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  • Box2d world width and height ratio with screen width and height

    - by Sujith
    I have view, for example GameView which extends SurfaceView . I have integrated Box2D physics in GameView. I have two widths , GameView width, height and Box2D physics world width ,height. I need to get the position of box2d world with the GameView co-ordinates. For example, Total width of screen = 240 Total height of screen = 320 Screen points needed to be mapped onto box2d co-ordinates (x,y) = 127, 139 For this i need to get the max width and height of the Box2d physics world. Is there is any way to get the max width and height of Box2d world. or Can i limit the width and height of box2d world within the screen resolution.

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  • VS 2010 IDE Features in a nutshell

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    Going through a VS 2010 IDE Features.  We will explore each feature in subsequent posts.  The post are documented as being reviewed by me.   Breakpoint Labeling Breakpoint Searching Breakpoint Import/Export Dynamic Data Tooling WPF Tree Visualizer Call Hierarchy Improved WPF Tooling Historical Debugging Mini-Dump Debugging Quick Search Better Multi-Monitor Support Highlight References Parallel Stacks Window Parallel Tasks Window Document Map Margin Generate from Usage Concurrency Profiler Inline Call Tree Extensible Test Runner MVC Tooling Web Deploy JQuery IntelliSense SharePoint Tooling HTML Snippets Web.config Transformation ClickOnce Enhancements for MS Office     VS is an editor as well as a platform for development and this is only more true with VS 2010.  As an editor there is improved forcus on writing code, understanding code, navigating and publishing code.   VS Shell has been completely rewritten using WPF extending huge benefits.  The start page has been rewritten using XAML, so it is easy to customize.   Support new support for Silverlight, MFC, F# , Azure and extended support for Office 2010, Sharepoint.   Has a good Extension Manager as well.   Enjoy Coding !!!

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  • Personal Development : Time, Planning , Repairs & Maintenance

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    Personal Development : Time, Planning, Repairs & Maintenance These are just my thoughts, but some you may find something interesting in it. Please think over it. We may know many things, but still we always keeps procrastinating it. I have written this as I have heard many people coming back and saying they don’t have time to do things they like. These are my thoughts buy may be useful to someone else too. Certain things in life needs periodic repairs and maintenance. To cite some examples , your CAR, your HOUSE, your personal laptop/desktop, your health etc. Likewise there are certain other things in professional life that requires repair/ maintenance /or some kind of polishing, so that you always stay on top of it. But they are not always obvious. Some of them are - Improving your communication skills - Increasing your vocabulary - Upgrading your technical skills - Pursuing your hobby - Increasing your knowledge/awareness etc… etc… And then there are certain things that we are always short of…. one is TIME. We all know TIME is one of the most precious things in life and yet we all are very miserable at managing it. Remember you can only manage it and not control it. You can only control which you own or which you create. In theory time is infinite. So, there should be abundant of it. But remember one thing, you know this, it’s not reversible. Once it has elapsed you cannot live it again. Think over it. So, how do find that golden 25th hour every day. To find the 25th hour you need to reflect back on your current daily activities. Analyze them and see where you are spending most of your time and is it really important. Even the 8 hours that you spent in the office, is it spent fruitfully. At the end of the day is the 8 precious hour that you spent was worth it. Just reflect back on your activities. Did you learn something? If yes did you make a point to NOTE IT. If you didn’t NOTED it then was the time you spent really worth it. Just ponder over it. Some calculations of your daily activities where most of the time is spent. Let’s start (in no particular order though) - Sleep (6.5 hours) [Remember you only require 6 good hours of sleep every day]. Some may thing it is 8, but it’s a myth.   o To achive 6 hours of sleep and be in good health you can practice 15 minutes of daily meditation. So effectively you can    round it to 6.5 hours. - Morning chores(2 hours) : Some may need to prepare breakfast and all other things. - Office commuting (avg. to and fro 3 hours) - Office Work (avg 9.5 hours) Total Hours: 21 hours effective time which is spent irrespective of what you do. There may be some variations here and there. Still you have 3 hours EXTRA. Where do these 3 hours go? If you can find it, then you may get that golden 25th hour out of these 3 hours. Let’s discount 2 hours for contingencies, still you have 1 hour with you. If you can’t find it then you are living a direction less life. As you can see, the 25th Hour lies within the 24 hours of the day. It’s upto each one of us to find and make use of it. Now what can you do with that 25th hour i.e. 1 hour extra of your life. Imagine the possibility. Again some calculations 1 hour daily * 30 days = 30 hours every month 30 hours pm * 12 month = 360 hours every year. 360 hours every year seems very promising. Let’s add some contingencies, say, let’s be optimistic and say 50 % contingency. Still you have 180 hours every year. That leaves with 30 minutes every day of extra time. That’s hell a lot of time, if you could manage it. These may sound like a high talk [yes, it is, unless you apply these simple rules and rationalize your everyday living and stop procrastinating]. NOTE: I haven’t taken weekend, holidays and leaves into account. So, that leaves us with a lot of buffer time. You can meet family friends, relatives, other tasks, and yet have these 180 pure hours of joy every year. Do whatever you want to do with it. So, how important is this 180 hours per year to you? Just think over it. You may use it the way you like - 50 hours [pursue your hobby like drawing, crafting, learn dance, learn juggling, learn swimming, travelling hmm.. anything you like doing and you didn’t had time to do it.] - 30 hours you can learn a new programming language or technology (i.e. you can get comfortable with it) - 50 hours [improve existing skills] - 20 hours [improve you communication skill]. Do some light reading. - 30 hours [YOU DECIDE WHAT TO DO]? So, if you had done this for one year you would have learnt a new programming language, upgraded existing skills, improved you communication etc.. If you had done this for two years.. imagine the level of personal development or growth which you may have attained….. If you had done this for three years….. NOW I think I don’t need to mention this… So, you still have TIME, as they say TIME is infinite. So, make judicious use of this precious thing. And never ever comeback saying “I don’t have time”. So, if you are RICH in TIME, everything else will be automatically taken care of, as those things may just be a byproduct of how you spend your time… So, happy TIMING your TIME everyday.

