Alex Pinsker

SQL–getting all rows with rank 2 (N)

2012-01-02T00:43:00.000+02:00

CREATE TABLE #test ( id int, ProductName VARCHAR(25) )
insert into #test
select 1, 'Apple' union all
select 2, 'Apple' union all
select 5, 'Apple' union all
select 3, 'Orange' union all
select 4, 'Orange' union all
select 10, 'Orange'
SELECT * FROM #test

SELECT maxID FROM
(
    SELECT MAX(id) AS mid, name AS nn, RANK() OVER (PARTITION BY name ORDER BY id DESC) AS MyRank
    FROM #test
    GROUP BY id, name
    --ORDER BY id desc -- RANK()
) tmp
WHERE tmp.MyRank = 2

Get current username in SQL

2012-01-02T00:41:00.001+02:00

SELECT PARSENAME(REPLACE(ORIGINAL_LOGIN(), '\', '.'), 1)

What is a size of DateTime type in C#?

2011-10-11T23:52:00.001+02:00

What is a size of DateTime type in C#? - A trivial question, unexcitingly facing few obstacles. Self-explanatory code below describes how you can't get it and how you can (and yes, it's 8 bytes):

using System;       
      
namespace DateTimeSizeExample       
{       
  public struct TypeSizeProxy<T>       
  {       
    public T PublicField;       
  }       
      
  public static class SizeCalculator       
  {       
    public static int SizeOf<T>()       
    {       
    try       
    {       
      return System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(T));       
    }       
    catch (ArgumentException)       
    {       
      return System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.SizeOf(new TypeSizeProxy<T>());       
    }       
  }       
      
  public static int GetSize(this object obj)       
  {       
    return System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.SizeOf(obj);       
  }       
}       
      
internal class Program       
{       
private static void Main(string[] args)       
{       
// Error: 'System.DateTime' does not have a predefined size, therefore sizeof can only be used in an unsafe context       
// (consider using System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.SizeOf)       
//int s1 = sizeof(DateTime);       
      
// Run time Argument Exception: Type 'System.DateTime' cannot be marshaled as an unmanaged structure; no meaningful size or offset can be computed       
//int s2 = System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.SizeOf(typeof(DateTime));       
      
int dateTimeSize = SizeCalculator.SizeOf<DateTime>(); // 8 bytes       
}       
}       
}

Google Desktop Search as intranet search tool

2011-02-07T23:17:00.001+02:00

Here is list of GDS proxies that could be used:

http://www.asabox.com/goolag/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/soogle/
http://www.projectcomputing.com/resources/desktopProxy/
(left as comment on my former post by anonymous good Samaritan).

Dynamic casting in c#

2011-01-29T00:51:00.001+02:00

var typesSubset = new[] { typeof(decimal), typeof(Int32), typeof(Int64) };
Type someDynamicType = typeof (int);
int someDynamicValue = 777;
if (typesSubset.Any(t => t == someDynamicType))
{
    object result = Expression.Lambda<Func<object>>(
        Expression.Convert(Expression.Add(
                               Expression.Constant(someDynamicType), Expression.Constant(someDynamicValue)),
                           typeof (object))).Compile()();
 
    Console.WriteLine(result); // 777
}

Pass xml to stored procedure

2011-01-29T00:35:00.001+02:00

In C#:

    1 // create XML string
    2 var dataToPass = new StringBuilder("<RowsOfNumbers>");
    3 dataToPass.AppendFormat("<id>{0}</id>", 1);
    4 dataToPass.AppendFormat("<id>{0}</id>", 2);
    5 dataToPass.AppendFormat("<id>{0}</id>", 3);
    6 dataToPass.Append("</RowsOfNumbers>");
    7 
    8 // call SP
    9 myDB.ExecuteStoredProcedure("GetXmlData", new object[] { dataToPass.ToString() });

IN SQL:

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[GetXmlData]    (@dataIdsXml XML)
AS
    DECLARE @dataIdsTable TABLE (ID int)
 
    INSERT INTO @dataIdsTable (ID) SELECT ParamValues.ID.value('.','VARCHAR(20)')
    FROM @dataIdsXml.nodes('/RowsOfNumbers/id') as ParamValues(ID)
 
    SELECT [ID] FROM @dataIdsTable WHERE [ID]=1
GO    

Workforce turnover around me (LinkedIn stats)

2011-01-28T23:57:00.001+02:00

Following to LinkedIn data 57 out of my 382 contacts changed jobs in 2010.
This is 15%. Probably actual rate is a bit higher since in some cases this info may be not updated in LinkedIn.

Subset of TED lectures on health

2011-01-28T23:43:00.001+02:00

(with bits of practical information)

Just interesting:
http://www.ted.com/talks/misha_glenny_investigates_global_crime_networks.html

Fallen giant

2011-01-28T23:35:00.001+02:00

Few photo subsets from this blog:

“Heroic deeds live in eternity” – are they?

Free eBook’s from Red Gate

2010-09-19T23:28:00.001+02:00

Please visit here for the full list with descriptions. Below some links:

China - The Mother of All Black Swans - By Vitaliy Katsenelson

2010-09-18T01:35:00.001+02:00

Article here.

