco...Terraria Map Generator: TerrariaMapTool 1.0.0.3 Beta: 1) Catch all exception from the gui app. 2) Fixed the use of the graphics device to really use reach.AutoLoL: AutoLoL v2.0.1: - Fixed a small bug in Auto Login - Fixed the updaterEPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server: EPPlus 2.9.0.1: EPPlus-Create advanced Excel 2007 spreadsheets on the server This version has been updated to .Net Framework 3.5 New Features Data Validation. PivotTables (Basic functionalliy...) Support for worksheet data sources. Column, Row, Page and Data fields. Date and Numeric grouping Build in styles. ...and more And some minor new features... Ranges Text-Property|Get the formated value AutofitColumns-method to set the column width from the content of the range LoadFromCollection-metho...jQuery ASP.Net MVC Controls: Version 1.4.0.0: Version 1.4.0.0 contains the following additions: Upgraded to MVC 3.0 Upgraded to jQuery 1.6.1 (Though the project supports all jQuery version from 1.4.x onwards) Upgraded to jqGrid 3.8 Better Razor View-Engine support Better Pager support, includes support for custom pagers Added jqGrid toolbar buttons support Search module refactored, with full suport for multiple filters and ordering And Code cleanup, bug-fixes and better controller configuration support.Restbucks on .Net: RestBucks Alpha 1: This is the first release of the application.Nearforums - 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 : v0.3.4Serviio 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...EnhSim: 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.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...New ProjectsAlumnus SI Machung: ExSis Alumnus Website makes it easier for Alumni of Ma Chung University, that located at Malang, East Java, Indonesia. You'll no longer have to find your friend that separated in so many years. It's developed in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. Check our website at kriswanto90.charlezzzz.comb9b18a35-a80a-440c-bb8c-195be0225cfa: b9b18a35-a80a-440c-bb8c-195be0225cfaCustomer Care Portal - SharePoint 2010 for Internet Sites: The Customer Care Portal demonstrates cooperation of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 with several technologies, such as: • Silverlight • Windows Server AppFabric • Business Data Connectivity • Microsoft InfoPath 2010 DBServer Folder Browser: DBServer Folder Browser It's developed in C#Dual Development: A place for colloboration.EVMDOCS ASP.NET: EVMDOCS project for ECM.VSTU.RU FCNS.Money: FCNS.Money?????????????。???，?????????????，??????????????。???????????????? ??，?FCNS.Money??????????????，???????????，????????????????，??????????，???? ???????????。HDBMS: Attempt to implement a hierarchical database that can participate in a distributed 2PCHRO: 3D FPS in a secret underwater soviet bunkerIstream: Istream is a new web browser for windows computers. We have designed the browser so you have everything right at your fingertips. Download it today and discover a new browsing experience, we have a range of features avaialble just now and its only the first release. istream.imLaptop Battery Usage Pattern: Figures out battery discharge and recharge pattern. Suggests estimated discharge time and recharge time based on past history. Also alerts when it detects considerable degradation of battery life. Mediawiki tools for Office: The current version installs an Outlook 2007 plugin. This plugin adds a send to wiki command to the outlook context menu. The functionality is very similar to the behavior of the One Note plugin which is installed in office 2007. PW API Library: The PW API Library provides a .NET interface to the ProgrammableWeb's API library. This is a personal project built using the ProgrammableWeb internal API and is not provided by the ProgrammableWeb team. It's developed in C# using .NET 4.0 framework.Restbucks on .Net: Implementation of the RestBucks example; from the book "Rest on Practice" on the .Net plattaform.SharePoint Farm Poster: View the entire SharePoint Farm configuration as a single HTML Poster.Simple Silverlight Bounce Effect: Simple bounce effect in Silverlight. A demo of this project can be seen at http://www.voltar.ch/en/results/technologieSistema Gestor Escolar: Aquesta aplicacio permet gestionar activitats pròpies d'una escolaSmart WCF Client Wrapper: This is a smart WCF client wrapper that keeps your code clean, and hides common beginner mistakes from the end user. This code handles - EventHandler Cleanup - Exception Managment - Reliable and efficient reuse of the proxy - Cleanup of the proxy - Clean "using(...)" methodSSIS Extensions - SFTP Task, PGP Task, Zip Task: A set of custom tasks to extend SSIS. Includes a SFTP task, PGP encryption task and zip/unzip task.TFS On The Road: TFS On The Road is a TFS client for Windows Phone 7. With it you can have a good view from your TFS even if you are "on the road". It allows you to access projects, work items(including attachments), changesets, builds, branches, and work item queries.Todo.txt .NET: .NET version of Todo.txt. The project goals are a Windows application as well as a PowerShell commands.

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• [GEEK SCHOOL] Network Security 2: Preventing Disaster with User Account Control

  - by Ciprian Rusen

  In this second lesson in our How-To Geek School about securing the Windows devices in your network, we will talk about User Account Control (UAC). Users encounter this feature each time they need to install desktop applications in Windows, when some applications need administrator permissions in order to work and when they have to change different system settings and files. UAC was introduced in Windows Vista as part of Microsoft’s “Trustworthy Computing” initiative. Basically, UAC is meant to act as a wedge between you and installing applications or making system changes. When you attempt to do either of these actions, UAC will pop up and interrupt you. You may either have to confirm you know what you’re doing, or even enter an administrator password if you don’t have those rights. Some users find UAC annoying and choose to disable it but this very important security feature of Windows (and we strongly caution against doing that). That’s why in this lesson, we will carefully explain what UAC is and everything it does. As you will see, this feature has an important role in keeping Windows safe from all kinds of security problems. In this lesson you will learn which activities may trigger a UAC prompt asking for permissions and how UAC can be set so that it strikes the best balance between usability and security. You will also learn what kind of information you can find in each UAC prompt. Last but not least, you will learn why you should never turn off this feature of Windows. By the time we’re done today, we think you will have a newly found appreciation for UAC, and will be able to find a happy medium between turning it off completely and letting it annoy you to distraction. What is UAC and How Does it Work? UAC or User Account Control is a security feature that helps prevent unauthorized system changes to your Windows computer or device. These changes can be made by users, applications, and sadly, malware (which is the biggest reason why UAC exists in the first place). When an important system change is initiated, Windows displays a UAC prompt asking for your permission to make the change. If you don’t give your approval, the change is not made. In Windows, you will encounter UAC prompts mostly when working with desktop applications that require administrative permissions. For example, in order to install an application, the installer (generally a setup.exe file) asks Windows for administrative permissions. UAC initiates an elevation prompt like the one shown earlier asking you whether it is okay to elevate permissions or not. If you say “Yes”, the installer starts as administrator and it is able to make the necessary system changes in order to install the application correctly. When the installer is closed, its administrator privileges are gone. If you run it again, the UAC prompt is shown again because your previous approval is not remembered. If you say “No”, the installer is not allowed to run and no system changes are made. If a system change is initiated from a user account that is not an administrator, e.g. the Guest account, the UAC prompt will also ask for the administrator password in order to give the necessary permissions. Without this password, the change won’t be made. Which Activities Trigger a UAC Prompt? There are many types of activities that may trigger a UAC prompt: Running a desktop application as an administrator Making changes to settings and files in the Windows and Program Files folders Installing or removing drivers and desktop applications Installing ActiveX controls Changing settings to Windows features like the Windows Firewall, UAC, Windows Update, Windows Defender, and others Adding, modifying, or removing user accounts Configuring Parental Controls in Windows 7 or Family Safety in Windows 8.x Running the Task Scheduler Restoring backed-up system files Viewing or changing the folders and files of another user account Changing the system date and time You will encounter UAC prompts during some or all of these activities, depending on how UAC is set on your Windows device. If this security feature is turned off, any user account or desktop application can make any of these changes without a prompt asking for permissions. In this scenario, the different forms of malware existing on the Internet will also have a higher chance of infecting and taking control of your system. In Windows 8.x operating systems you will never see a UAC prompt when working with apps from the Windows Store. That’s because these apps, by design, are not allowed to modify any system settings or files. You will encounter UAC prompts only when working with desktop programs. What You Can Learn from a UAC Prompt? When you see a UAC prompt on the screen, take time to read the information displayed so that you get a better understanding of what is going on. Each prompt first tells you the name of the program that wants to make system changes to your device, then you can see the verified publisher of that program. Dodgy software tends not to display this information and instead of a real company name, you will see an entry that says “Unknown”. If you have downloaded that program from a less than trustworthy source, then it might be better to select “No” in the UAC prompt. The prompt also shares the origin of the file that’s trying to make these changes. In most cases the file origin is “Hard drive on this computer”. You can learn more by pressing “Show details”. You will see an additional entry named “Program location” where you can see the physical location on your hard drive, for the file that’s trying to perform system changes. Make your choice based on the trust you have in the program you are trying to run and its publisher. If a less-known file from a suspicious location is requesting a UAC prompt, then you should seriously consider pressing “No”. What’s Different About Each UAC Level? Windows 7 and Windows 8.x have four UAC levels: Always notify – when this level is used, you are notified before desktop applications make changes that require administrator permissions or before you or another user account changes Windows settings like the ones mentioned earlier. When the UAC prompt is shown, the desktop is dimmed and you must choose “Yes” or “No” before you can do anything else. This is the most secure and also the most annoying way to set UAC because it triggers the most UAC prompts. Notify me only when programs/apps try to make changes to my computer (default) – Windows uses this as the default for UAC. When this level is used, you are notified before desktop applications make changes that require administrator permissions. If you are making system changes, UAC doesn’t show any prompts and it automatically gives you the necessary permissions for making the changes you desire. When a UAC prompt is shown, the desktop is dimmed and you must choose “Yes” or “No” before you can do anything else. This level is slightly less secure than the previous one because malicious programs can be created for simulating the keystrokes or mouse moves of a user and change system settings for you. If you have a good security solution in place, this scenario should never occur. Notify me only when programs/apps try to make changes to my computer (do not dim my desktop) – this level is different from the previous in in the fact that, when the UAC prompt is shown, the desktop is not dimmed. This decreases the security of your system because different kinds of desktop applications (including malware) might be able to interfere with the UAC prompt and approve changes that you might not want to be performed. Never notify – this level is the equivalent of turning off UAC. When using it, you have no protection against unauthorized system changes. Any desktop application and any user account can make system changes without your permission. How to Configure UAC If you would like to change the UAC level used by Windows, open the Control Panel, then go to “System and Security” and select “Action Center”. On the column on the left you will see an entry that says “Change User Account Control settings”. The “User Account Control Settings” window is now opened. Change the position of the UAC slider to the level you want applied then press “OK”. Depending on how UAC was initially set, you may receive a UAC prompt requiring you to confirm this change. Why You Should Never Turn Off UAC If you want to keep the security of your system at decent levels, you should never turn off UAC. When you disable it, everything and everyone can make system changes without your consent. This makes it easier for all kinds of malware to infect and take control of your system. It doesn’t matter whether you have a security suite or antivirus installed or third-party antivirus, basic common-sense measures like having UAC turned on make a big difference in keeping your devices safe from harm. We have noticed that some users disable UAC prior to setting up their Windows devices and installing third-party software on them. They keep it disabled while installing all the software they will use and enable it when done installing everything, so that they don’t have to deal with so many UAC prompts. Unfortunately this causes problems with some desktop applications. They may fail to work after you enable UAC. This happens because, when UAC is disabled, the virtualization techniques UAC uses for your applications are inactive. This means that certain user settings and files are installed in a different place and when you turn on UAC, applications stop working because they should be placed elsewhere. Therefore, whatever you do, do not turn off UAC completely! Coming up next … In the next lesson you will learn about Windows Defender, what this tool can do in Windows 7 and Windows 8.x, what’s different about it in these operating systems and how it can be used to increase the security of your system.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 10, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, October 10, 2012Popular ReleasesA C# 4.0 Push Notification Helper Library for WP7.0 & WP7.1: Easy Notification 1.0.0: New Feature - Send Tile, Toast & Raw Notifications to Windows Phone Devices. New Feature - Supports Windows Phone 7.0 & Windows Phone 7.1. New Feature - Validation rules are in-built for Push Notification Messages. New Feature - Strongly typed interfaces. New Feature - Supports synchronous & asynchronous methods to send notifications. New Feature - Supports authenticated notifications using X509 Certificates. New Feature - Supports Callback Registration Requests. New Feature - S...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.4: Fixed a bug where the server ip was not logged properly in the stats file.Captcha MVC: Captcha Mvc 2.1.2: v 2.1.2: Fixed problem with serialization. Made all classes from a namespace Jetbrains.Annotaions as the internal. Added autocomplete attribute and autocorrect attribute for captcha input element. Minor changes. v 2.1.1: Fixed problem with serialization. Minor changes. v 2.1: Added support for storing captcha in the session or cookie. See the updated example. Updated example. Minor changes. v 2.0.1: Added support for a partial captcha. Now you can easily customize the layout, s...DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.04: Major Highlights Fixed issue where the module printing function was only visible to administrators Fixed issue where pane level skinning was being assigned to a default container for any content pane Fixed issue when using password aging and FB / Google authentication Fixed issue that was causing the DateEditControl to not load the assigned value Fixed issue that stopped additional profile properties to be displayed in the member directory after modifying the template Fixed er...Online Image Editor: Online Image Editor v1.1: If you have problems with this tool, please email me at amisouvikdas@gmail.com or You can also participate this project to improve this.Advanced DataGridView with Excel-like auto filter: 1.0.0.0: ?????? ??????Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.69: Fix for issue #18766: build task should not build the output if it's newer than all the input files. Fix for Issue #18764: build taks -res switch not working. update build task to concatenate input source and then minify, rather than minify and then concatenate. include resource string-replacement root name in the assumed globals list. Stop replacing new Date().getTime() with +new Date -- the latter is smaller, but turns out it executes up to 45% slower. add CSS support for single-...WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.3: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Controls Converters Debugging helpers Extension methods Imaging helpers IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE:...DevLib: 69721 binary dll: 69721 binary dllVidCoder: 1.4.4 Beta: Fixed inability to create new presets with "Save As".MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.2: Changelog for 2.3.2 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for generating XBMC XML NFO files for files in the conversion queue (store it along with the source video with source video name.nfo). Right click on the file in queue and select generate XML 2. UI bugifx, start and end trim box locations interchanged 3. Added support for removing commercials from non DVRMS/WTV files (MP4, AVI etc) 4. Now checking for Firewall port status before enabling (might help with some firewall problems) 5. User In...DotNetNuke Boards: 01.00.00: This beta release represents the end of training session 1, based on jQuery and Knockout integration in DotNetNuke 6.2.3. It is designed to allow a single user or multiple users to add/edit/delete cards but no cards can be assigned to anyone at this point. This release is not intended for production use!Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.5.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This release supports the Sandcastle October 2012 Release (v2.7.1.0). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release suppor...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.0: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 10: New feature - Added Portable build to NuGet package New feature - Added GetValue and TryGetValue with StringComparison to JObject Change - Improved duplicate object reference id error message Fix - Fixed error when comparing empty JObjects Fix - Fixed SecAnnotate warnings Fix - Fixed error when comparing DateTime JValue with a DateTimeOffset JValue Fix - Fixed serializer sometimes not using DateParseHandling setting Fix - Fixed error in JsonWriter.WriteToken when writing a DateT...Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.2: Changes: Tested against KeePass 2.20.1 Tested under Ubuntu 12.10 (and KeePass 2.20) Added GenerateAsUtf8 method returning the encrypted passphrase as a UTF8 byte array.JSLint for Visual Studio 2010: 1.4.2: 1.4.2patterns & practices: Prism: Prism for .NET 4.5: This is a release does not include any functionality changes over Prism 4.1 Desktop. These assemblies target .NET 4.5. These assemblies also were compiled against updated dependencies: Unity 3.0 and Common Service Locator (Portable Class Library).Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.8.0: Snoop 2.8.0Announcing Snoop 2.8.0! It's been exactly six months since the last release, and this one has a bunch of goodies in it. In particular, there is now a PowerShell scripting tab, compliments of Bailey Ling. With this tab, the possibilities are limitless. It basically lets you automate/script the application that you are Snooping. Bailey has a couple blog posts (one and two) on his tab already, and I am sure more is to come. Please note that if you do not have PowerShell installed, y....NET Micro Framework: .NET MF 4.3 (Beta): This is the 4.3 Beta version of the .NET Micro Framework. Feature List for v4.3 Support for Visual Studio 2012 (including the Windows Desktop Express version) All v4.2 QFEs features and bug fixes (PWM enhancements, lwIP and network driver reliability improvements, Analog Output, WinUSB and latest GCC support) Improved diagnostic information for deployment Decreased boot time Bug fixes Work Item 1736 - Create link for MFDeploy under start menu Work Item 1504 - Customizing lwIP o...New Projectsadcc2: adccAP.Framework: This a asp.net mvc3 of test web site .EFCodeFirst: Projeto criado para experimentos e estudos com o Entity FrameworkEXPS-RAT: HelloFiskalizacija za developere: Projekt je namijenjen razvojnim inženjerima, programerima, developerima i svima ostalima koji se bave razvojem programskih rješenja za fiskalne blagajne.Galleriffic App for SharePoint 2013: Galleriffic App is an app part for SharePoint 2013 to display a picture gallery with cool JQuery animations and effects. Hack.net: Hack.net is a Roguelike clone similar to NetHack or Roguelike.Inno Setup For .NET Application: This is a simple inno setup for .net developerJava Special Functions Library: Java Special Functions Library implemented as a public class part of my larger mathematical package.LocalFileOpener: The LocalFileOpener plugin opens an intent to help you easily open local files on the device under installed applications.localizr - .NET Collaborative Translation & Localization: Localizr is a platform for collaborative localization and translation of .NET projects.Metro UI CSS: Metro UI CSS a set of styles to create a site with an interface similar to Windows 8 Metro UI. MoskieDotNet: A sandbox for me learn some new technologies.Mouse Automation: Allows a user to automate repetitive clicking within EverQuestMS SQL DB Schema Updater: Simple tool for updating MS SQL database schema based on "ideal" database model.n8design Tools: Tools any Source Code by Stefan Bauer.NasosCS: ???? ?? ??????Pokemonochan: ALright this is a Pokemon MMo bound to come out someday!PotatoSoft: ?????????????!Power Mirrors: Leverage the usefulness of SQL Server mirrors using PowerShell and SMO. Create mirrors from scratch, assign witnesses and test failovers, all from PowerShell! Project13251010: sdfdReal Time Data Bus: A collection of real time data bus implementations.Ricky Tailor's ASP.NET Web 2.0 Project: 7COM0203 Web Scripting And Content Creation Task 1. SampleTFS2: Sample Projectslotcarduino - An Arduino based slotcar timing project: Slotcar timing project based on Arduino Uno/Mega 2560. Standalone system with serial enabled graphic display.System.Data.Entity.Repository: Entity framework code first framework wrapper with support for generic repository pattern, N-Tier application and Transaction Management for rapid developmentTest Marron: This project is a test to explore codeplexTmib Video Downloader: A small youtube video downloader. Created in C#Web Scripting & Content Creation: Fhame Rashid MSc Software Engineering Module Log: Web-Scripting and Content Creationwebbase: webbaseWebScriptingandContentCreation: This project is for the MSc module Web Scripting and Content Creation.Zuordnung: Zuordnung

