Connect To WiFi Networks By Scanning QR Codes With Barcode Scanner [Android]

A couple of months back, we covered WiFi Joiner – an Android app that allows you to create QR codes for WiFi access points and share them with your friends, colleagues or customers so that they may simply scan these codes to connect to the affiliated networks – eliminating the need to share long access keys. However, to scan said codes, they would need to have the same app installed on their devices. Not to undermine the functionality that WiFi Joiner provides (they were there first, after all), but it’s highly unlikely for all your Android-wielding friends to have the app on their devices. Relatively new to the Android Market, WiFi QR Code Generator works roughly the same way but, however, the QR codes it generates can be scanned with Barcode Scanner – a free app that, owing to its simplicity and effectiveness, has grown to become the default QR code scanner for a vast majority of Android users. More than 10 million downloads and counting (as of this writing) are proof positive of its popularity.

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Facebook Turns To Stack Overflow To Power Developer Forums

If you’ve ever roved around Facebook’s developer forums, you may have noticed that — aside from being loaded with complaints and bug reports — they’re pretty basic. There’s nothing wrong with them per se, but they feel like a pretty generic forum install, and not a hub for developers on one of the web’s most popular web platforms.

Today, Facebook is announcing how it’s going to fix the situation: it’s abandoning its old forums, which it says are “showing their age”, and launching a custom site on Stack Overflow, the Q&A hub that’s very popular with programmers (and is loaded with helpful content). You can find the new site at facebook.stackoverflow.com.

The benefits from the swap are obvious. Stack Overflow has a robust reputation system, a more structured Q&A platform, and is generally easier to sift through.

Read more: TechCrunch
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Apache Warns Web Server Admins of DoS Attack Tool

   Developers of the Apache open-source project warned users of the Web server software on Wednesday that a denial-of-service (DoS) tool is circulating that exploits a bug in the program. 'Apache Killer' showed up last Friday in a post to the 'Full Disclosure' security mailing list. The Apache project said it would release a fix for Apache 2.0 and 2.2 in the next 48 hours. All versions in the 1.3 and 2.0 lines are said to be vulnerable to attack. The group no longer supports the older Apache 1.3. 'The attack can be done remotely and with a modest number of requests can cause very significant memory and CPU usage on the server,' Apache said in an advisory. The bug is not new. Michal Zalewski, a security engineer who works for Google, pointed out that he had brought up the DoS exploitability of Apache more than four-and-a-half years ago. In lieu of a fix, Apache offered steps administrators can take to defend their Web servers until a patch is available.

Read more: Slashdot
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How to Speed Up Package Downloads and updates with Apt-fast

By Default, Ubuntu uses apt-get to install packages and updates. Apt-get is a good tool but you can get much faster download speeds using Apt-Fast when downloading and updating your Ubuntu box.

Apt-Fast is a script created by Matt Parnell that allows for up to 26x faster downloads. So how does it work? It is a script which uses Axel, a command line application which accelerates HTTP/FTP downloads. Well, the magic behind this is simple; it opens multiple connections to the server or multiple servers to download from. So basically it works like torrent client, downloading different pieces of the same file from different places simultaneously. Thus, reducing/eliminating the effect of server being overloaded.

To get Apt-Fast on your system, download the file “apt-fast.sh” from the link at the bottom. Once downloaded, open a terminal window to continue from there. Start by navigating to the file’s directory and rename it using this easy command:

    mv apt-fast.sh apt-fast

Now you need to move the file to “/usr/bin” to make it executable. Do so by using:

    mv apt-fast /usr/bin/

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apps portal – a silverlight based app store

apps portal is a silverlight 5 (out-of-browser) application that allows users to browse and 1-click install other silverlight apps from an internal marketplace.

apps portal, and all apps inside the marketplace, are hosted on Windows Azure.

Inside apps portal users are also able to submit their own silverlight apps  to the marketplace.

All apps inside the marketplace are free of charge.

Demo: http://appsportal.cloudapp.net

Read more: Sigurd Snørteland
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How to create a Web application in Silverlight using F#

Introduction

Today I am discussing that how you can create a simple web application in Silverlight using F#. We are creating a web application in F# but we also need to add a C# silverlight application for this. We need a F# silverlight library template, a C# silverlight application template and a little bit of code. Just follow the steps given below.

Step 1: Firstly open a new project in F# using Visual Studio 2010. Slecct F# silverlight library template and give name to it like below image.

Read more: C# Corner
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WCF Support Improved in Mono

Xamarin's first official Mono release came out earlier this month with many bug fixes, OS X Lion support, a “vastly improved WCF stack”, and better debugging support. The version number is 2.10.3, which makes it a short-term support release. Those who desire a long term commitment to support should stay with the 2.6 series until Mono 3 is ready.