Military segway

2010-09-18T00:59:00.001+02:00

16 years of survival in extreme conditions - in 43 sentences

2010-08-26T21:49:00.001+03:00

Below is my (partial) translation of a short story written by Varlam Tihonovich Shalamov who was prisoner of Gulag camps from 1937 till 1953.
It’s called “What I have seen and understood in jail”.
16 years of survival in extreme conditions in 43 sentences…

What I have seen and understood in jail:
1. Extreme fragility of human culture, civilization. Man turns into beast after three weeks of hard work, coldness, hunger and beating.
2. The main way of spirit defilement is coldness – people enjailed in camps of Asia hold for longer – it was warmer there.
3. I understood that friendship and fellowship never starts in difficult, really difficult conditions – when your life is a stake. Friendship may start in conditions that are difficult but feasible.
4. I understood that emotion that man keeps for last is the emotion of hate. It’s enough flesh on a hunger man to keep only his hate. A hunger man is indifferent to the else.
…
7. I understood that humans raised the humankind because human is more strong and tenacious than any animal – horse can’t sustain hard work in conditions of Far North, human – does.
8. The only group of people that were behaving a bit like humans were religious, mostly sectarian and camisters.
9. Former militaries and politicians are broken first.
10. I’ve seen what a sound argument an ordinary slap can be.
11. Mob differentiates leaders by their ardor and strength of beating.
12. Beating is an irresistible argument.
…
16. I understood that you may live only by hate.
17. I understood that you may live by apathy.
18. In extreme conditions – man not motivated by his hopes (there is no hopes), not by his will but rather by animal instinct, instinct of survival similar to one that exist in tree, animal or a stone.
…
23. I’ve seen that women more fair and selfless than man. There was not a single case when man followed his wife to the North, but the opposite was common.
…
31. You should differentiate people not as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but as coward and brave. 95% are coward and ready to do any villainy in case of even minor danger.
32. I’m convinced that every single hour you’ve spent in camp adds to your defilement.
…
36. I learned to plan one day ahead only
37. I understood that thieves are not humans.
…

Some photos from Think Next 2010

2010-05-09T11:37:00.000+03:00

Some photos from Think Next 2010:

Portable sonar device, enable to show people locations through walls:

Big touch-screen device:

Technorati Tags: Think Next 2010

Solution for "Impossible to log SQL 2008 performance counters under Windows 2008 64 bit?"

2010-03-10T11:15:00.002+02:00

Alex Pinsker: Impossible to log SQL 2008 performance counters under Windows 2008 64 bit?

Here is solution, found by our DBA:
1. Open regedit.exe
2. Find the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSSQLSERVER\Performance"
3. Find the value named "Performance counters disabled"
4. Ensure, that its value is NOT "4" or "1". If it is - enforce it to "0"
5. Notice file name in value of "PerfIniFile" key and copy it to clipboard
6. Close the regedit
7. Open cmd and go to Binn folder of Sql Server installation. Usually in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.MSSQLSERVER\MSSQL\Binn"
8. Run the following commands:
8.1 unlodctr mssqlserver
8.2 lodctr [clipboard filename from (5.) above]
8.2.1 lodctr [clipboard filename from (.5) above]
(this only needs for sure, that counters are installed - there will be a message notifying on that)
8.3 lodctr /T:mssqlserver
9. Restart the server
10. Use perfmon to ensure, that counters for Sql Server reappeared

Excellent guide on hosting wcf in asp.net iis environment

2010-03-07T12:06:00.001+02:00

www.leastprivilege.com - Hosting WCF Services in ASP.NET - The Survival Guide

Technorati Tags: WCF,IIS 7

blog ping list

2010-03-01T19:44:00.001+02:00

Long blog ping list - compiled from few sources:

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

Technorati Tags: blog,ping list,ping

::boost for C# - Umbrella

2010-03-01T19:38:00.001+02:00

Nice project: http://umbrella.codeplex.com/. Provides many components similar to the ::boost basics (like bind()...) - for C#.

Technorati Tags: C#,C++,::boost

C# - the fastest way to iterate over dictionary

2010-02-24T00:00:00.001+02:00

Having a big dictionary, say 1M of <double,double> samples – what is the fastest way to iterate over it?
Comparing 3 options (iterate over KeyValuePair in the dictionary, iterate over Values collection and iterate over Keys collection) – below is code and timing comparison results.
// Of course if you iterating over Keys collection and accessing the value by key – it would be the slowest case.

// Create sample dictionary
var random = new Random();
var randomDictionaryOfDoubles =
    Enumerable.Repeat(0, 1000000).Select(
        i => Convert.ToDouble(random.Next()))
        .Distinct().OrderBy(i=>i)
        .ToDictionary(i => i);
double total = 0.0;
var stopWatch = new Stopwatch();
//Console.WriteLine("Starting KVP");
stopWatch.Reset();
stopWatch.Start();
foreach (KeyValuePair<double, double> kvp in randomDictionaryOfDoubles)
{
    total += (kvp.Value);
}
stopWatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("KVP took:    {0} Total = {1}", stopWatch.Elapsed, total);
//Console.WriteLine("Starting Values");
total = 0.0;
stopWatch.Reset();
stopWatch.Start();
// To get the values alone, use the Values property.
Dictionary<double, double>.ValueCollection valueColl = randomDictionaryOfDoubles.Values;
foreach (double d in valueColl)
{
    total += d;
}
stopWatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Values took: {0} Total = {1}", stopWatch.Elapsed, total);
//Console.WriteLine("Starting keys");
total = 0.0;
stopWatch.Reset();
stopWatch.Start();
// To get the keys alone, use the Keys property.
Dictionary<double, double>.KeyCollection keyColl = randomDictionaryOfDoubles.Keys;
foreach (double d in keyColl)
{
    total += d;
}
stopWatch.Stop();
Console.WriteLine("Keys took:   {0} Total = {1}", stopWatch.Elapsed, total);
Console.ReadLine();

