Hosting WCF/Workflow Service in IIS directly from Visual Studio 2010 and start debugging by just hitting F5 on Visual Studio.

Posted by jasper22 at 12:33 | Thursday, May 10, 2012

Problem:

When you develop a WCF/Workflow service using Visual Studio and try to run it, by default Visual Studio runs it under web development server. Here the problem is that the web development server is a light weight host and does not support reach features which comes with IIS. For example web development server does not allow you to run a WCF/Workflow service, which is configured to use NET TCP binding. There are many more such features which do not come with web development server.

As a developer we all want to, just hit the F5 button and start debugging. But if your WCF/Workflow service is configured in such a way that it can only run under IIS, it becomes really tricky to start debugging it.

The common approach we generally follow is to out in which w3wp.exe our service is running and then attach the Visual Studio to that process.

In following text, I have shown another approach in which Visual Studio can be configured to run together with IIS. With this configuration your WCF/Workflow Services runs under IIS as soon you hit the F5 and you can start debugging without any hassles.

1. Create WCF/Workflow server. See how to create basic Workflow WCF Server.

2. Configure IIS to host your WCF/Workflow service.

(Note: -You can skip following steps if you already have some IIS website configured on port 80 and NET TCP binding is configured. )

a. Open IIS Manager.

b. Add new application pool.

i. Select 'Application Pools' node from the left hand side tree view.

ii. Click on 'Add Application Pool' link from 'Actions' panel at right hand side.

iii. Give some name to your application pool. I have given name as 'WorkflowService'. In below steps I will refer your application pool as 'WorkflowService'.

iv. Change .Net Framework Version to 4.0

v. Click 'Ok'

Windows 8 Camp: Building Metro-style Apps with XAML and C# - Part 2

Posted by jasper22 at 13:26 | Wednesday, May 9, 2012

בתאריך 7.5.12 קיימנו במיקרוסופט יום עיון בנושא תכנות לחלונות 8 על מנת לאפשר למפתחי .NET למנף את הידע והיכולות שלהם לפיתוח אפליקציות Metro Style, המותאמות לממשק המשתמש החדש.

ביום עיון זה, למדנו על העקרונות המנחים בפיתוח ל- Windows 8, דיברנו על מודל מחזור החיים החדש של אפליקציות ועל הדרכים החדשות שמאפשרות למפתחים לבצע אינטרקציה עם המשמשים. הכרנו את מנגנוני השיתוף והחיפוש החדשים והבנו איך הם מאפשרים לנו לבצע אינטגרציה טובה יותר עם מערכת ההפעלה.

קהל יעד: מפתחי .NET, מפתחי UI, ראשי צוותים.

רמה: 400

Windows 8 Camp: Building Metro-style Apps with XAML and C# - Part 1

Posted by jasper22 at 13:25 |

קהל יעד: מפתחי .NET, מפתחי UI, ראשי צוותים.

רמה: 400

הכירו את Tod: התקן שיקשר כל אובייקט אל הסמארטפון שלכם

Posted by jasper22 at 13:24 |

כיום, נדמה שאתר קיקסטארטר התבסס כאפשרות גיוס הכספים הטובה ביותר עבור יזמים מתחילים, בעלי רעיון מהפכני וצורך לשנות את העולם.

הפעם, פרוייקט חדש תחת השם Tod מקווה לעשות בדיוק זאת – באמצעות סכום 'זעום' של 50,000 דולרים. אז מה בדיוק המוצר הזה עושה והאם כדאי לנו לממן אותו?

צפרדע כחולה

צוות בשם Rowdy Robot העלה לקיקסטארטר את הפרוייקט החדש שלו, המתוייג תחת השם Tod (שמבוטא כ-Toad). המוצר הוא התקן בלוטות' חיצוני, המסוגל להתחבר עם מכשירים תומכים כגון אייפון 4S, דרויד רייזר, HTC ONE X ועוד – כל עוד הם תומכים בתקן בלוטות' 4.0.

