Search Results

Search found 4617 results on 185 pages for 'coding crow'.

Page 90/185 | < Previous Page | 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97  | Next Page >

• Open 2 Firefox Shortcuts on 2 different screens.

  - by Rhepungus

  Hey Everyone. Is is possible to have 2 Firefox shortcuts on your desktop and when you open them they open to a designated different screen (new window/different screen)? I have a 3 screen set up, Win XP and using FF3.6. If no way of coding it, maybe a product that will do it? I appreciate your time. Thanks.

  Read the article

• Better way to write this method with this pattern?

  - by Slorthe

  I have written a lot of methods and I want to time how long it takes for them to run. public void myMethod(){ startTiming(); doLotsOfStuff(); stopTiming(); } I am not only timing, I am also doing some other stuff before AND after the doLotsOfStuff() method. I was wondering if there is a better/smarter way to do this in C# to achieve lesser amount of lines/coding needed for this particular pattern.

  Read the article

• Another Marketing Conference, part two – the afternoon

  - by Roger Hart

  In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 – Brand ambassadors: Getting universal buy in across the organisation, Vanessa Northam Slides are here This was the strongest enforcement of the idea that brand and campaign values need to be delivered throughout the organization if they’re going to work. Vanessa runs internal communications at e-on, and shared her experience of using internal comms to align an organization and thereby get the most out of a campaign. She views the purpose of internal comms as: “…to help leaders, to communicate the purpose and future of an organization, and support change.” This (and culture) primes front line staff, which creates customer experience and spreads brand. You ensure a whole organization knows what’s going on with both internal and external comms. If everybody is aligned and informed, if everybody can clearly articulate your brand and campaign goals, then you can turn everybody into an advocate. Alignment is a powerful tool for delivering a consistent experience and message. The pathological counter example is the one in which a marketing message goes out, which creates inbound customer contacts that front line contact staff haven’t been briefed to handle. The NatWest campaign was again mentioned in this context. The good example was e-on’s cheaper tariff campaign. Building a groundswell of internal excitement, and even running an internal launch meant everyone could contribute to a good customer experience. They found that meter readers were excited – not a group they’d considered as obvious in providing customer experience. But they were a group that has a lot of face-to-face contact with customers, and often were asked questions they may not have been briefed to answer. Being able to communicate a simple new message made it easier for them, and also let them become a sales and marketing asset to the organization. 7 – Goodbye Internet, Hello Outernet: the rise and rise of augmented reality, Matt Mills I wasn’t going to write this up, because it was essentially a sales demo for Aurasma. But the technology does merit some discussion. Basically, it replaces QR codes with visual recognition, and provides a simple-looking back end for attaching content. It’s quite sexy. But here’s my beef with it: QR codes had a clear visual language – when you saw one you knew what it was and what to do with it. They were clunky, but they had the “getting started” problem solved out of the box once you knew what you were looking at. However, they fail because QR code reading isn’t native to the platform. You needed an app, which meant you needed to know to download one. Consequentially, you can’t use QR codes with and ubiquity, or depend on them. This means marketers, content providers, etc, never pushed them, and they remained and awkward oddity, a minority sport. Aurasma half solves problem two, and re-introduces problem one, making it potentially half as useful as a QR code. It’s free, and you can apparently build it into your own apps. Add to that the likelihood of it becoming native to the platform if it takes off, and it may have legs. I guess we’ll see. 8 – We all need to code, Helen Mayor Great title – good point. If there was anybody in the room who didn’t at least know basic HTML, and if Helen’s presentation inspired them to learn, that’s fantastic. However, this was a half hour sales pitch for a basic coding training course. Beyond advocating coding skills it contained no useful content. Marketers may also like to consider some of these resources if they’re looking to learn code: Code Academy – free interactive tutorials Treehouse – learn web design, web dev, or app dev WebPlatform.org – tutorials and documentation for web tech  11 – Understanding our inner creativity, Margaret Boden This session was the most theoretical and probably least actionable of the day. It also held my attention utterly. Margaret spoke fluently, fascinatingly, without slides, on the subject of types of creativity and how they work. It was splendid. Yes, it raised a wry smile whenever she spoke of “the content of advertisements” and gave an example from 1970s TV ads, but even without the attempt to meet the conference’s theme this would have been thoroughly engaging. There are, Margaret suggested, three types of creativity: Combinatorial creativity The most common form, and consisting of synthesising ideas from existing and familiar concepts and tropes. Exploratory creativity Less common, this involves exploring the limits and quirks of a particular constraint or style. Transformational creativity This is uncommon, and arises from finding a way to do something that the existing rules would hold to be impossible. In essence, this involves breaking one of the constraints that exploratory creativity is composed from. Combinatorial creativity, she suggested, is particularly important for attaching favourable ideas to existing things. As such is it probably worth developing for marketing. Exploratory creativity may then come into play in something like developing and optimising an idea or campaign that now has momentum. Transformational creativity exists at the edges of this exploration. She suggested that products may often be transformational, but that marketing seemed unlikely to in her experience. This made me wonder about Listerine. Crucially, transformational creativity is characterised by there being some element of continuity with the strictures of previous thinking. Once it has happened, there may be  move from a revolutionary instance into an explored style. Again, from a marketing perspective, this seems to chime well with the thinking in Youngme Moon’s book: Different Talking about the birth of Modernism is visual art, Margaret pointed out that transformational creativity has historically risked a backlash, demanding what is essentially an education of the market. This is best accomplished by referring back to the continuities with the past in order to make the new familiar. Thoughts The afternoon is harder to sum up than the morning. It felt less concrete, and was troubled by a short run of poor presentations in the middle. Mainly, I found myself wrestling with the internal comms issue. It’s one of those things that seems astonishingly obvious in hindsight, but any campaign – particularly any large one – is doomed if the people involved can’t believe in it. We’ve run things here that haven’t gone so well, of course we have; who hasn’t? I’m not going to air any laundry, but people not being informed (much less aligned) feels like a common factor. It’s tough though. Managing and anticipating information needs across an organization of any size can’t be easy. Even the simple things like ensuring sales and support departments know what’s in a product release, and what messages go with it are easy to botch. The thing I like about framing this as a brand and campaign advocacy problem is that it makes it likely to get addressed. Better is always sexier than less-worse. Any technical communicator who’s ever felt crowded out by a content strategist or marketing copywriter  knows this – increasing revenue gets a seat at the table far more readily than reducing support costs, even if the financial impact is identical. So that’s it from AMC. The big thought-provokers were social buying behaviour and eliciting behaviour change, and the value of internal communications in ensuring successful campaigns and continuity of customer experience. I’ll be chewing over that for a while, and I’d definitely return next year.      

  Read the article

• Listing common SQL Code Smells.

  - by Phil Factor

  Once you’ve done a number of SQL Code-reviews, you’ll know those signs in the code that all might not be well. These ’Code Smells’ are coding styles that don’t directly cause a bug, but are indicators that all is not well with the code. . Kent Beck and Massimo Arnoldi seem to have coined the phrase in the "OnceAndOnlyOnce" page of www.C2.com, where Kent also said that code "wants to be simple". Bad Smells in Code was an essay by Kent Beck and Martin Fowler, published as Chapter 3 of the book ‘Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code’ (ISBN 978-0201485677) Although there are generic code-smells, SQL has its own particular coding habits that will alert the programmer to the need to re-factor what has been written. See Exploring Smelly Code   and Code Deodorants for Code Smells by Nick Harrison for a grounding in Code Smells in C# I’ve always been tempted by the idea of automating a preliminary code-review for SQL. It would be so useful to trawl through code and pick up the various problems, much like the classic ‘Lint’ did for C, and how the Code Metrics plug-in for .NET Reflector by Jonathan 'Peli' de Halleux is used for finding Code Smells in .NET code. The problem is that few of the standard procedural code smells are relevant to SQL, and we need an agreed list of code smells. Merrilll Aldrich made a grand start last year in his blog Top 10 T-SQL Code Smells.However, I'd like to make a start by discovering if there is a general opinion amongst Database developers what the most important SQL Smells are. One can be a bit defensive about code smells. I will cheerfully write very long stored procedures, even though they are frowned on. I’ll use dynamic SQL occasionally. You can only use them as an aid for your own judgment and it is fine to ‘sign them off’ as being appropriate in particular circumstances. Also, whole classes of ‘code smells’ may be irrelevant for a particular database. The use of proprietary SQL, for example, is only a ‘code smell’ if there is a chance that the database will have to be ported to another RDBMS. The use of dynamic SQL is a risk only with certain security models. As the saying goes,  a CodeSmell is a hint of possible bad practice to a pragmatist, but a sure sign of bad practice to a purist. Plamen Ratchev’s wonderful article Ten Common SQL Programming Mistakes lists some of these ‘code smells’ along with out-and-out mistakes, but there are more. The use of nested transactions, for example, isn’t entirely incorrect, even though the database engine ignores all but the outermost: but it does flag up the possibility that the programmer thinks that nested transactions are supported. If anything requires some sort of general agreement, the definition of code smells is one. I’m therefore going to make this Blog ‘dynamic, in that, if anyone twitters a suggestion with a #SQLCodeSmells tag (or sends me a twitter) I’ll update the list here. If you add a comment to the blog with a suggestion of what should be added or removed, I’ll do my best to oblige. In other words, I’ll try to keep this blog up to date. The name against each 'smell' is the name of the person who Twittered me, commented about or who has written about the 'smell'. it does not imply that they were the first ever to think of the smell! Use of deprecated syntax such as *= (Dave Howard) Denormalisation that requires the shredding of the contents of columns. (Merrill Aldrich) Contrived interfaces Use of deprecated datatypes such as TEXT/NTEXT (Dave Howard) Datatype mis-matches in predicates that rely on implicit conversion.(Plamen Ratchev) Using Correlated subqueries instead of a join   (Dave_Levy/ Plamen Ratchev) The use of Hints in queries, especially NOLOCK (Dave Howard /Mike Reigler) Few or No comments. Use of functions in a WHERE clause. (Anil Das) Overuse of scalar UDFs (Dave Howard, Plamen Ratchev) Excessive ‘overloading’ of routines. The use of Exec xp_cmdShell (Merrill Aldrich) Excessive use of brackets. (Dave Levy) Lack of the use of a semicolon to terminate statements Use of non-SARGable functions on indexed columns in predicates (Plamen Ratchev) Duplicated code, or strikingly similar code. Misuse of SELECT * (Plamen Ratchev) Overuse of Cursors (Everyone. Special mention to Dave Levy & Adrian Hills) Overuse of CLR routines when not necessary (Sam Stange) Same column name in different tables with different datatypes. (Ian Stirk) Use of ‘broken’ functions such as ‘ISNUMERIC’ without additional checks. Excessive use of the WHILE loop (Merrill Aldrich) INSERT ... EXEC (Merrill Aldrich) The use of stored procedures where a view is sufficient (Merrill Aldrich) Not using two-part object names (Merrill Aldrich) Using INSERT INTO without specifying the columns and their order (Merrill Aldrich) Full outer joins even when they are not needed. (Plamen Ratchev) Huge stored procedures (hundreds/thousands of lines). Stored procedures that can produce different columns, or order of columns in their results, depending on the inputs. Code that is never used. Complex and nested conditionals WHILE (not done) loops without an error exit. Variable name same as the Datatype Vague identifiers. Storing complex data  or list in a character map, bitmap or XML field User procedures with sp_ prefix (Aaron Bertrand)Views that reference views that reference views that reference views (Aaron Bertrand) Inappropriate use of sql_variant (Neil Hambly) Errors with identity scope using SCOPE_IDENTITY @@IDENTITY or IDENT_CURRENT (Neil Hambly, Aaron Bertrand) Schemas that involve multiple dated copies of the same table instead of partitions (Matt Whitfield-Atlantis UK) Scalar UDFs that do data lookups (poor man's join) (Matt Whitfield-Atlantis UK) Code that allows SQL Injection (Mladen Prajdic) Tables without clustered indexes (Matt Whitfield-Atlantis UK) Use of "SELECT DISTINCT" to mask a join problem (Nick Harrison) Multiple stored procedures with nearly identical implementation. (Nick Harrison) Excessive column aliasing may point to a problem or it could be a mapping implementation. (Nick Harrison) Joining "too many" tables in a query. (Nick Harrison) Stored procedure returning more than one record set. (Nick Harrison) A NOT LIKE condition (Nick Harrison) excessive "OR" conditions. (Nick Harrison) User procedures with sp_ prefix (Aaron Bertrand) Views that reference views that reference views that reference views (Aaron Bertrand) sp_OACreate or anything related to it (Bill Fellows) Prefixing names with tbl_, vw_, fn_, and usp_ ('tibbling') (Jeremiah Peschka) Aliases that go a,b,c,d,e... (Dave Levy/Diane McNurlan) Overweight Queries (e.g. 4 inner joins, 8 left joins, 4 derived tables, 10 subqueries, 8 clustered GUIDs, 2 UDFs, 6 case statements = 1 query) (Robert L Davis) Order by 3,2 (Dave Levy) MultiStatement Table functions which are then filtered 'Sel * from Udf() where Udf.Col = Something' (Dave Ballantyne) running a SQL 2008 system in SQL 2000 compatibility mode(John Stafford)

  Read the article

• How to Upload a file from client to server using OFBIZ?