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• C#: Why Decorate When You Can Intercept

  - by James Michael Hare

  We've all heard of the old Decorator Design Pattern (here) or used it at one time or another either directly or indirectly.  A decorator is a class that wraps a given abstract class or interface and presents the same (or a superset) public interface but "decorated" with additional functionality.   As a really simplistic example, consider the System.IO.BufferedStream, it itself is a descendent of System.IO.Stream and wraps the given stream with buffering logic while still presenting System.IO.Stream's public interface:   1: Stream buffStream = new BufferedStream(rawStream); Now, let's take a look at a custom-code example.  Let's say that we have a class in our data access layer that retrieves a list of products from a database:  1: // a class that handles our CRUD operations for products 2: public class ProductDao 3: { 4: ... 5:  6: // a method that would retrieve all available products 7: public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 8: { 9: var results = new List<Product>(); 10:  11: // must create the connection 12: using (var con = _factory.CreateConnection()) 13: { 14: con.ConnectionString = _productsConnectionString; 15: con.Open(); 16:  17: // create the command 18: using (var cmd = _factory.CreateCommand()) 19: { 20: cmd.Connection = con; 21: cmd.CommandText = _getAllProductsStoredProc; 22: cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure; 23:  24: // get a reader and pass back all results 25: using (var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader()) 26: { 27: while(reader.Read()) 28: { 29: results.Add(new Product 30: { 31: Name = reader["product_name"].ToString(), 32: ... 33: }); 34: } 35: } 36: } 37: }            38:  39: return results; 40: } 41: } Yes, you could use EF or any myriad other choices for this sort of thing, but the germaine point is that you have some operation that takes a non-trivial amount of time.  What if, during the production day I notice that my application is performing slowly and I want to see how much of that slowness is in the query versus my code.  Well, I could easily wrap the logic block in a System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch and log the results to log4net or other logging flavor of choice: 1:     // a class that handles our CRUD operations for products 2:     public class ProductDao 3:     { 4:         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(ProductDao)); 5:         ... 6:         7:         // a method that would retrieve all available products 8:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 9:         { 10:             var results = new List<Product>(); 11:             var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 12:             13:             // must create the connection 14:             using (var con = _factory.CreateConnection()) 15:             { 16:                 con.ConnectionString = _productsConnectionString; 17:                 18:                 // and all that other DB code... 19:                 ... 20:             } 21:             22:             timer.Stop(); 23:             24:             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000) 25:             { 26:                 _log.WarnFormat("Long query in GetAvailableProducts() took {0} ms", 27:                     timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 28:             } 29:             30:             return results; 31:         } 32:     } In my eye, this is very ugly.  It violates Single Responsibility Principle (SRP), which says that a class should only ever have one responsibility, where responsibility is often defined as a reason to change.  This class (and in particular this method) has two reasons to change: If the method of retrieving products changes. If the method of logging changes. Well, we could “simplify” this using the Decorator Design Pattern (here).  If we followed the pattern to the letter, we'd need to create a base decorator that implements the DAOs public interface and forwards to the wrapped instance.  So let's assume we break out the ProductDAO interface into IProductDAO using your refactoring tool of choice (Resharper is great for this). Now, ProductDao will implement IProductDao and get rid of all logging logic: 1:     public class ProductDao : IProductDao 2:     { 3:         // this reverts back to original version except for the interface added 4:     } 5:  And we create the base Decorator that also implements the interface and forwards all calls: 1:     public class ProductDaoDecorator : IProductDao 2:     { 3:         private readonly IProductDao _wrappedDao; 4:         5:         // constructor takes the dao to wrap 6:         public ProductDaoDecorator(IProductDao wrappedDao) 7:         { 8:             _wrappedDao = wrappedDao; 9:         } 10:         11:         ... 12:         13:         // and then all methods just forward their calls 14:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 15:         { 16:             return _wrappedDao.GetAvailableProducts(); 17:         } 18:     } This defines our base decorator, then we can create decorators that add items of interest, and for any methods we don't decorate, we'll get the default behavior which just forwards the call to the wrapper in the base decorator: 1:     public class TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator : ProductDaoDecorator 2:     { 3:         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator)); 4:         5:         public TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator(IProductDao wrappedDao) : 6:             base(wrappedDao) 7:         { 8:         } 9:         10:         ... 11:         12:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 13:         { 14:             var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 15:             16:             var results = _wrapped.GetAvailableProducts(); 17:             18:             timer.Stop(); 19:             20:             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000) 21:             { 22:                 _log.WarnFormat("Long query in GetAvailableProducts() took {0} ms", 23:                     timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 24:             } 25:             26:             return results; 27:         } 28:     } Well, it's a bit better.  Now the logging is in its own class, and the database logic is in its own class.  But we've essentially multiplied the number of classes.  We now have 3 classes and one interface!  Now if you want to do that same logging decorating on all your DAOs, imagine the code bloat!  Sure, you can simplify and avoid creating the base decorator, or chuck it all and just inherit directly.  But regardless all of these have the problem of tying the logging logic into the code itself. Enter the Interceptors.  Things like this to me are a perfect example of when it's good to write an Interceptor using your class library of choice.  Sure, you could design your own perfectly generic decorator with delegates and all that, but personally I'm a big fan of Castle's Dynamic Proxy (here) which is actually used by many projects including Moq. What DynamicProxy allows you to do is intercept calls into any object by wrapping it with a proxy on the fly that intercepts the method and allows you to add functionality.  Essentially, the code would now look like this using DynamicProxy: 1: // Note: I like hiding DynamicProxy behind the scenes so users 2: // don't have to explicitly add reference to Castle's libraries. 3: public static class TimeThresholdInterceptor 4: { 5: // Our logging handle 6: private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(TimeThresholdInterceptor)); 7:  8: // Handle to Castle's proxy generator 9: private static readonly ProxyGenerator _generator = new ProxyGenerator(); 10:  11: // generic form for those who prefer it 12: public static object Create<TInterface>(object target, TimeSpan threshold) 13: { 14: return Create(typeof(TInterface), target, threshold); 15: } 16:  17: // Form that uses type instead 18: public static object Create(Type interfaceType, object target, TimeSpan threshold) 19: { 20: return _generator.CreateInterfaceProxyWithTarget(interfaceType, target, 21: new TimedThreshold(threshold, level)); 22: } 23:  24: // The interceptor that is created to intercept the interface calls. 25: // Hidden as a private inner class so not exposing Castle libraries. 26: private class TimedThreshold : IInterceptor 27: { 28: // The threshold as a positive timespan that triggers a log message. 29: private readonly TimeSpan _threshold; 30:  31: // interceptor constructor 32: public TimedThreshold(TimeSpan threshold) 33: { 34: _threshold = threshold; 35: } 36:  37: // Intercept functor for each method invokation 38: public void Intercept(IInvocation invocation) 39: { 40: // time the method invocation 41: var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 42:  43: // the Castle magic that tells the method to go ahead 44: invocation.Proceed(); 45:  46: timer.Stop(); 47:  48: // check if threshold is exceeded 49: if (timer.Elapsed > _threshold) 50: { 51: _log.WarnFormat("Long execution in {0} took {1} ms", 52: invocation.Method.Name, 53: timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 54: } 55: } 56: } 57: } Yes, it's a bit longer, but notice that: This class ONLY deals with logging long method calls, no DAO interface leftovers. This class can be used to time ANY class that has an interface or virtual methods. Personally, I like to wrap and hide the usage of DynamicProxy and IInterceptor so that anyone who uses this class doesn't need to know to add a Castle library reference.  As far as they are concerned, they're using my interceptor.  If I change to a new library if a better one comes along, they're insulated. Now, all we have to do to use this is to tell it to wrap our ProductDao and it does the rest: 1: // wraps a new ProductDao with a timing interceptor with a threshold of 5 seconds 2: IProductDao dao = TimeThresholdInterceptor.Create<IProductDao>(new ProductDao(), 5000); Automatic decoration of all methods!  You can even refine the proxy so that it only intercepts certain methods. This is ideal for so many things.  These are just some of the interceptors we've dreamed up and use: Log parameters and returns of methods to XML for auditing. Block invocations to methods and return default value (stubbing). Throw exception if certain methods are called (good for blocking access to deprecated methods). Log entrance and exit of a method and the duration. Log a message if a method takes more than a given time threshold to execute. Whether you use DynamicProxy or some other technology, I hope you see the benefits this adds.  Does it completely eliminate all need for the Decorator pattern?  No, there may still be cases where you want to decorate a particular class with functionality that doesn't apply to the world at large. But for all those cases where you are using Decorator to add functionality that's truly generic.  I strongly suggest you give this a try!