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  • 30 Steps to Master ASP.NET MVC Application development

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Welcome Readers!,   I am starting out a new series on ASP.NET  MVC skill building which will be posted over the next couple of weeks.  Let me know your thoughts on the content, which I have planned and a couple of them has been taken from ASP.NET MVC2 Cookbook. (NOTE: Only the heading has been taken, the content will be not :)).   Do let me know what you would like to see, or any additional inputs or ideas to cover in this topics.  The 30 steps are oultined below for quick reference.  Will start filling this out quickly.   Outlined is the ‘30’ step to master ASP.NET MVC.   A Peek Into Model What is a model? Different types of model Presentation/ViewModel Model Mapping (AutoMapper)   A Peak into View How view works in ASP.NET MVC? View Engine Design Custom View Engine View Best Practices Templated Helpers Partial Views   A Peak into Controller Introduction Controller Design Controller Best Practices Asynchronous Controller Custom Action Result Action Filters Controller Factory to use with IOC   Routes Explanation Routes from the database Routes from XML More complex routing   Master Pages Basics Setting Master Page Dynamically   Working with data in the view Repeating Views Array of check boxes Array of radio buttons Paged data CRUD Client side action Confirmation Dialog (modal window) jqGrid   Working with Forms   Validation Model Validation with DataAnnotations Using the xVal validation framework Client side validation with jQuery Validation Fluent Validation Model Binders   Templating Create strongly typed helper using T4 Custom View Templates with T4 Create custom MVC project template using T4   IOC AutoFac Ninject Unity Application   Areas   jQuery, Ajax and jQuery Plugins   State Maintenance Application State User state Cookies Webfarm   Error Handling View error handling Controller error handling ELMAH (Error Logging Modules and Handlers)   Authentication and Authorization User Registration form SignOn Process Password Reminder Membership and Roles Windows authentication Restricting access to all pages Restricting access to selected pages Restricting access to pages by role Restricting access to a controller Restricting access to selected area   Profiles and Themes Using Profiles Inheriting a Profile Migrating an anonymous profile Creating custom themes Using themes User personalized themes   Configuration Adding custom application settings in web.config Displaying custom error messages Accessing other web.config configuration elements Adding custom configuration elements to web.config Encrypting web.config sections   Tracing, Debugging and Logging   Caching Caching a whole page Caching pages based on route details Caching pages based on browser type and version Caching pages based custom strings Caching partial pages Caching application data Object Caching Using Microsoft Velocity Using MemCache Using AppFabric cache   Localization   HTTP Handlers and Modules   Security XSS/CSRF AnitForgery Encoding   HtmlHelpers Strongly typed helpers Writing custom helpers   Repository Pattern (Data access)   WF/WCF   Unit Testing   Mocking Framework   Integration Testing   Load / Performance Testing   Deployment    Once again let me know your thoughts on this.   Till then, Enjoy MVC'ing!!!

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  • BDD using SpecFlow on ASP.NET MVC Application

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    I usually love doing TDD and am moving towards understanding BDD (Behaviour Driven Development).  My learnings are documented in the form of an article at CodeProject. The URL is http://www.codeproject.com/KB/architecture/BddWithSpecFlow.aspx I will keep this updated as and when I learn a couple of more things. Hope you like it. Cheers !!!

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  • ASP.NET MVC Application In Action - I (DailyJournal)

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    Its been long due I was planning to write an article on creating some useful ASP.NET MVC application. I have code named it "DailyJournal". Its a simple application which allows creation of multiple activities and assign tasks to these activities. Its' kind of "Yet another Task/Todo application". The credentials which you can use with the attached demo application is shown below.   Collapse Copy Code User Name : admin Password : admin123 Framework/Libraries Used ASP.NET MVC jQuery + jQuery UI (for ajax and UI) ELMAH for Error logging Warning Ahead This is just a rough draft and so I am putting down some of the known limitation. Some points of warning before we move further with this application. This is just an early prototype. As such many of the design principles have been ignored. But, I try to cover that up in the next update once I get my head around this. The application in its current state supports the following features Create users Assign Activities to users Assign tasks to activities Assign a status to a task The user creation/authentication is being done by the default Membership provider. Most of the activities are highly visual i.e. you can drag-drop task to different areas, in-place edition of task details and so on.   The following are the current issues with the design which I promise to refactor in the second version. No Validations Fat Controller XSS/CSS vulnerable No Service model/abstraction yet. For the demo LINQ to SQL is implemented. No separation of layers UI Design et el... This is just an extract.  For source code and more information proceed to http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/mvcinaction.aspx Hope you like this!

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  • What's the best way to move to linux from windows for web development ?

    - by rajesh pillai
    I am primarily a programmer developing on windows based OS using c# as my primary language. I am evaluating Ubuntu Linux as an alternate platform and would like to know the best stack for doing web development on this. I had gone through the following thread Moving development from Windows to Linux but it doesn't answer my questions fully. Some of the points I am interested are outlined below PHP/Ruby/Python (What would you recommend?) Is Mono mature enough for any large scale development? Has anyone any real experience using Mono. IDE (including debugging support, intellisense, source control integration,Unit testing) Unit testing framework based on the language recommended Web framework if any. Load Testing tools Web server (I know there are many webservers, but would like to know which one is primarily used by most people) Your inputs is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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  • What did you learn today?