  - by SIVAKUMAR.J

  I'm new to ofbiz so try to keep your answer as simple as possibly. If you can give examples that would be kind. My problem is I created a project inside the ofbiz/hot-deploy folder namely productionmgntSystem. Inside the folder ofbiz\hot-deploy\productionmgntSystem\webapp\productionmgntSystem I created a file app_details_1.ftl. The following are the code of this file <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title>Insert title here</title> <script TYPE="TEXT/JAVASCRIPT" language=""JAVASCRIPT"> function uploadFile() { //alert("Before calling upload.jsp"); window.location='<@ofbizUrl>testing_service1</@ofbizUrl>' } </script> </head> <!-- <form action="<@ofbizUrl>testing_service1</@ofbizUrl>" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="app_details_frm"> --> <form action="<@ofbizUrl>logout1</@ofbizUrl>" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="app_details_frm"> <center style="height: 299px; "> <table border="0" style="height: 177px; width: 788px"> <tr style="height: 115px; "> <td style="width: 103px; "> <td style="width: 413px; "><h1>APPLICATION DETAILS</h1> <td style="width: 55px; "> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 125px; ">Application name : </td> <td> <input name="app_name_txt" id="txt_1" value=" " /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 125px; ">Excell sheet &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;: </td> <td> <input type="file" name="filename"/> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <!-- <input type="button" name="logout1_cmd" value="Logout" onclick="logout1()"/> --> <input type="submit" name="logout_cmd" value="logout"/> </td> <td> <!-- <input type="submit" name="upload_cmd" value="Submit" /> --> <input type="button" name="upload1_cmd" value="Upload" onclick="uploadFile()"/> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </form> </html> the following coding is present in the file ofbiz\hot-deploy\productionmgntSystem\webapp\productionmgntSystem\WEB-INF\controller.xml ...... ....... ........ <request-map uri="testing_service1"> <security https="true" auth="true"/> <event type="java" path="org.ofbiz.productionmgntSystem.web_app_req.WebServices1" invoke="testingService"/> <response name="ok" type="view" value="ok_view"/> <response name="exception" type="view" value="exception_view"/> </request-map> .......... ............ .......... <view-map name="ok_view" type="ftl" page="ok_view.ftl"/> <view-map name="exception_view" type="ftl" page="exception_view.ftl"/> ................ ............. ............. The following are the coding present in the file ofbiz\hot-deploy\productionmgntSystem\src\org\ofbiz\productionmgntSystem\web_app_req\WebServices1.java package org.ofbiz.productionmgntSystem.web_app_req; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; import java.io.DataInputStream; import java.io.FileOutputStream; import java.io.IOException; public class WebServices1 { public static String testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) { //int i=0; String result="ok"; System.out.println("\n\n\t*************************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)- Start"); String contentType=request.getContentType(); System.out.println("\n\n\t*************************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)- contentType : "+contentType); String str=new String(); // response.setContentType("text/html"); //PrintWriter writer; if ((contentType != null) && (contentType.indexOf("multipart/form-data") >= 0)) { System.out.println("\n\n\t**********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) after if (contentType != null)"); try { // writer=response.getWriter(); System.out.println("\n\n\t**********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - try Start"); DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(request.getInputStream()); int formDataLength = request.getContentLength(); byte dataBytes[] = new byte[formDataLength]; int byteRead = 0; int totalBytesRead = 0; //this loop converting the uploaded file into byte code while (totalBytesRead < formDataLength) { byteRead = in.read(dataBytes, totalBytesRead,formDataLength); totalBytesRead += byteRead; } String file = new String(dataBytes); //for saving the file name String saveFile = file.substring(file.indexOf("filename=\"") + 10); saveFile = saveFile.substring(0, saveFile.indexOf("\n")); saveFile = saveFile.substring(saveFile.lastIndexOf("\\")+ 1,saveFile.indexOf("\"")); int lastIndex = contentType.lastIndexOf("="); String boundary = contentType.substring(lastIndex + 1,contentType.length()); int pos; //extracting the index of file pos = file.indexOf("filename=\""); pos = file.indexOf("\n", pos) + 1; pos = file.indexOf("\n", pos) + 1; pos = file.indexOf("\n", pos) + 1; int boundaryLocation = file.indexOf(boundary, pos) - 4; int startPos = ((file.substring(0, pos)).getBytes()).length; int endPos = ((file.substring(0, boundaryLocation)).getBytes()).length; //creating a new file with the same name and writing the content in new file FileOutputStream fileOut = new FileOutputStream("/"+saveFile); fileOut.write(dataBytes, startPos, (endPos - startPos)); fileOut.flush(); fileOut.close(); System.out.println("\n\n\t**********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - try End"); } catch(IOException ioe) { System.out.println("\n\n\t*********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - Catch IOException"); //ioe.printStackTrace(); return("exception"); } catch(Exception ex) { System.out.println("\n\n\t*********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - Catch Exception"); return("exception"); } } else { System.out.println("\n\n\t********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) else part"); result="exception"; } System.out.println("\n\n\t*************************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)- End"); return(result); } } I want to upload a file to the server. The file is get from user " tag in the "app_details_1.ftl" file & it is updated into the server by using the method "testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)" in the class "WebServices1". But the file is not uploaded. Give me a good solution for uploading a file to the server.

  Read the article

• SQL SERVER – Extending SQL Azure with Azure worker role – Guest Post by Paras Doshi

  - by pinaldave

  This is guest post by Paras Doshi. Paras Doshi is a research Intern at SolidQ.com and a Microsoft student partner. He is currently working in the domain of SQL Azure. SQL Azure is nothing but a SQL server in the cloud. SQL Azure provides benefits such as on demand rapid provisioning, cost-effective scalability, high availability and reduced management overhead. To see an introduction on SQL Azure, check out the post by Pinal here In this article, we are going to discuss how to extend SQL Azure with the Azure worker role. In other words, we will attempt to write a custom code and host it in the Azure worker role; the aim is to add some features that are not available with SQL Azure currently or features that need to be customized for flexibility. This way we extend the SQL Azure capability by building some solutions that run on Azure as worker roles. To understand Azure worker role, think of it as a windows service in cloud. Azure worker role can perform background processes, and to handle processes such as synchronization and backup, it becomes our ideal tool. First, we will focus on writing a worker role code that synchronizes SQL Azure databases. Before we do so, let’s see some scenarios in which synchronization between SQL Azure databases is beneficial: scaling out access over multiple databases enables us to handle workload efficiently As of now, SQL Azure database can be hosted in one of any six datacenters. By synchronizing databases located in different data centers, one can extend the data by enabling access to geographically distributed data Let us see some scenarios in which SQL server to SQL Azure database synchronization is beneficial To backup SQL Azure database on local infrastructure Rather than investing in local infrastructure for increased workloads, such workloads could be handled by cloud Ability to extend data to different datacenters located across the world to enable efficient data access from remote locations Now, let us develop cloud-based app that synchronizes SQL Azure databases. For an Introduction to developing cloud based apps, click here Now, in this article, I aim to provide a bird’s eye view of how a code that synchronizes SQL Azure databases look like and then list resources that can help you develop the solution from scratch. Now, if you newly add a worker role to the cloud-based project, this is how the code will look like. (Note: I have added comments to the skeleton code to point out the modifications that will be required in the code to carry out the SQL Azure synchronization. Note the placement of Setup() and Sync() function.) Click here (http://parasdoshi1989.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/code-snippet-1-for-extending-sql-azure-with-azure-worker-role1.pdf ) Enabling SQL Azure databases synchronization through sync framework is a two-step process. In the first step, the database is provisioned and sync framework creates tracking tables, stored procedures, triggers, and tables to store metadata to enable synchronization. This is one time step. The code for the same is put in the setup() function which is called once when the worker role starts. Now, the second step is continuous (or on demand) synchronization of SQL Azure databases by propagating changes between databases. This is done on a continuous basis by calling the sync() function in the while loop. The code logic to synchronize changes between SQL Azure databases should be put in the sync() function. Discussing the coding part step by step is out of the scope of this article. Therefore, let me suggest you a resource, which is given here. Also, note that before you start developing the code, you will need to install SYNC framework 2.1 SDK (download here). Further, you will reference some libraries before you start coding. Details regarding the same are available in the article that I just pointed to. You will be charged for data transfers if the databases are not in the same datacenter. For pricing information, go here Currently, a tool named DATA SYNC, which is built on top of sync framework, is available in CTP that allows SQL Azure <-> SQL server and SQL Azure <-> SQL Azure synchronization (without writing single line of code); however, in some cases, the custom code shown in this blogpost provides flexibility that is not available with Data SYNC. For instance, filtering is not supported in the SQL Azure DATA SYNC CTP2; if you wish to have such a functionality now, then you have the option of developing a custom code using SYNC Framework. Now, this code can be easily extended to synchronize at some schedule. Let us say we want the databases to get synchronized every day at 10:00 pm. This is what the code will look like now: (http://parasdoshi1989.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/code-snippet-2-for-extending-sql-azure-with-azure-worker-role.pdf) Don’t you think that by writing such a code, we are imitating the functionality provided by the SQL server agent for a SQL server? Think about it. We are scheduling our administrative task by writing custom code – in other words, we have developed a “Light weight SQL server agent for SQL Azure!” Since the SQL server agent is not currently available in cloud, we have developed a solution that enables us to schedule tasks, and thus we have extended SQL Azure with the Azure worker role! Now if you wish to track jobs, you can do so by storing this data in SQL Azure (or Azure tables). The reason is that Windows Azure is a stateless platform, and we will need to store the state of the job ourselves and the choice that you have is SQL Azure or Azure tables. Note that this solution requires custom code and also it is not UI driven; however, for now, it can act as a temporary solution until SQL server agent is made available in the cloud. Moreover, this solution does not encompass functionalities that a SQL server agent provides, but it does open up an interesting avenue to schedule some of the tasks such as backup and synchronization of SQL Azure databases by writing some custom code in the Azure worker role. Now, let us see one more possibility – i.e., running BCP through a worker role in Azure-hosted services and then uploading the backup files either locally or on blobs. If you upload it locally, then consider the data transfer cost. If you upload it to blobs residing in the same datacenter, then no transfer cost applies but the cost on blob size applies. So, before choosing the option, you need to evaluate your preferences keeping the cost associated with each option in mind. In this article, I have shown that Azure worker role solution could be developed to synchronize SQL Azure databases. Moreover, a light-weight SQL server agent for SQL Azure can be developed. Also we discussed the possibility of running BCP through a worker role in Azure-hosted services for backing up our precious SQL Azure data. Thus, we can extend SQL Azure with the Azure worker role. But remember: you will be charged for running Azure worker roles. So at the end of the day, you need to ask – am I willing to build a custom code and pay money to achieve this functionality? I hope you found this blog post interesting. If you have any questions/feedback, you can comment below or you can mail me at Paras[at]student-partners[dot]com Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Azure, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

  Read the article

• How to Organize a Programming Language Club

  - by Ben Griswold

  I previously noted that we started a language club at work.  You know, I searched around but I couldn’t find a copy of the How to Organize a Programming Language Club Handbook. Maybe it’s sold out?  Yes, Stack Overflow has quite a bit of information on how to learn and teach new languages and there’s also a good number of online tutorials which provide language introductions but I was interested in group learning.  After   two months of meetings, I present to you the Unofficial How to Organize a Programming Language Club Handbook.  1. Gauge interest. Start by surveying prospects. “Excuse me, smart-developer-whom-I-work-with-and-I-think-might-be-interested-in-learning-a-new-coding-language-with-me. Are you interested in learning a new language with me?” If you’re lucky, you work with a bunch of really smart folks who aren’t shy about teaching/learning in a group setting and you’ll have a collective interest in no time.  Simply suggesting the idea is the only effort required.  If you don’t work in this type of environment, maybe you should consider a new place of employment.  2. Make it official. Send out a “Welcome to the Club” email: There’s been talk of folks itching to learn new languages – Python, Scala, F# and Haskell to name a few.  Rather than taking on new languages alone, let’s learn in the open.  That’s right.  Let’s start a languages club.  We’ll have everything a real club needs – secret handshake, goofy motto and a high-and-mighty sense that we’re better than everybody else. T-shirts?  Hell YES!  Anyway, I’ve thrown this idea around the office and no one has laughed at me yet so please consider this your very official invitation to be in THE club. [Insert your ideas about how the club might be run, solicit feedback and suggestions, ask what other folks would like to get out the club, comment about club hazing practices and talk up the T-shirts even more. Finally, call out the languages you are interested in learning and ask the group for their list.] 3.  Send out invitations to the first meeting.  Don’t skimp!  Hallmark greeting cards for everyone.  Personalized.  Hearts over the I’s and everything.  Oh, and be sure to include the list of suggested languages with vote count.  Here the list of languages we are interested in: Python 5 Ruby 4 Objective-C 3 F# 2 Haskell 2 Scala 2 Ada 1 Boo 1 C# 1 Clojure 1 Erlang 1 Go 1 Pi 1 Prolog 1 Qt 1 4.  At the first meeting, there must be cake.  Lots of cake. And you should tackle some very important questions: Which language should we start with?  You can immediately go with the top vote getter or you could do as we did and designate each person to provide a high-level review of each of the proposed languages over the next two weeks.  After all presentations are completed, vote on the language. Our high-level review consisted of answers to a series of questions. Decide how often and where the group will meet.  We, for example, meet for a brown bag lunch every Wednesday.  Decide how you’re going to learn.  We determined that the best way to learn is to just dive in and write code.  After choosing our first language (Python), we talked about building an application, or performing coding katas, but we ultimately choose to complete a series of Project Euler problems.  We kept it simple – each member works out the same two problems each week in preparation of a code review the following Wednesday. 5.  Code, Review, Learn.  Prior to the weekly meeting, everyone uploads their solutions to our internal wiki.  Each Project Euler problem has a dedicated page.  In the meeting, we use a really fancy HD projector to show off each member’s solution.  It is very important to use an HD projector.  Again, don’t skimp!  Each code author speaks to their solution, everyone else comments, applauds, points fingers and laughs, etc.  As much as I’ve learned from solving the problems on my own, I’ve learned at least twice as much at the group code review.  6.  Rinse. Lather. Repeat.  We’ve hosted the language club for 7 weeks now.  The first meeting just set the stage.  The next two meetings provided a review of the languages followed by a first language selection.  The remaining meetings focused on Python and Project Euler problems.  Today we took a vote as to whether or not we’re ready to switch to another language and/or another problem set.  Pretty much everyone wants to stay the course for a few more weeks at least.  Until then, we’ll continue to code the next two solutions, review and learn. Again, we’ve been having a good time with the programming language club.  I’m glad it got off the ground.  What do you think?  Would you be interested in a language club?  Any suggestions on what we might do better?