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• Issue 15: SVP Focus

  - by rituchhibber

       SVP FOCUS FOCUS -- Chris Baker SVP Oracle Worldwide ISV-OEM-Java Sales Chris Baker is the Global Head of ISV/OEM Sales responsible for working with ISV/OEM partners to maximise Oracle's business through those partners, whilst maximising those partners’ business to their end users. Chris works with partners, customers, innovators, investors and employees to develop innovative business solutions using Oracle products, services and skills. RESOURCES -- Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) OPN Solutions Catalog Oracle Exastack Program Oracle Exastack Optimized Oracle Cloud Computing Oracle Engineered Systems Oracle and Java SUBSCRIBE FEEDBACK PREVIOUS ISSUES "By taking part in marketing activities, our partners accelerate their sales cycles." -- Firstly, could you please explain Oracle's current strategy for ISV partners, globally and in EMEA? Oracle customers use independent software vendor (ISV) applications to run their businesses. They use them to generate revenue and to fulfil obligations to their own customers. Our strategy is very straight-forward. We want all of our ISV partners and OEMs to concentrate on the things that they do the best—building applications to meet the unique industry and functional requirements of their customer. We want to ensure that we deliver a best-in-class application platform so ISVs are free to concentrate their effort on their application functionality and user experience We invest over four billion dollars in research and development every year, and we want our ISVs to benefit from all of that investment in operating systems, virtualisation, databases, middleware, engineered systems, and other hardware. By doing this, we help them to reduce their costs, gain more consistency and agility for quicker implementations, and also rapidly differentiate themselves from other application vendors. It's all about simplification because we believe that around 25 to 30 percent of the development costs incurred by many ISVs are caused by customising infrastructure and have nothing to do with their applications. Our strategy is to enable our ISV partners to standardise their application platform using engineered architecture, so they can write once to the Oracle stack and deploy seamlessly in the cloud, on-premise, or in hybrid deployments. It's really important that architecture is the same in order to keep cost and time overheads at a minimum, so we provide standardisation and an environment that enables our ISVs to concentrate on the core business that makes them the most money and brings them success. How do you believe this strategy is helping the ISVs to work hand-in-hand with Oracle to ensure that end customers get the industry-leading solutions that they need? We work with our ISVs not just to help them be successful, but also to help them market themselves. We have something called the 'Oracle Exastack Ready Program', which enables ISVs to publicise themselves as 'Ready' to run the core software platforms that run on Oracle's engineered systems including Exadata and Exalogic. So, for example, they can become 'Database Ready' which means that they use the latest version of Oracle Database and therefore can run their application without modification on Exadata or the Oracle Database Appliance. Alternatively, they can become WebLogic Ready, Oracle Linux Ready and Oracle Solaris Ready which means they run on the latest release and therefore can run their application, with no new porting work, on Oracle Exalogic. Those 'Ready' logos are important in helping ISVs advertise to their customers that they are using the latest technologies which have been fully tested. We now also have Exadata Ready and Exalogic Ready programmes which allow ISVs to promote the certification of their applications on these platforms. This highlights these partners to Oracle customers as having solutions that run fluently on the Oracle Exadata Database Machine, the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud or one of our other engineered systems. This makes it easy for customers to identify solutions and provides ISVs with an avenue to connect with Oracle customers who are rapidly adopting engineered systems. We have also taken this programme to the next level in the shape of 'Oracle Exastack Optimized' for partners whose applications run best on the Oracle stack and have invested the time to fully optimise application performance. We ensure that Exastack Optimized partner status is promoted and supported by press releases, and we help our ISVs go to market and differentiate themselves through the use of our technology and the standardisation it delivers. To date we have had several hundred organisations successfully work through our Exastack Optimized programme. How does Oracle's strategy of offering pre-integrated open platform software and hardware allow ISVs to bring their products to market more quickly? One of the problems for many ISVs is that they have to think very carefully about the technology on which their solutions will be deployed, particularly in the cloud or hosted environments. They have to think hard about how they secure these environments, whether the concern is, for example, middleware, identity management, or securing personal data. If they don't use the technology that we build-in to our products to help them to fulfil these roles, they then have to build it themselves. This takes time, requires testing, and must be maintained. By taking advantage of our technology, partners will now know that they have a standard platform. They will know that they can confidently talk about implementation being the same every time they do it. Very large ISV applications could once take a year or two to be implemented at an on-premise environment. But it wasn't just the configuration of the application that took the time, it was actually the infrastructure - the different hardware configurations, operating systems and configurations of databases and middleware. Now we strongly believe that it's all about standardisation and repeatability. It's about making sure that our partners can do it once and are then able to roll it out many different times using standard componentry. What actions would you recommend for existing ISV partners that are looking to do more business with Oracle and its customer base, not only to maximise benefits, but also to maximise partner relationships? My team, around the world and in the EMEA region, is available and ready to talk to any of our ISVs and to explore the possibilities together. We run programmes like 'Excite' and 'Insight' to help us to understand how we can help ISVs with architecture and widen their environments. But we also want to work with, and look at, new opportunities - for example, the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) market or 'The Internet of Things'. Over the next few years, many millions, indeed billions of devices will be collecting massive amounts of data and communicating it back to the central systems where ISVs will be running their applications. The only way that our partners will be able to provide a single vendor 'end-to-end' solution is to use Oracle integrated systems at the back end and Java on the 'smart' devices collecting the data—a complete solution from device to data centre. So there are huge opportunities to work closely with our ISVs, using Oracle's complete M2M platform, to provide the infrastructure that enables them to extract maximum value from the data collected. If any partners don't know where to start or who to contact, then they can contact me directly at [email protected] or indeed any of our teams across the EMEA region. We want to work with ISVs to help them to be as successful as they possibly can through simplification and speed to market, and we also want all of the top ISVs in the world based on Oracle. What opportunities are immediately opened to new ISV partners joining the OPN? As you know OPN is very, very important. New members will discover a huge amount of content that instantly becomes accessible to them. They can access a wealth of no-cost training and enablement materials to build their expertise in Oracle technology. They can download Oracle software and use it for development projects. They can help themselves become more competent by becoming part of a true community and uncovering new opportunities by working with Oracle and their peers in the Oracle Partner Network. As well as publishing massive amounts of information on OPN, we also hold our global Oracle OpenWorld event, at which partners play a huge role. This takes place at the end of September and the beginning of October in San Francisco. Attending ISV partners have an unrivalled opportunity to contribute to elements such as the OpenWorld / OPN Exchange, at which they can talk to other partners and really begin thinking about how they can move their businesses on and play key roles in a very large ecosystem which revolves around technology and standardisation. Finally, are there any other messages that you would like to share with the Oracle ISV community? The crucial message that I always like to reinforce is architecture, architecture and architecture! The key opportunities that ISVs have today revolve around standardising their architectures so that they can confidently think: "I will I be able to do exactly the same thing whenever a customer is looking to deploy on-premise, hosted or in the cloud". The right architecture is critical to being competitive and to really start changing the game. We want to help our ISV partners to do just that; to establish standard architecture and to seize the opportunities it opens up for them. New market opportunities like M2M are enormous - just look at how many devices are all around you right now. We can help our partners to interface with these devices more effectively while thinking about their entire ecosystem, rather than just the piece that they have traditionally focused upon. With standardised architecture, we can help people dramatically improve their speed, reach, agility and delivery of enhanced customer satisfaction and value all the way from the Java side to their centralised systems. All Oracle ISV partners must take advantage of these opportunities, which is why Oracle will continue to invest in and support them. Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Whether you attended Oracle OpenWorld 2009 or not, don't forget to save the date now for Oracle OpenWorld 2010. The event will be held a little earlier next year, from 19th-23rd September, so please don't miss out. With thousands of sessions and hundreds of exhibits and demos already lined up, there's no better place to learn how to optimise your existing systems, get an inside line on upcoming technology breakthroughs, and meet with your partner peers, Oracle strategists and even the developers responsible for the products and services that help you get better results for your end customers. Register Now for Oracle OpenWorld 2010! Perhaps you are interested in learning more about Oracle OpenWorld 2010, but don't wish to register at this time? Great! Please just enter your contact information here and we will contact you at a later date. How to Exhibit at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Sponsorship Opportunities at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 Advertising Opportunities at Oracle OpenWorld 2010 -- Back to the welcome page

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• C# Extension Methods - To Extend or Not To Extend...

  - by James Michael Hare

  I've been thinking a lot about extension methods lately, and I must admit I both love them and hate them. They are a lot like sugar, they taste so nice and sweet, but they'll rot your teeth if you eat them too much.   I can't deny that they aren't useful and very handy. One of the major components of the Shared Component library where I work is a set of useful extension methods. But, I also can't deny that they tend to be overused and abused to willy-nilly extend every living type.   So what constitutes a good extension method? Obviously, you can write an extension method for nearly anything whether it is a good idea or not. Many times, in fact, an idea seems like a good extension method but in retrospect really doesn't fit.   So what's the litmus test? To me, an extension method should be like in the movies when a person runs into their twin, separated at birth. You just know you're related. Obviously, that's hard to quantify, so let's try to put a few rules-of-thumb around them.   A good extension method should:     Apply to any possible instance of the type it extends.     Simplify logic and improve readability/maintainability.     Apply to the most specific type or interface applicable.     Be isolated in a namespace so that it does not pollute IntelliSense.     So let's look at a few examples in relation to these rules.   The first rule, to me, is the most important of all. Once again, it bears repeating, a good extension method should apply to all possible instances of the type it extends. It should feel like the long lost relative that should have been included in the original class but somehow was missing from the family tree.    Take this nifty little int extension, I saw this once in a blog and at first I really thought it was pretty cool, but then I started noticing a code smell I couldn't quite put my finger on. So let's look:       public static class IntExtensinos     {         public static int Seconds(int num)         {             return num * 1000;         }           public static int Minutes(int num)         {             return num * 60000;         }     }     This is so you could do things like:       ...     Thread.Sleep(5.Seconds());     ...     proxy.Timeout = 1.Minutes();     ...     Awww, you say, that's cute! Well, that's the problem, it's kitschy and it doesn't always apply (and incidentally you could achieve the same thing with TimeStamp.FromSeconds(5)). It's syntactical candy that looks cool, but tends to rot and pollute the code. It would allow things like:       total += numberOfTodaysOrders.Seconds();     which makes no sense and should never be allowed. The problem is you're applying an extension method to a logical domain, not a type domain. That is, the extension method Seconds() doesn't really apply to ALL ints, it applies to ints that are representative of time that you want to convert to milliseconds.    Do you see what I mean? The two problems, in a nutshell, are that a) Seconds() called off a non-time value makes no sense and b) calling Seconds() off something to pass to something that does not take milliseconds will be off by a factor of 1000 or worse.   Thus, in my mind, you should only ever have an extension method that applies to the whole domain of that type.   For example, this is one of my personal favorites:       public static bool IsBetween<T>(this T value, T low, T high)         where T : IComparable<T>     {         return value.CompareTo(low) >= 0 && value.CompareTo(high) <= 0;     }   This allows you to check if any IComparable<T> is within an upper and lower bound. Think of how many times you type something like:       if (response.Employee.Address.YearsAt >= 2         && response.Employee.Address.YearsAt <= 10)     {     ...     }     Now, you can instead type:       if(response.Employee.Address.YearsAt.IsBetween(2, 10))     {     ...     }     Note that this applies to all IComparable<T> -- that's ints, chars, strings, DateTime, etc -- and does not depend on any logical domain. In addition, it satisfies the second point and actually makes the code more readable and maintainable.   Let's look at the third point. In it we said that an extension method should fit the most specific interface or type possible. Now, I'm not saying if you have something that applies to enumerables, you create an extension for List, Array, Dictionary, etc (though you may have reasons for doing so), but that you should beware of making things TOO general.   For example, let's say we had an extension method like this:       public static T ConvertTo<T>(this object value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This lets you do more fluent conversions like:       double d = "5.0".ConvertTo<double>();     However, if you dig into Reflector (LOVE that tool) you will see that if the type you are calling on does not implement IConvertible, what you convert to MUST be the exact type or it will throw an InvalidCastException. Now this may or may not be what you want in this situation, and I leave that up to you. Things like this would fail:       object value = new Employee();     ...     // class cast exception because typeof(IEmployee) != typeof(Employee)     IEmployee emp = value.ConvertTo<IEmployee>();       Yes, that's a downfall of working with Convertible in general, but if you wanted your fluent interface to be more type-safe so that ConvertTo were only callable on IConvertibles (and let casting be a manual task), you could easily make it:         public static T ConvertTo<T>(this IConvertible value)     {         return (T)Convert.ChangeType(value, typeof(T));     }         This is what I mean by choosing the best type to extend. Consider that if we used the previous (object) version, every time we typed a dot ('.') on an instance we'd pull up ConvertTo() whether it was applicable or not. By filtering our extension method down to only valid types (those that implement IConvertible) we greatly reduce our IntelliSense pollution and apply a good level of compile-time correctness.   Now my fourth rule is just my general rule-of-thumb. Obviously, you can make extension methods as in-your-face as you want. I included all mine in my work libraries in its own sub-namespace, something akin to:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions { ... }     This is in a library called Shared.Core, so just referencing the Core library doesn't pollute your IntelliSense, you have to actually do a using on Shared.Core.Extensions to bring the methods in. This is very similar to the way Microsoft puts its extension methods in System.Linq. This way, if you want 'em, you use the appropriate namespace. If you don't want 'em, they won't pollute your namespace.   To really make this work, however, that namespace should only include extension methods and subordinate types those extensions themselves may use. If you plant other useful classes in those namespaces, once a user includes it, they get all the extensions too.   Also, just as a personal preference, extension methods that aren't simply syntactical shortcuts, I like to put in a static utility class and then have extension methods for syntactical candy. For instance, I think it imaginable that any object could be converted to XML:       namespace Shared.Core     {         // A collection of XML Utility classes         public static class XmlUtility         {             ...             // Serialize an object into an xml string             public static string ToXml(object input)             {                 var xs = new XmlSerializer(input.GetType());                   // use new UTF8Encoding here, not Encoding.UTF8. The later includes                 // the BOM which screws up subsequent reads, the former does not.                 using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())                 using (var xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, new UTF8Encoding()))                 {                     xs.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, input);                     return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(memoryStream.ToArray());                 }             }             ...         }     }   I also wanted to be able to call this from an object like:       value.ToXml();     But here's the problem, if i made this an extension method from the start with that one little keyword "this", it would pop into IntelliSense for all objects which could be very polluting. Instead, I put the logic into a utility class so that users have the choice of whether or not they want to use it as just a class and not pollute IntelliSense, then in my extensions namespace, I add the syntactical candy:       namespace Shared.Core.Extensions     {         public static class XmlExtensions         {             public static string ToXml(this object value)             {                 return XmlUtility.ToXml(value);             }         }     }   So now it's the best of both worlds. On one hand, they can use the utility class if they don't want to pollute IntelliSense, and on the other hand they can include the Extensions namespace and use as an extension if they want. The neat thing is it also adheres to the Single Responsibility Principle. The XmlUtility is responsible for converting objects to XML, and the XmlExtensions is responsible for extending object's interface for ToXml().