עד כה, נשמע כמו מוצר ממוצע – אך הרעיון העומד מאחורי הפרוייקט הוא לאפשר למשתמשים לחבר גם מוצרים 'מהעולם האמיתי' אל המכשירים הסלולריים שלהם. החיבור נעשה באמצעות חיישני קירבה המזהים אובייקטים ממרחק של כמטר וחצי ומתחברים לאפליקציית Tod על גבי הסמארטפון של המשתמש. כך, יוכלו למצוא היכן החנו את מכוניתם, לוודא שלא משאירים את המפתחות במשרד ואפילו להיות מודעים כאשר רקסי הקטן יוצא מטווח הקליטה שלהם.

בפועל, לאחר הרכישה כל מה שהמשתמש יצטרך לעשות הוא להצמיד את ההתקן אל האובייקט המתאים – וזהו. Tod מגיע עם סוללת מטבע שיכולה לרוץ במשך שנים (או לפחות כך טוענת החברה) ומוכנה להגיב ברגע שהמשתמש יתקרב אליה.

Microsoft Creates Kinect-Like System Using Laptop Speaker & Microphone

Posted by jasper22 at 13:19 |

Microsoft Research, working with the University of Washington, has developed a Kinect-like system that uses your computer's built-in microphone and speakers to provide object detection and gesture recognition, much in the same way that a submarine uses sonar. Called SoundWave, the new technology uses the Doppler effect to detect any movements and gestures in the proximity of a computer. In the case of SoundWave, your computer's built-in speaker is used to emit ultrasonic (18-22KHz) sound waves, which change frequency depending on where your hand (or body) is in relation to the computer. This change in frequency is measured by your computer's built-in microphone, and then some fairly complex software works out your motion/gesture. The obvious advantage of SoundWave over a product like Kinect is that it uses existing, commodity hardware; it could effectively equip every modern laptop with a gesture-sensing interface. The Microsoft Research team is reporting a 90-100% accuracy rate for SoundWave, even in noisy environments.

IQueryable Vs IEnumerable

Posted by jasper22 at 12:12 |

IQueryable inherited IEnumerable, so it obviously get all the functionality IEnumerable has. The working style of both is still different. There are still lot many differences exists between the two which impact the decision we took in usage of either one. Both of these suits for particular scenarios. Following are some differences using which we can took decision to use anyone of these optimally.

Parameter	IQueryable	IEnumerable
Extension Methods	Extension methods defined for IQueryable take expression objects. Means, the delegate IQueryable extension methods receives is an expression tree.	Extension methods defined for IEnumerable take functional objects. Means, the delegate IEnumerableextension methods receives is a method to invoke.
Great For	IQueryable allows out-of-memory things like remote data source operations, such as working with database or web service.	IEnumerable is great for working with sequences (in-memory collections), that are iterated in-memory.
Supported Queries	IQueryable supports LINQ to SQL queries.	IEnumerable supports LINQ to Object and LINQ to XML queries.
Deferred Execution	IQueryable supports lazy loading (Suited for scenarios like paging and composition based queries).	IEnumerable lost lazy loadnig ability on the external provider.
Moving between items	IQueryable provides many methods to move between the items.	IEnumerable doesn’t have the concept of moving between items, it is forward only collection.
Filtering Mechanism	IQueryable executes query on server side along with all the filters applied.	IEnumerable executes select query on server side, loads data in-memory and then executes filter at client side.
CreateQuery and Execute Methods	IQueryable has these two additional methods. Both takes expression as input. CreateQuery returns IQueryable representing expression tree. Execute returns result of the query.	NA
Custom Querying Capability	IQueryable provides additional functionality to implement custom querying with LINQ.	IEnumerable does not have custom querying capability.
Performance Perspective	IQueryable gives best performance when used for out-of-memory data store operations (that is external to .NET CLR memory).	IEnumerable gives best performance when used to manipulate in-memory collections.

WCF - Authentication and Authorization in Enterprise Architecting

Posted by jasper22 at 10:09 |

Introduction

In this article I am going to show how to use Authorization and Authentication using a WCF service in Enterprise Architecting standards. This article is about advanced WCF concepts. I am using an error driven approach for better experience with the problems and the solutions.

The core aspects we cover here are:

WCF

ASP.NET Authentication Service

Custom Authentication

HTTP Cookies

Authorization PrincipalPermission Attribute

Thread CurrentPrincipal

Message Interceptors

You will be wondering what the above are. In a quick snap following are the activities involved.