The bug fixes cover a wide gambit including the C# compiler, the JIT compiler, WCF, ASP.NET, OS X, and ADO.NET. The full list is available in the release notes. While there were also new features in most of these categories, by far the biggest winner is WCF with the following features:

    Support WebHttpBinding configuration
    Implement support for Stream param with WebHttpBinding raw content format
    Implement support for generic data contract type name with "{x}"
    Implement XmlSerializerMessageContractImporter
    Implement WsdlContractConversionContext
    Properly implement Message.ToString() + all related changes
    Add message buffer support for RawMessage
    Optimization: Full equivalence comparison is unnecessary for MessageEncoder ContentType
    Allow DocumentType in ImportNode()
    Add Decimal support to XmlBinaryDictionaryReader

It should be noted that Mono still supports only a very small subset of the WCF stack. Xamarin's current plan is only to support those features that are also available in the Silverlight runtime. The size of the full WCF stack makes implementing it completely untenable without corporate support. Another possibility, though unlikely, is that Microsoft open sources the WCF stack in the same fashion that they open sourced the ASP.NET MVC stack.

Speaking of ASP.NET, below are some of the features that made it into this release. It should be noted that support for Web Forms has always been on shaky ground, both legally and from a long-term commitment, and those wishing to use Linux as a web server should strongly consider focusing on ASP.NET MVC.

    Added support for optional parameters to WebServices
    Added FormsAuthentication.Timeout 4.0 property
    Support RemoteEndpointMessageProperty
    Implemented composite scripts support in System.Web.Extensions

Read more: InfoQ
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The story of Android, cryptography and a crippled 3DES

Asymmetric and symmetric encryption, different algorithms (AES/DES), block/stream ciphers, operation modes - all of these terms are difficult enough on their own, put aside their specific implementation in Your Programming Environment of Choice. You usually need strong math skills to get through all the tiny details that matter in cryptography. To make things worse, cryptanalysis attacks are constantly improving, so you also need to stay current.

Thankfully, you don't need all that much to simply use it. After all, you're not inventing a new home-brew encryption algorithm (if you do - stop immediately!), so all you need to do is RTFM.

But that enough is difficult, because the web is filled with code examples that are simply wrong. It's always a good idea to do some code review for a cryptography related parts of your project. As an example, we'll look into Android Remote Notifier project - it had a few interesting vulnerabilities which significantly weakened its cipher strength. Author took my comments into consideration and fixed the issues, so consider this a "responsible disclosure" ;).

Short introduction

Android remote notifier is a application for Android phones that "sends notifications to a desktop computer when certain events happen on an Android device, such as the phone ringing, an SMS being received, or the battery running low. The notifications can be sent over Wifi, Bluetooth, or (in the future) USB.". There is an app in the phone that broadcasts notification, and a receiver on the desktop which listens to those and reacts e.g. displays a message box with SMS text. It's a new project (beta-quality), but it is already gaining attention in Android community.

The notifications include confidential information and may be transmitted over insecure channel (e.g.  broadcasted to 255.255.255.255 over current WiFi connection). This was not fun - after all, a simple network sniffer could reveal all the SMSes of your colleague sitting nearby.

Read more: Mobile Zone
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Google Chrome Extension - CodeProject Template Items

Introduction

If you are a regular user of CodeProject, or maybe an article moderator, mentor, or even spend your time answering questions in the Q&A section, how many times have you found yourself posting the same thing? How many times have you found yourself heading over to the FAQ list to copy the link to the Article FAQ? Once, twice, ten times? What about going to find a previous post you have made to copy that and use again to save typing it all again?

That is how this utility and article was born. I thought there must be a better way, considered keeping a text file, but discounted that idea, and thought hang on, I'll make another Chrome extension. I've done it once already, so it should be fairly easy to repeat the success of that.

The utility allows the user to create template items that are stored within the browser context, and at the click of a button insert a selected template item straight into your forum message or answer. You can even just keep small snippets e.g. a link and be able to quickly add that to your message/answer.
Topics Covered

In this article the main items we will look at are;

    Chrome Background pages and PageActions
    Chrome Script injection and execution within Browser page context from within Extension context
    Some JQuery for handling object cloning, item identification

Chrome Extensions - What are they?

Extensions are add-ons for Google Chrome browser, and rather than repeat myself, hop over to my last Chrome Extension Article, where the basics are explained and links to the Chrome Extension and JQuery developer pages can be found. The article can be found here; Chrome Extension - CodeProject Reputation Watcher. If you have never looked at extensions before, I suggest you read this first, as it covers some key extension creation information, such as extension structure, manifest files, packaging and deployment.
What about this extension?

This extension is very similiar, the same ideas around the javascript files, JQuery references etc. are all the same. This extension is different from the previous one in the way to operates and triggers the events and intgeracts with the users page.