Here are results:

Method	Time spent in iteration
Over key-value pairs	00:00:00.1854684
Over Values collection	00:00:00.1221380
Over Keys collection	00:00:00.0955291

Technorati Теги: C#,Dictionary,performance

Copy code as HTML from VS 2008 into Live Writer

2010-02-23T23:56:00.002+02:00

The best option for me is this:

Technorati Теги: VS 2008,AddIns

Probability to observe the same number calling Random.Rand()

2010-02-23T23:41:00.002+02:00

It’s not an efficient query. Just a game…

for (int j = 1; j < 8; j++)
{
    int numElements = (int)Math.Pow(10, j);
    var numersList = Enumerable.Repeat(0, numElements).Select(
        i => Convert.ToDouble(random.Next()))
        .Distinct().OrderBy(i => i);
    double probabilityGetSameNumber = 1 - (double) numersList.Count()/numElements;
    Console.WriteLine(
        "Rand() was called {0} times. Same number was observed in {1} % cases",
        numElements, probabilityGetSameNumber);
}

Results:

Num of Rand() calls	Same number observed in % of cases	Cases count
10	0	0
100	0	0
1000	0	0
10000	0	0
100000	0.00002999999999997	3
1000000	0.00024100000000004	241
10000000	0.00234760000000001	23476

Technorati Теги: C#,Rand(),probability,LINQ

Random clicks

2010-02-23T23:29:00.001+02:00

http://www.evernote.com/about/home.php

http://www.sendmehome.com/

Good URL compressor

2010-02-19T00:49:00.000+02:00

is.gd - http://is.gd/8DuwB

Impossible to log SQL 2008 performance counters under Windows 2008 64 bit?

2010-02-17T19:17:00.001+02:00

Here is some strange problem I’ve experienced (right now it seems to me as a bug in Windows 2008 64 bit):

I have an environment with Windows 2008 64 bit and SQL Enterprise 64 bit.

To begin with - it's possible to see SQL-related performance counters values only in perfmon opened from SysWow64 (i.e. 32 bit) - they are not present in 64-bit perfmon.

Now, if I open perfmon (32 bit) and add any SQL counters (e.g. SQL Latches) to the "Performance Monitor" section I can see that those values are updated "live" in perfmon graphs.

Yet, if I create a new Data Collector Set for the same values under Data Collector Sets -> User Defined - the values for SQL counters are not being stored in the created log file. If I add some other counters (e.g. Processor) they ARE saved.

Seems that this is some sort of bug/problem related to 64 bit…

There are some clues on this problem in two following articles:

but both do not help (for the first one – there is no such service anymore in Windows 2008…

Many, many pretties... piled high beyond the sky

2010-02-17T17:22:00.001+02:00

Yes, it could be a lot more small rectangles in it, I know ;o)
(But you can't look too far - when you look too far - it looks back).

Technorati Tags: Task Manager,Multi-core

Browser’s yin yang

2010-02-12T00:13:00.000+02:00

Awesome design – click on it to see the page…

Added online chat to my blog

2010-02-11T23:55:00.000+02:00

It’s a nice feature of meebo.com

Got on twitter

2010-02-11T23:54:00.001+02:00

Follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/alex_pinsker

Virtual travel over Trans-Siberian railroad with Google

2010-02-11T12:18:00.001+02:00

Incredible - 22 day travel over Trans-Siberian railroad - full recorded by Google.
You may listen for "War & Peace" all over during that time :)
http://www.google.ru/intl/ru/landing/transsib/

Technorati Tags: Google,Trans-Siberian

Song about war

2010-01-28T18:32:00.001+02:00

Technorati Tags: Песня о войне

LINQ extension method to Capitalize string

2010-01-21T14:45:00.002+02:00

LINQ extension method to Capitalize first letter of each word in a sentence:

public static string Capitalize(this string s)
{
    return s.ToCharArray().Aggregate(String.Empty,
      (currentWord, nextWord) =>
        currentWord.Length == 0 && nextWord != ' ' ? nextWord.ToString().ToUpper() : (
          currentWord.EndsWith(" ") ? currentWord + nextWord.ToString().ToUpper() :
            currentWord + nextWord.ToString()
      )
    );
}

What’s new in Windows 2008 for developer

2010-01-17T11:26:00.001+02:00

Here is nice summary:

Windows Server 2008 for Developer

Return collection of anonymous type from method in LINQ

2010-01-14T16:24:00.002+02:00

Technorati Tags: LINQ

Let’s say you have some method that execute a LINQ query over collection and constructs a collection of (new) anonymous type as result. Here is how you can return it and use it below the scope of the method:

public class Program
{
public static IEnumerable<T> GetExampleCollection<T>(T type)
{
// generate some random collection simulating source data
var random = new Random();
var collection =
Enumerable.Repeat(0, 100).Select(
i => new { ClientId = random.Next(), OrderId = random.Next(), Price = random.NextDouble() });

// run some linq query over it
var queryOverCollection = from item in collection
where item.ClientId % 2 == 0
select new { DoublePrice = item.Price * 2.0 };
IQueryable v = (from item in collection
where item.ClientId % 2 == 0
select new { DoublePrice = item.Price * 2.0 }).AsQueryable();

return queryOverCollection as IEnumerable<T>;
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
// bring collection of anonymous type items from a method!
var v = GetExampleCollection(new { DoublePrice = new double() });
foreach (var item in v)
{
// ... and use it!
Console.WriteLine(item.DoublePrice);
}
}
}

Note, that anonymous type is resolved on the assemble level, so you can’t reference it in another assembly.