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    What did you learn today? Everyday teaches you something, some lesson or the other. Some day you learn a new language, a new skill or a new hobby or visit some new place, learn music, have a different dining experience, learn swimming, make some good friends, get in touch with some old friend etc. etc…. Each of these things teaches you something… So, what did you learn today? Some of the learnings from my past weeks are outlined below… Respect others. Don’t underestimate them. (Though I never consciously do so) Be careful with your words because words have different meanings if the context is not clear. Spend some time for your personal stuff and allow others do so. Every individual is different, their skills different, their thoughts are different, their perceptions are different. So, be polite. Time management. (This is a tough skill to master). At the end of the day I keep looking for more time so may be you. So, again What did you learn today? This reflection is important because if you don’t know what you are learning at every stage in your life, then your are not learning and not growing. In short you are not living. Learning is not memorization but it is self realization….. Happy learning!!!

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  • WCF - Automatically create ServiceHost for multiple services

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    WCF - Automatically create ServiceHost for multiple services Welcome back readers!  This blog post is about a small tip that may make working with WCF servicehost a bit easier, if you have lots of services and you need to quickly host them for testing. Recently I was encountered a situation where we were faced to create multiple service host quickly for testing.  Here is the code snippet which is pretty self explanatory.  You can put this code in your service host which in this case is  a console application. class Program   {       static void Main(string[] args)       { // Stores all hosts           List<ServiceHost> hosts = new List<ServiceHost>();           try           { // Get the services element from the serviceModel element in the config file               var section = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.serviceModel/services") as ServicesSection;               if (section != null)               {                   foreach (ServiceElement element in section.Services)                   { // NOTE : If the assembly is in another namespace, provide a fully qualified name here in the form // <typename, namespace> // For e.g. Business.Services.CustomerService, Business.Services                       var serviceType = Type.GetType(element.Name); // Get the typeName                        var host = new ServiceHost(serviceType);                       hosts.Add(host); // Add to the host collection                       host.Open(); // Open the host                   }               }               Console.ReadLine();           }           catch (Exception e)           {               Console.WriteLine(e.Message);               Console.ReadLine();           }           finally           {               foreach (ServiceHost host in hosts)               {                   if (host.State == CommunicationState.Opened)                   {                       host.Close();                   }                   else                   {                       host.Abort();                   }               }           }       }   } I hope you find this useful.  You can make this as a windows service if required.

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  • Own a book

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    Its a pleasure to introduce my first initiative, http://ownabook.org/,  which is live now and is in beta.  Go get in the queue to grab your hardcopy of your favorite book or audio as applicable and when published.There is no catch.  This site is being built using ASP.NET MVC 3, jQuery and other good stuff.  I will open the source once the beta period is over, and filled with more functionality.Every month a winner will be selected and couriered the book.   The intent behind this service is to help motivate to keep the reading habits alive.  Though it is never guaranteed the winner will read the book, but, nevertheless, being on the positive note is always a good thing.Hope you will like the service.

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  • how to update paths

    - by sujith
    I built my system in my own machine. then i host it server. the database store some paths ex:/home/dsppace/store/123.pdf like wise. when i host it the pdf is not open. how i settle this problem?

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  • Internet speed showing high value but never felt that speed [closed]

    - by Kiran D Pillai
    I use Reliance Netconnect+ in my Toshiba Satellite laptop. My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate. I've seen speeds up to 1500 kbps when travelling and have an average speed of 400 kbps at my room premises. I'm sorry, I've never felt that much speed while browsing or downloading. Sometimes I think some other programs are also sharing the same network. It is just showing 200 or 500 kbps but I feel 25 or 50 kbps. Is there any way to prevent them? I use Google Chrome downloaded from Google site. Please suggest me some solutions.

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  • RTF template coding, XSLT coding

    - by sujith
    I have the below requirement <data> <dataset1> <number>1</number> <name>red</name> <number>2</number> <name>Yellow</name> <number>3</number> <name>black</name> <number>4</number> <name>Violet</name> </dataset1> <dataset2> <index>1</index> <index>2</index> <index>3</index> <index>4</index> </dataset2> </data> I need to loop through dataset2 take the index value, compare it with the value of number tag in dataset1. If a match occurs then display value of corresponding name tag. I need to get the output in rtf format. Please give BI tags or relevent xslt code to do the same. Thanks in advance.

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  • Unexpected output from Bubblesort program with MSVC vs TCC

    - by Sujith S Pillai
    One of my friends sent this code to me, saying it doesn't work as expected: #include<stdio.h> void main() { int a [10] ={23, 100, 20, 30, 25, 45, 40, 55, 43, 42}; int sizeOfInput = sizeof(a)/sizeof(int); int b, outer, inner, c; printf("Size is : %d \n", sizeOfInput); printf("Values before bubble sort are : \n"); for ( b = 0; b &lt; sizeOfInput; b++) printf("%d\n", a[b]); printf("End of values before bubble sort... \n"); for ( outer = sizeOfInput; outer &gt; 0; outer-- ) { for ( inner = 0 ; inner &lt; outer ; inner++) { printf ( "Comparing positions: %d and %d\n",inner,inner+1); if ( a[inner] &gt; a[inner + 1] ) { int tmp = a[inner]; a[inner] = a [inner+1]; a[inner+1] = tmp; } } printf ( "Bubble sort total array size after inner loop is %d :\n",sizeOfInput); printf ( "Bubble sort sizeOfInput after inner loop is %d :\n",sizeOfInput); } printf ( "Bubble sort total array size at the end is %d :\n",sizeOfInput); for ( c = 0 ; c &lt; sizeOfInput; c++) printf("Element: %d\n", a[c]); } I am using Micosoft Visual Studio Command Line Tool for compiling this on a Windows XP machine. cl /EHsc bubblesort01.c My friend gets the correct output on a dinosaur machine (code is compiled using TCC there). My output is unexpected. The array mysteriously grows in size, in between. If you change the code so that the variable sizeOfInput is changed to sizeOfInputt, it gives the expected results! A search done at Microsoft Visual C++ Developer Center doesn't give any results for "sizeOfInput". I am not a C/C++ expert, and am curious to find out why this happens - any C/C++ experts who can "shed some light" on this? Unrelated note: I seriously thought of rewriting the whole code to use quicksort or merge sort before posting it here. But, after all, it is not Stooge sort... Edit: I know the code is not correct (it reads beyond the last element), but I am curious why the variable name makes a difference.