  Read the article

• Static background noise while using new headset Ubuntu 13.04

  - by ThundLayr

  Today I bought a new gaming headset (Gx-Gaming Lychas), and when I tried to record some gameplay-comentary I noticed that there always is a static background noise, I just recorded an example so you guys can listen it (no downloaded needed): http://www47.zippyshare.com/v/65167832/file.html I'm using Kubuntu 13.04 and Kernel version is 3.8.0-19, my laptop is an Acer Travelmate 5760Z, I tried tons of configurations on Alsamixer and none of them made result, I really need to get this working so any kind of help will be very aprecciated. cat /proc/asound/cards: 0 [PCH ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH HDA Intel PCH at 0xc6400000 irq 44 cat /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 Codec: Conexant CX20588 Address: 0 AFG Function Id: 0x1 (unsol 1) Vendor Id: 0x14f1506c Subsystem Id: 0x10250574 Revision Id: 0x100003 No Modem Function Group found Default PCM: rates [0x160]: 44100 48000 96000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x1]: PCM Default Amp-In caps: N/A Default Amp-Out caps: N/A State of AFG node 0x01: Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold CLKSTOP EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 GPIO: io=4, o=0, i=0, unsolicited=1, wake=0 IO[0]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 IO[1]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 IO[2]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 IO[3]: enable=0, dir=0, wake=0, sticky=0, data=0, unsol=0 Node 0x10 [Audio Output] wcaps 0xc1d: Stereo Amp-Out R/L Control: name="Headphone Playback Volume", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0 Control: name="Headphone Playback Switch", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0 Device: name="CX20588 Analog", type="Audio", device=0 Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x4a, nsteps=0x4a, stepsize=0x03, mute=1 Amp-Out vals: [0x4a 0x4a] Converter: stream=8, channel=0 PCM: rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x1]: PCM Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Node 0x11 [Audio Output] wcaps 0xc1d: Stereo Amp-Out R/L Control: name="Speaker Playback Volume", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0 Control: name="Speaker Playback Switch", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0 Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x4a, nsteps=0x4a, stepsize=0x03, mute=1 Amp-Out vals: [0x80 0x80] Converter: stream=8, channel=0 PCM: rates [0x560]: 44100 48000 96000 192000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x1]: PCM Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Node 0x12 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x611: Stereo Digital Converter: stream=0, channel=0 Digital: Digital category: 0x0 IEC Coding Type: 0x0 PCM: rates [0x160]: 44100 48000 96000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x5]: PCM AC3 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Node 0x13 [Beep Generator Widget] wcaps 0x70000c: Mono Amp-Out Control: name="Beep Playback Volume", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=1, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0 Control: name="Beep Playback Switch", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=1, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0 Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x07, nsteps=0x07, stepsize=0x0f, mute=0 Amp-Out vals: [0x00] Node 0x14 [Audio Input] wcaps 0x100d1b: Stereo Amp-In R/L Control: name="Capture Volume", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=0, ofs=0 Control: name="Capture Switch", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=In, idx=0, ofs=0 Device: name="CX20588 Analog", type="Audio", device=0 Amp-In caps: ofs=0x4a, nsteps=0x50, stepsize=0x03, mute=1 Amp-In vals: [0x50 0x50] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80] [0x80 0x80] Converter: stream=4, channel=0 SDI-Select: 0 PCM: rates [0x160]: 44100 48000 96000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x1]: PCM Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 4 0x17* 0x18 0x23 0x24 Node 0x15 [Audio Input] wcaps 0x100d1b: Stereo Amp-In R/L Amp-In caps: ofs=0x4a, nsteps=0x50, stepsize=0x03, mute=1 Amp-In vals: [0x4a 0x4a] [0x4a 0x4a] [0x4a 0x4a] [0x4a 0x4a] Converter: stream=0, channel=0 SDI-Select: 0 PCM: rates [0x160]: 44100 48000 96000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x1]: PCM Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 4 0x17* 0x18 0x23 0x24 Node 0x16 [Audio Input] wcaps 0x100d1b: Stereo Amp-In R/L Amp-In caps: ofs=0x4a, nsteps=0x50, stepsize=0x03, mute=1 Amp-In vals: [0x4a 0x4a] [0x4a 0x4a] [0x4a 0x4a] [0x4a 0x4a] Converter: stream=0, channel=0 SDI-Select: 0 PCM: rates [0x160]: 44100 48000 96000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x1]: PCM Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 4 0x17* 0x18 0x23 0x24 Node 0x17 [Audio Selector] wcaps 0x30050d: Stereo Amp-Out Control: name="Mic Boost Volume", index=0, device=0 ControlAmp: chs=3, dir=Out, idx=0, ofs=0 Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x04, stepsize=0x27, mute=0 Amp-Out vals: [0x04 0x04] Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 4 0x1a 0x1b* 0x1d 0x1e Node 0x18 [Audio Selector] wcaps 0x30050d: Stereo Amp-Out Amp-Out caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x04, stepsize=0x27, mute=0 Amp-Out vals: [0x00 0x00] Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 4 0x1a* 0x1b 0x1d 0x1e Node 0x19 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400581: Stereo Control: name="Headphone Jack", index=0, device=0 Pincap 0x0000001c: OUT HP Detect Pin Default 0x04214040: [Jack] HP Out at Ext Right Conn = 1/8, Color = Green DefAssociation = 0x4, Sequence = 0x0 Pin-ctls: 0xc0: OUT HP Unsolicited: tag=01, enabled=1 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 2 0x10* 0x11 Node 0x1a [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400481: Stereo Control: name="Internal Mic Phantom Jack", index=0, device=0 Pincap 0x00001324: IN Detect Vref caps: HIZ 50 80 Pin Default 0x90a70130: [Fixed] Mic at Int N/A Conn = Analog, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0x3, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x24: IN VREF_80 Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Node 0x1b [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400581: Stereo Control: name="Mic Jack", index=0, device=0 Pincap 0x00011334: IN OUT EAPD Detect Vref caps: HIZ 50 80 EAPD 0x0: Pin Default 0x04a19020: [Jack] Mic at Ext Right Conn = 1/8, Color = Pink DefAssociation = 0x2, Sequence = 0x0 Pin-ctls: 0x24: IN VREF_80 Unsolicited: tag=02, enabled=1 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 2 0x10* 0x11 Node 0x1c [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400581: Stereo Pincap 0x00000014: OUT Detect Pin Default 0x40f001f0: [N/A] Other at Ext N/A Conn = Unknown, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0xf, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x40: OUT Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 2 0x10* 0x11 Node 0x1d [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400581: Stereo Pincap 0x00010034: IN OUT EAPD Detect EAPD 0x0: Pin Default 0x40f001f0: [N/A] Other at Ext N/A Conn = Unknown, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0xf, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x40: OUT Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 2 0x10* 0x11 Node 0x1e [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400481: Stereo Pincap 0x00000024: IN Detect Pin Default 0x40f001f0: [N/A] Other at Ext N/A Conn = Unknown, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0xf, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x00: Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Node 0x1f [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400501: Stereo Control: name="Speaker Phantom Jack", index=0, device=0 Pincap 0x00000010: OUT Pin Default 0x92170110: [Fixed] Speaker at Int Front Conn = Analog, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0x1, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x40: OUT Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 2 0x10 0x11* Node 0x20 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400781: Stereo Digital Pincap 0x00000010: OUT Pin Default 0x40f001f0: [N/A] Other at Ext N/A Conn = Unknown, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0xf, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x00: Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 1 0x12 Node 0x21 [Audio Output] wcaps 0x611: Stereo Digital Converter: stream=0, channel=0 Digital: Digital category: 0x0 IEC Coding Type: 0x0 PCM: rates [0x160]: 44100 48000 96000 bits [0xe]: 16 20 24 formats [0x5]: PCM AC3 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Node 0x22 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x400781: Stereo Digital Pincap 0x00000010: OUT Pin Default 0x40f001f0: [N/A] Other at Ext N/A Conn = Unknown, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0xf, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x00: Unsolicited: tag=00, enabled=0 Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 1 0x21 Node 0x23 [Pin Complex] wcaps 0x40040b: Stereo Amp-In Amp-In caps: ofs=0x00, nsteps=0x04, stepsize=0x2f, mute=0 Amp-In vals: [0x00 0x00] Pincap 0x00000020: IN Pin Default 0x40f001f0: [N/A] Other at Ext N/A Conn = Unknown, Color = Unknown DefAssociation = 0xf, Sequence = 0x0 Misc = NO_PRESENCE Pin-ctls: 0x00: Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Node 0x24 [Audio Mixer] wcaps 0x20050b: Stereo Amp-In Amp-In caps: ofs=0x4a, nsteps=0x4a, stepsize=0x03, mute=1 Amp-In vals: [0x00 0x00] [0x00 0x00] Power states: D0 D1 D2 D3 D3cold EPSS Power: setting=D0, actual=D0 Connection: 2 0x10 0x11 Node 0x25 [Vendor Defined Widget] wcaps 0xf00000: Mono

  Read the article

• A Good Developer is So Hard to Find

  - by James Michael Hare

  Let me start out by saying I want to damn the writers of the Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever – 2. It is eating every last shred of my free time! But as I've been churning through each puzzle and marvelling at the brain teasers and trivia within, I began to think about interviewing developers and why it seems to be so hard to find good ones.  The problem is, it seems like no matter how hard we try to find the perfect way to separate the chaff from the wheat, inevitably someone will get hired who falls far short of expectations or someone will get passed over for missing a piece of trivia or a tricky brain teaser that could have been an excellent team member.   In shops that are primarily software-producing businesses or other heavily IT-oriented businesses (Microsoft, Amazon, etc) there often exists a much tighter bond between HR and the hiring development staff because development is their life-blood. Unfortunately, many of us work in places where IT is viewed as a cost or just a means to an end. In these shops, too often, HR and development staff may work against each other due to differences in opinion as to what a good developer is or what one is worth.  It seems that if you ask two different people what makes a good developer, often you will get three different opinions.   With the exception of those shops that are purely development-centric (you guys have it much easier!), most other shops have management who have very little knowledge about the development process.  Their view can often be that development is simply a skill that one learns and then once aquired, that developer can produce widgets as good as the next like workers on an assembly-line floor.  On the other side, you have many developers that feel that software development is an art unto itself and that the ability to create the most pure design or know the most obscure of keywords or write the shortest-possible obfuscated piece of code is a good coder.  So is it a skill?  An Art?  Or something entirely in between?   Saying that software is merely a skill and one just needs to learn the syntax and tools would be akin to saying anyone who knows English and can use Word can write a 300 page book that is accurate, meaningful, and stays true to the point.  This just isn't so.  It takes more than mere skill to take words and form a sentence, join those sentences into paragraphs, and those paragraphs into a document.  I've interviewed candidates who could answer obscure syntax and keyword questions and once they were hired could not code effectively at all.  So development must be more than a skill.   But on the other end, we have art.  Is development an art?  Is our end result to produce art?  I can marvel at a piece of code -- see it as concise and beautiful -- and yet that code most perform some stated function with accuracy and efficiency and maintainability.  None of these three things have anything to do with art, per se.  Art is beauty for its own sake and is a wonderful thing.  But if you apply that same though to development it just doesn't hold.  I've had developers tell me that all that matters is the end result and how you code it is entirely part of the art and I couldn't disagree more.  Yes, the end result, the accuracy, is the prime criteria to be met.  But if code is not maintainable and efficient, it would be just as useless as a beautiful car that breaks down once a week or that gets 2 miles to the gallon.  Yes, it may work in that it moves you from point A to point B and is pretty as hell, but if it can't be maintained or is not efficient, it's not a good solution.  So development must be something less than art.   In the end, I think I feel like development is a matter of craftsmanship.  We use our tools and we use our skills and set about to construct something that satisfies a purpose and yet is also elegant and efficient.  There is skill involved, and there is an art, but really it boils down to being able to craft code.  Crafting code is far more than writing code.  Anyone can write code if they know the syntax, but so few people can actually craft code that solves a purpose and craft it well.  So this is what I want to find, I want to find code craftsman!  But how?   I used to ask coding-trivia questions a long time ago and many people still fall back on this.  The thought is that if you ask the candidate some piece of coding trivia and they know the answer it must follow that they can craft good code.  For example:   What C++ keyword can be applied to a class/struct field to allow it to be changed even from a const-instance of that class/struct?  (answer: mutable)   So what do we prove if a candidate can answer this?  Only that they know what mutable means.  One would hope that this would infer that they'd know how to use it, and more importantly when and if it should ever be used!  But it rarely does!  The problem with triva questions is that you will either: Approve a really good developer who knows what some obscure keyword is (good) Reject a really good developer who never needed to use that keyword or is too inexperienced to know how to use it (bad) Approve a really bad developer who googled "C++ Interview Questions" and studied like hell but can't craft (very bad) Many HR departments love these kind of tests because they are short and easy to defend if a legal issue arrises on hiring decisions.  After all it's easy to say a person wasn't hired because they scored 30 out of 100 on some trivia test.  But unfortunately, you've eliminated a large part of your potential developer pool and possibly hired a few duds.  There are times I've hired candidates who knew every trivia question I could throw out them and couldn't craft.  And then there are times I've interviewed candidates who failed all my trivia but who I took a chance on who were my best finds ever.    So if not trivia, then what?  Brain teasers?  The thought is, these type of questions measure the thinking power of a candidate.  The problem is, once again, you will either: Approve a good candidate who has never heard the problem and can solve it (good) Reject a good candidate who just happens not to see the "catch" because they're nervous or it may be really obscure (bad) Approve a candidate who has studied enough interview brain teasers (once again, you can google em) to recognize the "catch" or knows the answer already (bad). Once again, you're eliminating good candidates and possibly accepting bad candidates.  In these cases, I think testing someone with brain teasers only tests their ability to answer brain teasers, not the ability to craft code. So how do we measure someone's ability to craft code?  Here's a novel idea: have them code!  Give them a computer and a compiler, or a whiteboard and a pen, or paper and pencil and have them construct a piece of code.  It just makes sense that if we're going to hire someone to code we should actually watch them code.  When they're done, we can judge them on several criteria: Correctness - does the candidate's solution accurately solve the problem proposed? Accuracy - is the candidate's solution reasonably syntactically correct? Efficiency - did the candidate write or use the more efficient data structures or algorithms for the job? Maintainability - was the candidate's code free of obfuscation and clever tricks that diminish readability? Persona - are they eager and willing or aloof and egotistical?  Will they work well within your team? It may sound simple, or it may sound crazy, but when I'm looking to hire a developer, I want to see them actually develop well-crafted code.

  Read the article

• Premature-Optimization and Performance Anxiety

  - by James Michael Hare

  While writing my post analyzing the new .NET 4 ConcurrentDictionary class (here), I fell into one of the classic blunders that I myself always love to warn about.  After analyzing the differences of time between a Dictionary with locking versus the new ConcurrentDictionary class, I noted that the ConcurrentDictionary was faster with read-heavy multi-threaded operations.  Then, I made the classic blunder of thinking that because the original Dictionary with locking was faster for those write-heavy uses, it was the best choice for those types of tasks.  In short, I fell into the premature-optimization anti-pattern. Basically, the premature-optimization anti-pattern is when a developer is coding very early for a perceived (whether rightly-or-wrongly) performance gain and sacrificing good design and maintainability in the process.  At best, the performance gains are usually negligible and at worst, can either negatively impact performance, or can degrade maintainability so much that time to market suffers or the code becomes very fragile due to the complexity. Keep in mind the distinction above.  I'm not talking about valid performance decisions.  There are decisions one should make when designing and writing an application that are valid performance decisions.  Examples of this are knowing the best data structures for a given situation (Dictionary versus List, for example) and choosing performance algorithms (linear search vs. binary search).  But these in my mind are macro optimizations.  The error is not in deciding to use a better data structure or algorithm, the anti-pattern as stated above is when you attempt to over-optimize early on in such a way that it sacrifices maintainability. In my case, I was actually considering trading the safety and maintainability gains of the ConcurrentDictionary (no locking required) for a slight performance gain by using the Dictionary with locking.  This would have been a mistake as I would be trading maintainability (ConcurrentDictionary requires no locking which helps readability) and safety (ConcurrentDictionary is safe for iteration even while being modified and you don't risk the developer locking incorrectly) -- and I fell for it even when I knew to watch out for it.  I think in my case, and it may be true for others as well, a large part of it was due to the time I was trained as a developer.  I began college in in the 90s when C and C++ was king and hardware speed and memory were still relatively priceless commodities and not to be squandered.  In those days, using a long instead of a short could waste precious resources, and as such, we were taught to try to minimize space and favor performance.  This is why in many cases such early code-bases were very hard to maintain.  I don't know how many times I heard back then to avoid too many function calls because of the overhead -- and in fact just last year I heard a new hire in the company where I work declare that she didn't want to refactor a long method because of function call overhead.  Now back then, that may have been a valid concern, but with today's modern hardware even if you're calling a trivial method in an extremely tight loop (which chances are the JIT compiler would optimize anyway) the results of removing method calls to speed up performance are negligible for the great majority of applications.  Now, obviously, there are those coding applications where speed is absolutely king (for example drivers, computer games, operating systems) where such sacrifices may be made.  But I would strongly advice against such optimization because of it's cost.  Many folks that are performing an optimization think it's always a win-win.  That they're simply adding speed to the application, what could possibly be wrong with that?  What they don't realize is the cost of their choice.  For every piece of straight-forward code that you obfuscate with performance enhancements, you risk the introduction of bugs in the long term technical debt of the application.  It will become so fragile over time that maintenance will become a nightmare.  I've seen such applications in places I have worked.  There are times I've seen applications where the designer was so obsessed with performance that they even designed their own memory management system for their application to try to squeeze out every ounce of performance.  Unfortunately, the application stability often suffers as a result and it is very difficult for anyone other than the original designer to maintain. I've even seen this recently where I heard a C++ developer bemoaning that in VS2010 the iterators are about twice as slow as they used to be because Microsoft added range checking (probably as part of the 0x standard implementation).  To me this was almost a joke.  Twice as slow sounds bad, but it almost never as bad as you think -- especially if you're gaining safety.  The only time twice is really that much slower is when once was too slow to begin with.  Think about it.  2 minutes is slow as a response time because 1 minute is slow.  But if an iterator takes 1 microsecond to move one position and a new, safer iterator takes 2 microseconds, this is trivial!  The only way you'd ever really notice this would be in iterating a collection just for the sake of iterating (i.e. no other operations).  To my mind, the added safety makes the extra time worth it. Always favor safety and maintainability when you can.  I know it can be a hard habit to break, especially if you started out your career early or in a language such as C where they are very performance conscious.  But in reality, these type of micro-optimizations only end up hurting you in the long run. Remember the two laws of optimization.  I'm not sure where I first heard these, but they are so true: For beginners: Do not optimize. For experts: Do not optimize yet. This is so true.  If you're a beginner, resist the urge to optimize at all costs.  And if you are an expert, delay that decision.  As long as you have chosen the right data structures and algorithms for your task, your performance will probably be more than sufficient.  Chances are it will be network, database, or disk hits that will be your slow-down, not your code.  As they say, 98% of your code's bottleneck is in 2% of your code so premature-optimization may add maintenance and safety debt that won't have any measurable impact.  Instead, code for maintainability and safety, and then, and only then, when you find a true bottleneck, then you should go back and optimize further.