SQL connection string application name

2010-01-13T14:17:00.002+02:00

Add “Application Name=My Application Name” to connection string to differentiate your connections (e.g. in SQL Profiler).
(it’s a self reminder post).

Regular expressions for connection string parsing

2009-12-14T16:35:00.002+02:00

Collection of regular expressions for parsing of connection string:
Split to parts:

string regexSplitToParts = "([^=;]*)=([^=;]*)";
RegexOptions options = RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace | RegexOptions.Multiline | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled;
Regex reg = new Regex(regexSplitToParts, options);

Fetch specific part of connection string (e.g. DataSource):

string regexDataSource = "Data\\sSource(\\s)*=(\\s)*(?<DataSourceName>([^;]*))";
RegexOptions options = RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace | RegexOptions.Multiline | RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Compiled;
Regex reg = new Regex(regexDataSource, options);

Technorati Tags: regex

Shakespeare - Sonnet 66 – few translations

2009-12-02T15:03:00.001+02:00

Below is from http://jaerraeth.livejournal.com/274011.html

Samuil Marshak +1 !!! :o)

Бессмертный Шекспир
ШЕКСПИР, Сонет 66

Original	Перевод Маршака	Перевод Пастернака	Актуальный перевод
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, - As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by autority, And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill: Tired with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.	Зову я смерть. Мне видеть невтерпеж Достоинство, что просит подаянья, Над простотой глумящуюся ложь, Ничтожество в роскошном одеянье, И совершенству ложный приговор, И девственность, поруганную грубо, И неуместной почести позор, И мощь в плену у немощи беззубой, И прямоту, что глупостью слывет, И глупость в маске мудреца, пророка, И вдохновения зажатый рот, И праведность на службе у порока. Все мерзостно, что вижу я вокруг... Но как тебя покинуть, милый друг!	Измучась всем, я умереть хочу. Тоска смотреть, как мается бедняк, И как шутя живется богачу, И доверять, и попадать впросак, И наблюдать, как наглость лезет в свет, И честь девичья катится ко дну, И знать, что ходу совершенствам нет, И видеть мощь у немощи в плену, И вспоминать, что мысли заткнут рот, И разум сносит глупости хулу, И прямодушье простотой слывет, И доброта прислуживает злу. Измучась всем, не стал бы жить и дня, Да другу трудно будет без меня.	Когда ж я сдохну! До того достало, Что бабки оседают у жлобов, Что старики ночуют по вокзалам, Что "православный" значит - бей жидов! Что побратались мент и бандюган, Что колесят шестерки в шестисотых, Что в загс приходят по любви к деньгам, Что лег народ с восторгом под сексотов. Что делают бестселлер из говна, Что проходимец лепит монументы, Что музыкант играет паханам, А быдло учит жить интеллигента. Другой бы сдох к пятнадцати годам, Но я вам пережить меня не дам!

(с) не я, найдено в сети

1 year after post on Joseph de la Vega

2009-11-22T10:26:00.001+02:00

I wanted to return to his post in 1 year... DJI graph since then...

Technorati Tags: Finance,Freakonomics

Silverlight HTML Control

2009-11-17T10:20:00.002+02:00

If you need to display a piece of HTML in your Silverlight application…
Public/open-source Silverlight HTML controls:

HtmlTextBlock – replacement for Silverlight TextBlock that may render simple HTML.
Demo: http://cesso.org/Samples/SilverlightHtmlTextBlock/
Source code: http://delay.members.winisp.net/SilverlightHtmlTextBlock/SilverlightHtmlTextBlock.zip
HtmlHost control – use DOM to create HTML Document.
Source code: http://www.codersource.net/silverlightcode/htmlhost/FreeHtmlHost.zip

Commercial Silverlight HTML controls:

C1HtmlHost by ComponentOne.
Demo: http://demo.componentone.com/Silverlight/ControlExplorer/#C1HtmlHost/See%20it%20in%20action!
Trial Download: http://www.componentone.com/StudioSilverlight/Download/

Technorati Tags: Silverlight,Control,HtmlControl

What you see in Working Set of SQL Server 2008 process (sqlservr.exe) is NOT amount of memory allocated by the process

2009-11-15T12:24:00.002+02:00

Here is some extended info.

Technorati Tags: SQL 2008,AWE,Task Manager,Working Set

Practical tutorial on using Sgen.exe to improve performance of XML serialization startup.

2009-11-11T18:22:00.002+02:00

There is an overhead incurred when using serialization in your application, which is caused by generation of a ‘helper’ assembly for each type that is serialized with XmlSerializer (per-process-per-domain). (Btw – this has subtle adverse effect – if you use serialization – your application should have Read/Write permissions to %windir%\temp folder).