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  • Retrieve a lost subversion repository

    - by Sujith
    I have a Rails application working on Passenger deployed using Capistrano from a subversion repository. The subversion repository is lost. We just have a folder named "cached-copy" which I believe has been made by svn. Is it possible to recreate a subversion repository from this "cached-copy"?

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  • Unexpected output while using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (Express Edition) C++ Command Line Tool

    - by Sujith S Pillai
    One of my friends sent this code to me, saying it doesn't work as expected: #include<stdio.h> void main() { int a [10] ={23, 100, 20, 30, 25, 45, 40, 55, 43, 42}; int sizeOfInput = sizeof(a)/sizeof(int); int b, outer, inner, c; printf("Size is : %d \n", sizeOfInput); printf("Values before bubble sort are : \n"); for ( b = 0; b < sizeOfInput; b++) printf("%d\n", a[b]); printf("End of values before bubble sort... \n"); for ( outer = sizeOfInput; outer > 0; outer-- ) { for ( inner = 0 ; inner < outer ; inner++) { printf ( "Comparing positions: %d and %d\n",inner,inner+1); if ( a[inner] > a[inner + 1] ) { int tmp = a[inner]; a[inner] = a [inner+1]; a[inner+1] = tmp; } } printf ( "Bubble sort total array size after inner loop is %d :\n",sizeOfInput); printf ( "Bubble sort sizeOfInput after inner loop is %d :\n",sizeOfInput); } printf ( "Bubble sort total array size at the end is %d :\n",sizeOfInput); for ( c = 0 ; c < sizeOfInput; c++) printf("Element: %d\n", a[c]); } I am using Micosoft Visual Studio Command Line Tool for compiling this on a Windows XP machine. cl /EHsc bubblesort01.c My friend gets the correct output on a dinosaur machine (code is compiled using TCC there). My output is unexpected. The array mysteriously grows in size, in between. If you change the code so that the variable sizeOfInput is changed to sizeOfInputt, it gives the expected results! A search done at Microsoft Visual C++ Developer Center doesn't give any results for "sizeOfInput". I am not a C/C++ expert, and am curious to find out why this happens - any C/C++ experts who can "shed some light" on this? Unrelated note: I seriously thought of rewriting the whole code to use quicksort or merge sort before posting it here. But, after all, it is not Stooge sort...

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  • Ideas for OpenSource CMS in ASP.NET MVC

    - by rajesh pillai
    I am in the process of collecting ideas for building an opensource CMS based on ASP.net framework. I have choosen ASP.NET MVC with Jquery as the tool to develop this. I have made this as community wiki. Background: Most of the good CMS that is available is built on PHP, though off late CMS built on ASP.net framework seems to be cropping up. I would like to collect ideas/suggestion/expectations from an opensource CMS system for ASP.net platform. I am looking for expectation from technology and features that you wish could find in a modern CMS and any other thoughts/ideas that comes to your mind. Your input would be of great help in this direction. Meanwhile I am also reviewing many opensource CMS system built on ASP.net as well as MS Office Sharepoint to get ideas and I would update my findings here for your reference. The following are some of the opensource CMS/BlogEngines that I am in the process of reviewing. -Oxite (ASP.net MVC) : This is the new kid on the block -Wordpress -BlogEngine.net -Umbraco Some of the features that I can think of is noted below Simplified content creation Support Multiple content author Metadata feature Workflow engine Simplified deployment List based contents (sharepoint like) Customizable URL's Support content Caching Roles (contenauthor, contentpublisher etc) Support different types of content (like html, txt, document, image, videos) Skinnable (support extensible themes) Localization & Globalization Unlimited nesting of categories Readymade template for blog, forums,survey. Good documentation You can add your points or add some depth to any of the above feature.

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  • Unable to retrieve the complete description string of the event log record

    - by Santosh Pillai
    Hi All, I have an MFC application that reads and displays event log records using the ::ReadEventLog() API. The problem is with reading the "Description" message string of the event log record. The MFC application is unable to read the complete "Description" message string and displays only some part of it. However the Windows System Event Log Viewer reads and displays the complete "Description" message string correctly. I have ensured that my MFC application reads the entire "Description" message string by retrieving all the strings as provided by the "NumStrings" and "StringOffset" member variables of the EVENTLOGRECORD structure and merging all of them. Also as mentioned in MSDN my application loads the Source Name specific message library file (whose path is specified in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog\Application[SourceName]) that further contains additional message string information and merges it with the earlier read strings. I am still unable to get the entire "Description" message string. Please provide any help towards resolving the issue. Regards, Santosh.

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  • copying files from one windows server to another

    - by Saju Pillai
    I have to copy a file from a windows 2008 server to one or more windows 2008 servers. I have accounts on the target machines with enough privileges to let me use powershell remoting and use wmi. The remote machines do not run ftp, ssh or similar file transfer mechanisms. I am not allowed to install software or run new services on the target server. I can run services on the source server. The file copy action must be initiated from the source server. i.e. I cannot manually logon to the target machines and initiate the copy - though an automated way to do this is acceptable. Is it possible to use WMI or PowerShell Remoting to push or pull the file from the source to the target ? Is it possible to invoke some sort of built in http client or invoke the BITS service/agent on the remote servers to pull files from the source server ? Other suggestions please.