To start with, lets take a look at the manifest file for this extension;

{
  "name": "CodeProject Template Items",
  "version": "1.0",
  "description": "Chrome Extension to provide CodeProject template items.",
  "icons":{"48":"images/bob48.png", "128":"images/bob128.png"},    //Define any icon sizes and the files that you want to use with them. 48/128 etc.
  "background_page": "cptemplates.html",
  "page_action": {
    "default_icon": "images/bob.png",                           // image to show in the address bar
    "default_title": "CodeProject: Insert Template Items",      // text to show in the tooltip
    "default_popup": "selector.html"                            // template selector page
  },
  "options_page": "editor.html",            // Page to handle the options for the extension, used to edit the templates
  "permissions": [
    "tabs", "http://*.codeproject.com/"            
  ]
  "update_url": "http://www.dave-auld.net/ChromeExtensions/CPTemplatesChromeExt/updates.xml"        // Auto Update location
}

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Inline Tasks for MSBuild that work with TFS

Someone asked a question about how to do something in MSBuild the other day. They were using the UpgradeTemplate.xaml, so there build process was done almost entirely in MSBuild. What they wanted to do was fairly simple to do in a Task, but they didn't really want the overhead of creating and maintaining a Task assembly. So, I suggested an inline Task (new to MSBuild 4.0). Of course, the next question was, how can I use that with TFS. So, I started playing around and created this extremely simple inline task that prints out the Start Time of the build by reading it from the server.

This is a very simplified TfsBuild.proj that doesn't actually build anything - I took out the SolutionsToBuild and the ConfigurationsToBuild stuff. The TfsBuild.proj file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="DesktopBuild" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003" ToolsVersion="3.5">
  <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\TeamBuild\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets" />
  <ProjectExtensions>
    <!-- Team Foundation Build Version - DO NOT CHANGE -->
    <ProjectFileVersion>2</ProjectFileVersion>
  </ProjectExtensions>

  <UsingTask
    TaskName="PrintBuild"
    TaskFactory="CodeTaskFactory"
    AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildToolsPath)\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v4.0.dll" >
    <ParameterGroup>
      <TeamFoundationServerUrl Required="True"/>
      <BuildUri Required="True"/>
    </ParameterGroup>
    <Task>
      <Reference Include="mscorlib" />
      <Reference Include="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client" />
      <Reference Include="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Common" />
      <Reference Include="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client" />

      <Using Namespace="System" />
      <Using Namespace="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client" />
      <Using Namespace="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Common" />
      <Using Namespace="Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client" />

      <Code Type="Fragment" Language="cs">

        <![CDATA[
           Log.LogMessage("parameters to PrintBuild", MessageImportance.High);
           Log.LogMessage(TeamFoundationServerUrl, MessageImportance.High);
           Log.LogMessage(BuildUri, MessageImportance.High);
           if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(TeamFoundationServerUrl))
           {

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CodedUI and Load Tests with Visual Studio 2010 - Your complete testing tool

Here are the slide deck I used during one of the Microsoft Events recently for describing CodedUI and Load Tests.

Read more: Tech-no-logy Demystified with Sandeep Joshi
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When to use var keyword in C#

Microsoft introduced “var” keyword in C# 3.0. The purpose of using this keyword is when you don’t know type of variable. The technical term for var is "implicitly typed local variable declaration". The variable itself is still statically typed (the type is determined when the code is compiled), and it is still strongly typed (the type cannot change once it has been declared). the compiler infers the type of the variable based upon the initialize for the variable. It is mainly use in anonymous methods, LINQ etc. Some of the programmers use this variable frequently in declaration. Below is some examples how to use var:

 
//this will compile as Hotel class
 var list = from hotel in this.Hotels
     where (hotel.City.Contains(searchCriteria))
     orderby hotel.Id
     select hotel;

 // i is compiled as an int
 var i = 5;

 // s is compiled as a string
 var s = "Hello";

 // a is compiled as int[]
 var a = new[] { 0, 1, 2 };

 // expr is compiled as IEnumerable
 // or perhaps IQueryable
 var expr =
    from c in customers
    where c.City == "London"
    select c;

 // employee is compiled as an anonymous type
 var employee = new { Name = "Neeraj", Age = 31 };

Benefits of using Var

    It removes code noise eg. redundant code in declaration of generics.
    It doesn’t require using directive.
    Most obvious use in LINQ and Anonymous type.

Read more: Beyond relational
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IRC you with IRC.NET

You'd think IRC is so old school, wouldn't you? That it's so 90's or 00's? I did too. Until I started looking around a little more. And I found the IRC is still very much alive and well and used in many different official, business and interesting ways.

For example, one of my favorite networks, Twit (as in This Week in Tech, Windows Weekly, and the other great shows) uses IRC during its live shows for real time audience interaction. Using IRC takes their shows to places where a "traditional" show can never go.. [avoid using "to the next level"]. That's just one example of how IRC is still relevant today.

So okay, I've sold you on IRC. And being a developer, the next thing you'll want to know is how can you incorporate it in your app?

IRC.Net is just your ticket. There's a .Net 4 version, Silverlight 4 version and branches for WP7 and more...

IRC.NET

    IRC.NET is a complete IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client library for the .NET Framework 4.0 and Silverlight 4.0. It aims to provide a complete and efficient implementation of the protocol as described in RFCs 1459 and 2812, as well as de-facto modern features of the protocol. The .NET Framework version of the library is also intended to compile and run under Mono 2.6 and later.

    GitHub mirror at <https://github.com/alexreg/ircdotnet>.