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• How to bind dropdownlist data to complex class?

  - by chobo2

  Hi I am using asp.net mvc 2.0(default binding model) and I have this problem. I have a strongly typed view that has a dropdownlist <%= Html.DropDownList("List", "-----")%> Now I have a model class like Public class Test() { public List { get; set; } public string Selected {get; set;} } Now I have in my controller this public ActionResult TestAction() { Test ViewModel = new Test(); ViewModel.List = new SelectList(GetList(), "value", "text", "selected"); return View(Test); } [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)] public ActionResult TestAction(Test ViewModel) { return View(); } Now when I load up the TestAction page for the first time it populates the dropdown list as expected. Now I want to post the selected value back to the server(the dropdownlist is within a form tag with some other textboxes). So I am trying to bind it automatically when it comes in as seen (Test ViewModel) However I get this big nasty error. Server Error in '/' Application. No parameterless constructor defined for this object. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.MissingMethodException: No parameterless constructor defined for this object. Source Error: An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below. Stack Trace: [MissingMethodException: No parameterless constructor defined for this object.] System.RuntimeTypeHandle.CreateInstance(RuntimeType type, Boolean publicOnly, Boolean noCheck, Boolean& canBeCached, RuntimeMethodHandleInternal& ctor, Boolean& bNeedSecurityCheck) +0 System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceSlow(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipCheckThis, Boolean fillCache) +98 System.RuntimeType.CreateInstanceDefaultCtor(Boolean publicOnly, Boolean skipVisibilityChecks, Boolean skipCheckThis, Boolean fillCache) +241 System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type, Boolean nonPublic) +69 System.Activator.CreateInstance(Type type) +6 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.CreateModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, Type modelType) +403 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindSimpleModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, ValueProviderResult valueProviderResult) +544 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) +479 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.GetPropertyValue(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor, IModelBinder propertyBinder) +45 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindProperty(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor) +658 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindProperties(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) +147 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindComplexElementalModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext, Object model) +98 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindComplexModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) +2504 System.Web.Mvc.DefaultModelBinder.BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext) +548 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValue(ControllerContext controllerContext, ParameterDescriptor parameterDescriptor) +474 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.GetParameterValues(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor) +181 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +830 System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +136 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +111 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.System.Web.Mvc.IController.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +39 System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClass8.<BeginProcessRequest>b__4() +65 System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass1.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__0() +44 System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass8`1.<BeginSynchronous>b__7(IAsyncResult _) +42 System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncResult`1.End() +141 System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.End(IAsyncResult asyncResult, Object tag) +54 System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.End(IAsyncResult asyncResult, Object tag) +40 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +52 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.System.Web.IHttpAsyncHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result) +38 System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +8836913 System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +184 So how can I do this?

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• Five Ways Enterprise 2.0 Can Transform Your Business - Q&A from the Webcast

  - by [email protected]

  A few weeks ago, Vince Casarez and I presented with KMWorld on the Five Ways Enterprise 2.0 Can Transform Your Business. It was an enjoyable, interactive webcast in which Vince and I discussed the ways Enterprise 2.0 can transform your business and more importantly, highlighted key customer examples of how to do so. If you missed the webcast, you can catch a replay here. We had a lot of audience participation in some of the polls we conducted and in the Q&A session. We weren't able to address all of the questions during the broadcast, so we attempted to answer them here: Q: Which area within your firm focuses on Web 2.0? Meaning, do you find new departments developing just to manage the web 2.0 (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) user experience or are you structuring current departments? A: There are three distinct efforts within Oracle. The first is around delivery of these Web 2.0 services for enterprise deployments. This is the focus of the WebCenter team. The second effort is injecting these Web 2.0 services into use cases that drive the different enterprise applications. This effort is focused on how to manage these external services and bring them into a cohesive flow for marketing programs, customer care, and purchasing. The third effort is how we consume these services internally to enhance Oracle's business delivery. It leverages the technologies and use cases of the first two but also pushes the envelope with regards to future directions of these other two areas. Q: In a business, Web 2.0 is mostly like action logs. How can we leverage the official process practice versus the logs of a recent action? Example: a system configuration modified last night on a call out versus the official practice that everybody would use in the morning.A: The key thing to remember is that most Web 2.0 actions / activity streams today are based on collaboration and communication type actions. At least with public social sites like Facebook and Twitter. What we're delivering as part of the WebCenter Suite are not just these types of activities but also enterprise application activities. These enterprise application activities come from different application modules: purchasing, HR, order entry, sales opportunity, etc. The actions within these systems are normally tied to a business object or process: purchase order/customer, employee or department, customer and supplier, customer and product, respectively. Therefore, the activities or "logs" as you name them are able to be "typed" so that as a viewer, you can filter or decide to see only certain types of information. In your example, you could have a view that only showed you recent "configuration" changes and this could be right next to a view that showed off the items to be watched every morning. Q: It's great to hear about customers using the software but is there any plan for future webinars to show what the products/installs look like? That would be very helpful.A: We don't have a webinar planned to show off the install process. However, we have a viewlet that's posted on Oracle Technology Network. You can see it here:http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/testcontent/wcs-install-098014.htmlAnd we've got excellent documentation that walks you through the steps here:http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E14571_01/install.1111/e12001/install.htmAnd there's a whole set of demos and examples of what WebCenter can do at this URL:http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/webcenter/release11-demos-097468.html Q: How do you anticipate managing metadata across the enterprise to make content findable?A: We need to first make sure we are all talking about the same thing when we use a word like "metadata". Here's why...  For a developer, metadata means information that describes key elements of the portal or application and what the portal or application can do. For content systems, metadata means key terms that provide a taxonomy or folksonomy about the information that is being indexed, ordered, and managed. For business intelligence systems, metadata means key terms that provide labels to groups of data that most non-mathematicians need to understand. And for SOA, metadata means labels for parts of the processes that business owners should understand that connect development terminology. There are also additional requirements for metadata to be available to the team building these new solutions as well as requirements to make this metadata available to the running system. These requirements are often separated by "design time" and "run time" respectively. So clearly, a general goal of managing metadata across the enterprise is very challenging. We've invested a huge amount of resources around Oracle Metadata Services (MDS) to be able to provide a more generic system for all of these elements. No other vendor has anything like this technology foundation in their products. This provides a huge benefit to our customers as they will now be able to find content, processes, people, and information from a common set of search interfaces with consistent enterprise wide results. Q: Can you give your definition of terms as to document and content, please?A: Content applies to a broad category of information from Word documents, presentations and reports through attachments to invoices and/or purchase orders. Content is essentially any type of digital asset including images, video, and voice. A document is just one type of content. Q: Do you have special integration tools to realize an interaction between UCM and WebCenter Spaces/Services?A: Yes, we've dedicated a whole team of engineers to exploit the key features of Oracle UCM within WebCenter.  While ensuring that WebCenter can connect to other non-Oracle systems, we've made sure that with the combined set of Oracle technology, no other solution can match the combined power and integration.  This is part of the Oracle Fusion Middleware strategy which is to provide best in class capabilities for Content and Portals.  When combined together, the synergy between the two products enables users to quickly add capabilities when they are needed.  For example, simple document sharing is part of the combined product offering, but if legal discovery or archiving is required, Oracle UCM product includes these capabilities that can be quickly added.  There's no need to move content around or add another system to support this, it's just a feature that gets turned on within Oracle UCM. Q: All customers have some interaction with their applications and have many older versions, how do you see some of these new Enterprise 2.0 capabilities adding value to existing enterprise application deployments?A: Just as Service Oriented Architectures allowed for connecting the processes of different applications systems to work together, there's a need for a similar approach with regards to these enterprise 2.0 capabilities. Oracle WebCenter is built on a core architecture that allows for SOA of these Enterprise 2.0 services so that one set of scalable services can be used and integrated directly into any type of application. In this way, users can get immediate value out of the Enterprise 2.0 capabilities without having to wait for the next major release or upgrade. These centrally managed WebCenter services expose a set of standard interfaces that make it extremely easy to add them into existing applications no matter what technology the application has been implemented. Q: We've heard about Oracle Next Generation applications called "Fusion Applications", can you tell me how all this works together?A: Oracle WebCenter powers the core collaboration and social computing services found within Fusion Applications. It is the core user experience technology for how all the application screens have been implemented. And the core concept of task flows allows for all the Fusion Applications modules to be adaptable and composable by business users and IT without needing to be a professional developer. Oracle WebCenter is at the heart of the new Fusion Applications. In addition, the same patterns and technologies are now being added to the existing applications including JD Edwards, Siebel, Peoplesoft, and eBusiness Suite. The core technology enables all these customers to have a much smoother upgrade path to Fusion Applications. They get immediate benefits of injecting new user interactions into their existing applications without having to completely move to Fusion Applications. And then when the time comes, their users will already be well versed in how the new capabilities work. Q: Does any of this work with non Oracle software? Other databases? Other application servers? etc.A: We have made sure that Oracle WebCenter delivers the broadest set of development choices so that no matter what technology you developers are using, WebCenter capabilities can be quickly and easily added to the site or application. In addition, we have certified Oracle WebCenter to run against non-Oracle databases like DB2 and SQLServer. We have stated plans for certification against MySQL as well. Later in CY 2011, Oracle will provide certification on non-Oracle application servers such as WebSphere and JBoss. Q: How do we balance User and IT requirements in regards to Enterprise 2.0 technologies?A: Wrong decisions are often made because employee knowledge is not tapped efficiently and opportunities to innovate are often missed because the right people do not work together. Collaboration amongst workers in the right business context is critical for success. While standalone Enterprise 2.0 technologies can improve collaboration for collaboration's sake, using social collaboration tools in the context of business applications and processes will improve business responsiveness and lead companies to a more competitive position. As these systems become more mission critical it is essential that they maintain the highest level of performance and availability while scaling to support larger communities. Q: What are the ways in which Enterprise 2.0 can improve business responsiveness?A: With a wide range of Enterprise 2.0 tools in the marketplace, CIOs need to deploy solutions that will meet the requirements from users as well as address the requirements from IT. Workers want a next-generation user experience that is personalized and aggregates their daily tools and tasks, while IT needs to ensure the solution is secure, scalable, flexible, reliable and easily integrated with existing systems. An open and integrated approach to deploying portals, content management, and collaboration can enhance your business by addressing both the needs of knowledge workers for better information and the IT mandate to conserve resources by simplifying, consolidating and centralizing infrastructure and administration.  

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• Solaris: What comes next?