This overhead may be avoided by using Sgen.exe tool to pre-generate serialization assemblies.
Basically it should be pretty straightforward, especially if your FooBar.dll assembly for which you pre-generating serialization assembly doesn’t has a lot of references. Unfortunately – if you do have a lot of references – you would have to add them all using /reference:c:\foo1\foo1.dll /reference:c:\foo2\foo2.dll /reference:c:\foo3\foo3.dll ……

Here is a workaround:
To generate serialization assembly manually (could be done as a post-build step):
1) Visual Studio –> Foo.csproj –> Properties –> Build –> Generate Serialization Assembly –> On
You would expect it to work automatically now – but it wouldn’t, or saying it more precisely it would create serialization assembly only if your assembly includes proxy types (e.g. web-services).
Anyway – build your assembly, open MSVC output window and look for sgen.exe line in the end of output.
2) Copy whole sgen.exe line – it would include all the references needed.
3) Remove from it /proxytypes parameter – this will cause sgen.exe to generate serializers for regular types.
4) Add /force parameter to force overwrite of previously created assembly.

Now you almost done except of following caveats:
1) If you have types with the same name in different namespaces you would get error saying something like:
Error: There was an error reflecting type ‘FooNamespace.Foo’ – Types ‘FooNamespace1.Foo’ and ‘FooNamespace2.Foo’ both use the XML type name. Use XML attributes to specify a unique XML name and/or namespace for the type.
To resolve it – differentiate your types by specifying XML namespace:

   1:  using System.Xml.Serialization;

2:

   3:  [XmlType(Namespace = "urn:Foo1")]

   4:  [XmlRoot(Namespace = "urn:Foo1")]

   5:  public class Foo{}

2) If you have properties with readonly or internal properties, or internal types – you would get the following error:

Error … property or indexer cannot be assigned to it is read only.

You may either mark such property with [XmlIgnore] attribute or (for internal) – add following line to AssemblyInfo.cs file:

[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("<AssemblyName>.XmlSerializers, PublicKeyToken=null")]

You may still add it as part of build process manually modifying MSBUILD script in .csproj file.

Look here or here for details.

Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Sgen.exe

How to activate Fusion logs

2009-11-09T10:03:00.002+02:00

Technorati Tags: .NET

Fusion.reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fusion]
"LogPath"="C:\\FusionLogs"
"ForceLog"=dword:00000001

How productivity changes throughout the weekdays

2009-09-14T00:42:00.001+03:00

Graph below shows distribution of my blog visitors throughout the weekdays (this picture depicts a specific week, but the pattern is consistent over the time.
Since my blog is mostly devoted to the technical issues I think it could be a measure of common productivity pattern throughout the week.

So:

It seems that proverb saying “Monday is a holiday” looks to be statistically right.
Well, actually it seems it talks about the Tuesday as well …
Wednesday and Thursday are most productive days, Thursday is a bit better.
Friday is in much better than Tuesday but shows clear decline to Thursday.

Insiders sell like there's no tomorrow …

2009-09-14T00:20:00.001+03:00

Performance of Velocity distributed cache

2009-08-25T15:33:00.001+03:00

I was looking for some numbers on performance and throughput of Velocity.

First of all here is some extensive performance data from Microsoft Velocity team blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/velocity/archive/2009/04/21/more-performance-numbers.aspx

My own test (single cache node, single client on a neighbor LAN computer - sequentially storing 100 .. 1000 instances of the same data into the cache) shown time of around 14-18 ms (per chunk) when storing data chunks of 100K up to 1Mb.

The requested upgrade is not supported by

2009-08-24T14:26:00.001+03:00

Proxy should be updated...

No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it...

2009-08-24T14:16:00.003+03:00

Just a self-reminder... Could be caused by WCF security configurations. Either set Binding→Security→Mode→None or if Mode is Transport - then add Windows credentials of user running the service in security config section.

How flash order works

2009-08-16T11:25:00.004+03:00

Taken from this post.

The server has rejected the client credentials - WCF Exception

2009-08-12T17:21:00.002+03:00

Control Panel→Administrative Tools→Local Security Policy→Local Policies→User Rights Assignment→Access this computer from the network
Now add Authenticated Users if your services runs as an application or Network Service if it's service.

Google Books stickers

2009-07-27T14:30:00.004+03:00

Google giveaway Google Books stickers here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/tendaysingooglebooks/

How to: Update Windows driver from command line

2009-07-26T22:33:00.004+03:00

Download DevCon from here

Create list of drivers on your machine: devcon drivernodes * > drivers.txt

Find driver you want to update in the list, e.g. SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio

You may check that you've selected the proper driver running
devcon status "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24D5&SUBSYS_80F31043&REV_02" Please note that you should include driver ID in "quotation marks" and use part of string up to REV_02 (revision part).

run devcom updateNI using following parameters:

Inf file is ...

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24D5&SUBSYS_80F31043&REV_02

Command line would be something like:
devcon update "c:\windows\inf\oem0.inf" "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_24D5&SUBSYS_80F31043&REV_02"

TBB Performance

2009-07-20T12:25:00.006+03:00

My colleague who is working on optimization of quantitative calculations and plays around with Intel's thread building blocks (TBB) shared with me interesting performance results.

Let's say you trying to do a simple math operation, e.g. sum numbers in arrays A and B into correspondent cells of array S.
The intuitive guess would be that this is exactly type of operation that would benefit form running it in parallel on few threads/processors. Well, it's not and here are results (test was executed on two Intel's core Dell laptop):

As you may see - running it using a straight loop is around four times faster than running it using TBB (selecting manual splitting of 1000 pieces) and around eight times faster (almost order of magnitude!) than running it using TBB and letting it employ automatic splitting heuristic.