Create a WCF Service Application

Add a AuthenticationService.svc reusing the ASP.NET Authentication Service

Create a User Validator class

Enable Custom Authentication in Global.asax

Return Cookie if valid user

Modify service configuration

Try accessing the Authentication Service in the browser

Create a UtilityService.svc with a method named GetData(int)

Decorate GetData(int) with the PrincipalPermission attribute for Authorized Access only

Decorate the UtilityService class with the AspNetCompatibilityRequirements attribute

Set he Utility Service constructor to set CurrentPrincipal from the Cookie

Create the client application and add references to both services

Create the Authentication Service instance and invoke the Login() method

Receive the cookie and store it

Create the UtilityService instance and invoke GetData()

Attach the Cookie to the UtilityService client

Test the application and ensure proper functioning

Move the cookie attaching code to Interceptors in the Client Application

Move the identity setting code to Interceptors in the Service Application

Modify the service side code to include Role instead of Name

Use Encrypted Ticket for storing User Name and Roles

Retest the application

May 2012 Security Release ISO Image

Posted by jasper22 at 10:08 |

Overview

This DVD5 ISO image file contains the security updates for Windows released on Windows Update on May 8, 2012. The image does not contain security updates for other Microsoft products. This DVD5 ISO image is intended for administrators that need to download multiple individual language versions of each security update and that do not use an automated solution such as Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). You can use this ISO image to download multiple updates in all languages at the same time.

Important: Be sure to check the individual security bulletins at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin prior to deployment of these updates to ensure that the files have not been updated at a later date.

ZeuS Tracker

Posted by jasper22 at 09:47 |

The ZeuS Tracker tracks ZeuS Command&Control servers (hosts) around the world and provides you a domain- and a IP-blocklist. If you have any questions please take a look into the FAQ or send me a email (contact).

Here are some quick statistics about the ZeuS crimeware:

ZeuS C&C servers tracked: 676

ZeuS C&C servers online: 347

ZeuS C&C servers with files online: 17

ZeuS FakeURLs tracked: 3

ZeuS FakeURLs online: 0

Average ZeuS binary Antivirus detection rate: 38.44%

You can find more interesting statistics about the ZeuS crimeware on the ZeuS Tracker statistic page.

The map below shows a dot for each ZeuS Command&Control server (ip or domain).

Zabbix

Posted by jasper22 at 09:46 |

Zabbix is an enterprise-class open source distributed monitoring solution.

Zabbix 1.8: The Ultimate Open Source Monitoring Solution

"Zabbix offers advanced monitoring, alerting and visualization features today which are missing in other monitoring systems, even some of the best commercial ones."

Distributed monitoring

Centralized configuration

Centralized access to all data

Up-to 1000 of Zabbix nodes

Unlimited number of proxies

Scalability

Tested with 100,000 monitored devices and servers

Tested with 1,000,000 availability and performance checks

Processing of thousands of availability and performance checks per second

Real-time monitoring

Performance monitoring

Availability monitoring

Integrity monitoring

Flexible notification conditions

Alerting users (Email, SMS, Jabber)

Logging

Visualization

User-defined views and slide shows

Mapping

Graphing (including pie charts)

Zooming

Fast Problem Resolution

Send alerts via email, cell phone, SMS or audio alerts

Execute remote commands

Windbg & SOS - 03

Posted by jasper22 at 13:48 | Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Ever try to load SOS/psscor into your debugging session and get a "Failed to load data access dll" error? It's not uncommon, especially when you first start debugging .NET applications. Join us for a brief introduction to Windbg before we discuss the most common causes for this error, and what are oftentimes simple solutions.

NOTE: At 4:55, it insinuates that psscor4 works with .NET 4.5. This is not the case. As of the time of the recording of this video you will need the SOS from the 4.5 install directory to debug a 4.5 app.

דירוג 100 החברות הטובות ביותר בישראל; מי בראש?

Posted by jasper22 at 17:32 | Sunday, May 6, 2012

במסגרת דירוג 100 החברות שהכי טוב לעבוד בהן, שנערך על ידי חברת BDI בשיתוף עם עיתון דה מרקר מסתמן כי חברות ההייטק נכנסו לעשיריה המובילה ודחקו את חברות התקשורת החוצה.

הסקר התבסס על מספר קריטריונים ביניהם שכר, יחסי עבודה, יציבות תעסוקתית ועוד. אז מי הגיע למקום הראשון? איזה תחום שולט? ומה כדאי לכם להתחיל ללמוד כדי למצוא את עבודת החלומות?