    NuGet package at <http://nuget.org/List/Packages/IrcDotNet>.
    NuGet sample package at <http://nuget.org/List/Packages/IrcDotNet.Sample>.

    For discussion about using or contributing to the IRC.NET library, please join the ##irc.net channel on FreeNode.

As you can see above, the IRC.Net Library is available as source and better yet, via NuGet.

Read more: Channel9
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Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop CTP1

Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop (SQL Server-Hadoop Connector) CTP is a Sqoop-based connector that facilitates efficient data transfer between SQL Server 2008 R2 and Hadoop. Sqoop supports several databases including MySQL

Version: CTP 1.0
Date Published: 8/24/2011

EULA_SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop_CTP (Sept 2011).docx - 23 KB

Microsoft SQL Server - Hadoop Connector User Guide.pdf - 782 KB

sqoop-sqlserver-1.0.tar.gz - 782 KB

THIRDPARTYNOTICES FOR HADOOP-BASED CONNECTORS.rtf - 85 KB

The Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop extends JDBC-based Sqoop connectivity to facilitate data transfer between SQL Server and Hadoop, and also supports all the features as mentioned in SQOOP User Guide on the Cloudera website. In addition to this, this connector provides support for nchar and nvarchar data types

Read more: Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day
Read more: Microsoft SQL Server Connector for Apache Hadoop
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חיתוך בין רשימות

פוסט של משה טייכר בשם שליפת מילים מתוך טקסט בTSQL שהתפרסם לאחרונה עודד אותי לפרסם תגובה עקיפה בפוסט הסרת תווים מיותרים בו הצעתי דרך טובה יותר (לטעמי) לבצע מטלה מקדימה שלו, ואילו הפוסט הזה הוא בעקבות פטנט יפה שלמדתי ממנו – ביצוע Split בעזרת XML, ואשר סייע לי לפתור באופן אלגנטי בעייה שנתקלתי בה בעבר.

נתחיל מבעייה פשוטה יותר שטיפלתי בה בעקיפין מספר פעמים בעבר (אופציית Multi-Value ב-Reporting Services, יחס של רבים לרבים ללא טבלת עזר) ואציג אותה כאן בצורה מסודרת: נניח שיש לנו טבלת מכירות של מוכרים (מי מכר מה וכמה) וטבלת עמלות שמגדירה לכל מוכר עבור אילו פריטים יקבל עמלה:

If Object_Id('tempdb..#T_Mehirot','U') Is Not Null Drop Table #T_Mehirot;
Go

Create Table #T_Mehirot(ID Int Identity,
                        Moher Varchar(10),
                        Prit Varchar(10),
                        Camut Int);
Go

 
Insert
Into   #T_Mehirot
Select 'Hila','Milk',10 Union All
Select 'Hila','Bread',5 Union All
Select 'Hila','Butter',2 Union All
Select 'Hila','Butter',1 Union All
Select 'Gal','Milk',6 Union All
Select 'Gal','Milk',1 Union All
Select 'Gal','Bread',3 Union All
Select 'Gal','Butter',2;
Go
 

Select  *
From    #T_Mehirot;
Go

If Object_Id('tempdb..#T_Amalot','U') Is Not Null Drop Table #T_Amalot;
Go

Read more: גרי רשף
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Apple chief Steve Jobs resigns

Tech pioneer remains chairman, but hands CEO role to Tim Cook

Steve Jobs has resigned from his role as CEO of Apple.

Jobs had already taken a step back from the company earlier this year, with reports citing health reasons, with COO Tim Cook taking an acting CEO role. Jobs had previously suffered from pancreatic cancer.

Tim Cook will now officially become CEO at Jobs' request. Jobs has requested to stay on as chairman of the board, a director and Apple employee.

Jobs is often cited as the visionary behind products like the iPod and iPhone and services like iTunes, with his focused management style demanding detailed refinements of device designs before they are ready for the public.

His letter to the Apple board and the 'Apple community' reads:

"I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.

Read more: Develop
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A Git on-ramp for .Net Devs

   If you want to be hip at the Source Control administration you have to take a look on Git or other peripheral Source Code administrations. Git is the most celebrated agent. That the subject DVCS (peripheral version administration) will be Mainstream in the world of .NET world is a fact since the comment of Brain Harry to the next TFS (responsible for the TFS at the Microsoft Corp.):

“I’m certain that about this time, I bunch of people are asking “but, did you implement DVCS”. The answer is no, not yet. You still can’t checkin while you are offline. And you can’t do history or branch merges, etc. Certain operations do still require you to be online. You won’t get big long hangs – but rather nice error messages that tell you you need to be online. DVCS is definitely in our future and this is a step in that direction but there’s another step yet to take.”

For this blogpost it is important, that I only started working with Git so it’s possible that some facts aren’t true. But of course you are welcome to adjust me in the comments below. If you need some more help than take a look at the help side of GitHub.

Read more: Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day
Read more: Entrance into Git for .NET Developer
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openSourceC.FrameworkLibrary

Pre-release
Before I create the first release package, I need to work on the WCF client/server functionality to tie tiers together. The library is functional as-is, and I do use it in every project that I work on, but it's not in a production ready state as I do refactor entire sections from time to time. You are free to use it as-is, just be aware that the release version will most likely be quite different from the current version, once I finally do release it.