Our guess is that processor is perfectly fine-tuned for such types of task (locality of reference, L2 cache, optimistic pre-fetching of commands from pipe etc). If you employ few processors you introduce "coordination overhead" and pay performance price for it.

It seems that TBB would provide performance benefits for tasks of a certain complexity balance - more complicated than described here, but still not "too complicate" so that coordination overhead is not too high...

Here is the code if you want to check it out.

Calling a member function for all STL map values (in a single line of code)

2009-07-20T11:14:00.002+03:00

int newSize = 50; typedef std::map<int, vector<double>> MyMap; // call vector.resize(newSize) for all values (pair->second) of STL map for_each(m_map.begin(), m_map.end(), tr1::bind( mem_fun_ref(&vector<double>::resize), tr1::bind(&MyMap::value_type::second, tr1::placeholders::_1), newSize));

Sociological poll's results are clustered

2009-07-16T10:50:00.007+03:00

Occasionally I watch some TV news programs that do polling on various political and social issues. First of all - the fact of existence of such polls is curious by itself, since it depicts how many simple minded peoples there is out there happily paying for the phone calls to poll numbers just to express their opinion. In my view all those polls are nothing more that side revenue generation options for TV/phone corps and specifically designed for it.

Anyway I've noted an interesting fact - those results have some clustering patterns - both in time and quantitative space and let me explain what I mean.
Quantitatively - results are always clustered around the following ratios:
98:2
90:10
2/3: 1/2
1/2: 1/2

I didn't done a massive statistic on it, but it's my observation. Isn't that curious?

Now regarding "time clustering" - if poll results would be very biased, i.e. huge majority in favor of a certain option (like 98:2 or 90:10) - then usually during the very first seconds (something like 30 - 40 sec's) of the poll - the minority option would be the leading one! It's seems like people supporting an option which is really not favorable in view of the majority are reacting much more actively than the average citizen.

My lecture on distributed computing

2009-07-16T10:31:00.003+03:00

Here is my lecture on distributed computing which I presented recently to my colleagues.
(Some of the slides were taken from open materials that I've googled out.)
I think that Distributed Computing/Grid/Clouds and related technologies are going to be in the center of next technological boom/bubble cycle.
This is both because technology seems to be cheap and mature enough to crop the fruits and since it would be employed by Energy Grid / EnergyNET..

Use Beyond Compare with Team Foundation Server in VS 2008/VS2005

2009-06-25T12:01:00.003+03:00

VS2008 → Tools → Source Control → Visual Studio Foundation Service → Configure User Tools:

Compare → C:\Program Files\Beyond Compare 3\BComp.exe → %1 %2

Merge → C:\Program Files\Beyond Compare 3\BComp.exe → %1 %2 /savetarget=%4 /title1=%6 /title2=%7

Addin favicon to your blog

2009-06-21T15:49:00.006+03:00

Here is how to add Favicon to your blog:

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem() could be very slow

2009-06-21T14:07:00.008+03:00

ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem() could be very slow if callback being executed as a work item calls Thread.Sleep(). Consider the following example:

using System;
using System.Threading;

namespace Test
{
class Program
{
 const int waitTime = 10000;
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++ )
 ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem( TestProc, i);
 Console.ReadKey();
 }

 static void TestProc(object stateInfo)
 {
 Console.WriteLine("Item number #{0} at {1}", (int)stateInfo, DateTime.Now);
 Thread.Sleep(waitTime);
 }
}
}

The problem is that thread pool waits around 500 ms before allocating a new thread.
You may solve it by pre-specifying a minimal amount of threads in your application:
ThreadPool.SetMinThreads(20, 200);

Sand Requiem - devoted to soviet soldiers and people fallen in war that started 69 years ago...

2009-06-21T11:30:00.004+03:00

Howto: publish metadata for net.tcp endpoint and add reference to WCF service hosted in process/service/console

2009-06-17T16:12:00.006+03:00

app.config => Edit WCF configuration

Open "Services" section, then "Endpoints" section.

Select an endpoint for which you want to add metadata/MEX endpoint hosted with TCP binding

Endpoints => New service endpoint
- Set Address to something like net.tcp://localhost:5060/MyEndpointMex
- Set Name to be something like MyEndpointMex
- Set Binding to mexTcpBinding
- Set Contract to IMetadataExchange
- Set ListenUriMode to Explicit

Advanced => Service Behaviours => Add "New Service Behaviour Configuration"
Add serviceMedatadata section and set both HttpGetEnabled and HttpsGetEnabled to False

Now start your service process, open VS 2008, select References and then Add Service Reference.
Put net.tcp://localhost:5060/MyEndpointMex in Address field.

Enjoy

Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved net.tcp

2009-06-17T15:59:00.002+03:00

Error "Metadata contains a reference that cannot be resolved: 'service reference'.
If the service is defined in the current solution, try building the solution and adding the service reference again." could be caused by specifying specific contract rather than IMetadataExchange in Contract section of service endpoint configuration.

Barrier multithreading primitive in C#

2009-06-17T15:14:00.004+03:00


public class Barrier
{
    public Barrier(int count)
    {
        Count = count;
    }

    public int Count{get; set;}

    public void Wait()
    {
        lock(this)
        {
            if (--Count > 0)
            {
                System.Threading.Monitor.Wait(this);
            }
            else
            {
                System.Threading.Monitor.PulseAll(this);
            }
        }
    }
}

Productivity tools suite

2009-06-16T11:01:00.012+03:00

This post would be periodically updated and contain list of best tools for personal use.
(Updated: 23/12/2009)

Blogging

w.bloggar - free blog editor; integrates with most of blogging platforms.
Windows Live Writer – same… slim UI.