  - by alanc

  As you probably know by now, a few months ago, we released Solaris 11 after years of development. That of course means we now need to figure out what comes next - if Solaris 11 is “The First Cloud OS”, then what do we need to make future releases of Solaris be, to be modern and competitive when they're released? So we've been having planning and brainstorming meetings, and I've captured some notes here from just one of those we held a couple weeks ago with a number of the Silicon Valley based engineers. Now before someone sees an idea here and calls their product rep wanting to know what's up, please be warned what follows are rough ideas, and as I'll discuss later, none of them have any committment, schedule, working code, or even plan for integration in any possible future product at this time. (Please don't make me force you to read the full Oracle future product disclaimer here, you should know it by heart already from the front of every Oracle product slide deck.) To start with, we did some background research, looking at ideas from other Oracle groups, and competitive OS'es. We examined what was hot in the technology arena and where the interesting startups were heading. We then looked at Solaris to see where we could apply those ideas. Making Network Admins into Socially Networking Admins We all know an admin who has grumbled about being the only one stuck late at work to fix a problem on the server, or having to work the weekend alone to do scheduled maintenance. But admins are humans (at least most are), and crave companionship and community with their fellow humans. And even when they're alone in the server room, they're never far from a network connection, allowing access to the wide world of wonders on the Internet. Our solution here is not building a new social network - there's enough of those already, and Oracle even has its own Oracle Mix social network already. What we proposed is integrating Solaris features to help engage our system admins with these social networks, building community and bringing them recognition in the workplace, using achievement recognition systems as found in many popular gaming platforms. For instance, if you had a Facebook account, and a group of admin friends there, you could register it with our Social Network Utility For Facebook, and then your friends might see: Alan earned the achievement Critically Patched (April 2012) for patching all his servers. Matt is only at 50% - encourage him to complete this achievement today! To avoid any undue risk of advertising who has unpatched servers that are easier targets for hackers to break into, this information would be tightly protected via Facebook's world-renowned privacy settings to avoid it falling into the wrong hands. A related form of gamification we considered was replacing simple certfications with role-playing-game-style Experience Levels. Instead of just knowing an admin passed a test establishing a given level of competency, these would provide recruiters with a more detailed level of how much real-world experience an admin has. Achievements such as the one above would feed into it, but larger numbers of experience points would be gained by tougher or more critical tasks - such as recovering a down system, or migrating a service to a new platform. (As long as it was an Oracle platform of course - migrating to an HP or IBM platform would cause the admin to lose points with us.) Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out a good way to prevent (if you will) “gaming” the system. For instance, a disgruntled admin might decide to start ignoring warnings from FMA that a part is beginning to fail or skip preventative maintenance, in the hopes that they'd cause a catastrophic failure to earn more points for bolstering their resume as they look for a job elsewhere, and not worrying about the effect on your business of a mission critical server going down. More Z's for ZFS Our suggested new feature for ZFS was inspired by the worlds most successful Z-startup of all time: Zynga. Using the Social Network Utility For Facebook described above, we'd tie it in with ZFS monitoring to help you out when you find yourself in a jam needing more disk space than you have, and can't wait a month to get a purchase order through channels to buy more. Instead with the click of a button you could post to your group: Alan can't find any space in his server farm! Can you help? Friends could loan you some space on their connected servers for a few weeks, knowing that you'd return the favor when needed. ZFS would create a new filesystem for your use on their system, and securely share it with your system using Kerberized NFS. If none of your friends have space, then you could buy temporary use space in small increments at affordable rates right there in Facebook, using your Facebook credits, and then file an expense report later, after the urgent need has passed. Universal Single Sign On One thing all the engineers agreed on was that we still had far too many "Single" sign ons to deal with in our daily work. On the web, every web site used to have its own password database, forcing us to hope we could remember what login name was still available on each site when we signed up, and which unique password we came up with to avoid having to disclose our other passwords to a new site. In recent years, the web services world has finally been reducing the number of logins we have to manage, with many services allowing you to login using your identity from Google, Twitter or Facebook. So we proposed following their lead, introducing PAM modules for web services - no more would you have to type in whatever login name IT assigned and try to remember the password you chose the last time password aging forced you to change it - you'd simply choose which web service you wanted to authenticate against, and would login to your Solaris account upon reciept of a cookie from their identity service. Pinning notes to the cloud We also all noted that we all have our own pile of notes we keep in our daily work - in text files in our home directory, in notebooks we carry around, on white boards in offices and common areas, on sticky notes on our monitors, or on scraps of paper pinned to our bulletin boards. The contents of the notes vary, some are things just for us, some are useful for our groups, some we would share with the world. For instance, when our group moved to a new building a couple years ago, we had a white board in the hallway listing all the NIS & DNS servers, subnets, and other network configuration information we needed to set up our Solaris machines after the move. Similarly, as Solaris 11 was finishing and we were all learning the new network configuration commands, we shared notes in wikis and e-mails with our fellow engineers. Users may also remember one of the popular features of Sun's old BigAdmin site was a section for sharing scripts and tips such as these. Meanwhile, the online "pin board" at Pinterest is taking the web by storm. So we thought, why not mash those up to solve this problem? We proposed a new BigAddPin site where users could “pin” notes, command snippets, configuration information, and so on. For instance, once they had worked out the ideal Automated Installation manifest for their app server, they could pin it up to share with the rest of their group, or choose to make it public as an example for the world. Localized data, such as our group's notes on the servers for our subnet, could be shared only to users connecting from that subnet. And notes that they didn't want others to see at all could be marked private, such as the list of phone numbers to call for late night pizza delivery to the machine room, the birthdays and anniversaries they can never remember but would be sleeping on the couch if they forgot, or the list of automatically generated completely random, impossible to remember root passwords to all their servers. For greater integration with Solaris, we'd put support right into the command shells — redirect output to a pinned note, set your path to include pinned notes as scripts you can run, or bring up your recent shell history and pin a set of commands to save for the next time you need to remember how to do that operation. Location service for Solaris servers A longer term plan would involve convincing the hardware design groups to put GPS locators with wireless transmitters in future server designs. This would help both admins and service personnel trying to find servers in todays massive data centers, and could feed into location presence apps to help show potential customers that while they may not see many Solaris machines on the desktop any more, they are all around. For instance, while walking down Wall Street it might show “There are over 2000 Solaris computers in this block.” [Note: this proposal was made before the recent media coverage of a location service aggregrator app with less noble intentions, and in hindsight, we failed to consider what happens when such data similarly falls into the wrong hands. We certainly wouldn't want our app to be misinterpreted as “There are over $20 million dollars of SPARC servers in this building, waiting for you to steal them.” so it's probably best it was rejected.] Harnessing the power of the GPU for Security Most modern OS'es make use of the widespread availability of high powered GPU hardware in today's computers, with desktop environments requiring 3-D graphics acceleration, whether in Ubuntu Unity, GNOME Shell on Fedora, or Aero Glass on Windows, but we haven't yet made Solaris fully take advantage of this, beyond our basic offering of Compiz on the desktop. Meanwhile, more businesses are interested in increasing security by using biometric authentication, but must also comply with laws in many countries preventing discrimination against employees with physical limations such as missing eyes or fingers, not to mention the lost productivity when employees can't login due to tinted contacts throwing off a retina scan or a paper cut changing their fingerprint appearance until it heals. Fortunately, the two groups considering these problems put their heads together and found a common solution, using 3D technology to enable authentication using the one body part all users are guaranteed to have - pam_phrenology.so, a new PAM module that uses an array USB attached web cams (or just one if the user is willing to spin their chair during login) to take pictures of the users head from all angles, create a 3D model and compare it to the one in the authentication database. While Mythbusters has shown how easy it can be to fool common fingerprint scanners, we have not yet seen any evidence that people can impersonate the shape of another user's cranium, no matter how long they spend beating their head against the wall to reshape it. This could possibly be extended to group users, using modern versions of some of the older phrenological studies, such as giving all users with long grey beards access to the System Architect role, or automatically placing users with pointy spikes in their hair into an easy use mode. Unfortunately, there are still some unsolved technical challenges we haven't figured out how to overcome. Currently, a visit to the hair salon causes your existing authentication to expire, and some users have found that shaving their heads is the only way to avoid bad hair days becoming bad login days. Reaction to these ideas After gathering all our notes on these ideas from the engineering brainstorming meeting, we took them in to present to our management. Unfortunately, most of their reaction cannot be printed here, and they chose not to accept any of these ideas as they were, but they did have some feedback for us to consider as they sent us back to the drawing board. They strongly suggested our ideas would be better presented if we weren't trying to decipher ink blotches that had been smeared by the condensation when we put our pint glasses on the napkins we were taking notes on, and to that end let us know they would not be approving any more engineering offsites in Irish themed pubs on the Friday of a Saint Patrick's Day weekend. (Hopefully they mean that situation specifically and aren't going to deny the funding for travel to this year's X.Org Developer's Conference just because it happens to be in Bavaria and ending on the Friday of the weekend Oktoberfest starts.) They recommended our research techniques could be improved over just sitting around reading blogs and checking our Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest accounts, such as considering input from alternate viewpoints on topics such as gamification. They also mentioned that Oracle hadn't fully adopted some of Sun's common practices and we might have to try harder to get those to be accepted now that we are one unified company. So as I said at the beginning, don't pester your sales rep just yet for any of these, since they didn't get approved, but if you have better ideas, pass them on and maybe they'll get into our next batch of planning.

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• WhatsApp &amp; Tasker for Android &ndash; Read &amp; Write messages

  - by Shaurya Anand

  So, I finally gave up on all my previous the Microsoft Mobile/Phone OS devices and made my switch to Android this year. I am using my Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000 with CyanogenMod 9.1.0 (http://get.cm/get/jenkins/7086/cm-9.1.0-n7000.zip) and ClockworkMod 6.0.1.2 (http://download2.clockworkmod.com/recoveries/recovery-clockwork-6.0.1.2-n7000.zip) since August this year and I am so happy with the performance and the flexibility it offers me. As a software developer by profession, I would expect most of my gadget to be highly customizable and programmable (one time or at intervals) to suit my needs as close as it can. I was introduced to Automation for Android – Tasker (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch.android.taskerm&hl=en) via reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/tasker) and the word ‘automation’ was enough for me to dive right into this app. Only automation that I did earlier was switching profiles depending on location on there phones. And now, just imagine a complete set of possibilities that can be automate on the phone or via the phone. I did my research and found a couple of other tools that do the same/as close as what Tasker can do and few of them are even free. There’s one even by Microsoft called on{X} (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.onx.app&hl=en). Microsoft’s on{X} really caught my eye. You can write code for your phone on the web application by them, deploy it on your phone and even trace the flow all using your PC. Really brilliant, I love the fact that it’s all JavaScript. Here comes the but, it is still very very young and it’s policy of accessing my News Feed on Facebook is not something that I can not digest. On{X} is good, but as I said earlier, the API is not very mature and hence, I gave up on it. I bought Tasker, the best 5,00 € I spent in ages and I want to talk about it in this post. I am still a “noob” while operating this tool, but I tried my shot at automating WhatsApp (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp&hl=en), a popular messenger for various platform. The requirement for the automation is that, if I send a WhatsApp ‘wru’ message to the phone, it should respond back giving the location and battery level of my phone. It could be useful, if you like to locate your misplaced phone or automatically reply to your partner/friend, honestly, I don’t know what you will use it - through this post, I am just introducing automating WhatsApp using Tasker. Before we begin, the following script only works when your phone is rooted as we will be accessing the WhatsApp database and type some special characters like ‘:’. Let’s follow the code line by line: Profile:         Location request from XYZ. (12) // Name of your profile. Event:         Notification [ Owner Application:WhatsApp Title:* ] // When a new notification comes from WhatsApp, this event is fired. Read the end note, if you face problems with Chrome app after enabling Tasker accessibility. Enter:         A1: Run Shell [ Command:sqlite3 // We will access the WhatsApp database and check if the message comes from designated phone number or not. We mustn’t reply to every message.                 /data/data/com.whatsapp/databases/msgstore.db "SELECT _id, data FROM                  messages WHERE key_from_me='0' AND key_remote_jid LIKE '%XXXXXXXXXXX%' // Replace XXXXXXXXXXX with the phone number of your message sender.                 ORDER BY _id DESC LIMIT 1;" Timeout (Seconds):10 Use Root:On Store // I made a timeout for 10 seconds, if in case WhatsApp is busy accessing the database.                 Result In:%WHATSAPP_CURRREQ ] // Store the read Id and the last message on to the variable %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ         A2: If [ %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ ~R .*[wW][rR][uU].* ] // Check if the pattern of the message is correct and we are all set to send the location.                 A3: If [ %WHATSAPP_CURRREQ !~ %WHATSAPP_LASTREQ ] // Verify that the message is different from the last request. Remember every message has a unique Id.                         A4: Notify [ Title:WhatsApp location request... Text:Sending location // Just a notification that the location message is being prepared.                                 to Krati Gupta... Icon:<icon> Number:0 Permanent:On Priority:3 ] // Make a note it is a permanent notification, we will clear it later.                         A5: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Pattern Lock Disabled // I am disabling the pattern lock, that I use using the plugin Secure Settings.                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure // You can download the plugin from here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin&hl=en                                 Settings ]                         A6: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Keyguard Disabled // Disable the keygaurd, it is useful, when your phone is on lock and you want to automate everything, even the typing.                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A7: Secure Settings [ Configuration:GPS Enabled // Pretty clear, turn on the GPS and get location at A8                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A8: AutoShortcut [ Configuration:WhatsApp: Some One // I am using AutoShortcut plugin (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joaomgcd.autoshortcut) to start WhatsApp with the indented recipient.                                 Package:com.joaomgcd.autoshortcut Name:AutoShortcut ] // Replace Some One, actually choose it from the plugin, the right recipient.                         A9: Get Location [ Source:Any Timeout (Seconds):30 Continue Task // I am getting the location, timeout is 30 seconds, adjust it accordingly.                                 Immediately:Off Keep Tracking:Off ]                         A10: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Screen Dim // Now, this extension of the plugin Secure Settings, wakes your device so that you can type out the string on the WhatsApp app.                                 5 Seconds Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin                                 Name:Secure Settings ]                         A11: Run Shell [ Command:input text // Now, I am using the shell script to type the text to the window, because the ‘:’ while not be typed from the Type task in Tasker.                                 LOCATION:maps.google.com/maps?q=%LOC Timeout (Seconds):0 Use Root:On // And also, this is way faster, but remember you need root for this, not for the other way of typing.                                 Store Result In: ]                         A12: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ] // Focus the Send button                         A13: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ] // And press it.                         A14: Dpad [ Button:Left Repeat Times:1 ] // Get back to the typing box.                         A15: Run Shell [ Command:input text LOCATION_ACCURACY:%LOCACC Timeout                                 (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Result In: ]                         A16: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ]                         A17: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ]                         A18: Dpad [ Button:Left Repeat Times:1 ]                         A19: Run Shell [ Command:input text BATTERY_LEVEL:%BATT% Timeout // I am adding Battery level in my case as well.                                 (Seconds):0 Use Root:On Store Result In: ]                         A20: Dpad [ Button:Right Repeat Times:1 ]                         A21: Dpad [ Button:Press Repeat Times:1 ]                         A22: Variable Set [ Name:%WHATSAPP_LASTREQ To:%WHATSAPP_CURRREQ Do // And now, we say, request is done.                                 Maths:Off Append:Off ]                         A23: Button [ Button:Back ] // I am exiting the WhatsApp nicely and not killing it. If you are the murderer kind, kill it, just know, you don’t have any place in the heaven.                         A24: Button [ Button:Back ]                         A25: Notify Cancel [ Title: Warn Not Exist:Off ] // Remove the permanent notification.                         A26: Notify [ Title:WhatsApp location request Text:Location sent // Make a temporary notification, and say, location is sent.                                 successfully. Icon:<icon> Number:0 Permanent:Off Priority:3 ]                                                         A27: Secure Settings [ Configuration:GPS Disabled // Disable all the horrible things we turned on earlier.                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A28: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Pattern Lock Enabled                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                         A29: Secure Settings [ Configuration:Keyguard Enabled                                 Package:com.intangibleobject.securesettings.plugin Name:Secure                                 Settings ]                 A30: End If         A31: End If Download this Task from here: http://db.tt/9vRmbhyb That’s it in the above small example – you can read/write messages from/to WhatsApp app. I am using n7000-cm9.1-cwr6. Oh yea, and if you are having the Talkback auto enabled for Chrome browser, you need to turn Off the Web scripts to run. Tasker is amazing, I have automated a lot of tasks using this tool. I will share a few none generic ones with you in my coming post here.

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• How do I send an email with embedded images AND regular attachments in JavaMail?