Project Description
A C# framework library that I have been working on for the past 13 years, as an alternative to Microsoft's Enterprise Library. The library had its beginnings based on C/C++ and VB6 code and has been updated over the years to its current C# form.

Read more: Codeplex
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Zerply – Create Unique Public Resumes & Connect With Professionals

LinkedIn doesn’t really have a close competitor; there have been several attempts to make an alternative for professionals to find and connect with each other but not many have had a huge impact. Zerply is one such network that may or may not live to replace LinkedIn but as a web service, it sure gives you a great way to present your resume. While LinkedIn is truly professional, Zerply is creative. It lets you connect several social media accounts and attach them to your resume, gives you a mobile friendly version of your resume and can import information directly from your LinkedIn account.

Read more: Addictive tips
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Extreme Console Mod Combines 360, PS3, and Wii

What do you get when you gut three current-gen consoles, stuff them in an acrylic enclosure, and add some accent lighting? This 3-in-1 mega console.

The video above showcases the result of a German modding group’s efforts to pack three consoles into one case with the intention of showcasing the hardware. Not only are all three consoles fully functional but you can get an up close and personal look at all the hardware. The build is light on details but for the most part it looks like they carefully stripped the consoles and custom mounted the hardware inside an acrylic PC case.

Read more: How-to geek
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Life at the Mothership: an introspection

Are you one of those people who hate when people post to their blogs about how it has been so long since they’ve blogged and they apologize for the delay and cite all sorts of excuses?  Yeah, me too ;-)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about my move to the mothership this past year.  I’ve been journaling things all along the way about my feelings, frustrations, personal tribulations and great experiences I’ve had this past year.  I thought I’d share some of that with you all to provide some behind-the-scenes aspects of how some, not all, teams operate at Microsoft…the good, bad and ugly.  These are pretty random thoughts and in no particular order.  This is a bit of a random stream of thought so feel free to move along.

Background

Although this may sound like I’m writing about my first year at Microsoft, it isn’t.  I’ve actually been with Microsoft for just over 6 years now.  I started very local, becoming the developer evangelist for a geographic region (southwestern US).  In doing that I had so many great opportunities to work on a national level with developers and product teams that I was able to move into a “Community PM” role with a product team, Silverlight.  About 18 months ago I had an opportunity to get closer to the engineering process of shipping software…something I had a strong desire to accomplish.  This resulted in me relocating to Redmond, WA to work directly on the product and own some level of features.  These are my thoughts of being a part of that process and general observations at Microsoft.

Benefits

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out how incredible the concept of being ‘on campus’ feels.  The benefits are great and the way the campus is run is quite amazing.  The company does a good job trying to accommodate employees in all areas.  Having worked with Microsoft in the field I know the benefits in general are awesome, but the aspect of working on the main campus are just even greater for an employee.  You can check out some videos of some of these aspects on Channel 9 series about the campus.  Particularly some of the statistics about the shuttle service (something I use daily) and the dining services are pretty astounding.  I also think it is great that Microsoft pays for public transportation for everyone and I’ve become a regular on the King County Metro bus system…it’s awesome people watching!  Companies vary in benefits to their employees but I do believe that Microsoft offers some world-class benefits to us, and I’m grateful for that (as is my family)!

The Office

I currently work in Building 40, home of CLR, HPC, all things XAML and some other random stuff of people I never talk to.  I pretty much keep to my team on the 4th/6th floors but hear murmuring from other product teams.  You can learn a lot by just walking around!

Read more: Method ~ of ~ failed
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Taken Over By Aliens? Google Has It Covered

   Imagine what would happen if all the Google engineers turned rogue and held the world's Gmail accounts to ransom. Or if aliens attacked earth and wiped California off the map. Seems the folks over at Google's enterprise division have already considered these scenarios. CIO is running an article, as part of a larger interview with Google Enterprise director of security, Eran Feigenbaum. He's a fascinating guy — in his spare time he practices magic and mentalism, and you may also have heard of him as Eran Raven, a contestant from the NBC television show Phenomenon.

Read more: Slashdot
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Deus Ex: Human Revolution Released

    Over 11 years ago, Deus Ex became one of the most celebrated games of its time, tightly weaving FPS and RPG gameplay together with a rich cyberpunk story. Today, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix launched a new entry to the series, titled Deus Ex: Human Revolution. A launch trailer is available, and early reviews for the game are positive. Opposable Thumbs says, "Fans can take a deep breath: they will get what they want from a Deus Ex game in this release. The story is dense, complete with twists, interesting characters, and far-flung locations." Rock, Paper, Shotgun largely agrees, and both reviews praise the breadth of choices players have in how they accomplish mission objectives. However, they disagree on the quality of the voice acting, and RPS complains of untimely and oddly-designed boss battles. DE:HR's stealth gameplay and hacking minigame receive high marks, as does the game's overall length and replayability.