Productivity

Office:
Copernic Search Desktop - Index and search your e-mails (in non-commercial version indexes mails only). Interface is outlook-oriented and it's easier to use then Google Desktop.
Google Calendar Sync - automatically synchronize Outlook and Google Calendar.
Health:
Workrave - assist healthy work organization by reminding to make exercises and mini-breaks
Aire Freshener - Nature sounds player - good for relaxation (see why).

Security

Antivirus:
Avira Antivir - Free Edition - great for home use
Firewalls:
PC Tools Firewall Plus - easy to use personal firewall - the only one which is free for personal use and works with Windows 2003
Agnitum Outpost Free Edition - great for home use
File system:
Eraser - secure data removal tool.
True Crypt - open-source virtual encrypted disk
Security Scanners:
Secunia PSI - check whether any installed software requires upgrades. Download and install update patches automatically.
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer - check missing security updates and detect some security breaches. May scan range of PC's in a network.
Passwords Management:
KeePass - Manage all your password in encrypted container. Freeware; support search, groups, expiration control, language packs.

Sound, Music, Video, Images

MP3:
MP3 Split - Open-source & freeware application to split MP3 & OGG files by size, duration etc (without decoding). I using it really heavily to split audiobooks into chunks of 15-20 minutes and listen them while driving to work. It has command line and UI version (GTK). If you use it to split audiobook - select "auto-adjust mode" in Preferences to automatically split around silence zones.
Video:
Media Player Classic - looks like old-style Windows Media Player but provides major features and supports many video formats.
VLC Media Player - open-source media player, support virtually every format...
XP Codec Pack - codecs for majority of video formats.
Image editors & viewers:
Paint.NET - opensource image editor.
FastStone Image Viewer - free image browser, converter and editor.

System

Sniffers:
Ethereal - comprehensive network sniffer - Windows + #nux. Free.
Web Sniffers:
Fiddler - free web (HTTP/HTTPS) sniffer & debugger.
HttpWatch - web sniffer & debugger with programmatic (C#, Javascript & Ruby) automation interface. Free in basic edition.
TracePlus & Web Detective - bundle of regular & web sniffer - no free edition.

System Tools

Download Managers:
Free Download Manager - free, GNU license
~~Flashget - Free, built-in ads~~
Miscellaneous:
Process Tamer - monitor and dynamically adjust CPU usage of running processes.
Shadow Copy - Copy files (including locked files!) or entire drives.
Unlocker - check which process locks your file and unlock it.
VirtuaWin - virtual desktop manager.
Windows Installer CleanUp Utility - Uninstall any component installed on your system. Usefull to resolve installation problems.
WinUpdatesList - list all windows updates on the system and provide extensive information on each (install date, install user, list of files) + show uninstall command for the update (properties window).

Rally toward the multiprocessors and cloud computing

2009-06-11T10:14:00.007+03:00

The rally to multiprocessor/grid/cloud computing begins. I think technology starting gradually to approach maturity point, when it's possible to crop money from the technological break. It is especially important, since mentioned areas are essential for the next economy boom/bubble cycle, which seems to ride on energy consumption:

Interesting development in this field is NVIDIA's CUDA technology which evolved from their developments done for the high-performance gaming video cards.Basically CUDA is a set of processors embedded in a GPU card, that are clustered in a blocks. Amount ranges from few hundreds in low-budget cards and up to thounsands in GPU-dedicated cards line (Tesla). There is a ready API enabling to utilize this enormous (and enormously cheap) computing power in software applications. (It integrates with VS 2005 / 2008 and from development point of view - the parallel code should be placed in a separate files [.cu], developed in plain C extended with some parallel notions. - You kind of specifying (by using special registers) which MP cluster and which processor inside of cluster is used for the specific code route.) For a now such integration is not really smooth and requires development effort, but by no doubts NVIDIA would extend it for C++ and .NET. There are some 3rd party SDK's already to integrate it with .NET actually: http://www.gass-ltd.co.il/en/products/cuda.net/Releases.aspx

Notes about future developments in multiprocessign computing

2009-06-11T09:40:00.003+03:00

Below are engrossing notes from Intel Developers Conference by my collegue Adam Shaked Gish about future of computing, as Intel sees it.

There will be no more performance improvements for the single core - it is as fast it may be, as physics prohibits silicon from getting any faster.
Performance will be achieved by properly utilizing multiple cores. Intel is committed to this visions they already see a future in which a desktop has 100 cores inside.
As opposed to single core where apps gained performance when installed on new hardware for free, there is no free lunch in multi core. Engineers must be properly trained, and code properly written to utilize the cores in a scalable manner, and to write correct code (multithreading bugs can be very difficult to discover and fix).

In order to utilize the MP power you will need two things:

A high level library you can use to parallelize tasks, without directly using OS primitives like threads and locks. The low level code is just too complicated to understand or maintain.
A set of tools to help you analyze your performance, and find bugs and bottlenecks whithout these there is no way to achieve maximum performance.