  - by Chris

  Hi, I'd like to know how to build an SMTP multipart message in the correct order so that it will render correctly on the iPhone mail client (rendering correctly in GMail). I'm using Javamail to build up an email containing the following parts: A body part with content type "text/html; UTF-8" An embedded image attachment. A file attachment I am sending the mail via GMail SMTP (via SSL) and the mail is sent and rendered correctly using a GMail account, however, the mail does not render correctly on the iPhone mail client. On the iPhone mail client, the image is rendered before the "Before Image" text when it should be rendered afterwards. After the "Before Image" text there is an icon with a question mark (I assume it means it couldn't find the referenced CID). I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the iPhone mail client or a bug in my mail sending code (I strongly assume the latter). I think that perhaps the headers on my parts might by incorrect or perhaps I am providing the multiparts in the wrong order. I include the text of the received mail as output by gmail (which renders the file correc Message-ID: <[email protected]> Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Test_from_=E3=82=AF=E3=83=AA=E3=82=B9?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755" ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755 Content-Type: application/octet-stream Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-ID: <20100518124021763_368238_0> iVBORw0K ----- TRIMMED FOR CONCISENESS 6p1VVy4alAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <html><head><title>Employees Favourite Foods</title> <style> body { font: normal 8pt arial; } th { font: bold 8pt arial; white-space: nowrap; } td { font: normal 8pt arial; white-space: nowrap; } </style></head><body> Before Image<br><img src="cid:20100518124021763_368238_0"> After Image<br><table border="0"> <tr> <th colspan="4">Employees Favourite Foods</th> </tr> <tr> <th align="left">Name</th><th align="left">Age</th><th align="left">Tel.No</th><th align="left">Fav.Food</th> </tr> <tr style="background-color:#e0e0e0"> <td>Chris</td><td>34</td><td>555-123-4567</td><td>Pancakes</td> </tr> </table></body></html> ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name=textfile.txt Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=textfile.txt This is a textfile with numbers counting from one to ten beneath this line: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten(no trailing carriage return) ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755-- Even if you can't assist me with this, I would appreciate it if any members of the forum could forward me a (non-personal) mail that includes inline images (not external hyperlinked images though). I just need to find a working sample then I can move past this. Thanks, Chris.

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• MySQL for Excel 1.1.3 has been released

  - by Javier Treviño

  The MySQL Windows Experience Team is proud to announce the release of MySQL for Excel version 1.1.3, the  latest addition to the MySQL Installer for Windows. MySQL for Excel is an application plug-in enabling data analysts to very easily access and manipulate MySQL data within Microsoft Excel. It enables you to directly work with a MySQL database from within Microsoft Excel so you can easily do tasks such as: Importing MySQL Data into Excel Exporting Excel data directly into MySQL to a new or existing table Editing MySQL data directly within Excel MySQL for Excel is installed using the MySQL Installer for Windows. The MySQL installer comes in 2 versions   Full (150 MB) which includes a complete set of MySQL products with their binaries included in the download Web (1.5 MB - a network install) which will just pull MySQL for Excel over the web and install it when run.   You can download MySQL Installer from our official Downloads page at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/installer/. MySQL for Excel 1.1.3 introduces the following features:   Upon saving a Workbook containing Worksheets in Edit Mode, the user is asked if he wants to exit the Edit Mode on all Worksheets before their parent Workbook is saved so the Worksheets are saved unprotected, otherwise the Worksheets will remain protected and the users will be able to unprotect them later retrieving the passkeys from the application log after closing MySQL for Excel. Added background coloring to the column names header row of an Import Data operation to have the same look as the one in an Edit Data operation (i.e. gray-ish background). Connection passwords can be stored securely just like MySQL Workbench does and these secured passwords are shared with Workbench in the same way connections are. Changed the way the MySQL for Excel ribbon toggle button works, instead of just showing or hiding the add-in it actually opens and closes it. Added a connection test before any operation against the database (schema creation, data import, append, export or edition) so the operation dialog is not shown and a friendlier error message is shown.   Also this release contains the following bug fixes:   Added a check on every connection test for an expired password, if the password has been expired a dialog is now shown to the user to reset the password. Bug #17354118 - DON'T HANDLE EXPIRED PASSWORDS Added code to escape text values to be imported to an Excel worksheet that start with an equals sign so Excel does not treat those values as formulas that will fail evaluation. This is an option turned on by default that can be turned off by users if they wish to import values to be treated as Excel formulas. Bug #17354102 - ERROR IMPORTING TEXT VALUES TO EXCEL STARTING WITH AN EQUALS SIGN Added code to properly check the reason for a failing connection, if it's a failing password the user gets a dialog to retry the connection with a different password until the connection succeeds, a connection error not related to the password is thrown or the user cancels. If the failing connection is not related to a bad password an error message is shown to the users indicating the reason of the failure. Bug #16239007 - CONNECTIONS TO MYSQL SERVICES NOT RUNNING DISPLAY A WRONG PASSWORD ERROR MESSAGE Added global options dialog that can be accessed from the Schema Selection and DB Object Selection panels where the timeouts for the connection to the DB Server and for the query commands can be changed from their default values (15 seconds for the connection timeout and 30 seconds for the query timeout). MySQL Bug #68732, Bug #17191646 - QUERY TIMEOUT CANNOT BE ADJUSTED IN MYSQL FOR EXCEL Changed the Varchar(65,535) data type shown in the Export Data data type combo box to Text since the maximum row size is 65,535 bytes and any autodetected column data type with a length greater than 4,000 should be set to Text actually for the table to be created successfully. MySQL Bug #69779, Bug #17191633 - EXPORT FAILS FOR EXCEL FILES CONTAINING > 4000 CHARACTERS OF TEXT PER CELL Removed code that was replacing all spaces typed by the user in an overriden data type for a new column in an Export Data operation, also improved the data type detection code to flag as invalid data types with parenthesis but without any text inside or where the contents inside the parenthesis are not valid for the specific data type. Bug #17260260 - EXPORT DATA SET TYPE NOT WORKING WITH MEMBER VALUES CONTAINING SPACES Added support for the year data type with a length of 2 or 4 and a validation that valid values are integers between 1901-2155 (for 4-digit years) or between 0-99 (for 2-digit years). Bug #17259915 - EXPORT DATA YEAR DATA TYPE NOT RECOGNIZED IF DECLARED WITH A DISPLAY WIDTH) Fixed code for Export Data operations where users overrode the data type for columns typing Text in the data type combobox, which is a valid data type but was not recognized as such. Bug #17259490 - EXPORT DATA TEXT DATA TYPE NOT RECOGNIZED AS A VALID DATA TYPE Changed the location of the registry where the MySQL for Excel add-in is installed to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of HKEY_CURRENT_USER so the add-in is accessible by all users and not only to the user that installed it. For this to work with Excel 2007 a hotfix may be required (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976477). MySQL Bug #68746, Bug #16675992 - EXCEL-ADD-IN IS ONLY INSTALLED FOR USER ACCOUNT THAT THE INSTALLATION RUNS UNDER Added support for Excel 2013 Single Document Interface, now that Excel 2013 creates 1 window per workbook also the Excel Add-In maintains an independent custom task pane in each window. MySQL Bug #68792, Bug #17272087 - MYSQL FOR EXCEL SIDEBAR DOES NOT APPEAR IN EXCEL 2013 (WITH WORKAROUND) Included the latest MySQL Utility with a code fix for the COM exception thrown when attempting to open Workbench in the Manage Connections window. Bug #17258966 - MYSQL WORKBENCH NOT OPENED BY CLICKING MANAGE CONNECTIONS HOTLABEL Fixed code for Append Data operations that was not applying a calculated automatic mapping correctly when the source and target tables had different number of columns, some columns with the same name but some of those lying on column indexes beyond the limit of the other source/target table. MySQL Bug #69220, Bug #17278349 - APPEND DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY DETECT EXCEL COL HEADER WITH SAME NAME AS SQL FIELD Fixed some code for Edit Data operations that was escaping special characters twice (during edition in Excel and then upon sending the query to the MySQL server). MySQL Bug #68669, Bug #17271693 - A BACKSLASH IS INSERTED BEFORE AN APOSTROPHE EDITING TABLE WITH MYSQL FOR EXCEL Upgraded MySQL Utility with latest version that encapsulates dialog base classes and introduces more classes to handle Workbench connections, and removed these from the Excel project. Bug #16500331 - CAN'T DELETE CONNECTIONS CREATED WITHIN ADDIN You can access the MySQL for Excel documentation at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/mysql-for-excel.html You can find our team’s blog at http://blogs.oracle.com/MySQLOnWindows. You can also post questions on our MySQL for Excel forum found at http://forums.mysql.com/. Enjoy and thanks for the support!

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 26, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Friday, October 26, 2012Popular ReleasesPowerShell Community Extensions: 2.1 Production: PowerShell Community Extensions 2.1 Release NotesOct 25, 2012 This version of PSCX supports both Windows PowerShell 2.0 and 3.0. See the ReleaseNotes.txt download above for more information.Building Windows 8 Apps with C# and XAML: Full Source Chapters 1 - 10 for Windows 8 Fix 001: This is the full source from all chapters of the book, compiled and tested on Windows 8 RTM. Includes a fix for the Netflix example from Chapter 6 that was missing a service reference.PdfReport: PdfReport 1.3: - Removed the limitation of defining non duplicate column names. See DuplicateColumns sample for more info. - Added horizontal stack panel mode. See CharacterMap sample for more info. - Added pdfStamper to onFillAcroForm of PdfTemplate. See QuestionsAcroForm sample for more info. Added 6 new samples (http://pdfreport.codeplex.com/SourceControl/BrowseLatest): - AccountingBalanceColumn - CharacterMap - CustomPriceNumber - DuplicateColumns - QuestionsAcroForm - QuestionsFormuComponents: uComponents v5.1.0: Continuing our mammoth 88341 release, we bring you v5.1 What's new in uComponents v5.1?New Data Types: SQL AutoComplete SQL DropDownList XPath AutoComplete New component: uMapper Umbraco compatibilityThis release is compatible with Umbraco 4.8.0 (and above). For previous versions, please use 90019 with Umbraco 4.5.2+ and 93259 with Umbraco 4.7.1+ (To reiterate: this release does not work with Umbraco 4.7.2 and earlier versions.) Legacy and retirementThere are a number of components t...Umbraco CMS: Umbraco 4.9.1: Umbraco 4.9.1 is a bugfix release to fix major issues in 4.9.0 BugfixesThe full list of fixes can be found in the issue tracker's filtered results. A summary: Split buttons work again, you can now also scroll easier when the list is too long for the screen Media and Content pickers have information of the full path of the picked item Fixed: Publish status may not be accurate on nodes with large doctypes Fixed: 2 media folders and recycle bins after upgrade to 4.9 The template/code ...AcDown????? - AcDown Downloader Framework: AcDown????? v4.2.2: ??●AcDown??????????、??、??、???????。????，????，?????????????????????????。???????????Acfun、????(Bilibili)、??、??、YouTube、??、???、??????、SF????、????????????。 ●??????AcPlay?????，??????、????????????????。 ● AcDown??????????????????，????????????????????????????。 ● AcDown???????C#??，????.NET Framework 2.0??。?????"Acfun?????"。 ????32??64? Windows XP/Vista/7/8 ???? 32??64? ???Linux ????(1)????????Windows XP???，????????.NET Framework 2.0???(x86)，?????"?????????"??? (2)???????????Linux???，????????Mono?? ??2...WPF About Box: WPF About Box 1.2.1.1: Using more established names.Rawr: Rawr 5.0.2: 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 Addon (NOT UPDATED YET FOR MOP)We 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 ba...MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.5: Changelog for 2.3.5 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Fixed a bug causing MCEBuddy to crash during or after installation on Windows XP 2. Bugfix for resource leak with UPnP which would lead to a failure after many days 3. Increased the UPnP discovery re-scan interval from 10 minutes to 30 minutes 4. Added support for specifying TVDB and IMDB id’s in the conversion task page (forcing the internet lookup for metadata)CRM 2011 Visual Ribbon Editor: Visual Ribbon Editor (1.3.1025.5): [NEW] Support for connecting to CRM Online via Office 365 (OSDP) [NEW] Current connection information and loaded ribbon name are displayed in the status bar [IMPROVED] Connect dialog minor improvements and error message descriptions [IMPROVED] Connecting to a CRM server will close currently loaded ribbon upon confirmation (if another ribbon was loaded previously) [FIX] Fixed bug in Open Ribbon dialog which would not allow to refresh entity list more than onceSite Backup Repackager: Solution: Adding Feature References Detected section so user can check feature references to include in the new package.Tombola XNA: TombolaXNA 0.1: First release alphaSplitOS: SplitOS v0.0.4a: SplitOS v0.0.4a TUI Basic windows commands such as 'echo', 'cls', ... Basic linux commands such as 'print', 'clear', ... GUI Taskbar Animated mouse Font Open SAL Open SplitOS Application Language Compiler ( very unstable! )Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.8.0: Changes: Interrogative phrases (questions) like why did the statesman burgle amidst lucid sunlamps Support transitive / intransitive verbs (whether a verb needs a subject or not). Change adverbs to be either before or after the verb, at random. Add an "equal" version of each strength, where each possibility is equally likely (for password purists). 3401 words in the default dictionary (~400 more than previous release) Fixed bugs when choosing verb tensesMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.72: Fix for Issue #18819 - bad optimization of return/assign operator.DNN Module Creator: 01.01.00: Updated templates for DNN7 ( ie. DAL2, Web Service API ). Numerous bug fixes and enhancements.WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.5.0.390: Version 2.5.0.390 (Release Candidate): 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 WAF: Fix recent file list remove issue. WAF: Minor code improvements. BookLibrary: Fix Blend design time support o...Fiskalizacija za developere: FiskalizacijaDev 1.1: Ovo je prva nadogradnja ovog projekta nakon inicijalnog predstavljanja - dodali smo nekoliko feature-a, bilo zato što smo sami primijetili da bi ih bilo dobro dodati, bilo na osnovu vaših sugestija - hvala svima koji su se ukljucili :) Ovo su stvari riješene u v1.1.: 1. Bilo bi dobro da se XML dokument koji se šalje u CIS može snimiti u datoteku (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/612) 2. Podrška za COM DLL (VB6) (http://fiskalizacija.codeplex.com/workitem/613) 3. Podrška za DOS (unu...Liberty: v3.4.0.0 Release 20th October 2012: Change Log -Added -Halo 4 support (invincibility, ammo editing) -Reach A warning dialog now shows up when you first attempt to swap a weapon -Fixed -A few minor bugsClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.1: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...New Projects40FINGERS DotNetNuke Windows8 Pin: 40FINGERS Windows8 Pin is a DotNetNuke Module that will enable pinning of your website to the Windows 8 Start Screen.clowncar: a tool for sharing your utils folder and keeping it up to dateConnection Strings for .NET 2: Merupakan class yang berisi beberapa connection string khusus untuk aplikasi .NET, class ini menggunakan referensi dari http://connectionstrings.comCRM 2011 Web Resource Linker/Publisher: This tool is a visual studio 2012 add-in that allows developers to quickly link and publish web resources to dynamics crm 2011 while inside the VS 2012 IDE.Dice Roller: A simple simulator of a dice roller.EFTracing & Logging: Demonstrates using the “Entity Framework Tracing” ElFinder.Net Connector: .NET connector for elfinder file manager version 2.x. Project contain library and ASP.NET MVC sample. Excel and PowerPivot Refresh Service: A Windows Service for periodically refreshing the data in Excel files, along with any embedded PowerPivot cubes.finalwebsite: This is my final website project.Flickr Reranking ASP.NET MVC: ASP.NET MVC, .NET, Flickr APIglobulin: videojuegoHealthVault ASP.NET MVC Sample: This project provides an object model for building HealthVault-connected applications with ASP.NET MVCHuman resource management - WFA: This project made ​​solution that allows you to control, human resource management at the company.Is a comprehensive system of recruitment planning, tracking...jFluent: jFluent is a Fluent style, light-weight validation framework for client-side validation. It is a jQuery plugin which can be used in ASP .NET MVC.jvp8: jvp8 is a dual-licensed commercial/GPL native wrapper which allows Java applications to easily use the VP8 video codec.Korean Baseball for Windows Phone: Windows Phone? ?? ???? ?????????. ???, ???, ???? ?????.Meus Projetos: Projetos andamentoMobySharp: MobySharp is an implementation of the Mobypicture.com API written in C#MS-SQL Server Post Exploitation Samples: Sample source code files and precompiled library files that correspond to the MS-SQL Post-exploitation presentation "When Databases Attack", by Rob Beck.On the Fly: On the Fly is a utility that enables you to compile your TypeScript files on the fly. Compiling your .ts files is just a click away!OpenMVCRM: Open source CRM project built on ASP.NET MVCpFinance: This is the application to facilitate individuals in managing their finance.Posh for Jammer: Jammer is are some PowerShell Functions calling the Yammer API.Quick Encoding Utility: This is a quick desktop utility which would provide a sneak preview of base64 string encoding (both to and from)ResearchWM: This is a new projecttestddhg1025201201: ertesttom10252012git01: fdstesttom10252012git02: fdstesttom10252012tfs01: dsa dsaUniSync: blah blahUnits for .NET: Strongly typed physical quantities and unit conversion.Web Crop Image (Restored): Cem Sisman was the original author of WebCropImage. After he deleted the project from CodePlex, I brought it back... along with over 50 bug fixes.