Read more: Slashdot
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P2P Alarm Clock Service

   Instead of waking up to a regular alarm clock, TalkO'Clock will let others help you get out of bed. The service allows you to choose whether you want to be called by a male or a female stranger, and it has a robot – CallO'Bot – lined up in case no one is available at the time you have to wake up. All completely anonymous of course.

Read more: Slashdot
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Download the Witcher 2 – Assassins of Kings Theme for Windows 7

Geralt of Rivia is back once again and this time he must hunt down an assassin to clear his name regarding the assassination of the king of Temeria, King Foltest. This well-crafted theme comes with 18 wallpapers and system sounds based on the official soundtrack.

Read more: How-to geek
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Fedora 16 Alpha Released

   Fedora 16 Alpha is released today, featuring GNOME 3.1.4 with a unified input indicator for keyboard layouts and input methods, KDE 4.7, GRUB 2 on new installations (with GPT disk labels) and several other major changes. You can download it now. Remember to read the important information in the release notes and common bugs page.

Read more: Slashdot
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Bump Your Desktop Into 3D With BumpTop

Your desktop doesn’t have to be a boring graveyard for lost and forgotten files anymore! Transform it with BumpTop into 3D desktop that help you keep organized. Like a real desk. Create the desktop that suits your needs and style.

There’s nothing about the installation, you just keep on pressing “Forward” and you are done. When you launch BumpTop for the first time, you’ll be taken in tutorial to show you how to use BumpTop efficiently, it doesn’t last more than a minute so make sure you watch it.

Read more: How-to geek
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Hibernating Rhinos is hiring

My company is hiring again, and since I had so much success in our previous hiring round, I decided to use this blog for the next one as well.

Some information that you probably need to know:

    You have to know to program in C#.
    If you have OSS credentials, that is all for the better, but it is not required.
    It is not a remote position, our offices are located in Hadera, Israel.

We are looking for developers, and are open for people with little to no commercial experience. I am looking for people who are passionate about programming, and I explicitly don’t list the whole alphabet soup that you usually see in a hiring notice. I don’t really care if you have / don’t have 5 years experience in WCF 4.1 update 3. I care that you can think, that you can program your way out of problems and also know when it is not a good idea to throw code at a problem.

Read more: Ayende @ Rahien
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Hasta La Vista, Bootkit: Exploiting the VBR

During the first half of 2011 we have witnessed a significant growth in malware targeting 64-bit platforms, the most interesting examples of which are bootkits. There are now several malware families in the wild:

    Win64/Olmarik, an MBR (Master Boot Record) bootkit
    Win64/Rovnix, a VBR (Volume Boot Record) bootkit
    Win64/TrojanDownloader.Necurs
    Win64/Spy.Banker

Of course, compared to the volume of families that target x86 platforms, those numbers don’t look much. But the percentage of new x64 families emerging in this year shows a significant increase. Looking at relative detection ratios for x64 platform families, there is an upward trend with a significant spike in the summer of 2010. This is connected with the emergence of a new version of Win64/Olmarik (TDL4) and its active distribution at that time.

They all use tricks to bypass the digital signature checks that can be divided into two groups. The first works entirely within user mode, and the second group targets the process of booting the operating system in order to manipulate kernel-mode memory:

Read more: ESET Threat Blog
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Managed Thread Synchronization

Background

I use threads a lot and, with them, I use synchronization objects a lot. But, except for some minor exceptions, the Synchronization objects are unmanaged resources. For a long time I used them, but recently I understood better how to use the Monitor methods, Wait and Pulse/PulseAll, and with it I was able to create full managed synchronization primitives.

EventWaitHandles

One of the simplest ways to pass messages from one thread to another, and to wait for those messages, is to use some kind of EventWaitHandle, usually AutoResetEvent.

AutoResetEvent has many problems as it uses unmanaged resources, it's very slow to create and if you Dispose it when there are threads waiting for it, well, those threads will be kept waiting forever.

When I first saw Pulse I thought it could solve the problem, but the MSDN documentation says to avoid it. And, in fact, Pulse alone does not give the same result, as Pulse will only release an already waiting thread. It will not keep the state "signalled" if there are no threads waiting making the next thread to try to wait to be released immediately.

But, there is a way to solve it. By using a boolean variable.

So, to signal the object, we do something like this:

lock(_lock)
{
  _value = true;
  Monitor.Pulse(_lock);
}

And the wait waits only if the signal is not already signalled. If it is already signalled, it can reset the signal and return immediately.

lock(_lock)
{
  while(!_signalled)
    Monitor.Wait(_lock);

  _value = false;
}

Ok. With this simple structure, I have the equivalent of AutoResetEvent.Set() and AutoReset.WaitOne().

Read more: Codeproject
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הסרת תווים מיותרים

יש לנו טקסט אותו אנחנו רוצים לנקות מתווים מיותרים כמו #\|&^ וכו' או להשאיר רק תווים אלפה-נומריים.