  Read the article

• SQL University: What and why of database refactoring

  - by Mladen Prajdic

  This is a post for a great idea called SQL University started by Jorge Segarra also famously known as SqlChicken on Twitter. It’s a collection of blog posts on different database related topics contributed by several smart people all over the world. So this week is mine and we’ll be talking about database testing and refactoring. In 3 posts we’ll cover: SQLU part 1 - What and why of database testing SQLU part 2 - What and why of database refactoring SQLU part 3 - Tools of the trade This is a second part of the series and in it we’ll take a look at what database refactoring is and why do it. Why refactor a database To know why refactor we first have to know what refactoring actually is. Code refactoring is a process where we change module internals in a way that does not change that module’s input/output behavior. For successful refactoring there is one crucial thing we absolutely must have: Tests. Automated unit tests are the only guarantee we have that we haven’t broken the input/output behavior before refactoring. If you haven’t go back ad read my post on the matter. Then start writing them. Next thing you need is a code module. Those are views, UDFs and stored procedures. By having direct table access we can kiss fast and sweet refactoring good bye. One more point to have a database abstraction layer. And no, ORM’s don’t fall into that category. But also know that refactoring is NOT adding new functionality to your code. Many have fallen into this trap. Don’t be one of them and resist the lure of the dark side. And it’s a strong lure. We developers in general love to add new stuff to our code, but hate fixing our own mistakes or changing existing code for no apparent reason. To be a good refactorer one needs discipline and focus. Now we know that refactoring is all about changing inner workings of existing code. This can be due to performance optimizations, changing internal code workflows or some other reason. This is a typical black box scenario to the outside world. If we upgrade the car engine it still has to drive on the road (preferably faster) and not fly (no matter how cool that would be). Also be aware that white box tests will break when we refactor. What to refactor in a database Refactoring databases doesn’t happen that often but when it does it can include a lot of stuff. Let us look at a few common cases. Adding or removing database schema objects Adding, removing or changing table columns in any way, adding constraints, keys, etc… All of these can be counted as internal changes not visible to the data consumer. But each of these carries a potential input/output behavior change. Dropping a column can result in views not working anymore or stored procedure logic crashing. Adding a unique constraint shows duplicated data that shouldn’t exist. Foreign keys break a truncate table command executed from an application that runs once a month. All these scenarios are very real and can happen. With the proper database abstraction layer fully covered with black box tests we can make sure something like that does not happen (hopefully at all). Changing physical structures Physical structures include heaps, indexes and partitions. We can pretty much add or remove those without changing the data returned by the database. But the performance can be affected. So here we use our performance tests. We do have them, right? Just by adding a single index we can achieve orders of magnitude performance improvement. Won’t that make users happy? But what if that index causes our write operations to crawl to a stop. again we have to test this. There are a lot of things to think about and have tests for. Without tests we can’t do successful refactoring! Fixing bad code We all have some bad code in our systems. We usually refer to that code as code smell as they violate good coding practices. Examples of such code smells are SQL injection, use of SELECT *, scalar UDFs or cursors, etc… Each of those is huge code smell and can result in major code changes. Take SELECT * from example. If we remove a column from a table the client using that SELECT * statement won’t have a clue about that until it runs. Then it will gracefully crash and burn. Not to mention the widely unknown SELECT * view refresh problem that Tomas LaRock (@SQLRockstar on Twitter) and Colin Stasiuk (@BenchmarkIT on Twitter) talk about in detail. Go read about it, it’s informative. Refactoring this includes replacing the * with column names and most likely change to application using the database. Breaking apart huge stored procedures Have you ever seen seen a stored procedure that was 2000 lines long? I have. It’s not pretty. It hurts the eyes and sucks the will to live the next 10 minutes. They are a maintenance nightmare and turn into things no one dares to touch. I’m willing to bet that 100% of time they don’t have a single test on them. Large stored procedures (and functions) are a clear sign that they contain business logic. General opinion on good database coding practices says that business logic has no business in the database. That’s the applications part. Refactoring such behemoths requires writing lots of edge case tests for the stored procedure input/output behavior and then start to refactor it. First we split the logic inside into smaller parts like new stored procedures and UDFs. Those then get called from the master stored procedure. Once we’ve successfully modularized the database code it’s best to transfer that logic into the applications consuming it. This only leaves the stored procedure with common data manipulation logic. Of course this isn’t always possible so having a plethora of performance and behavior unit tests is absolutely necessary to confirm we’ve actually improved the codebase in some way.   Refactoring is not a popular chore amongst developers or managers. The former don’t like fixing old code, the latter can’t see the financial benefit. Remember how we talked about being lousy at estimating future costs in the previous post? But there comes a time when it must be done. Hopefully I’ve given you some ideas how to get started. In the last post of the series we’ll take a look at the tools to use and an example of testing and refactoring.

  Read the article

• Waterfall Model (SDLC) vs. Prototyping Model

  The characters in the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare can easily be used to demonstrate the similarities and differences between the Waterfall and Prototyping software development models. This children fable is about a race between a consistently slow moving but steadfast turtle and an extremely fast but unreliable rabbit. After closely comparing each character’s attributes in correlation with both software development models, a trend seems to appear in that the Waterfall closely resembles the Tortoise in that Waterfall Model is typically a slow moving process that is broken up in to multiple sequential steps that must be executed in a standard linear pattern. The Tortoise can be quoted several times in the story saying “Slow and steady wins the race.” This is the perfect mantra for the Waterfall Model in that this model is seen as a cumbersome and slow moving. Waterfall Model Phases Requirement Analysis & Definition This phase focuses on defining requirements for a project that is to be developed and determining if the project is even feasible. Requirements are collected by analyzing existing systems and functionality in correlation with the needs of the business and the desires of the end users. The desired output for this phase is a list of specific requirements from the business that are to be designed and implemented in the subsequent steps. In addition this phase is used to determine if any value will be gained by completing the project. System Design This phase focuses primarily on the actual architectural design of a system, and how it will interact within itself and with other existing applications. Projects at this level should be viewed at a high level so that actual implementation details are decided in the implementation phase. However major environmental decision like hardware and platform decision are typically decided in this phase. Furthermore the basic goal of this phase is to design an application at the system level in those classes, interfaces, and interactions are defined. Additionally decisions about scalability, distribution and reliability should also be considered for all decisions. The desired output for this phase is a functional  design document that states all of the architectural decisions that have been made in regards to the project as well as a diagrams like a sequence and class diagrams. Software Design This phase focuses primarily on the refining of the decisions found in the functional design document. Classes and interfaces are further broken down in to logical modules based on the interfaces and interactions previously indicated. The output of this phase is a formal design document. Implementation / Coding This phase focuses primarily on implementing the previously defined modules in to units of code. These units are developed independently are intergraded as the system is put together as part of a whole system. Software Integration & Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing each of the units of code developed as well as testing the system as a whole. There are basic types of testing at this phase and they include: Unit Test and Integration Test. Unit Test are built to test the functionality of a code unit to ensure that it preforms its desired task. Integration testing test the system as a whole because it focuses on results of combining specific units of code and validating it against expected results. The output of this phase is a test plan that includes test with expected results and actual results. System Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing the system as a whole in regards to the list of project requirements and desired operating environment. Operation & Maintenance his phase primarily focuses on handing off the competed project over to the customer so that they can verify that all of their requirements have been met based on their original requirements. This phase will also validate the correctness of their requirements and if any changed need to be made. In addition, any problems not resolved in the previous phase will be handled in this section. The Waterfall Model’s linear and sequential methodology does offer a project certain advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of the Waterfall Model Simplistic to implement and execute for projects and/or company wide Limited demand on resources Large emphasis on documentation Disadvantages of the Waterfall Model Completed phases cannot be revisited regardless if issues arise within a project Accurate requirement are never gather prior to the completion of the requirement phase due to the lack of clarification in regards to client’s desires. Small changes or errors that arise in applications may cause additional problems The client cannot change any requirements once the requirements phase has been completed leaving them no options for changes as they see their requirements changes as the customers desires change. Excess documentation Phases are cumbersome and slow moving Learn more about the Major Process in the Sofware Development Life Cycle and Waterfall Model. Conversely, the Hare shares similar traits with the prototyping software development model in that ideas are rapidly converted to basic working examples and subsequent changes are made to quickly align the project with customers desires as they are formulated and as software strays from the customers vision. The basic concept of prototyping is to eliminate the use of well-defined project requirements. Projects are allowed to grow as the customer needs and request grow. Projects are initially designed according to basic requirements and are refined as requirement become more refined. This process allows customer to feel their way around the application to ensure that they are developing exactly what they want in the application This model also works well for determining the feasibility of certain approaches in regards to an application. Prototypes allow for quickly developing examples of implementing specific functionality based on certain techniques. Advantages of Prototyping Active participation from users and customers Allows customers to change their mind in specifying requirements Customers get a better understanding of the system as it is developed Earlier bug/error detection Promotes communication with customers Prototype could be used as final production Reduced time needed to develop applications compared to the Waterfall method Disadvantages of Prototyping Promotes constantly redefining project requirements that cause major system rewrites Potential for increased complexity of a system as scope of the system expands Customer could believe the prototype as the working version. Implementation compromises could increase the complexity when applying updates and or application fixes When companies trying to decide between the Waterfall model and Prototype model they need to evaluate the benefits and disadvantages for both models. Typically smaller companies or projects that have major time constraints typically head for more of a Prototype model approach because it can reduce the time needed to complete the project because there is more of a focus on building a project and less on defining requirements and scope prior to the start of a project. On the other hand, Companies with well-defined requirements and time allowed to generate proper documentation should steer towards more of a waterfall model because they are in a position to obtain clarified requirements and have to design and optimal solution prior to the start of coding on a project.

  Read the article

• Thoughts on Build 2013

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/dlussier/archive/2013/06/30/153294.aspxAnd so another Build conference has come to an end. Below are my thoughts/perspectives on various aspects of the event. I’ll do a separate blog post on my thoughts of the Build message for developers. The Good Moscone center was a great venue for Build! Easy to get around, easy to get to, and well maintained, it was a very comfortable conference venue. Yeah, the free swag was nice. Build has built up an expectation that attendees will always get something; it’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft maintains this expectation over the next few Build events. I still maintain that free swag should never be the main reason one attends an event, and for me this was definitely just an added bonus. I’m planning on trying to use the Surface as a dedicated 2nd device at work for meetings, I’ll share my experiences over the next few months. The hackathon event was a great idea, although personally I couldn’t justify spending the money on a conference registration just to spend the entire conference coding. Still, the apps that were created were really great and there was a lot of passion and excitement around the hackathon. I wonder if they couldn’t have had the hackathon on the Monday/Tuesday for those that wanted to participate so they didn’t miss any of the actual conference over Wed/Thurs. San Francisco was a great city to host Build. Getting from hotels to the conference center was very easy (well especially for me, I was only 3 blocks away) and the city itself felt very safe. However, if I never have to fly into SFO again I’ll be alright with that! Delays going into and out of SFO and both apparently were due to the airport itself. The Bad Build is one of those oddities on the conference landscape where people will pay to commit to attending an event without knowing anything about the sessions. We got our list of conference sessions when we registered on Tuesday, not before. And even then, we only got titles and not descriptions (those were eventually made available via the conference’s mobile application). I get it…they’re going to make announcements and they don’t want to give anything away through the session titles. But honestly, there wasn’t anything in the session titles that I would have considered a surprise. Breakfasts were brutal. High-carb pastries, donuts, and muffins with fruit and hard boiled eggs does not a conference breakfast make. I can’t believe that the difference between a continental breakfast per person and a hot breakfast buffet would have been a huge impact to a conference fee that was already around $2000. The vendor area was anemic. I don’t know why Microsoft forces the vendors into cookie-cutter booth areas (this year they were all made of plywood material). WPC, TechEd – booth areas there allow the vendors to be creative with their displays. Not so much for Build. Really odd was the lack of Microsoft’s own representation around Bing. In the day 1 keynote Microsoft made a big deal about Bing as an API. Yet there was nobody in the vendor area set up to provide more information or have discussions with about the Bing API. The Ugly Our name badges were NFC enabled. The purpose of this, beyond the vendors being able to scan your info, wasn’t really made clear. An attendee I talked to showed how you could get a reader app on your phone so you can scan other members cards and collect their contact info – which is a kewl idea; business cards are so 1990’s. But I was *shocked* at the amount of information that was on our name badges! Here’s what’s displayed on our name badge: - Name - Company - Twitter Handle I’m ok with that. But here’s what actually gets read: - Name - Company - Address Used for Registration - Phone Number Used for Registration So sharing that info with another attendee, they get way more of my info than just how to find me on Twitter! Microsoft, you need to fix this for the future. If vendors want to collect information on attendees, they should be able to collect an ID from the badge, then get a report with corresponding records afterwards. My personal information should not be so readily available, and without my knowledge! Final Verdict Maybe its my older age, maybe its where I’m at in life with family, maybe its where I’m at in my career, but when I consider whether a conference experience was valuable I get to the core reason I attend: opportunities to learn, opportunities to network, opportunities to engage with Microsoft. Opportunities to Learn:  Sessions I attended were generally OK, with some really stand out ones on Day 2. I would love to see Microsoft adopt the Dojo format for a portion of their sessions. Hands On Labs are dull, lecture style sessions are great for information sharing. But a guided hands-on coding session (Read: Dojo) provides the best of both worlds. Being that all content is publically available online to everyone (Build attendee or not), the value of attending the conference sessions is decreased. The value though is in the discussions that take part in person afterwards, which leads to… Opportunities to Network: I enjoyed getting together with old friends and connecting with Twitter friends in person for the first time. I also had an opportunity to meet total strangers. So from a networking perspective, Build was fantastic! I still think it would have been great to have an area for ad-hoc discussions – where speakers could announce they’d be available for more questions after their sessions, or attendees who wanted to discuss more in depth on a topic with other attendees could arrange space. Some people have no problems being outgoing and making these things happen, but others are not and a structured model is more attractive. Opportunities to Engage with Microsoft: Hit and miss on this one. Outside of the vendor area, unless you cornered or reached out to a speaker, there wasn’t any defined way to connect with blue badges. And as I mentioned above, Microsoft didn’t have full representation in the vendor area (no Bing). All in all, Build was a fun party where I was informed about some new stuff and got some free swag. Was it worth the time away from home and the hit to my PD budget? I’d say Somewhat. Build is a great informational conference, but I wouldn’t call it a learning conference. Considering that TechEd seems to be moving to more of an IT Pro focus, independent developer conferences seem to be the best value for those looking to learn and not just be informed. With the rapid development cycle Microsoft is embracing, we’re already seeing Build happening twice within a 12 month period. If that continues, the value of attending Build in person starts to diminish – especially with so much content available online. If Microsoft wants Build to be a must-attend event in the future, they need to start incorporating aspects of Tech Ed, past PDCs, and other conferences so those that want to leave with more than free swag have something to attract them.