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  • Runtime error on Did End On Exit in iPhone application

    - by Deepak Pillai
    Does anyone know why im getting runtime error when i click on return button on iphone keyboard. I need to hide keyboard after done editing values to UITextField. So i assigned Did End On Exit to IBAction and the IBAction code below -(IBAction)FinishEditing:(id)sender { [folderName resignFirstResponder]; } When running ma project i facing a runtime error and the variable values shown below argv char ** 0xbffff58c *argv char * 0xbffff6b8 **argv char '/' Console Value (lldb) Any idea to overcome this issue??

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  • Liferay - Custom Authentication Web Service

    - by Vishal G
    Hi, I want to use authentication web services that is exposed by my legacy client. But I cannot copy those user information in to liferay database. Can any one help me to write a custom authentication service OR a hook/plugin to reuse my own implementation for authentication? Regards Vishal G Pillai

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  • Building applications with WPF, MVVM and Prism(aka CAG)

    - by skjagini
    In this article I am going to walk through an application using WPF and Prism (aka composite application guidance, CAG) which simulates engaging a taxi (cab).  The rules are simple, the app would have3 screens A login screen to authenticate the user An information screen. A screen to engage the cab and roam around and calculating the total fare Metered Rate of Fare The meter is required to be engaged when a cab is occupied by anyone $3.00 upon entry $0.35 for each additional unit The unit fare is: one-fifth of a mile, when the cab is traveling at 6 miles an hour or more; or 60 seconds when not in motion or traveling at less than 12 miles per hour. Night surcharge of $.50 after 8:00 PM & before 6:00 AM Peak hour Weekday Surcharge of $1.00 Monday - Friday after 4:00 PM & before 8:00 PM New York State Tax Surcharge of $.50 per ride. Example: Friday (2010-10-08) 5:30pm Start at Lexington Ave & E 57th St End at Irving Pl & E 15th St Start = $3.00 Travels 2 miles at less than 6 mph for 15 minutes = $3.50 Travels at more than 12 mph for 5 minutes = $1.75 Peak hour Weekday Surcharge = $1.00 (ride started at 5:30 pm) New York State Tax Surcharge = $0.50 Before we dive into the app, I would like to give brief description about the framework.  If you want to jump on to the source code, scroll all the way to the end of the post. MVVM MVVM pattern is in no way related to the usage of PRISM in your application and should be considered if you are using WPF irrespective of PRISM or not. Lets say you are not familiar with MVVM, your typical UI would involve adding some UI controls like text boxes, a button, double clicking on the button,  generating event handler, calling a method from business layer and updating the user interface, it works most of the time for developing small scale applications. The problem with this approach is that there is some amount of code specific to business logic wrapped in UI specific code which is hard to unit test it, mock it and MVVM helps to solve the exact problem. MVVM stands for Model(M) – View(V) – ViewModel(VM),  based on the interactions with in the three parties it should be called VVMM,  MVVM sounds more like MVC (Model-View-Controller) so the name. Why it should be called VVMM: View – View Model - Model WPF allows to create user interfaces using XAML and MVVM takes it to the next level by allowing complete separation of user interface and business logic. In WPF each view will have a property, DataContext when set to an instance of a class (which happens to be your view model) provides the data the view is interested in, i.e., view interacts with view model and at the same time view model interacts with view through DataContext. Sujith, if view and view model are interacting directly with each other how does MVVM is helping me separation of concerns? Well, the catch is DataContext is of type Object, since it is of type object view doesn’t know exact type of view model allowing views and views models to be loosely coupled. View models aggregate data from models (data access layer, services, etc) and make it available for views through properties, methods etc, i.e., View Models interact with Models. PRISM Prism is provided by Microsoft Patterns and Practices team and it can be downloaded from codeplex for source code,  samples and documentation on msdn.  The name composite implies, to compose user interface from different modules (views) without direct dependencies on each other, again allowing  loosely coupled development. Well Sujith, I can already do that with user controls, why shall I learn another framework?  That’s correct, you can decouple using user controls, but you still have to manage some amount of coupling, like how to do you communicate between the controls, how do you subscribe/unsubscribe, loading/unloading views dynamically. Prism is not a replacement for user controls, provides the following features which greatly help in designing the composite applications. Dependency Injection (DI)/ Inversion of Control (IoC) Modules Regions Event Aggregator  Commands Simply put, MVVM helps building a single view and Prism helps building an application using the views There are other open source alternatives to Prism, like MVVMLight, Cinch, take a look at them as well. Lets dig into the source code.  1. Solution The solution is made of the following projects Framework: Holds the common functionality in building applications using WPF and Prism TaxiClient: Start up project, boot strapping and app styling TaxiCommon: Helps with the business logic TaxiModules: Holds the meat of the application with views and view models TaxiTests: To test the application 2. DI / IoC Dependency Injection (DI) as the name implies refers to injecting dependencies and Inversion of Control (IoC) means the calling code has no direct control on the dependencies, opposite of normal way of programming where dependencies are passed by caller, i.e inversion; aside from some differences in terminology the concept is same in both the cases. The idea behind DI/IoC pattern is to reduce the amount of direct coupling between different components of the application, the higher the dependency the more tightly coupled the application resulting in code which is hard to modify, unit test and mock.  Initializing Dependency Injection through BootStrapper TaxiClient is the starting project of the solution and App (App.xaml)  is the starting class that gets called when you run the application. From the App’s OnStartup method we will invoke BootStrapper.   