נתחיל מהאופציה השלילית- הסרת תווים מיותרים: הפתרון המסורבל הוא כדלקמן:

Declare @S Varchar(Max);

--"מחרוזת טכנית לדוגמה שכוללת הרבה "לכלוך

Select  @S='abc d1,$ 23A-B`CD''א]ב%ג[דה';

Select  @S=Replace(@S,' ',''), --רווח

        @S=Replace(@S,',',''),

        @S=Replace(@S,'$',''),

        @S=Replace(@S,' ',''), --{TAB}

        @S=Replace(@S,'-',''),

        @S=Replace(@S,'`',''),

        @S=Replace(@S,'''',''), --גרש יש להכפיל

        @S=Replace(@S,']',''),

        @S=Replace(@S,'%',''),

        @S=Replace(@S,'[','');

Select @S;

אפשר לשים לב לתופעה מעניינת: פקודת ה-Replace פועלות בטור – זו אחר זו – למרות שכולן באותו Select ואמורות להתבצע במקביל ולבטל זו את זו. הפתרון הזה אינו מוצלח מכיוון שכל הוספה או גריעה של תו מהרשימה מחייבת לתקן את הקוד, ובהנחה שקוד זה הוא חלק מפרוצדורה או פונקציה – זה לא רצוי וגם הופך אותו לשימושי רק בחלק מהמקרים. היה ראוי לקבל את בתווים למחיקה במחרוזת, למשל כך-

Declare @S Varchar(Max),

        @No Varchar(Max);

Select  @S='abc d1,$ 23A-B`CD''à]á%â[ãä', --"מחרוזת טכנית לדוגמה שכוללת הרבה "לכלוך

        @No='-` ~!@#$%^&*()_=+{},<.>/[?{}\|;:'']';

While @No<>''

    Select  @S=Replace(@S,Left(@No,1),''),

            @No=Stuff(@No,1,1,'');

Select @S;

Read more: גרי רשף
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Visual Studio Extensions worth checking out...

Productivity Power Tools
Many Features. Best: Tab and Pin your Code files. Close all but pinned.

VS Commands 2010
Many Features. Best: Xaml Bindings and resource highlights

Xaml Styler
Great for formatting xaml.

Team Foundation Server Power Tools August 2011
Obviously only if you use TFS for your source control. Now with Rollback feature only previously available from the command line.

Code Maid
Many Features. Best: Cool Build progress bar with "Cancel Build" button.

Snippet Designer
For Ninja Coders who want to be super productive - craft your code snippets with this.

Read more: Parsimony
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Optimization and generics, part 1: the new() constraint

As with almost any performance work, your mileage may vary (in particular the 64-bit JIT may work differently) and you almost certainly shouldn't care. Relatively few people write production code which is worth micro-optimizing. Please don't take this post as an invitation to make code more complicated for the sake of irrelevant and possibly mythical performance changes.

I've been doing quite a bit of work on Noda Time recently - and have started getting my head round all the work that James Keesey has put into the parsing/formatting. I've been reworking it so that we can do everything without throwing any exceptions, and also to work on the idea of parsing a pattern once and building a sequence of actions for both formatting and parsing from the action. To format or parse a value, we then just need to apply the actions in turn.
Simples.

Given that this is all in the name of performance (and I consider Noda Time to be worth optimizing pretty hard) I was pretty cross when I ran a complete revamp through the little benchmarking tool we use, and found that my rework had made everything much slower. Even parsing a value after parsing the pattern was slower than parsing both the value and the pattern together. Something was clearly very wrong.

In fact, it turns out that at least two things were very wrong. The first (the subject of this post) was easy to fix and actually made the code a little more flexible. The second (the subject of the next post, which may be tomorrow) is going to be harder to work around.
The new() constraint

In my SteppedPattern type, I have a generic type parameter - TBucket. It's already constrained in terms of another type parameter, but that's irrelevant as far as I'm aware. (After today though, I'm taking very little for granted...) The important thing is that before I try to parse a value, I want to create a new bucket. The idea is that bits of information end up in the bucket as they're being parsed, and at the very end we put everything together. So each parse operation requires a new bucket. How can we create one in a nice generic way?

Well, we can just call its public parameterless constructor. I don't mind the types involved having such a constructor, so all we need to do is add the new() constraint, and then we can call new TBucket():

// Somewhat simplified...
internal sealed class SteppedPattern<TResult, TBucket> : IParsePattern<TResult>
    where TBucket : new()
{
    public ParseResult<TResult> Parse(string value)
    {
        TBucket bucket = new TBucket();

        // Rest of parsing goes here
    }
}

Great! Nice and simple. Unfortunately, it turned out that that one line of code was taking 75% of the time to parse a value. Just creating an empty bucket -
pretty much the simplest bit of parsing. I was amazed when I discovered that.