  Read the article

• Book Review: Brownfield Application Development in .NET

  - by DotNetBlues

  I recently finished reading the book Brownfield Application Development in .NET by Kyle Baley and Donald Belcham.  The book is available from Manning.  First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Manning as a publisher.  I've found their books to be top-quality, over all.  As a Kindle owner, I also appreciate getting an ebook copy along with the dead tree copy.  I find ebooks to be much more convenient to read, but hard-copies are easier to reference. The book covers, surprisingly enough, working with brownfield applications.  Which is well and good, if that term has meaning to you.  It didn't for me.  Without retreading a chunk of the first chapter, the authors break code bases into three broad categories: greenfield, brownfield, and legacy.  Greenfield is, essentially, new development that hasn't had time to rust and is (hopefully) being approached with some discipline.  Legacy applications are those that are more or less stable and functional, that do not expect to see a lot of work done to them, and are more likely to be replaced than reworked. Brownfield code is the gray (brown?) area between the two and the authors argue, quite effectively, that it is the most likely state for an application to be in.  Brownfield code has, in some way, been allowed to tarnish around the edges and can be difficult to work with.  Although I hadn't realized it, most of the code I've worked on has been brownfield.  Sometimes, there's talk of scrapping and starting over.  Sometimes, the team dismisses increased discipline as ivory tower nonsense.  And, sometimes, I've been the ignorant culprit vexing my future self. The book is broken into two major sections, plus an introduction chapter and an appendix.  The first section covers what the authors refer to as "The Ecosystem" which consists of version control, build and integration, testing, metrics, and defect management.  The second section is on actually writing code for brownfield applications and discusses object-oriented principles, architecture, external dependencies, and, of course, how to deal with these when coming into an existing code base. The ecosystem section is just shy of 140 pages long and brings some real meat to the matter.  The focus on "pain points" immediately sets the tone as problem-solution, rather than academic.  The authors also approach some of the topics from a different angle than some essays I've read on similar topics.  For example, the chapter on automated testing is on just that -- automated testing.  It's all well and good to criticize a project as conflating integration tests with unit tests, but it really doesn't make anyone's life better.  The discussion on testing is more focused on the "right" level of testing for existing projects.  Sometimes, an integration test is the best you can do without gutting a section of functional code.  Even if you can sell other developers and/or management on doing so, it doesn't actually provide benefit to your customers to rewrite code that works.  This isn't to say the authors encourage sloppy coding.  Far from it.  Just that they point out the wisdom of ignoring the sleeping bear until after you deal with the snarling wolf. The other sections take a similarly real-world, workable approach to the pain points they address.  As the section moves from technical solutions like version control and continuous integration (CI) to the softer, process issues of metrics and defect tracking, the authors begin to gently suggest moving toward a zero defect count.  While that really sounds like an unreasonable goal for a lot of ongoing projects, it's quite apparent that the authors have first-hand experience with taming some gruesome projects.  The suggestions are grounded and workable, and the difficulty of some situations is explicitly acknowledged. I have to admit that I started getting bored by the end of the ecosystem section.  No matter how valuable I think a good project manager or business analyst is to a successful ALM, at the end of the day, I'm a gear-head.  Also, while I agreed with a lot of the ecosystem ideas, in theory, I didn't necessarily feel that a lot of the single-developer projects that I'm often involved in really needed that level of rigor.  It's only after reading the sidebars and commentary in the coding section that I had the context for the arguments made in favor of a strong ecosystem supporting the development process.  That isn't to say that I didn't support good product management -- indeed, I've probably pushed too hard, on occasion, for a strong ALM outside of just development.  This book gave me deeper insight into why some corners shouldn't be cut and how damaging certain sins of omission can be. The code section, though, kept me engaged for its entirety.  Many technical books can be used as reference material from day one.  The authors were clear, however, that this book is not one of these.  The first chapter of the section (chapter seven, over all) addresses object oriented (OO) practices.  I've read any number of definitions, discussions, and treatises on OO.  None of the chapter was new to me, but it was a good review, and I'm of the opinion that it's good to review the foundations of what you do, from time to time, so I didn't mind. The remainder of the book is really just about how to apply OOP to existing code -- and, just because all your code exists in classes does not mean that it's object oriented.  That topic has the potential to be extremely condescending, but the authors miraculously managed to never once make me feel like a dolt or that they were wagging their finger at me for my prior sins.  Instead, they continue the "pain points" and problem-solution presentation to give concrete examples of how to apply some pretty academic-sounding ideas.  That's a point worth emphasizing, as my experience with most OO discussions is that they stay in the academic realm.  This book gives some very, very good explanations of why things like the Liskov Substitution Principle exist and why a corporate programmer should even care.  Even if you know, with absolute certainty, that you'll never have to work on an existing code-base, I would recommend this book just for the clarity it provides on OOP. This book goes beyond just theory, or even real-world application.  It presents some methods for fixing problems that any developer can, and probably will, encounter in the wild.  First, the authors address refactoring application layers and internal dependencies.  Then, they take you through those layers from the UI to the data access layer and external dependencies.  Finally, they come full circle to tie it all back to the overall process.  By the time the book is done, you're left with a lot of ideas, but also a reasonable plan to begin to improve an existing project structure. Throughout the book, it's apparent that the authors have their own preferred methodology (TDD and domain-driven design), as well as some preferred tools.  The "Our .NET Toolbox" is something of a neon sign pointing to that latter point.  They do not beat the reader over the head with anything resembling a "One True Way" mentality.  Even for the most emphatic points, the tone is quite congenial and helpful.  With some of the near-theological divides that exist within the tech community, I found this to be one of the more remarkable characteristics of the book.  Although the authors favor tools that might be considered Alt.NET, there is no reason the advice and techniques given couldn't be quite successful in a pure Microsoft shop with Team Foundation Server.  For that matter, even though the book specifically addresses .NET, it could be applied to a Java and Oracle shop, as well.

  Read the article

• Data-driven animation states

  - by user8363

  I'm trying to handle animations in a 2D game engine hobby project, without hard-coding them. Hard coding animation states seems like a common but very strange phenomenon, to me. A little background: I'm working with an entity system where components are bags of data and subsystems act upon them. I chose to use a polling system to update animation states. With animation states I mean: "walking_left", "running_left", "walking_right", "shooting", ... My idea to handle animations was to design it as a data driven model. Data could be stored in an xml file, a rdbms, ... And could be loaded at the start of a game / level/ ... This way you can easily edit animations and transitions without having to go change the code everywhere in your game. As an example I made an xml draft of the data definitions I had in mind. One very important piece of data would simply be the description of an animation. An animation would have a unique id (a descriptive name). It would hold a reference id to an image (the sprite sheet it uses, because different animations may use different sprite sheets). The frames per second to run the animation on. The "replay" here defines if an animation should be run once or infinitely. Then I defined a list of rectangles as frames. <animation id='WIZARD_WALK_LEFT'> <image id='WIZARD_WALKING' /> <fps>50</fps> <replay>true</replay> <frames> <rectangle> <x>0</x> <y>0</y> <width>45</width> <height>45</height> </rectangle> <rectangle> <x>45</x> <y>0</y> <width>45</width> <height>45</height> </rectangle> </frames> </animation> Animation data would be loaded and held in an animation resource pool and referenced by game entities that are using it. It would be treated as a resource like an image, a sound, a texture, ... The second piece of data to define would be a state machine to handle animation states and transitions. This defines each state a game entity can be in, which states it can transition to and what triggers that state change. This state machine would differ from entity to entity. Because a bird might have states "walking" and "flying" while a human would only have the state "walking". However it could be shared by different entities because multiple humans will probably have the same states (especially when you define some common NPCs like monsters, etc). Additionally an orc might have the same states as a human. Just to demonstrate that this state definition might be shared but only by a select group of game entities. <state id='IDLE'> <event trigger='LEFT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_LEFT' /> <event trigger='RIGHT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_RIGHT' /> </state> <state id='MOVING_LEFT'> <event trigger='LEFT_UP' goto='IDLE' /> <event trigger='RIGHT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_RIGHT' /> </state> <state id='MOVING_RIGHT'> <event trigger='RIGHT_UP' goto='IDLE' /> <event trigger='LEFT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_LEFT' /> </state> These states can be handled by a polling system. Each game tick it grabs the current state of a game entity and checks all triggers. If a condition is met it changes the entity's state to the "goto" state. The last part I was struggling with was how to bind animation data and animation states to an entity. The most logical approach seemed to me to add a pointer to the state machine data an entity uses and to define for each state in that machine what animation it uses. Here is an xml example how I would define the animation behavior and graphical representation of some common entities in a game, by addressing animation state and animation data id. Note that both "wizard" and "orc" have the same animation states but a different animation. Also, a different animation could mean a different sprite sheet, or even a different sequence of animations (an animation could be longer or shorter). <entity name="wizard"> <state id="IDLE" animation="WIZARD_IDLE" /> <state id="MOVING_LEFT" animation="WIZARD_WALK_LEFT" /> </entity> <entity name="orc"> <state id="IDLE" animation="ORC_IDLE" /> <state id="MOVING_LEFT" animation="ORC_WALK_LEFT" /> </entity> When the entity is being created it would add a list of states with state machine data and an animation data reference. In the future I would use the entity system to build whole entities by defining components in a similar xml format. -- This is what I have come up with after some research. However I had some trouble getting my head around it, so I was hoping op some feedback. Is there something here what doesn't make sense, or is there a better way to handle these things? I grasped the idea of iterating through frames but I'm having trouble to take it a step further and this is my attempt to do that.

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, August 11, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, August 11, 2014Popular ReleasesSpace Engineers Server Manager: SESM V1.15: V1.15 - Updated Quartz library - Correct a bug in the new mod managment - Added a warning if you have backup enabled on a server but no static map configuredAspose for Apache POI: Missing Features of Apache POI SS - v 1.2: Release contain the Missing Features in Apache POI SS SDK in comparison with Aspose.Cells What's New ? Following Examples: Create Pivot Charts Detect Merged Cells Sort Data Printing Workbooks Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are available at Aspose Docs. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.AngularGo (SPA Project Template): AngularGo.VS2013.vsix: First ReleaseTouchmote: Touchmote 1.0 beta 13: Changes Less GPU usage Works together with other Xbox 360 controls Bug fixesPublic Key Infrastructure PowerShell module: PowerShell PKI Module v3.0: Important: I would like to hear more about what you are thinking about the project? I appreciate that you like it (2000 downloads over past 6 months), but may be you have to say something? What do you dislike in the module? Maybe you would love to see some new functionality? Tell, what you think! Installation guide:Use default installation path to install this module for current user only. To install this module for all users — enable "Install for all users" check-box in installation UI ...Modern UI for WPF: Modern UI 1.0.6: The ModernUI assembly including a demo app demonstrating the various features of Modern UI for WPF. BREAKING CHANGE LinkGroup.GroupName renamed to GroupKey NEW FEATURES Improved rendering on high DPI screens, including support for per-monitor DPI awareness available in Windows 8.1 (see also Per-monitor DPI awareness) New ModernProgressRing control with 8 builtin styles New LinkCommands.NavigateLink routed command New Visual Studio project templates 'Modern UI WPF App' and 'Modern UI W...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.74.0: Multiple thread safe improvements including AdjustToContents XLHelper XLColor_Static IntergerExtensions.ToStringLookup Exception now thrown when saving a workbook with no sheets, instead of creating a corrupt workbook Fix for hyperlinks with non-ASCII Characters Added basic workbook protection Fix for error thrown, when a spreadsheet contained comments and images Fix to Trim function Fix Invalid operation Exception thrown when the formula functions MAX, MIN, and AVG referenc...SEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.042.019 Release 1: Added RadioAntenna broadcast name to ship name detail. Added two additional columns for Asteroid material generation for Asteroid Fields. Added Mass and Block number columns to main display. Added Ellipsis to some columns on main display to reduce name confusion. Added correct SE version number in file when saving. Re-added in reattaching Motor when drag/dropping or importing ships (KeenSH have added RotorEntityId back in after removing it months ago). Added option to export and r...jQuery List DragSort: jQuery List DragSort 0.5.2: Fixed scrollContainer removing deprecated use of $.browser so should now work with latest version of jQuery. Added the ability to return false in dragEnd to revert sort order Project changes Added nuget package for dragsort https://www.nuget.org/packages/dragsort Converted repository from SVN to MercurialBraintree Client Library: Braintree 2.32.0: Allow credit card verification options to be passed outside of the nonce for PaymentMethod.create Allow billingaddress parameters and billingaddress_id to be passed outside of the nonce for PaymentMethod.create Add Subscriptions to paypal accounts Add PaymentMethod.update Add failonduplicatepaymentmethod option to PaymentMethod.create Add support for dispute webhooksThe Mario Kart 8 App: V1.0.2.1: First Codeplex release. WINDOWS INSTALLER ONLYAspose Java for Docx4j: Aspose.Words vs Docx4j - v 1.0: Release contain the Code Comparison for Features in Docx4j SDK and Aspose.Words What's New ?Following Examples: Accessing Document Properties Add Bookmarks Convert to Formats Delete Bookmarks Working with Comments Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are available at Aspose Docs. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.File System Security PowerShell Module: NTFSSecurity 2.4.1: Add-Access and Remove-Access now take multiple accoutsYourSqlDba: YourSqlDba 5.2.1.: This version improves alert message that comes a while after you install the script. First it says to get it from YourSqlDba.CodePlex.com If you don't want to update now, just-rerun the script from your installed version. To get actual version running just execute install.PrintVersionInfo. . You can go to source code / history and click on change set 72957 to see changes in the script.Manipulator: Manipulator: manipulatorXNB filetype plugin for Paint.NET: Paint.NET XNB plugin v0.4.0.0: CHANGELOG Reverted old incomplete changes. Updated library for compatibility with Paint .NET 4. Updated project to NET 4.5. Updated version to 0.4.0.0. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Extract the ZIP file to your Paint.NET\FileTypes folder.EdiFabric: Release 4.1: Changed MessageContextWix# (WixSharp) - managed interface for WiX: Release 1.0.0.0: Release 1.0.0.0 Custom UI Custom MSI Dialog Custom CLR Dialog External UIMath.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v3.2.0: Linear Algebra: Vector.Map2 (map2 in F#), storage-optimized Linear Algebra: fix RemoveColumn/Row early index bound check (was not strict enough) Statistics: Entropy ~Jeff Mastry Interpolation: use Array.BinarySearch instead of local implementation ~Candy Chiu Resources: fix a corrupted exception message string Portable Build: support .Net 4.0 as well by using profile 328 instead of 344. .Net 3.5: F# extensions now support .Net 3.5 as well .Net 3.5: NuGet package now contains pro...babelua: 1.6.5.1: V1.6.5.1 - 2014.8.7New feature: Formatting code; Stability improvement: fix a bug that pop up error "System.Net.WebResponse EndGetResponse";New ProjectsDouDou: a little project.Dynamic MVC: Dynamically generate views from your model objects for a data centric MVC application.EasyDb - Simple Data Access: EasyDb is a simple library for data access that allows you to write less code.ExpressToAbroad: just go!!!!!Full Silverlight Web Video/Voice Conferencing: The Goal of this project is to provide complete Open Source (Voice/Video Chatting Client/Server) Modules Using SilverlightGaia: Gaia is an app for Windows plataform, Gaia is like Siri and Google Now or Betty but Gaia use only text commands.pxctest: pxctestSTACS: Career Management System for MIT by Team "STACS"StrongWorld: StrongWorld.WebSuiteXevas Tools: Xevas is a professional coders group of 'Nimbuzz'. We make all tools for worldwide users of nimbuzz at free of cost.????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ????????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ????????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ???????????????: ???????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ??????????????: ????????????????: ?????????