בראש הטבלה: תחום ההיי-טק

זוהי השנה השמינית בה מתפרסם דירוג 100 החברות שהכי טוב לעבוד בהן בישראל, במסגרתו נערך סקר בקרב אוכלוסיית המועסקים, הבודק ומשקלל את הפרמטרים החשובים ביותר לעובד הישראלי בעת בחירת מקום עבודה. השנה, ניתן לראות מגמה ברורה בה העובד הישראלי מעדיף את חברות ההייטק והטכנולוגיה, בניגוד לשנים קודמות בהן חברות התקשורת כיכבו בראש הטבלה.

אותן חברות טכנולוגיה תופסות כ-50 אחוזים מעשרת החברות הנחשקות ביותר המופיעות בראש הטבלה. עוד מסקנה ברורה מהסקר היא שהשיקול החשוב ביותר עבור העובדים הוא תנאי השכר – ורק לאחר מכן יחסי עבודה טובים ויציבות תעסוקתית.

בשנה החמישית ברציפות, מככבת חברת אינטל בראש הטבלה בתור המקום הטוב ביותר לעבוד בו. אחריה ניתן למצוא את חברת החשמל, חברת טבע, HP ישראל ומיקרוסופט ישראל – כאשר האחרונה רשמה עלייה משמעותית של שישה מקומות, לאחר ששנה שעברה הייתה מדורגת במקום ה-11 בטבלה.

בנק הפועלים מופיע במקום השישי וגוגל ישראל, למרות שקפצה 18 מקומות מאז שנה שעברה, מופיעה רק במקום השביעי. אחריהן מופיעות בהתאמה, בנק לאומי ואמדוקס. החברה הסוגרת את 'העשירייה הפותחת' היא קבוצת שטראוס – שהגיעה למקום העשירי הטוב ביותר לעבוד בו.

Xamarin's port of Android to Microsoft's C#: Five questions (and answers)

Posted by jasper22 at 17:22 |

Xamarin, the folks that created the Mono open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET framework, are at it again. This time, they’ve managed to port parts of Android to Microsoft’s C# language.

This skunkworks project, known as XobotOS, was born in interesting times, given the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit over Java and Android. (Remember Google co-founder Larry Page’s statement from back in 2005 that if Sun didn’t want to work with Google, it had two choices: Adopt Microsoft’s Common Language Runtime VM and C#; or “Do Java anyway”?) It’s also interesting given Microsoft’s latest strategy involving threatening convincing more and more Android OEMs to pay Redmond patent licensing royalties due to alleged infringement of Android on unnamed Microsoft patented code.

Xamarin founder Miguel de Icaza announced the release of XobotOS on github earlier this week. He said that the team managed to port most of Android’s layouts and controls entirely in C# using a Xamarin-enhanced version of the Sharpen machine-translation tool.

“Over and over we came back to the basics: (Android’s) Dalvik is a young virtual machine, it is not as performant or tuned as Mono and suffers from many of Java’s performance limitations without the benefit of the high-end optimizations from Oracle’s HotSpot,” de Icaza blogged. “What if we could swap out Java with faster C# and get rid of various Dalvik limitations in the process? Could we create an Android phone completely free of Java, and free of the limitations of the Dalvik VM?”

While Xamarin isn’t going to focus on further and selling Xobotos, de Icaza and team are still interested in seeing where this experiment goes.

I had a chance to ask de Icaza a few questions about XobotOS this week via e-mail. Here’s our exchange:

Q: Who do you see as the potential audience/customers for XobotOS? Current Android device makers?

A: The main benefit is going to be customers of both our Mono for Android and Mono for iOS products. In the Android case, because we will be able to replace slow code running in Java, with code that runs on the faster VM, with better optimizations and is not held back by Java’s design. In the iOS case, because we will be able to bring some useful code from Android to iOS.

We do not have plans to turn XobotOS itself into a complete competitor to Android. XobotOS is a research project. Usually in the industry the metric is that it takes 10 times effort to turn program or research prototypes into products.

Telcos and OEMs would also have to think about the established user base, and how they could roll something like this out. Judging by the trouble everyone but Apple has rolling out OS updates, I do not believe they are ready to take on a new stack.

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