Fixing it with a provider

The fix is reasonably easy. We just need to tell the type how to create an instance, and we can do that with a delegate:

// Somewhat simplified...
internal sealed class SteppedPattern<TResult, TBucket> : IParsePattern<TResult>
{
    private readonly Func<TBucket> bucketProvider;

Read more: Jon Skeet: Coding Blog
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חסמו את הפרסומות באנדרואיד וחסכו 50% מרוחב הפס / מדריך

לפני כשבועיים קניתי את טלפון ה-Android הראשון שלי: Motorola Defy. הסיבה לקניה היתה המחיר הזול מצד אחד והאמינות הרבה של המכשיר מנגד. לא לקח 24 שעות מהרגע שהמכשיר יצא מהמכס (אכן, אני לא ממש מתלהב מלקנות מכשירים בישראל או מספקיות הטלפוניה כאן) ועל המכשיר רץ כבר CyanogenMod במקום מערכת ההפעלה המקורית, שהכילה את ממשק Motoblur.

אלא, שפריצת המכשיר וההתקנה הזו היו רק ההתחלה. פתאום גיליתי שהעולם החופשי של Android, שהוא חלק מעולם הקוד הפתוח והרצון לחלוק מידע, מלווה כולו בפרסומות. הבעיה העיקרית, מעבר להצקה שקיימת, היא שאותן פרסומות גוזלות את רוחב הפס שלי, מאטות את המכשיר ופוגעות לי בחווית הגלישה. מעבר לכך, הפרסומות הן פגיעה גדולה בפרטיות שלי: הן יודעות בדיוק מי אני, מהיכן אני מחובר ומה אני עושה והרגשתי שפתאום במקום לקבל טלפון חופשי קיבלתי לידי טלפון שעוקב אחרי.
ביקור במרקט וטיפול בדפדפן

לצורך כך נקטתי בשני צעדים, שאני ממליץ לכל אחד לעשות; הראשון הוא להתקין ב-Market את אפליקצית AdFree. האפליקציה דואגת לכך שפרסומות בתוך האפליקציות לא יופיעו; אכן, יש מספר אפליקציות "חינמיות" שסרבו לרוץ יחד עם האפליקציה, אבל במקרה שלהן עדיף פשוט להתעלם.

הצעד השני, והמסובך יותר, היה בכיוון הדפדפן. הדפדפן המובנה של Android אינו מושלם; הסיבה הראשונה היא שהוא פשוט לא מאפשר לך להגדירו כמו שצריך. לדוגמא, אם אני רציתי למנוע משירותי צד ג' לעבוד ברקע ולעקוב אחרי, לא יכלתי לעשות זאת. לכן, פניתי לחבר הנאמן שלי, Firefox, בתקווה שזה יוכל לעזור לי. למרות שמדובר בדפדפן כבד מעט ביחס לדפדפנים אחרים, היכולת להתקין תוספים והעובדה שהוא חוסם פרסומות ולא רק מסתיר אותן (בניגוד לכרום, נניח) מאפשרת הרבה.

אבל בשביל לחסום פרסומות בדפדפן, צריך לעבוד מעט קשה. השלב הראשון הוא להתקין את Firefox על המחשב (מה שאני מעריך שלכולם יש) וגם את התוסף Adblock Plus. אני ממליץ לעבוד עם גרסאת הפיתוח, שהיא תמיד עדכנית יותר ויותר מעניינת, וגם תורמת לקהילה, אבל הדבר לא הכרחי.
סנכרון הדפדפן וחסימת הפרסומות

השלב הבא הוא לפתוח חשבון בשירות Firefox Sync, השירות ששומר את העדפותייך, ססמאותייך והגדרות הגלישה שלך. כדי לפתוח חשבון, יש לגשת לTools > Preferences בדפדפן (או Edit >Preferences בלינוקס), לעבור ללשונית "Sync" ולהגדיר את החשבון שלכם:

Read more: newsGeek
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eMount Creates And Mounts Encrypted Disk Images & Partitions In Ubuntu

eMount is an open source Linux application to create, mount, encrypt and manage disk images and to create encrypted system partitions. The plain or encrpyted disk images can be created from the following supported formats, ext2, ext3, ext4, FAT-16, FAT-32, HFS, HFS+, NTFS, ReiserFS and XFS. When creating an encrypted volume, you can password protect it by entering a pass phrase or by importing a text file.  Disk images (plain or encrypted) can be mounted using eMount to access your data. eMount also supports enlarging disk images from ext2, ext3, ext4, ReiserFS and XFS formats. Other than physical disk images, you can also mount ISO images to view and manage the content.

Use File drop down menu to create, mount, eject and disable Automount . To create a new plain or encrypted disk image or a partition (encrypted only),  select respective option from File -> New menu.

Read more: Addictive tips
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Delete Datagrid Rows

Problem :
               One of the question which was asked on the silverlight forum was how to delete multiple rows of the datagrid when you have provided the checkboxs in the datagrid for the selection of more then one row in the datagrid.

Solution :
            The solution to this problem is very simple and as I have not perform such functionality like that to delete records based on the number of selected records in the datagrid. I do perform such functionality in the asp.net grid but not in the silverlight datagrid. The output can be seen in the Image 1, here you can see that I have button control with content as "Delete" this button is used to remove the selected records and one datagrid control which display the record and each record has the checkbox control which is used for multiple selection to delete.

Read more: Asim Sajjad
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