  Read the article

• Visual Studio 2010 Productivity Tips and Tricks&ndash;Part 1: Extensions

  - by ToStringTheory

  I don’t know about you, but when it comes to development, I prefer my environment to be as free of clutter as possible.  It may surprise you to know that I have tried ReSharper, and did not like it, for the reason that I stated above.  In my opinion, it had too much clutter.  Don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of features that I did like about it (inversion of if blocks, code feedback), but for the most part, I actually felt that it was slowing me down. Introduction Another large factor besides intrusiveness/speed in my choice to dislike ReSharper would probably be that I have become comfortable with my current setup and extensions.  I believe I have a good collection, and am quite happy with what I can accomplish in a short amount of time.  I figured that I would share some of my tips/findings regarding Visual Studio productivity here, and see what you had to say. The first section of things that I would like to cover, are Visual Studio Extensions.  In case you have been living under a rock for the past several years, Extensions are available under the Tools menu in Visual Studio: The extension manager enables integrated access to the Microsoft Visual Studio Gallery online with access to a few thousand different extensions.  I have tried many extensions, but for reasons of lack reliability, usability, or features, have uninstalled almost all of them.  However, I have come across several that I find I can not do without anymore: NuGet Package Manager (Microsoft) Perspectives (Adam Driscoll) Productivity Power Tools (Microsoft) Web Essentials (Mads Kristensen) Extensions NuGet Package Manager To be honest, I debated on whether or not to put this in here.  Most people seem to have it, however, there was a time when I didn’t, and was always confused when blogs/posts would say to right click and “Add Package Reference…” which with one of the latest updates is now “Manage NuGet Packages”.  So, if you haven’t downloaded the NuGet Package Manager yet, or don’t know what it is, I would highly suggest downloading it now! Features Simply put, the NuGet Package Manager gives you a GUI and command line to access different libraries that have been uploaded to NuGet. Some of its features include: Ability to search NuGet for packages via the GUI, with information in the detail bar on the right. Quick access to see what packages are in a solution, and what packages have updates available, with easy 1-click updating. If you download a package that requires references to work on other NuGet packages, they will be downloaded and referenced automatically. Productivity Tip If you use any type of source control in Visual Studio as well as using NuGet packages, be sure to right-click on the solution and click "Enable NuGet Package Restore". What this does is add a NuGet package to the solution so that it will be checked in along side your solution, as well as automatically grab packages from NuGet on build if needed. This is an extremely simple system to use to manage your package references, instead of having to manually go into TFS and add the Packages folder. Perspectives I can't stand developing with just one monitor. Especially if it comes to debugging. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010, is that all of the panels and windows are floatable, and can dock to other screens. The only bad thing is, I don't use the same toolset with everything that I am doing. By this, I mean that I don't use all of the same windows for debugging a web application, as I do for coding a WPF application. Only thing is, Visual Studio doesn't save the screen positions for all of the undocked windows. So, I got curious one day and decided to check and see if there was an extension to help out. This is where I found Perspectives. Features Perspectives gives you the ability to configure window positions across any or your monitors, and then to save the positions in a profile. Perspectives offers a Panel to manage different presets/favorites, and a toolbar to add to the toolbars at the top of Visual Studio. Ability to 'Favorite' a profile to add it to the perspectives toolbar. Productivity Tip Take the time to setup profiles for each of your scenarios - debugging web/winforms/xaml, coding, maintenance, etc. Try to remember to use the profiles for a few days, and at the end of a week, you may find that your productivity was never better. Productivity Power Tools Ah, the Productivity Power Tools... Quite possibly one of my most used extensions, if not my most used. The tool pack gives you a variety of enhancements ranging from key shortcuts, interface tweaks, and completely new features to Visual Studio 2010. Features I don't want to bore you with all of the features here, so here are my favorite: Quick Find - Unobtrusive search box in upper-right corner of the code window. Great for searching in general, especially in a file. Solution Navigator - The 'Solution Explorer' on steroids. Easy to search for files, see defined members/properties/methods in files, and my favorite feature is the 'set as root' option. Updated 'Add Reference...' Dialog - This is probably my favorite enhancement period... The 'Add Reference...' dialog redone in a manner that resembles the Extension/Package managers. I especially love the ability to search through all of the references. "Ctrl - Click" for Definition - I am still getting used to this as I usually try to use my keyboard for everything, but I love the ability to hold Ctrl and turn property/methods/variables into hyperlinks, that you click on to see their definitions. Great for travelling down a rabbit hole in an application to research problems. While there are other commands/utilities, I find these to be the ones that I lean on the most for the usefulness. Web Essentials If you have do any type of web development in ASP .Net, ASP .Net MVC, even HTML, I highly suggest grabbing the Web Essentials right NOW! This extension alone is great for productivity in web development, and greatly decreases my development time on new features. Features Some of its best features include: CSS Previews - I say 'previews' because of the multiple kinds of previews in CSS that you get font-family, color, background/background-image previews. This is great for just tweaking UI slightly in different ways and seeing how they look in the CSS window at a glance. Live Preview - One word - awesome! This goes well with my multi-monitor setup. I put the site on one monitor in a Live Preview panel, and then as I make changes to CSS/cshtml/aspx/html, the preview window will update with each save/build automatically. For CSS, you can even turn on live-update, so as you are tweaking CSS, the style changes in real time. Great for tweaking colors or font-sizes. Outlining - Small, but I like to be able to collapse regions/declarations that are in the way of new work, or are just distracting. Commenting Shortcuts - I don't know why it wasn't included by default, but it is nice to have the key shortcuts for commenting working in the CSS editor as well. Productivity Tip When working on a site, hit CTRL-ALT-ENTER to launch the Live Preview window. Dock it to another monitor. When you make changes to the document/css, just save and glance at the other monitor. No need to alt tab, then alt tab before continuing editing. Conclusion These extensions are only the most useful and least intrusive - ones that I use every day. The great thing about Visual Studio 2010 is the extensibility options that it gives developers to utilize. Have an extension that you use that isn't intrusive, but isn't listed here? Please, feel free to comment. I love trying new things, and am always looking for new additions to my toolset of the most useful. Finally, please keep an eye out for Part 2 on key shortcuts in Visual Studio. Also, if you are visiting my site (http://tostringtheory.com || http://geekswithblogs.net/tostringtheory) from an actual browser and not a feed, please let me know what you think of the new styling!

  Read the article

• “It’s only test code…”

  - by Chris George

  “Let me hack this in, it’s only test code”, “Don’t worry about getting it reviewed, it’s only test code”, “It doesn’t have to be elegant or efficient, it’s only test code”… do these phrases sound familiar? Chances are if you’ve working with test automation, at one point or other you will have heard these phrases, you have probably even used them yourself! What is certain is that code written under this “it’s only test code” mantra will come back and bite you in the arse! I’ve recently encountered a case where a test was giving a false positive, therefore hiding a real product bug because that test code was very badly written. Firstly it was very difficult to understand what the test was actually trying to achieve let alone how it was doing it, and this complexity masked a simple logic error. These issues are real and they do happen. Let’s take a step back from this and look at what we are trying to do. We are writing test code that tests product code, and we do this to create a suite of tests that will help protect our software against regressions. This test code is making sure that the product behaves as it should by employing some sort of expected result verification. The simple cases of these are generally not a problem. However, automation allows us to explore more complex scenarios in many more permutations. As this complexity increases then so does the complexity of the test code. It is at this point that code which has not been architected properly will cause problems.   Keep your friends close… So, how do we make sure we are doing it right? The development teams I have worked on have always had Test Engineers working very closely with their Software Engineers. This is something that I have always tried to take full advantage of. They are coding experts! So run your ideas past them, ask for advice on how to structure your code, help you design your data structures. This may require a shift in your teams viewpoint, as contrary to this section title and folklore, Software Engineers are not actually the mortal enemy of Test Engineers. As time progresses, and test automation becomes more and more ingrained in what we do, the two roles are converging more than ever. Over the 16 years I have spent as a Test Engineer, I have seen the grey area between the two roles grow significantly larger. This serves to strengthen the relationship and common bond between the two roles which helps to make test code activities so much easier!   Pair for the win Possibly the best thing you could do to write good test code is to pair program on the task. This will serve a few purposes. you will get the benefit of the Software Engineers knowledge and experience the Software Engineer will gain knowledge on the testing process. Sharing the love is a wonderful thing! two pairs of eyes are always better than one… And so are two brains. Between the two of you, I will guarantee you will derive more useful test cases than if it was just one of you.   Code reviews Another policy which certainly pays dividends is the practice of code reviews. By having one of your peers review your code before you commit it serves two purposes. Firstly, it forces you to explain your code. Just the act of doing this will often pick up errors in your code. Secondly, it gets yet another pair of eyes on your code! I cannot stress enough how important code reviews are. The benefits they offer apply as much to product code as test code. In short, Software and Test Engineers should all be doing them! It can be extended even further by getting test code reviewed by a Software Engineer and a Test Engineer, and likewise product code. This serves to keep both functions in the loop with changes going on within your code base.   Learn from your devs I briefly touched on this earlier but I’d like to go into more detail here. Pairing with your Software Engineers when writing your test code is such an amazing opportunity to improve your coding skills. As I sit here writing this article waiting to be called into court for jury service, it reminds me that it takes a lot of patience to be a Test Engineer, almost as much as it takes to be a juror! However tempting it is to go rushing in and start writing your automated tests, resist that urge. Discuss what you want to achieve then talk through the approach you’re going to take. Then code it up together. I find it really enlightening to ask questions like ‘is there a better way to do this?’ Or ‘is this how you would code it?’ The latter question, especially, is where I learn the most. I’ve found that most Software Engineers will be reluctant to show you the ‘right way’ to code something when writing tests because they perceive the ‘right way’ to be too complicated for the Test Engineer (e.g. not mentioning LINQ and instead doing something verbose). So by asking how THEY would code it, it unleashes their true dev-ness and advanced code usually ensues! I would like to point out, however, that you don’t have to accept their method as the final answer. On numerous occasions I have opted for the more simple/verbose solution because I found the code written by the Software Engineer too advanced and therefore I would find it unreadable when I return to the code in a months’ time! Always keep the target audience in mind when writing clever code, and in my case that is mostly Test Engineers.  

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, September 05, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, September 05, 2012Popular ReleasesDesktop Google Reader: 1.4.6: Sorting feeds alphabetical is now optional (see preferences window)DotNetNuke® Community Edition CMS: 06.02.03: Major Highlights Fixed issue where mailto: links were not working when sending bulk email Fixed issue where uses did not see friendship relationships Problem is in 6.2, which does not show in the Versions Affected list above. Fixed the issue with cascade deletes in comments in CoreMessaging_Notification Fixed UI issue when using a date fields as a required profile property during user registration Fixed error when running the product in debug mode Fixed visibility issue when...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.65: Fixed null-reference error in the build task constructor.BLACK ORANGE: HPAD TEXT EDITOR 0.9 Beta: HOW TO RUN THE TEXT EDITOR Download the HPAD ARCHIVED FILES which is in .rar format Extract using Winrar Make sure that extracted files are in the same folder Double-Click on HPAD.exe application fileTelerikMvcGridCustomBindingHelper: Version 1.0.15.247-RC2: TelerikMvcGridCustomBindingHelper 1.0.15.247 RC2 Release notes: This is a RC version (hopefully the last one), please test and report any error or problem you encounter. This release is all about performance and fixes Support: "Or" and "Does Not contain" filter options Improved BooleanSubstitutes, Custom Aggregates and expressions-to-queryover Add EntityFramework examples in ExampleWebApplication Many other improvements and fixes Fix invalid cast on CustomAggregates Support for ...ServiceMon - Extensible Real-time, Service Monitoring Utility: ServiceMon Release 0.9.0.44: Auto-uploaded from build serverJavaScript Grid: Release 09-05-2012: Release 09-05-2012xUnit.net Contrib: xunitcontrib-dotCover 0.6.1 (dotCover 2.1 beta): xunitcontrib release 0.6.1 for dotCover 2.1 beta This release provides a test runner plugin for dotCover 2.1 beta, targetting all versions of xUnit.net. (See the xUnit.net project to download xUnit.net itself.) This release adds support for running xUnit.net tests to dotCover 2.1 beta's Visual Studio plugin. PLEASE NOTE: You do NOT need this if you also have ReSharper and the existing 0.6.1 release installed. DotCover will use ReSharper's test runners if available. This release includes th...B INI Sharp Library: B INI Sharp Library v1.0.0.0 Realsed: The frist realsedActive Forums for DotNetNuke CMS: Active Forums 5.0.0 RC: RC release of Active Forums 5.0.Droid Explorer: Droid Explorer 0.8.8.7 Beta: Bug in the display icon for apk's, will fix with next release Added fallback icon if unable to get the image/icon from the Cloud Service Removed some stale plugins that were either out dated or incomplete. Added handler for *.ab files for restoring backups Added plugin to create device backups Backups stored in %USERPROFILE%\Android Backups\%DEVICE_ID%\ Added custom folder icon for the android backups directory better error handling for installing an apk bug fixes for the Runn...BI System Monitor: v2.1: Data Audits report and supporting SQL, and SSIS package Environment Overview report enhancements, improving the appearance, addition of data audit finding indicators Note: SQL 2012 version coming soon.The Visual Guide for Building Team Foundation Server 2012 Environments: Version 1: --Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v8.5: Version 8.5 of Nearforums, the ASP.NET MVC Forum Engine. New features include: Built-in search engine using Lucene.NET Flood control improvements Notifications improvements: sync option and mail body View Roadmap for more details webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 961aff884a9187b6e8a86d68913cdd31f8deaf83WiX Toolset: WiX Toolset v3.6: WiX Toolset v3.6 introduces the Burn bootstrapper/chaining engine and support for Visual Studio 2012 and .NET Framework 4.5. Other minor functionality includes: WixDependencyExtension supports dependency checking among MSI packages. WixFirewallExtension supports more features of Windows Firewall. WixTagExtension supports Software Id Tagging. WixUtilExtension now supports recursive directory deletion. Melt simplifies pure-WiX patching by extracting .msi package content and updating .w...Iveely Search Engine: Iveely Search Engine （0.2.0）: ????ISE?0.1.0??，?????，ISE?0.2.0?????????，???????，????????20???follow?ISE，????，??ISE??????????，??????????，?????????，?????????0.2.0??????，??????????。 Iveely Search Engine ?0.2.0?????????“??????????”，??????，?????????，???????，???????????????????，????、????????????。???0.1.0????????????： 1. ??“????” ??。??????????，?????????，???????????????????。??：????????，????????????，??????????????????。??????。 2. ??“????”??。?0.1.0??????，???????，???????????????，?????????????，????????，?0.2.0?，???????...GmailDefaultMaker: GmailDefaultMaker 3.0.0.2: Add QQ Mail BugfixSmart Data Access layer: Smart Data access Layer Ver 3: In this version support executing inline query is added. Check Documentation section for detail.DotNetNuke® Form and List: 06.00.04: DotNetNuke Form and List 06.00.04 Don't forget to backup your installation before upgrade. Changes in 06.00.04 Fix: Sql Scripts for 6.003 missed object qualifiers within stored procedures Fix: added missing resource "cmdCancel.Text" in form.ascx.resx Changes in 06.00.03 Fix: MakeThumbnail was broken if the application pool was configured to .Net 4 Change: Data is now stored in nvarchar(max) instead of ntext Changes in 06.00.02 The scripts are now compatible with SQL Azure, tested in a ne...Coevery - Free CRM: Coevery 1.0.0.24: Add a sample database, and installation instructions.New ProjectsA Simple Eng-Hindi CMS: A simple English- Hindi dual language content management system for small business/personal websites.Active Social Migrator: This project for managing the Active Social migration tool.ANSI Console User Control: Custom console control for .NET WinformsAutoSPInstallerGUI: GUI Configuration Tool for SPAutoInstaller Codeplex ProjectCode Documentation Checkin Policy: This checkin policy for Visual Studio 2012 checks if c# code is documented the way it's configured in the config of the policy. Code Dojo/Kata - Free Time Coding: Doing some katas of the Coding Dojo page. http://codingdojo.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?KataCataloguefjycUnifyShow: fjycUnifyShowHidden Capture (HC): HC is simple and easy utility to hidden and auto capture desktop or active windowHRC Integration Services: Fake SQL Server Integration Services. LOLKooboo CMS Sites Switcher: Kooboo CMS Sites SwitcherMod.CookieDetector: Orchard module for detecting whether cookies are enabledMyCodes: Created!MySQL Statement Monitor: MySQL Statement Monitor is a monitoring tool that monitors SQL statements transferred over the network.NeoModulusPIRandom: The idea with PI Random is to use easy string manipulation and simple math to generate a pseudo random number. Net Core Tech - Medical Record System: This is a Medical Record System ProjectOraPowerShell: PowerShell library for backup and maintenance of a Oracle Database environment under Microsoft Windows 2008PinDNN: PinDNN is a module that imparts Pinterest-like functionality to DotNetNuke sites. This module works with a MongoDB database and uses the built-in social relatioPyrogen Code Generator: PyroGen is a simple code generator accepting C# as the markup language.restMs: wil be deleted soonScript.NET: Script.NET is a script management utility for web forms and MVC, using ScriptJS-like features to link dependencies between scripts.SpringExample-Pagination: Simple Spring example with PaginationXNA and Component Based Design: This project includes code for XNA and Component Based Design

  Read the article

• How to Upload a file from client to server using OFBIZ?