namespace TaxiClient { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for App.xaml /// </summary> public partial class App : Application { protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e) { base.OnStartup(e);   (new BootStrapper()).Run(); } } } BootStrapper is your contact point for initializing the application including dependency injection, creating Shell and other frameworks. We are going to use Unity for DI and there are lot of open source DI frameworks like Spring.Net, StructureMap etc with different feature set  and you can choose a framework based on your preferences. Note that Prism comes with in built support for Unity, for example we are deriving from UnityBootStrapper in our case and for any other DI framework you have to extend the Prism appropriately   namespace TaxiClient { public class BootStrapper: UnityBootstrapper { protected override IModuleCatalog CreateModuleCatalog() { return new ConfigurationModuleCatalog(); } protected override DependencyObject CreateShell() { Framework.FrameworkBootStrapper.Run(Container, Application.Current.Dispatcher);   Shell shell = new Shell(); shell.ResizeMode = ResizeMode.NoResize; shell.Show();   return shell; } } } Lets take a look into  FrameworkBootStrapper to check out how to register with unity container. namespace Framework { public class FrameworkBootStrapper { public static void Run(IUnityContainer container, Dispatcher dispatcher) { UIDispatcher uiDispatcher = new UIDispatcher(dispatcher); container.RegisterInstance<IDispatcherService>(uiDispatcher);   container.RegisterType<IInjectSingleViewService, InjectSingleViewService>( new ContainerControlledLifetimeManager());   . . . } } } In the above code we are registering two components with unity container. You shall observe that we are following two different approaches, RegisterInstance and RegisterType.  With RegisterInstance we are registering an existing instance and the same instance will be returned for every request made for IDispatcherService   and with RegisterType we are requesting unity container to create an instance for us when required, i.e., when I request for an instance for IInjectSingleViewService, unity will create/return an instance of InjectSingleViewService class and with RegisterType we can configure the life time of the instance being created. With ContaienrControllerLifetimeManager, the unity container caches the instance and reuses for any subsequent requests, without recreating a new instance. Lets take a look into FareViewModel.cs and it’s constructor. The constructor takes one parameter IEventAggregator and if you try to find all references in your solution for IEventAggregator, you will not find a single location where an instance of EventAggregator is passed directly to the constructor. The compiler still finds an instance and works fine because Prism is already configured when used with Unity container to return an instance of EventAggregator when requested for IEventAggregator and in this particular case it is called constructor injection. public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public FareViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); PropertyChanged += OnPropertyChanged; } ... 3. Shell Shells are very similar in operation to Master Pages in asp.net or MDI in Windows Forms. And shells contain regions which display the views, you can have as many regions as you wish in a given view. You can also nest regions. i.e, one region can load a view which in itself may contain other regions. We have to create a shell at the start of the application and are doing it by overriding CreateShell method from BootStrapper From the following Shell.xaml you shall notice that we have two content controls with Region names as ‘MenuRegion’ and ‘MainRegion’.  The idea here is that you can inject any user controls into the regions dynamically, i.e., a Menu User Control for MenuRegion and based on the user action you can load appropriate view into MainRegion.    <Window x:Class="TaxiClient.Shell" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Regions="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Regions;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism" Title="Taxi" Height="370" Width="800"> <Grid Margin="2"> <ContentControl Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MenuRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" />   <ContentControl Grid.Row="1" Regions:RegionManager.RegionName="MainRegion" HorizontalAlignment="Stretch" VerticalAlignment="Stretch" HorizontalContentAlignment="Stretch" VerticalContentAlignment="Stretch" /> <!--<Border Grid.ColumnSpan="2" BorderThickness="2" CornerRadius="3" BorderBrush="LightBlue" />-->   </Grid> </Window> 4. Modules Prism provides the ability to build composite applications and modules play an important role in it. For example if you are building a Mortgage Loan Processor application with 3 components, i.e. customer’s credit history,  existing mortgages, new home/loan information; and consider that the customer’s credit history component involves gathering data about his/her address, background information, job details etc. The idea here using Prism modules is to separate the implementation of these 3 components into their own visual studio projects allowing to build components with no dependency on each other and independently. If we need to add another component to the application, the component can be developed by in house team or some other team in the organization by starting with a new Visual Studio project and adding to the solution at the run time with very little knowledge about the application. Prism modules are defined by implementing the IModule interface and each visual studio project to be considered as a module should implement the IModule interface.  From the BootStrapper.cs you shall observe that we are overriding the method by returning a ConfiguratingModuleCatalog which returns the modules that are registered for the application using the app.config file  and you can also add module using code. Lets take a look into configuration file.   <?xml version="1.0"?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name="modules" type="Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Modularity.ModulesConfigurationSection, Microsoft.Practices.Prism"/> </configSections> <modules> <module assemblyFile="TaxiModules.dll" moduleType="TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer, TaxiModules" moduleName="TaxiModules"/> </modules> </configuration> Here we are adding TaxiModules project to our solution and TaxiModules.ModuleInitializer implements IModule interface   5. Module Mapper With Prism modules you can dynamically add or remove modules from the regions, apart from that Prism also provides API to control adding/removing the views from a region within the same module. Taxi Information Screen: Engage the Taxi Screen: The sample application has two screens, ‘Taxi Information’ and ‘Engage the Taxi’ and they both reside in same module, TaxiModules. ‘Engage the Taxi’ is again made of two user controls, FareView on the left and TotalView on the right. We have created a Shell with two regions, MenuRegion and MainRegion with menu loaded into MenuRegion. We can create a wrapper user control called EngageTheTaxi made of FareView and TotalView and load either TaxiInfo or EngageTheTaxi into MainRegion based on the user action. Though it will work it tightly binds the user controls and for every combination of user controls, we need to create a dummy wrapper control to contain them. Instead we can apply the principles we learned so far from Shell/regions and introduce another template (LeftAndRightRegionView.xaml) made of two regions Region1 (left) and Region2 (right) and load  FareView and TotalView dynamically.  