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• Code Reuse is (Damn) Hard

  - by James Michael Hare

  Being a development team lead, the task of interviewing new candidates was part of my job.  Like any typical interview, we started with some easy questions to get them warmed up and help calm their nerves before hitting the hard stuff. One of those easier questions was almost always: “Name some benefits of object-oriented development.”  Nearly every time, the candidate would chime in with a plethora of canned answers which typically included: “it helps ease code reuse.”  Of course, this is a gross oversimplification.  Tools only ease reuse, its developers that ultimately can cause code to be reusable or not, regardless of the language or methodology. But it did get me thinking…  we always used to say that as part of our mantra as to why Object-Oriented Programming was so great.  With polymorphism, inheritance, encapsulation, etc. we in essence set up the concepts to help facilitate reuse as much as possible.  And yes, as a developer now of many years, I unquestionably held that belief for ages before it really struck me how my views on reuse have jaded over the years.  In fact, in many ways Agile rightly eschews reuse as taking a backseat to developing what's needed for the here and now.  It used to be I was in complete opposition to that view, but more and more I've come to see the logic in it.  Too many times I've seen developers (myself included) get lost in design paralysis trying to come up with the perfect abstraction that would stand all time.  Nearly without fail, all of these pieces of code become obsolete in a matter of months or years. It’s not that I don’t like reuse – it’s just that reuse is hard.  In fact, reuse is DAMN hard.  Many times it is just a distraction that eats up architect and developer time, and worse yet can be counter-productive and force wrong decisions.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of reusable code when it makes sense.  These are in the few cases where you are designing something that is inherently reusable.  The problem is, most business-class code is inherently unfit for reuse! Furthermore, the code that is reusable will often fail to be reused if you don’t have the proper framework in place for effective reuse that includes standardized versioning, building, releasing, and documenting the components.  That should always be standard across the board when promoting reusable code.  All of this is hard, and it should only be done when you have code that is truly reusable or you will be exerting a large amount of development effort for very little bang for your buck. But my goal here is not to get into how to reuse (that is a topic unto itself) but what should be reused.  First, let’s look at an extension method.  There’s many times where I want to kick off a thread to handle a task, then when I want to reign that thread in of course I want to do a Join on it.  But what if I only want to wait a limited amount of time and then Abort?  Well, I could of course write that logic out by hand each time, but it seemed like a great extension method: 1: public static class ThreadExtensions 2: { 3: public static bool JoinOrAbort(this Thread thread, TimeSpan timeToWait) 4: { 5: bool isJoined = false; 6:  7: if (thread != null) 8: { 9: isJoined = thread.Join(timeToWait); 10:  11: if (!isJoined) 12: { 13: thread.Abort(); 14: } 15: } 16: return isJoined; 17: } 18: } 19:  When I look at this code, I can immediately see things that jump out at me as reasons why this code is very reusable.  Some of them are standard OO principles, and some are kind-of home grown litmus tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The only reason this extension method need change is if the Thread class itself changes (one responsibility). Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method only depends on classes that are more stable than it is (System.Threading.Thread), and in itself is very stable, hence other classes may safely depend on it. It is also not dependent on any business domain, and thus isn't subject to changes as the business itself changes. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is inherently closed to change. Small and Stable Problem Domain – This method only cares about System.Threading.Thread. All-or-None Usage – A user of a reusable class should want the functionality of that class, not parts of that functionality.  That’s not to say they most use every method, but they shouldn’t be using a method just to get half of its result. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – since this class is highly stable and minimally complex, we can offer it up for reuse very cheaply by promoting it as “ready-to-go” and already unit tested (important!) and available through a standard release cycle (very important!). Okay, all seems good there, now lets look at an entity and DAO.  I don’t know about you all, but there have been times I’ve been in organizations that get the grand idea that all DAOs and entities should be standardized and shared.  While this may work for small or static organizations, it’s near ludicrous for anything large or volatile. 1: namespace Shared.Entities 2: { 3: public class Account 4: { 5: public int Id { get; set; } 6:  7: public string Name { get; set; } 8:  9: public Address HomeAddress { get; set; } 10:  11: public int Age { get; set;} 12:  13: public DateTime LastUsed { get; set; } 14:  15: // etc, etc, etc... 16: } 17: } 18:  19: ... 20:  21: namespace Shared.DataAccess 22: { 23: public class AccountDao 24: { 25: public Account FindAccount(int id) 26: { 27: // dao logic to query and return account 28: } 29:  30: ... 31:  32: } 33: } Now to be fair, I’m not saying there doesn’t exist an organization where some entites may be extremely static and unchanging.  But at best such entities and DAOs will be problematic cases of reuse.  Let’s examine those same tests: Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – The reasons to change for these classes will be strongly dependent on what the definition of the account is which can change over time and may have multiple influences depending on the number of systems an account can cover. Stable Dependencies Principle (SDP) – This method depends on the data model beneath itself which also is largely dependent on the business definition of an account which can be very inherently unstable. Open-Closed Principle (OCP) – This class is not really closed for modification.  Every time the account definition may change, you’d need to modify this class. Small and Stable Problem Domain – The definition of an account is inherently unstable and in fact may be very large.  What if you are designing a system that aggregates account information from several sources? All-or-None Usage – What if your view of the account encompasses data from 3 different sources but you only care about one of those sources or one piece of data?  Should you have to take the hit of looking up all the other data?  On the other hand, should you have ten different methods returning portions of data in chunks people tend to ask for?  Neither is really a great solution. Cost of Reuse vs. Cost to Recreate – DAOs are really trivial to rewrite, and unless your definition of an account is EXTREMELY stable, the cost to promote, support, and release a reusable account entity and DAO are usually far higher than the cost to recreate as needed. It’s no accident that my case for reuse was a utility class and my case for non-reuse was an entity/DAO.  In general, the smaller and more stable an abstraction is, the higher its level of reuse.  When I became the lead of the Shared Components Committee at my workplace, one of the original goals we looked at satisfying was to find (or create), version, release, and promote a shared library of common utility classes, frameworks, and data access objects.  Now, of course, many of you will point to nHibernate and Entity for the latter, but we were looking at larger, macro collections of data that span multiple data sources of varying types (databases, web services, etc). As we got deeper and deeper in the details of how to manage and release these items, it quickly became apparent that while the case for reuse was typically a slam dunk for utilities and frameworks, the data access objects just didn’t “smell” right.  We ended up having session after session of design meetings to try and find the right way to share these data access components. When someone asked me why it was taking so long to iron out the shared entities, my response was quite simple, “Reuse is hard...”  And that’s when I realized, that while reuse is an awesome goal and we should strive to make code maintainable, often times you end up creating far more work for yourself than necessary by trying to force code to be reusable that inherently isn’t. Think about classes the times you’ve worked in a company where in the design session people fight over the best way to implement a class to make it maximally reusable, extensible, and any other buzzwordable.  Then think about how quickly that design became obsolete.  Many times I set out to do a project and think, “yes, this is the best design, I can extend it easily!” only to find out the business requirements change COMPLETELY in such a way that the design is rendered invalid.  Code, in general, tends to rust and age over time.  As such, writing reusable code can often be difficult and many times ends up being a futile exercise and worse yet, sometimes makes the code harder to maintain because it obfuscates the design in the name of extensibility or reusability. So what do I think are reusable components? Generic Utility classes – these tend to be small classes that assist in a task and have no business context whatsoever. Implementation Abstraction Frameworks – home-grown frameworks that try to isolate changes to third party products you may be depending on (like writing a messaging abstraction layer for publishing/subscribing that is independent of whether you use JMS, MSMQ, etc). Simplification and Uniformity Frameworks – To some extent this is similar to an abstraction framework, but there may be one chosen provider but a development shop mandate to perform certain complex items in a certain way.  Or, perhaps to simplify and dumb-down a complex task for the average developer (such as implementing a particular development-shop’s method of encryption). And what are less reusable? Application and Business Layers – tend to fluctuate a lot as requirements change and new features are added, so tend to be an unstable dependency.  May be reused across applications but also very volatile. Entities and Data Access Layers – these tend to be tuned to the scope of the application, so reusing them can be hard unless the abstract is very stable. So what’s the big lesson?  Reuse is hard.  In fact it’s damn hard.  And much of the time I’m not convinced we should focus too hard on it. If you’re designing a utility or framework, then by all means design it for reuse.  But you most also really set down a good versioning, release, and documentation process to maximize your chances.  For anything else, design it to be maintainable and extendable, but don’t waste the effort on reusability for something that most likely will be obsolete in a year or two anyway.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, January 31, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, January 31, 2011Popular ReleasesMVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 0.8: Fixed the following bugs: *Variable name error in the jvascript file that prevented the use of the deleted item template of the Datagrid *Now after the changes applied to an item of the DataGrid are cancelled all input fields are reset to the very initial value they had. *Other minor bugs. Added: *This version is available both for MVC2, and MVC 3. The MVC 3 version has a release number of 0.85. This way one can install both version. *Client Validation support has been added to all control...Office Web.UI: Beta preview (Source): This is the first Beta. it includes full source code and all available controls. Some designers are not ready, and some features are not finalized allready (missing properties, draft styles) ThanksASP.net Ribbon: Version 2.2: This release brings some new controls (part of Office Web.UI). A few bugs are fixed and it includes the "auto resize" feature as you resize the window. (It can cause an infinite loop when the window is too reduced, it's why this release is not marked as "stable"). I will release more versions 2.3, 2.4... until V3 which will be the official launch of Office Web.UI. Both products will evolve at the same speed. Thanks.Barcode Rendering Framework: 2.1.1.0: Final release for VS2008 Finally fixed bugs with code 128 symbology.HERB.IQ: HERB.IQ.UPGRADE.0.5.3.exe: HERB.IQ.UPGRADE.0.5.3.exexUnit.net - Unit Testing for .NET: xUnit.net 1.7: xUnit.net release 1.7Build #1540 Important notes for Resharper users: Resharper support has been moved to the xUnit.net Contrib project. Important note for TestDriven.net users: If you are having issues running xUnit.net tests in TestDriven.net, especially on 64-bit Windows, we strongly recommend you upgrade to TD.NET version 3.0 or later. This release adds the following new features: Added support for ASP.NET MVC 3 Added Assert.Equal(double expected, double actual, int precision) Ad...DoddleReport - Automatic HTML/Excel/PDF Reporting: DoddleReport 1.0: DoddleReport will add automatic tabular-based reporting (HTML/PDF/Excel/etc) for any LINQ Query, IEnumerable, DataTable or SharePoint List For SharePoint integration please click Here PDF Reporting has been placed into a separate assembly because it requies AbcPdf http://www.websupergoo.com/download.htmSpark View Engine: Spark v1.5: Release Notes There have been a lot of minor changes going on since version 1.1, but most important to note are the major changes which include: Support for HTML5 "section" tag. Spark has now renamed its own section tag to "segment" instead to avoid clashes. You can still use "section" in a Spark sense for legacy support by specifying ParseSectionAsSegment = true if needed while you transition Bindings - this is a massive feature that further simplifies your views by giving you a powerful ...Marr DataMapper: Marr DataMapper 1.0.0 beta: First release.WPF Application Framework (WAF): WPF Application Framework (WAF) 2.0.0.3: Version: 2.0.0.3 (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 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 ...Rawr: Rawr 4.0.17 Beta: Rawr is now web-based. The link to use Rawr4 is: http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.phpThis is the Cataclysm Beta Release. More details can be found at the following link http://rawr.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=237262 and on the Version Notes page: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes As of the 4.0.16 release, you can now also begin using the new Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!This is a pre-alpha release of the WPF version, there are likely to be a lot of issues. If you...Squiggle - A Free open source LAN Messenger: Squiggle 2.5 Beta: In this release following are the new features: Localization: Support for Arabic, French, German and Chinese (Simplified) Bridge: Connect two Squiggle nets across the WAN or different subnets Aliases: Special codes with special meaning can be embedded in message like (version),(datetime),(time),(date),(you),(me) Commands: cls, /exit, /offline, /online, /busy, /away, /main Sound notifications: Get audio alerts on contact online, message received, buzz Broadcast for group: You can ri...VivoSocial: VivoSocial 7.4.2: Version 7.4.2 of VivoSocial has been released. If you experienced any issues with the previous version, please update your modules to the 7.4.2 release and see if they persist. If you have any questions about this release, please post them in our Support forums. If you are experiencing a bug or would like to request a new feature, please submit it to our issue tracker. Web Controls * Updated Business Objects and added a new SQL Data Provider File. Groups * Fixed a security issue whe...PHP Manager for IIS: PHP Manager 1.1.1 for IIS 7: This is a minor release of PHP Manager for IIS 7. It contains all the functionality available in 56962 plus several bug fixes (see change list for more details). Also, this release includes Russian language support. SHA1 codes for the downloads are: PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x86.msi - 6570B4A8AC8B5B776171C2BA0572C190F0900DE2 PHPManagerForIIS-1.1.0-x64.msi - 12EDE004EFEE57282EF11A8BAD1DC1ADFD66A654mojoPortal: 2.3.6.1: see release notes on mojoportal.com http://www.mojoportal.com/mojoportal-2361-released.aspx 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.Parallel Programming with Microsoft Visual C++: Drop 6 - Chapters 4 and 5: This is Drop 6. It includes: Drafts of the Preface, Introduction, Chapters 2-7, Appendix B & C and the glossary Sample code for chapters 2-7 and Appendix A & B. The new material we'd like feedback on is: Chapter 4 - Parallel Aggregation Chapter 5 - Futures The source code requires Visual Studio 2010 in order to run. There is a known bug in the A-Dash sample when the user attempts to cancel a parallel calculation. We are working to fix this.NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.160: The NodeXL Excel template displays a network graph using edge and vertex lists stored in an Excel 2007 or Excel 2010 workbook. What's NewThis release improves NodeXL's Twitter and Pajek features. See the Complete NodeXL Release History for details. Installation StepsFollow these steps to install and use the template: Download the Zip file. Unzip it into any folder. Use WinZip or a similar program, or just right-click the Zip file in Windows Explorer and select "Extract All." Close Ex...Kooboo CMS: Kooboo CMS 3.0 CTP: Files in this downloadkooboo_CMS.zip: The kooboo application files Content_DBProvider.zip: Additional content database implementation of MSSQL, RavenDB and SQLCE. 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 to enable...UOB & ME: UOB ME 2.6: UOB ME 2.6????: ???? V1.0: ???? V1.0 ??New ProjectsAuto Complete Control for ASP.NET: Autocomplete Control is a fully functional ASP.NET control for word suggestions and autocomplete. We had been using Ajax Control Toolkit AutoComplete Extender in our projects before, but we have needed some extra features and functionalities.Cours ESIEE: MAJ des cours ESIEE depuis la plateforme Icampus et autres documentsEngineering World Expenses: Demo expenses application for Engineering World 2011Entity Framework / Linq to Sql Poco Code Generator: Poco Orm data access layer (Dto) code generator for Entity Framework and Linq to Sql. Customizable code generation via simple templating system. Utilizes Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) in order for application parts to dynamically composed and plug-able.linqish.py: Python module for manipulating iterables. An implementation of the .Net Framework's Linq to Objects for Python.Machinekey setter: This code sample is Windows Azure SDK 1.3 custom plugin. This sample do working at set custom key to machinekey of web.config file in your WebRole.MapReduce.NET: MapReduce.NET intends to implement the original paper proposed by Google on MapReduce.Marr DataMapper: Marr DataMapper provides a fast and easy to use wrapper around ADO.NET that enables you to focus more on your data access queries without having to write plumbing code. Load one-to-one, one-to-many, and hierarchical entity models with ease. No special base class required.Orchard Silverlight: Orchard module enabling embedding Silverlight applications and creating Silverlight-based content.RouteMagic: Library of useful routing helpers and classes.Smart Skelta Utilites: Smart Skelta Utilies will provide utilties like Visual Studio 2008 Skelta Starter Kit(Project Templates and Project Item Templates),Code Snippets for Skelta Components,Skleta Attachment Extracter Web based Logger,Skelta Server utility and others for skelta based development.Solfix: Solfix is a programming language tbat is work-in-progress, but it has a lot of functionality! You can make applications for console to windows applications. The main point of Solfix is to make coding easier and less time than before.SQLite Manager: A minimal manage for sqlite databases.State Search: StateSearch provides state search algoritms such as A*, IDA*, BestFirst, etc to solve problems such as puzzles and/or path searchingTable Check Custom Field Type: SharePoint Custom Field Type for displaying a list of values with checkboxes and people editors.testsgb: testWindows Phone 7 Extension Framework: An extension method framework for Windows Phone 7 to make your code more fluent and adding a lot of common functions you don't need to reproduce.