  - by SIVAKUMAR.J

  Hi all, Im new to ofbiz.So is my question is have any mistake forgive me for my mistakes.Im new to ofbiz so i did not know some terminologies in ofbiz.Sometimes my question is not clear because of lack of knowledge in ofbiz.So try to understand my question and give me a good solution with respect to my level.Because some solutions are in very high level cannot able to understand for me.So please give the solution with good examples. My problem is i created a project inside the ofbiz/hot-deploy folder namely "productionmgntSystem".Inside the folder "ofbiz\hot-deploy\productionmgntSystem\webapp\productionmgntSystem" i created a .ftl file namely "app_details_1.ftl" .The following are the coding of this file <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title>Insert title here</title> <script TYPE="TEXT/JAVASCRIPT" language=""JAVASCRIPT"> function uploadFile() { //alert("Before calling upload.jsp"); window.location='<@ofbizUrl>testing_service1</@ofbizUrl>' } </script> </head> <!-- <form action="<@ofbizUrl>testing_service1</@ofbizUrl>" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="app_details_frm"> --> <form action="<@ofbizUrl>logout1</@ofbizUrl>" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="app_details_frm"> <center style="height: 299px; "> <table border="0" style="height: 177px; width: 788px"> <tr style="height: 115px; "> <td style="width: 103px; "> <td style="width: 413px; "><h1>APPLICATION DETAILS</h1> <td style="width: 55px; "> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 125px; ">Application name : </td> <td> <input name="app_name_txt" id="txt_1" value=" " /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td style="width: 125px; ">Excell sheet &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;: </td> <td> <input type="file" name="filename"/> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <!-- <input type="button" name="logout1_cmd" value="Logout" onclick="logout1()"/> --> <input type="submit" name="logout_cmd" value="logout"/> </td> <td> <!-- <input type="submit" name="upload_cmd" value="Submit" /> --> <input type="button" name="upload1_cmd" value="Upload" onclick="uploadFile()"/> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </form> </html> the following coding is present in the file "ofbiz\hot-deploy\productionmgntSystem\webapp\productionmgntSystem\WEB-INF\controller.xml" ...... ....... ........ <request-map uri="testing_service1"> <security https="true" auth="true"/> <event type="java" path="org.ofbiz.productionmgntSystem.web_app_req.WebServices1" invoke="testingService"/> <response name="ok" type="view" value="ok_view"/> <response name="exception" type="view" value="exception_view"/> </request-map> .......... ............ .......... <view-map name="ok_view" type="ftl" page="ok_view.ftl"/> <view-map name="exception_view" type="ftl" page="exception_view.ftl"/> ................ ............. ............. The following are the coding present in the file "ofbiz\hot-deploy\productionmgntSystem\src\org\ofbiz\productionmgntSystem\web_app_req\WebServices1.java" package org.ofbiz.productionmgntSystem.web_app_req; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest; import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse; import java.io.DataInputStream; import java.io.FileOutputStream; import java.io.IOException; public class WebServices1 { public static String testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) { //int i=0; String result="ok"; System.out.println("\n\n\t*************************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)- Start"); String contentType=request.getContentType(); System.out.println("\n\n\t*************************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)- contentType : "+contentType); String str=new String(); // response.setContentType("text/html"); //PrintWriter writer; if ((contentType != null) && (contentType.indexOf("multipart/form-data") >= 0)) { System.out.println("\n\n\t**********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) after if (contentType != null)"); try { // writer=response.getWriter(); System.out.println("\n\n\t**********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - try Start"); DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(request.getInputStream()); int formDataLength = request.getContentLength(); byte dataBytes[] = new byte[formDataLength]; int byteRead = 0; int totalBytesRead = 0; //this loop converting the uploaded file into byte code while (totalBytesRead < formDataLength) { byteRead = in.read(dataBytes, totalBytesRead,formDataLength); totalBytesRead += byteRead; } String file = new String(dataBytes); //for saving the file name String saveFile = file.substring(file.indexOf("filename=\"") + 10); saveFile = saveFile.substring(0, saveFile.indexOf("\n")); saveFile = saveFile.substring(saveFile.lastIndexOf("\\")+ 1,saveFile.indexOf("\"")); int lastIndex = contentType.lastIndexOf("="); String boundary = contentType.substring(lastIndex + 1,contentType.length()); int pos; //extracting the index of file pos = file.indexOf("filename=\""); pos = file.indexOf("\n", pos) + 1; pos = file.indexOf("\n", pos) + 1; pos = file.indexOf("\n", pos) + 1; int boundaryLocation = file.indexOf(boundary, pos) - 4; int startPos = ((file.substring(0, pos)).getBytes()).length; int endPos = ((file.substring(0, boundaryLocation)).getBytes()).length; //creating a new file with the same name and writing the content in new file FileOutputStream fileOut = new FileOutputStream("/"+saveFile); fileOut.write(dataBytes, startPos, (endPos - startPos)); fileOut.flush(); fileOut.close(); System.out.println("\n\n\t**********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - try End"); } catch(IOException ioe) { System.out.println("\n\n\t*********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - Catch IOException"); //ioe.printStackTrace(); return("exception"); } catch(Exception ex) { System.out.println("\n\n\t*********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) - Catch Exception"); return("exception"); } } else { System.out.println("\n\n\t********************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) else part"); result="exception"; } System.out.println("\n\n\t*************************************\n\tInside WebServices1.testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)- End"); return(result); } } I want to upload a file to the server.The file is get from user "<input type="file"..> tag in the "app_details_1.ftl" file & it is updated into the server by using the method "testingService(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)" in the class "WebServices1".But the file is not uploaded. Give me a good solution for uploading a file to the server. Thanks & Regards, Sivakumar.J