To help with loading of the views dynamically I have introduce an helper an interface, IInjectSingleViewService,  idea suggested by Mike Taulty, a must read blog for .Net developers. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel;   namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation {   public interface IInjectSingleViewService : INotifyPropertyChanged { IEnumerable<CommandViewDefinition> Commands { get; } IEnumerable<ModuleViewDefinition> Modules { get; }   void RegisterViewForRegion(string commandName, string viewName, string regionName, Type viewType); void ClearViewFromRegion(string viewName, string regionName); void RegisterModule(string moduleName, IList<ModuleMapper> moduleMappers); } } The Interface declares three methods to work with views: RegisterViewForRegion: Registers a view with a particular region. You can register multiple views and their regions under one command.  When this particular command is invoked all the views registered under it will be loaded into their regions. ClearViewFromRegion: To unload a specific view from a region. RegisterModule: The idea is when a command is invoked you can load the UI with set of controls in their default position and based on the user interaction, you can load different contols in to different regions on the fly.  And it is supported ModuleViewDefinition and ModuleMappers as shown below. namespace Framework.PresentationUtility.Navigation { public class ModuleViewDefinition { public string ModuleName { get; set; } public IList<ModuleMapper> ModuleMappers; public ICommand Command { get; set; } }   public class ModuleMapper { public string ViewName { get; set; } public string RegionName { get; set; } public Type ViewType { get; set; } } } 6. Event Aggregator Prism event aggregator enables messaging between components as in Observable pattern, Notifier notifies the Observer which receives notification it is interested in. When it comes to Observable pattern, Observer has to unsubscribes for notifications when it no longer interested in notifications, which allows the Notifier to remove the Observer’s reference from it’s local cache. Though .Net has managed garbage collection it cannot remove inactive the instances referenced by an active instance resulting in memory leak, keeping the Observers in memory as long as Notifier stays in memory.  Developers have to be very careful to unsubscribe when necessary and it often gets overlooked, to overcome these problems Prism Event Aggregator uses weak references to cache the reference (Observer in this case)  and releases the reference (memory) once the instance goes out of scope. Using event aggregator is very simple, declare a generic type of CompositePresenationEvent by inheriting from it. using Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Events; using TaxiCommon.BAO;   namespace TaxiCommon.CompositeEvents { public class TaxiOnMoveEvent:CompositePresentationEvent<TaxiOnMove> { } }   TaxiOnMove.cs includes the properties which we want to exchange between the parties, FareView and TotalView. using System;   namespace TaxiCommon.BAO { public class TaxiOnMove { public TimeSpan MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get; set; } public double MilesAtSixMPH { get; set; } } }   Lets take a look into FareViewodel (Notifier) and how it raises the event.  Here we are raising the event by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() and publishing it with the payload private void OnAddMinutes(object obj) { TaxiOnMove payload = new TaxiOnMove(); if(MilesAtSixMPH != null) payload.MilesAtSixMPH = MilesAtSixMPH.Value; if(MinutesAtTweleveMPH != null) payload.MinutesAtTweleveMPH = new TimeSpan(0,0,MinutesAtTweleveMPH.Value,0);   _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Publish(payload); ResetMinutesAndMiles(); } And TotalViewModel(Observer) subscribes to notifications by getting the event through GetEvent<..>() namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { .... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator; ... }   private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>() .Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   ... private void OnTaxiMove(TaxiOnMove taxiOnMove) { OnMoveFare fare = new OnMoveFare(taxiOnMove); Fares.Add(fare); SetTotalFare(new []{fare}); }   .... 7. MVVM through example In this section we are going to look into MVVM implementation through example.  I have all the modules declared in a single project, TaxiModules, again it is not necessary to have them into one project. Once the user logs into the application, will be greeted with the ‘Engage the Taxi’ screen which is made of two user controls, FareView.xaml and TotalView.Xaml. As you can see from the solution explorer, each of them have their own code behind files and  ViewModel classes, FareViewMode.cs, TotalViewModel.cs Lets take a look in to the FareView and how it interacts with FareViewModel using MVVM implementation. FareView.xaml acts as a view and FareViewMode.cs is it’s view model. The FareView code behind class   namespace TaxiModules.Views { /// <summary> /// Interaction logic for FareView.xaml /// </summary> public partial class FareView : UserControl { public FareView(FareViewModel viewModel) { InitializeComponent(); this.Loaded += (s, e) => { this.DataContext = viewModel; }; } } } The FareView is bound to FareViewModel through the data context  and you shall observe that DataContext is of type Object, i.e. the FareView doesn’t really know the type of ViewModel (FareViewModel). This helps separation of View and ViewModel as View and ViewModel are independent of each other, you can bind FareView to FareViewModel2 as well and the application compiles just fine. Lets take a look into FareView xaml file  <UserControl x:Class="TaxiModules.Views.FareView" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:Toolkit="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Windows.Controls;assembly=WPFToolkit" xmlns:Commands="clr-namespace:Microsoft.Practices.Prism.Commands;assembly=Microsoft.Practices.Prism"> <Grid Margin="10" > ....   <Border Style="{DynamicResource innerBorder}" Grid.Row="0" Grid.Column="0" Grid.RowSpan="11" Grid.ColumnSpan="2" Panel.ZIndex="1"/>   <Label Grid.Row="0" Content="Engage the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="1" Content="Select the State"/> <ComboBox Grid.Row="1" Grid.Column="1" ItemsSource="{Binding States}" Height="auto"> <ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <DataTemplate> <TextBlock Text="{Binding Name}"/> </DataTemplate> </ComboBox.ItemTemplate> <ComboBox.SelectedItem> <Binding Path="SelectedState" Mode="TwoWay"/> </ComboBox.SelectedItem> </ComboBox> <Label Grid.Row="2" Content="Select the Date of Entry"/> <Toolkit:DatePicker Grid.Row="2" Grid.Column="1" SelectedDate="{Binding DateOfEntry, ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}" /> <Label Grid.Row="3" Content="Enter time 24hr format"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="3" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding TimeOfEntry, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="4" Grid.Column="1" Content="Start the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding StartMeterCommand}" />   <Label Grid.Row="5" Content="Run the Taxi" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Label Grid.Row="6" Content="Number of Miles &lt;@6mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="6" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MilesAtSixMPH, TargetNullValue='', ValidatesOnDataErrors=true}"/> <Label Grid.Row="7" Content="Number of Minutes @12mph"/> <TextBox Grid.Row="7" Grid.Column="1" Text="{Binding MinutesAtTweleveMPH, TargetNullValue=''}"/> <Button Grid.Row="8" Grid.Column="1" Content="Add Minutes and Miles " Commands:Click.Command="{Binding AddMinutesCommand}"/> <Label Grid.Row="9" Content="Other Operations" Style="{DynamicResource innerHeader}"/> <Button Grid.Row="10" Grid.Column="1" Content="Reset the Meter" Commands:Click.Command="{Binding ResetCommand}"/>   </Grid> </UserControl> The highlighted code from the above code shows data binding, for example ComboBox which displays list of states has it’s ItemsSource bound to States property, with DataTemplate bound to Name and SelectedItem  to SelectedState. You might be wondering what are all these properties and how it is able to bind to them.  The answer lies in data context, i.e., when you bound a control, WPF looks for data context on the root object (Grid in this case) and if it can’t find data context it will look into root’s root, i.e. FareView UserControl and it is bound to FareViewModel.  Each of those properties have be declared on the ViewModel for the View to bind correctly. To put simply, View is bound to ViewModel through data context of type object and every control that is bound on the View actually binds to the public property on the ViewModel. Lets look into the ViewModel code (the following code is not an exact copy of FareViewMode.cs, pasted relevant code for this section)   namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class FareViewModel:ObservableBase, IDataErrorInfo { public List<USState> States { get { return USStates.StateList; } }   public USState SelectedState { get { return _selectedState; } set { _selectedState = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_selectedStatePropertyName); } }   public DateTime? DateOfEntry { get { return _dateOfEntry; } set { _dateOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_dateOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public TimeSpan? TimeOfEntry { get { return _timeOfEntry; } set { _timeOfEntry = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_timeOfEntryPropertyName); } }   public double? MilesAtSixMPH { get { return _milesAtSixMPH; } set { _milesAtSixMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_distanceAtSixMPHPropertyName); } }   public int? MinutesAtTweleveMPH { get { return _minutesAtTweleveMPH; } set { _minutesAtTweleveMPH = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_minutesAtTweleveMPHPropertyName); } }   public ICommand StartMeterCommand { get { if(_startMeterCommand == null) { _startMeterCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnStartMeter, CanStartMeter); } return _startMeterCommand; } }   public ICommand AddMinutesCommand { get { if(_addMinutesCommand == null) { _addMinutesCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnAddMinutes, CanAddMinutes); } return _addMinutesCommand; } }   public ICommand ResetCommand { get { if(_resetCommand == null) { _resetCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(OnResetCommand); } return _resetCommand; } }   } private void OnStartMeter(object obj) { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Publish( new TaxiStarted() { EngagedOn = DateOfEntry.Value.Date + TimeOfEntry.Value, EngagedState = SelectedState.Value });   _isMeterStarted = true; OnPropertyChanged(this,null); } And views communicate user actions like button clicks, tree view item selections, etc using commands. When user clicks on ‘Start the Meter’ button it invokes the method StartMeterCommand, which calls the method OnStartMeter which publishes the event to TotalViewModel using event aggregator  and TaxiStartedEvent. namespace TaxiModules.ViewModels { public class TotalViewModel:ObservableBase { ... private IEventAggregator _eventAggregator;   public TotalViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAggregator) { _eventAggregator = eventAggregator;   InitializePropertyNames(); InitializeModel(); SubscribeToEvents(); }   public decimal? TotalFare { get { return _totalFare; } set { _totalFare = value; RaisePropertyChanged(_totalFarePropertyName); } } .... private void SubscribeToEvents() { _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiStartedEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiStarted, ThreadOption.UIThread,false,(filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiOnMoveEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiMove, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); _eventAggregator.GetEvent<TaxiResetEvent>().Subscribe(OnTaxiReset, ThreadOption.UIThread, false, (filter) => true); }   private void OnTaxiStarted(TaxiStarted taxiStarted) { Fares.Add(new EntryFare()); Fares.Add(new StateTaxFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new NightSurchargeFare(taxiStarted)); Fares.Add(new PeakHourWeekdayFare(taxiStarted));   SetTotalFare(Fares); }   private void SetTotalFare(IEnumerable<IFare> fares) { TotalFare = (_totalFare ?? 0) + TaxiFareHelper.GetTotalFare(fares); } ....   } }   TotalViewModel subscribes to events, TaxiStartedEvent and rest. When TaxiStartedEvent gets invoked it calls the OnTaxiStarted method which sets the total fare which includes entry fee, state tax, nightly surcharge, peak hour weekday fare.   Note that TotalViewModel derives from ObservableBase which implements the method RaisePropertyChanged which we are invoking in Set of TotalFare property, i.e, once we update the TotalFare property it raises an the event that  allows the TotalFare text box to fetch the new value through the data context. ViewModel is communicating with View through data context and it has no knowledge about View, helping in loose coupling of ViewModel and View.   I have attached the source code (.Net 4.0, Prism 4.0, VS 2010) , download and play with it and don’t forget to leave your comments.  

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