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• Source-control 'wet-work'?

  - by Phil Factor

  When a design or creative work is flawed beyond remedy, it is often best to destroy it and start again. The other day, I lost the code to a long and intricate SQL batch I was working on. I’d thought it was impossible, but it happened. With all the technology around that is designed to prevent this occurring, this sort of accident has become a rare event.  If it weren’t for a deranged laptop, and my distraction, the code wouldn’t have been lost this time.  As always, I sighed, had a soothing cup of tea, and typed it all in again.  The new code I hastily tapped in  was much better: I’d held in my head the essence of how the code should work rather than the details: I now knew for certain  the start point, the end, and how it should be achieved. Instantly the detritus of half-baked thoughts fell away and I was able to write logical code that performed better.  Because I could work so quickly, I was able to hold the details of all the columns and variables in my head, and the dynamics of the flow of data. It was, in fact, easier and quicker to start from scratch rather than tidy up and refactor the existing code with its inevitable fumbling and half-baked ideas. What a shame that technology is now so good that developers rarely experience the cleansing shock of losing one’s code and having to rewrite it from scratch.  If you’ve never accidentally lost  your code, then it is worth doing it deliberately once for the experience. Creative people have, until Technology mistakenly prevented it, torn up their drafts or sketches, threw them in the bin, and started again from scratch.  Leonardo’s obsessive reworking of the Mona Lisa was renowned because it was so unusual:  Most artists have been utterly ruthless in destroying work that didn’t quite make it. Authors are particularly keen on writing afresh, and the results are generally positive. Lawrence of Arabia actually lost the entire 250,000 word manuscript of ‘The Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ by accidentally leaving it on a train at Reading station, before rewriting a much better version.  Now, any writer or artist is seduced by technology into altering or refining their work rather than casting it dramatically in the bin or setting a light to it on a bonfire, and rewriting it from the blank page.  It is easy to pick away at a flawed work, but the real creative process is far more brutal. Once, many years ago whilst running a software house that supplied commercial software to local businesses, I’d been supervising an accounting system for a farming cooperative. No packaged system met their needs, and it was all hand-cut code.  For us, it represented a breakthrough as it was for a government organisation, and success would guarantee more contracts. As you’ve probably guessed, the code got mangled in a disk crash just a week before the deadline for delivery, and the many backups all proved to be entirely corrupted by a faulty tape drive.  There were some fragments left on individual machines, but they were all of different versions.  The developers were in despair.  Strangely, I managed to re-write the bulk of a three-month project in a manic and caffeine-soaked weekend.  Sure, that elegant universally-applicable input-form routine was‘nt quite so elegant, but it didn’t really need to be as we knew what forms it needed to support.  Yes, the code lacked architectural elegance and reusability. By dawn on Monday, the application passed its integration tests. The developers rose to the occasion after I’d collapsed, and tidied up what I’d done, though they were reproachful that some of the style and elegance had gone out of the application. By the delivery date, we were able to install it. It was a smaller, faster application than the beta they’d seen and the user-interface had a new, rather Spartan, appearance that we swore was done to conform to the latest in user-interface guidelines. (we switched to Helvetica font to look more ‘Bauhaus’ ). The client was so delighted that he forgave the new bugs that had crept in. I still have the disk that crashed, up in the attic. In IT, we have had mixed experiences from complete re-writes. Lotus 123 never really recovered from a complete rewrite from assembler into C, Borland made the mistake with Arago and Quattro Pro  and Netscape’s complete rewrite of their Navigator 4 browser was a white-knuckle ride. In all cases, the decision to rewrite was a result of extreme circumstances where no other course of action seemed possible.   The rewrite didn’t come out of the blue. I prefer to remember the rewrite of Minix by young Linus Torvalds, or the rewrite of Bitkeeper by a slightly older Linus.  The rewrite of CP/M didn’t do too badly either, did it? Come to think of it, the guy who decided to rewrite the windowing system of the Xerox Star never regretted the decision. I’ll agree that one should often resist calls for a rewrite. One of the worst habits of the more inexperienced programmer is to denigrate whatever code he or she inherits, and then call loudly for a complete rewrite. They are buoyed up by the mistaken belief that they can do better. This, however, is a different psychological phenomenon, more related to the idea of some motorcyclists that they are operating on infinite lives, or the occasional squaddies that if they charge the machine-guns determinedly enough all will be well. Grim experience brings out the humility in any experienced programmer.  I’m referring to quite different circumstances here. Where a team knows the requirements perfectly, are of one mind on methodology and coding standards, and they already have a solution, then what is wrong with considering  a complete rewrite? Rewrites are so painful in the early stages, until that point where one realises the payoff, that even I quail at the thought. One needs a natural disaster to push one over the edge. The trouble is that source-control systems, and disaster recovery systems, are just too good nowadays.   If I were to lose this draft of this very blog post, I know I’d rewrite it much better. However, if you read this, you’ll know I didn’t have the nerve to delete it and start again.  There was a time that one prayed that unreliable hardware would deliver you from an unmaintainable mess of a codebase, but now technology has made us almost entirely immune to such a merciful act of God. An old friend of mine with long experience in the software industry has long had the idea of the ‘source-control wet-work’,  where one hires a malicious hacker in some wild eastern country to hack into one’s own  source control system to destroy all trace of the source to an application. Alas, backup systems are just too good to make this any more than a pipedream. Somehow, it would be difficult to promote the idea. As an alternative, could one construct a source control system that, on doing all the code-quality metrics, would systematically destroy all trace of source code that failed the quality test? Alas, I can’t see many managers buying into the idea. In reading the full story of the near-loss of Toy Story 2, it set me thinking. It turned out that the lucky restoration of the code wasn’t the happy ending one first imagined it to be, because they eventually came to the conclusion that the plot was fundamentally flawed and it all had to be rewritten anyway.  Was this an early  case of the ‘source-control wet-job’?’ It is very hard nowadays to do a rapid U-turn in a development project because we are far too prone to cling to our existing source-code.

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• Order of parts in SMTP multipart messages

  - by Chris

  Hi, I'd like to know how to build an SMTP multipart message in the correct order so that it will render correctly on the iPhone mail client (rendering correctly in GMail). I'm using Javamail to build up an email containing the following parts: A body part with content type "text/html; UTF-8" An embedded image attachment. A file attachment I am sending the mail via GMail SMTP (via SSL) and the mail is sent and rendered correctly using a GMail account, however, the mail does not render correctly on the iPhone mail client. On the iPhone mail client, the image is rendered before the "Before Image" text when it should be rendered afterwards. After the "Before Image" text there is an icon with a question mark (I assume it means it couldn't find the referenced CID). I'm not sure if this is a limitation of the iPhone mail client or a bug in my mail sending code (I strongly assume the latter). I think that perhaps the headers on my parts might by incorrect or perhaps I am providing the multiparts in the wrong order. I include the text of the received mail as output by gmail (which renders the file correc Message-ID: <[email protected]> Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Test_from_=E3=82=AF=E3=83=AA=E3=82=B9?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755" ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755 Content-Type: application/octet-stream Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-ID: <20100518124021763_368238_0> iVBORw0K ----- TRIMMED FOR CONCISENESS 6p1VVy4alAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <html><head><title>Employees Favourite Foods</title> <style> body { font: normal 8pt arial; } th { font: bold 8pt arial; white-space: nowrap; } td { font: normal 8pt arial; white-space: nowrap; } </style></head><body> Before Image<br><img src="cid:20100518124021763_368238_0"> After Image<br><table border="0"> <tr> <th colspan="4">Employees Favourite Foods</th> </tr> <tr> <th align="left">Name</th><th align="left">Age</th><th align="left">Tel.No</th><th align="left">Fav.Food</th> </tr> <tr style="background-color:#e0e0e0"> <td>Chris</td><td>34</td><td>555-123-4567</td><td>Pancakes</td> </tr> </table></body></html> ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name=textfile.txt Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=textfile.txt This is a textfile with numbers counting from one to ten beneath this line: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten(no trailing carriage return) ------=_Part_0_20870565.1274154021755-- Even if you can't assist me with this, I would appreciate it if any members of the forum could forward me a (non-personal) mail that includes inline images (not external hyperlinked images though). I just need to find a working sample then I can move past this. Thanks, Chris.

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