  Read the article

• Failed to Install Xdebug

  - by burnt1ce

  've registered xdebug in php.ini (as per http://xdebug.org/docs/install) but it's not showing up when i run "php -m" or when i get a test page to run "phpinfo()". I've just installed the latest version of XAMPP. I've used both "zend_extention" and "zend_extention_ts" to specify the path of the xdebug dll. I ensured that my apache server restarted and used the latest change of my php.ini by executing "httpd -k restart". Can anyone provide any suggestions in getting xdebug to show up? Here are the contents of my php.ini file. [PHP] ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; About php.ini ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; PHP's initialization file, generally called php.ini, is responsible for ; configuring many of the aspects of PHP's behavior. ; PHP attempts to find and load this configuration from a number of locations. ; The following is a summary of its search order: ; 1. SAPI module specific location. ; 2. The PHPRC environment variable. (As of PHP 5.2.0) ; 3. A number of predefined registry keys on Windows (As of PHP 5.2.0) ; 4. Current working directory (except CLI) ; 5. The web server's directory (for SAPI modules), or directory of PHP ; (otherwise in Windows) ; 6. The directory from the --with-config-file-path compile time option, or the ; Windows directory (C:\windows or C:\winnt) ; See the PHP docs for more specific information. ; http://php.net/configuration.file ; The syntax of the file is extremely simple. Whitespace and Lines ; beginning with a semicolon are silently ignored (as you probably guessed). ; Section headers (e.g. [Foo]) are also silently ignored, even though ; they might mean something in the future. ; Directives following the section heading [PATH=/www/mysite] only ; apply to PHP files in the /www/mysite directory. Directives ; following the section heading [HOST=www.example.com] only apply to ; PHP files served from www.example.com. Directives set in these ; special sections cannot be overridden by user-defined INI files or ; at runtime. Currently, [PATH=] and [HOST=] sections only work under ; CGI/FastCGI. ; http://php.net/ini.sections ; Directives are specified using the following syntax: ; directive = value ; Directive names are *case sensitive* - foo=bar is different from FOO=bar. ; Directives are variables used to configure PHP or PHP extensions. ; There is no name validation. If PHP can't find an expected ; directive because it is not set or is mistyped, a default value will be used. ; The value can be a string, a number, a PHP constant (e.g. E_ALL or M_PI), one ; of the INI constants (On, Off, True, False, Yes, No and None) or an expression ; (e.g. E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE), a quoted string ("bar"), or a reference to a ; previously set variable or directive (e.g. ${foo}) ; Expressions in the INI file are limited to bitwise operators and parentheses: ; | bitwise OR ; ^ bitwise XOR ; & bitwise AND ; ~ bitwise NOT ; ! boolean NOT ; Boolean flags can be turned on using the values 1, On, True or Yes. ; They can be turned off using the values 0, Off, False or No. ; An empty string can be denoted by simply not writing anything after the equal ; sign, or by using the None keyword: ; foo = ; sets foo to an empty string ; foo = None ; sets foo to an empty string ; foo = "None" ; sets foo to the string 'None' ; If you use constants in your value, and these constants belong to a ; dynamically loaded extension (either a PHP extension or a Zend extension), ; you may only use these constants *after* the line that loads the extension. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; About this file ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; PHP comes packaged with two INI files. One that is recommended to be used ; in production environments and one that is recommended to be used in ; development environments. ; php.ini-production contains settings which hold security, performance and ; best practices at its core. But please be aware, these settings may break ; compatibility with older or less security conscience applications. We ; recommending using the production ini in production and testing environments. ; php.ini-development is very similar to its production variant, except it's ; much more verbose when it comes to errors. We recommending using the ; development version only in development environments as errors shown to ; application users can inadvertently leak otherwise secure information. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Quick Reference ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; The following are all the settings which are different in either the production ; or development versions of the INIs with respect to PHP's default behavior. ; Please see the actual settings later in the document for more details as to why ; we recommend these changes in PHP's behavior. ; allow_call_time_pass_reference ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: Off ; Production Value: Off ; display_errors ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; display_startup_errors ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; error_reporting ; Default Value: E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE ; Development Value: E_ALL | E_STRICT ; Production Value: E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED ; html_errors ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: On ; Production value: Off ; log_errors ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: On ; magic_quotes_gpc ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: Off ; Production Value: Off ; max_input_time ; Default Value: -1 (Unlimited) ; Development Value: 60 (60 seconds) ; Production Value: 60 (60 seconds) ; output_buffering ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: 4096 ; Production Value: 4096 ; register_argc_argv ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: Off ; Production Value: Off ; register_long_arrays ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: Off ; Production Value: Off ; request_order ; Default Value: None ; Development Value: "GP" ; Production Value: "GP" ; session.bug_compat_42 ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; session.bug_compat_warn ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; session.gc_divisor ; Default Value: 100 ; Development Value: 1000 ; Production Value: 1000 ; session.hash_bits_per_character ; Default Value: 4 ; Development Value: 5 ; Production Value: 5 ; short_open_tag ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: Off ; Production Value: Off ; track_errors ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; url_rewriter.tags ; Default Value: "a=href,area=href,frame=src,form=,fieldset=" ; Development Value: "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=fakeentry" ; Production Value: "a=href,area=href,frame=src,input=src,form=fakeentry" ; variables_order ; Default Value: "EGPCS" ; Development Value: "GPCS" ; Production Value: "GPCS" ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; php.ini Options ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Name for user-defined php.ini (.htaccess) files. Default is ".user.ini" ;user_ini.filename = ".user.ini" ; To disable this feature set this option to empty value ;user_ini.filename = ; TTL for user-defined php.ini files (time-to-live) in seconds. Default is 300 seconds (5 minutes) ;user_ini.cache_ttl = 300 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Language Options ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Enable the PHP scripting language engine under Apache. ; http://php.net/engine engine = On ; This directive determines whether or not PHP will recognize code between ; <? and ?> tags as PHP source which should be processed as such. It's been ; recommended for several years that you not use the short tag "short cut" and ; instead to use the full <?php and ?> tag combination. With the wide spread use ; of XML and use of these tags by other languages, the server can become easily ; confused and end up parsing the wrong code in the wrong context. But because ; this short cut has been a feature for such a long time, it's currently still ; supported for backwards compatibility, but we recommend you don't use them. ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: Off ; Production Value: Off ; http://php.net/short-open-tag short_open_tag = Off ; Allow ASP-style <% %> tags. ; http://php.net/asp-tags asp_tags = Off ; The number of significant digits displayed in floating point numbers. ; http://php.net/precision precision = 14 ; Enforce year 2000 compliance (will cause problems with non-compliant browsers) ; http://php.net/y2k-compliance y2k_compliance = On ; Output buffering is a mechanism for controlling how much output data ; (excluding headers and cookies) PHP should keep internally before pushing that ; data to the client. If your application's output exceeds this setting, PHP ; will send that data in chunks of roughly the size you specify. ; Turning on this setting and managing its maximum buffer size can yield some ; interesting side-effects depending on your application and web server. ; You may be able to send headers and cookies after you've already sent output ; through print or echo. You also may see performance benefits if your server is ; emitting less packets due to buffered output versus PHP streaming the output ; as it gets it. On production servers, 4096 bytes is a good setting for performance ; reasons. ; Note: Output buffering can also be controlled via Output Buffering Control ; functions. ; Possible Values: ; On = Enabled and buffer is unlimited. (Use with caution) ; Off = Disabled ; Integer = Enables the buffer and sets its maximum size in bytes. ; Note: This directive is hardcoded to Off for the CLI SAPI ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: 4096 ; Production Value: 4096 ; http://php.net/output-buffering output_buffering = Off ; You can redirect all of the output of your scripts to a function. For ; example, if you set output_handler to "mb_output_handler", character ; encoding will be transparently converted to the specified encoding. ; Setting any output handler automatically turns on output buffering. ; Note: People who wrote portable scripts should not depend on this ini ; directive. Instead, explicitly set the output handler using ob_start(). ; Using this ini directive may cause problems unless you know what script ; is doing. ; Note: You cannot use both "mb_output_handler" with "ob_iconv_handler" ; and you cannot use both "ob_gzhandler" and "zlib.output_compression". ; Note: output_handler must be empty if this is set 'On' !!!! ; Instead you must use zlib.output_handler. ; http://php.net/output-handler ;output_handler = ; Transparent output compression using the zlib library ; Valid values for this option are 'off', 'on', or a specific buffer size ; to be used for compression (default is 4KB) ; Note: Resulting chunk size may vary due to nature of compression. PHP ; outputs chunks that are few hundreds bytes each as a result of ; compression. If you prefer a larger chunk size for better ; performance, enable output_buffering in addition. ; Note: You need to use zlib.output_handler instead of the standard ; output_handler, or otherwise the output will be corrupted. ; http://php.net/zlib.output-compression zlib.output_compression = Off ; http://php.net/zlib.output-compression-level ;zlib.output_compression_level = -1 ; You cannot specify additional output handlers if zlib.output_compression ; is activated here. This setting does the same as output_handler but in ; a different order. ; http://php.net/zlib.output-handler ;zlib.output_handler = ; Implicit flush tells PHP to tell the output layer to flush itself ; automatically after every output block. This is equivalent to calling the ; PHP function flush() after each and every call to print() or echo() and each ; and every HTML block. Turning this option on has serious performance ; implications and is generally recommended for debugging purposes only. ; http://php.net/implicit-flush ; Note: This directive is hardcoded to On for the CLI SAPI implicit_flush = Off ; The unserialize callback function will be called (with the undefined class' ; name as parameter), if the unserializer finds an undefined class ; which should be instantiated. A warning appears if the specified function is ; not defined, or if the function doesn't include/implement the missing class. ; So only set this entry, if you really want to implement such a ; callback-function. unserialize_callback_func = ; When floats & doubles are serialized store serialize_precision significant ; digits after the floating point. The default value ensures that when floats ; are decoded with unserialize, the data will remain the same. serialize_precision = 100 ; This directive allows you to enable and disable warnings which PHP will issue ; if you pass a value by reference at function call time. Passing values by ; reference at function call time is a deprecated feature which will be removed ; from PHP at some point in the near future. The acceptable method for passing a ; value by reference to a function is by declaring the reference in the functions ; definition, not at call time. This directive does not disable this feature, it ; only determines whether PHP will warn you about it or not. These warnings ; should enabled in development environments only. ; Default Value: On (Suppress warnings) ; Development Value: Off (Issue warnings) ; Production Value: Off (Issue warnings) ; http://php.net/allow-call-time-pass-reference allow_call_time_pass_reference = On ; Safe Mode ; http://php.net/safe-mode safe_mode = Off ; By default, Safe Mode does a UID compare check when ; opening files. If you want to relax this to a GID compare, ; then turn on safe_mode_gid. ; http://php.net/safe-mode-gid safe_mode_gid = Off ; When safe_mode is on, UID/GID checks are bypassed when ; including files from this directory and its subdirectories. ; (directory must also be in include_path or full path must ; be used when including) ; http://php.net/safe-mode-include-dir safe_mode_include_dir = ; When safe_mode is on, only executables located in the safe_mode_exec_dir ; will be allowed to be executed via the exec family of functions. ; http://php.net/safe-mode-exec-dir safe_mode_exec_dir = ; Setting certain environment variables may be a potential security breach. ; This directive contains a comma-delimited list of prefixes. In Safe Mode, ; the user may only alter environment variables whose names begin with the ; prefixes supplied here. By default, users will only be able to set ; environment variables that begin with PHP_ (e.g. PHP_FOO=BAR). ; Note: If this directive is empty, PHP will let the user modify ANY ; environment variable! ; http://php.net/safe-mode-allowed-env-vars safe_mode_allowed_env_vars = PHP_ ; This directive contains a comma-delimited list of environment variables that ; the end user won't be able to change using putenv(). These variables will be ; protected even if safe_mode_allowed_env_vars is set to allow to change them. ; http://php.net/safe-mode-protected-env-vars safe_mode_protected_env_vars = LD_LIBRARY_PATH ; open_basedir, if set, limits all file operations to the defined directory ; and below. This directive makes most sense if used in a per-directory ; or per-virtualhost web server configuration file. This directive is ; *NOT* affected by whether Safe Mode is turned On or Off. ; http://php.net/open-basedir ;open_basedir = ; This directive allows you to disable certain functions for security reasons. ; It receives a comma-delimited list of function names. This directive is ; *NOT* affected by whether Safe Mode is turned On or Off. ; http://php.net/disable-functions disable_functions = ; This directive allows you to disable certain classes for security reasons. ; It receives a comma-delimited list of class names. This directive is ; *NOT* affected by whether Safe Mode is turned On or Off. ; http://php.net/disable-classes disable_classes = ; Colors for Syntax Highlighting mode. Anything that's acceptable in ; <span style="color: ???????"> would work. ; http://php.net/syntax-highlighting ;highlight.string = #DD0000 ;highlight.comment = #FF9900 ;highlight.keyword = #007700 ;highlight.bg = #FFFFFF ;highlight.default = #0000BB ;highlight.html = #000000 ; If enabled, the request will be allowed to complete even if the user aborts ; the request. Consider enabling it if executing long requests, which may end up ; being interrupted by the user or a browser timing out. PHP's default behavior ; is to disable this feature. ; http://php.net/ignore-user-abort ;ignore_user_abort = On ; Determines the size of the realpath cache to be used by PHP. This value should ; be increased on systems where PHP opens many files to reflect the quantity of ; the file operations performed. ; http://php.net/realpath-cache-size ;realpath_cache_size = 16k ; Duration of time, in seconds for which to cache realpath information for a given ; file or directory. For systems with rarely changing files, consider increasing this ; value. ; http://php.net/realpath-cache-ttl ;realpath_cache_ttl = 120 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Miscellaneous ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Decides whether PHP may expose the fact that it is installed on the server ; (e.g. by adding its signature to the Web server header). It is no security ; threat in any way, but it makes it possible to determine whether you use PHP ; on your server or not. ; http://php.net/expose-php expose_php = On ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Resource Limits ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds ; http://php.net/max-execution-time ; Note: This directive is hardcoded to 0 for the CLI SAPI max_execution_time = 60 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data. It's a good ; idea to limit this time on productions servers in order to eliminate unexpectedly ; long running scripts. ; Note: This directive is hardcoded to -1 for the CLI SAPI ; Default Value: -1 (Unlimited) ; Development Value: 60 (60 seconds) ; Production Value: 60 (60 seconds) ; http://php.net/max-input-time max_input_time = 60 ; Maximum input variable nesting level ; http://php.net/max-input-nesting-level ;max_input_nesting_level = 64 ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (128MB) ; http://php.net/memory-limit memory_limit = 128M ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Error handling and logging ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; This directive informs PHP of which errors, warnings and notices you would like ; it to take action for. The recommended way of setting values for this ; directive is through the use of the error level constants and bitwise ; operators. The error level constants are below here for convenience as well as ; some common settings and their meanings. ; By default, PHP is set to take action on all errors, notices and warnings EXCEPT ; those related to E_NOTICE and E_STRICT, which together cover best practices and ; recommended coding standards in PHP. For performance reasons, this is the ; recommend error reporting setting. Your production server shouldn't be wasting ; resources complaining about best practices and coding standards. That's what ; development servers and development settings are for. ; Note: The php.ini-development file has this setting as E_ALL | E_STRICT. This ; means it pretty much reports everything which is exactly what you want during ; development and early testing. ; ; Error Level Constants: ; E_ALL - All errors and warnings (includes E_STRICT as of PHP 6.0.0) ; E_ERROR - fatal run-time errors ; E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR - almost fatal run-time errors ; E_WARNING - run-time warnings (non-fatal errors) ; E_PARSE - compile-time parse errors ; E_NOTICE - run-time notices (these are warnings which often result ; from a bug in your code, but it's possible that it was ; intentional (e.g., using an uninitialized variable and ; relying on the fact it's automatically initialized to an ; empty string) ; E_STRICT - run-time notices, enable to have PHP suggest changes ; to your code which will ensure the best interoperability ; and forward compatibility of your code ; E_CORE_ERROR - fatal errors that occur during PHP's initial startup ; E_CORE_WARNING - warnings (non-fatal errors) that occur during PHP's ; initial startup ; E_COMPILE_ERROR - fatal compile-time errors ; E_COMPILE_WARNING - compile-time warnings (non-fatal errors) ; E_USER_ERROR - user-generated error message ; E_USER_WARNING - user-generated warning message ; E_USER_NOTICE - user-generated notice message ; E_DEPRECATED - warn about code that will not work in future versions ; of PHP ; E_USER_DEPRECATED - user-generated deprecation warnings ; ; Common Values: ; E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE (Show all errors, except for notices and coding standards warnings.) ; E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE | E_STRICT (Show all errors, except for notices) ; E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR (Show only errors) ; E_ALL | E_STRICT (Show all errors, warnings and notices including coding standards.) ; Default Value: E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE ; Development Value: E_ALL | E_STRICT ; Production Value: E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED ; http://php.net/error-reporting error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED ; This directive controls whether or not and where PHP will output errors, ; notices and warnings too. Error output is very useful during development, but ; it could be very dangerous in production environments. Depending on the code ; which is triggering the error, sensitive information could potentially leak ; out of your application such as database usernames and passwords or worse. ; It's recommended that errors be logged on production servers rather than ; having the errors sent to STDOUT. ; Possible Values: ; Off = Do not display any errors ; stderr = Display errors to STDERR (affects only CGI/CLI binaries!) ; On or stdout = Display errors to STDOUT ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; http://php.net/display-errors display_errors = On ; The display of errors which occur during PHP's startup sequence are handled ; separately from display_errors. PHP's default behavior is to suppress those ; errors from clients. Turning the display of startup errors on can be useful in ; debugging configuration problems. But, it's strongly recommended that you ; leave this setting off on production servers. ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; http://php.net/display-startup-errors display_startup_errors = On ; Besides displaying errors, PHP can also log errors to locations such as a ; server-specific log, STDERR, or a location specified by the error_log ; directive found below. While errors should not be displayed on productions ; servers they should still be monitored and logging is a great way to do that. ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: On ; http://php.net/log-errors log_errors = Off ; Set maximum length of log_errors. In error_log information about the source is ; added. The default is 1024 and 0 allows to not apply any maximum length at all. ; http://php.net/log-errors-max-len log_errors_max_len = 1024 ; Do not log repeated messages. Repeated errors must occur in same file on same ; line unless ignore_repeated_source is set true. ; http://php.net/ignore-repeated-errors ignore_repeated_errors = Off ; Ignore source of message when ignoring repeated messages. When this setting ; is On you will not log errors with repeated messages from different files or ; source lines. ; http://php.net/ignore-repeated-source ignore_repeated_source = Off ; If this parameter is set to Off, then memory leaks will not be shown (on ; stdout or in the log). This has only effect in a debug compile, and if ; error reporting includes E_WARNING in the allowed list ; http://php.net/report-memleaks report_memleaks = On ; This setting is on by default. ;report_zend_debug = 0 ; Store the last error/warning message in $php_errormsg (boolean). Setting this value ; to On can assist in debugging and is appropriate for development servers. It should ; however be disabled on production servers. ; Default Value: Off ; Development Value: On ; Production Value: Off ; http://php.net/track-errors track_errors = Off ; Turn off normal error reporting and emit XML-RPC error XML ; http://php.net/xmlrpc-errors ;xmlrpc_errors = 0 ; An XML-RPC faultCode ;xmlrpc_error_number = 0 ; When PHP displays or logs an error, it has the capability of inserting html ; links to documentation related to that error. This directive controls whether ; those HTML links appear in error messages or not. For performance and security ; reasons, it's recommended you disable this on production servers. ; Note: This directive is hardcoded to Off for the CLI SAPI ; Default Value: On ; Development Value: On ; Production value: Off ; http://php.net/html-errors html_errors = On ; If html_errors is set On PHP produces clickable error messages that direct ; to a page describing the error or function causing the error in detail. ; You can download a copy of the PHP manual from http://php.net/docs ; and change docref_root to the base URL of your local copy including the ; leading '/'. You must also specify the file extension being used including ; the dot. PHP's default behavior is to leave these settings empty. ; Note: Never use this feature for production boxes. ; http://php.net/docref-root ; Examples ;docref_root = "/phpmanual/" ; http://php.net/docref-ext ;docref_ext = .html ; String to output before an error message. PHP's default behavior is to leave ; this setting blank. ; http://php.net/error-prepend-string ; Example: ;error_prepend_string = "<font color=#ff0000>" ; String to output after an error message. PHP's default behavior is to leave ; this setting blank. ; http://php.net/error-append-string ; Example: ;error_append_string = "</font>" ; Log errors to specified file. PHP's default behavior is to leave this value ; empty. ; http://php.net/error-log ; Example: ;error_log = php_errors.log ; Log errors to syslog (Event Log on NT, not valid in Windows 95). ;error_log = syslog ;error_log = "C:\xampp\apache\logs\php_error.log" ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Data Handling ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Note - track_vars is ALWAYS enabled ; The separator used in PHP generated URLs to separate arguments. ; PHP's default setting is "&". ; http://php.net/arg-separator.output ; Example: arg_separator.output = "&amp;" ; List of separator(s) used by PHP to parse input URLs into variables. ; PHP's default setting is "&

  Read the article

• "No video with supported format and mime type found" - Firefox - HTML5

  - by mangobug

  I am working with django 1.6, python 2.7, firefox 30 and Mac OS 10.10 Beta. When I render the following code <video width="570" height="340" controls="controls"> <source src="/some/path/" type="video/mp4" /> </video> I get an error stating "No video with supported format and mime type found". The same code runs perfectly on Safari and Chrome (yes I still haven't checked IE). I have tried different formats for the uploaded files and looked into ad-ons which might prevent this or different coding mechanisms, though nothing has been helpful. Please help!!!!

  Read the article

• Python unicode Decode Error SUDs

  - by PylonsN00b

  OK so I have # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- at the top of my script and it worked for being able to pull data from the database that had funny chars(Ñ ,Õ,é,—,–,’,…) in it and store that data into variables...but I have run into other problems, see I pull my data, organize it, and then dump it into a variables like so: title = product[1] Where product[1] is from my database result set Then I load it up for Suds like so: array_of_inventory_item_submit = ca_client_inventory.factory.create('ArrayOfInventoryItemSubmit') for product in products: inventory_item_submit = ca_client_inventory.factory.create('InventoryItemSubmit') inventory_item_list = get_item_list(product) inventory_item_submit = [inventory_item_list] array_of_inventory_item_submit.InventoryItemSubmit.append(inventory_item_submit) #Call that service baby! ca_client_inventory.service.SynchInventoryItemList(accountID, array_of_inventory_item_submit) Where get_item_list sets product[1] to title and (including a whole bunch of other nodes): inventory_item_submit.Title = title So everything runs fine until I call ca_client_inventory.service.SynchInventoryItemList that contains array_of_inventory_item_submit which contains the title w/ the funky char...here is the error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "upload_all_inventory_ebay.py", line 421, in <module> ca_client_inventory.service.SynchInventoryItemList(accountID, array_of_inventory_item_submit) File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/client.py", line 539, in __call__ File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/client.py", line 592, in invoke File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/bindings/binding.py", line 118, in get_message File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/bindings/document.py", line 63, in bodycontent File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/bindings/document.py", line 105, in mkparam File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/bindings/binding.py", line 260, in mkparam File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/core.py", line 62, in process File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/core.py", line 75, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 102, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 243, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 182, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/core.py", line 75, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 102, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 298, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 182, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/core.py", line 75, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 102, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 298, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 182, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/core.py", line 75, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 102, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 243, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 182, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/core.py", line 75, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 102, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/mx/appender.py", line 198, in append File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/sax/element.py", line 251, in setText File "build/bdist.macosx-10.6-i386/egg/suds/sax/text.py", line 43, in __new__ UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 116: ordinal not in range(128) Now what? My guess is my script can take in these funky chars because I have # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- at the top but Suds does NOT have that at the top of its files. Do I really want to go and change the Suds files...we all know this is the least desired last possible solution...what can I do?

  Read the article

• Easy software installation on Linux(Ubuntu/ Linux mint)

  - by Aash Maharoon

  When a software is installed, it has to be done with the terminal and coding. There are some steps to do which can be difficult for a new user(comes from windows OS). In Windows OS, we can set paths for installation directory, uninstall easily and installation GUI application comes with the software which is very easy to do with using mouse only. I am new to Linux and love to use it. Is there any methodologies or softwares which can be very user friendly for application installation with GUI support ? or only the terminal should be used ?

  Read the article

• IIS7 url rewrite rules

  - by sympatric greg

  In a hosted environment, I will be utilizing subdomains (and virtual directories) for various coding projects. I have a rewrite rule that changes 'subdomain.domain.com/url' to 'domain.com/subdomain/url'. This worked fine, except that the browser couldn't find resources with paths generated by ResolveURL("~/something"). The server was using the Application Path of "/subdomain/" so based on the rewrite rule, the browser's request for "/subdomain/something" was being looked for in "/subdomain/subdomain/something" were it wasn't to be found. either of these urls were valid: http://www.domain.com/subdomain/something http://subdomain.domain.com/something I resolved this by adding a another url rewrite rule to the subdomain: <rule name="RemoveSuperDir"> <match url="subdomain/(.*)" /> <action type="Rewrite" url="{R:1}" /> </rule> So for each subdomain that I might add, I will need to add such a rule. Is there a way to write a single rule at the domain level to resolve this issue?

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97  | Next Page >