As for C++ libraries they discussed:

OpenMP as the C style API to parallelize loops. Its advantage is that it is easier to introduce into existing code. Old standard supported by most modern C++ compilers.
TBB - a set of templates that allows to think about multi tasking in an object oriented way - you define a task objects and have them run in parallel. It is open source (a set of templates) and has ports to most major OS'es. It is also benchmarked to be faster than OpenMP. However it is more difficult to introduce into existing code and usually requires some amount of redesign.
An additional new technology is being researched and it will allow a user to prove the correctness of code written with it. It is still in research stages.

As for tools - Intel just released a new suite of tools named "Intel Parallel Studio". It is aimed at making parallel computing available to the mainstream developer. All tools are addins into Visual Studio:

Intel Parallel Composer - a compiler, and a set of libraries and compiler extensions aimed at making development of multithreaded code easier.

Intel Parallel Inspector - a bug finder focuses on finding memory bugs (like tools we try to use today) and threading bugs.

Intel Parallel Amplifier- a performance analysis tool, focused on finding threading bottlenecks and optimizing the use of multi cores.

The suite's retail price is 800$ per license (25% off till end of summer).

Comprehensive list of Debugger Visualizers for Visual Studio

2009-06-01T12:20:00.004+03:00

Symantic Search Engine - Wolfram Alpha

2009-05-26T14:56:00.003+03:00

Symantic search engine - Wolfram Alfa:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Space Station Info:

Comparison of Google and Microsoft stocks:

Taylor series:

Information Arbitrage with SkyGrid

2009-05-26T11:02:00.006+03:00

Link to the invitations (around 70 left right now) to join SkyGrid:
http://www.parkparadigm.com/2009/05/24/welcome-to-skygrid/

"SkyGrid filters the real-time web with high quality financial content from trusted sources. Founded in 2005, SkyGrid creates innovative technology that lets people have a simple way to see what information is having the most impact on the financial world at every moment of every day. "

P.S.
Post-mortem written by the Roger Ehrenberg - co-founder of Monitor110 - company that was developing similar product. Really worth reading. Look for 7 anti-amendments:
http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/7/monitor110-a-post-mortem/

Bear market durations

2009-05-24T16:39:00.002+03:00

Bear market durations (from the stock market peak to the lowest point):

Period	From	Till	Duration (months)
Great Depression	August 1929	June 1932	35
Dot Com Bubble	March 2000	October 2002	32
Financial Meltdown	September 2007	Now is May 2009...	22 months and rolling down...

"Good Enough" Counterrevolution

2009-05-04T00:41:00.008+03:00

This post is essentially my comment to the "Good-Enough" Revolution post which I think worthwhile to be turned into separate article. Besides - I didn't wrote anything non-technical for a long time... "Good-Enough" Revolution stands that many contemporary goods are "good enough" to be used and hence consumer often do not have motivation to buy a new version of the same good (e.g. man using Windows XP wouldn't go for Window Vista as XP is good enough for most of every day tasks, like e-mail, Internet or editing some office documents). While this observation is absolutely correct I think that important point is missed - contemporary goods are deliberately created not to be durable to compel consumer to, well, consume.

A silent "Good-Enough" Counterrevolution is in its high. Producers do not create goods that are designed to last any more. Almost anything you are buying nowadays is deliberately designed to last for a short, programmed time and then broke. I think that the only consumer strategy to deal with it is to buy the cheapest version of an appliance you need - it would usually serve you the same time as its high-end version, while cost a half of it.

Your washing machine served you for 10 years? – I bet that a new one would not stand for more than 2-3 years. Your old electric kettle worked for 5-7 years? - Buy a new one and it would leak in a year or so. Talk to guys who are working in electronics service/repair centers and they would tell you that stuff nowadays is PROGRAMMED to work for a predefined time and then broke. A friend of mine who works in a big car repairs firm told me that every car accumulator that occasionally served significantly more than a guaranty period is sent to the lab for examination to check out why did it lasted so long and didn’t broke. An observation about "good enough" was correct, but it's not applicable to the new goods - manufacturers are not interested in you wiping yourself with the same towels till your golden years. No, you should buy towels, use them and then buy new ones. We all are squirrels that have to rotate wheels of economy. No one asks squirrel whether it wants to get our of a squirrel-wheel marathon, right?

Manually scheduling Check Disk upon next computer restart

2009-04-26T11:39:00.003+03:00

Set following value in BootExecute key of [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager] registry entry:

autocheck autochk /r \??\C:autocheck autochk /r \??\D:autocheck autochk *

How to uninstall an assembly installed by MSI from GAC

2009-04-23T16:40:00.003+03:00

If you getting message "Assembly 'assemblyname' could not be uninstalled
because it is required by other applications." while trying to uninstall an assembly from GAC - here is potential resolution:
http://bytes.com/groups/net/47733-unable-remove-any-assembly-gac

Sort Team System query results by multiple fields

2009-02-17T12:25:00.004+02:00

You can sort Team System query results by by multiple fields at once by holding the Shift button, while clicking on the desired headers. You can click a header twice in order to change the sort direction.

Today vs Great Depression

2009-02-17T12:04:00.001+02:00

Two interesting charts I've came around:

Hard Rock Memorabilia Easter Egg

2009-02-04T15:47:00.005+02:00

There is a nice Easter Egg in Silverlight 2 Hard Rock Memorabilia application, demonstrating power of the Deep Zoom technology. Here is how it works: open the Memorabilia Home Page and press "V". You are photo of the Beatles figures now. Start to zoom-out - wow, the photo is inside of framework, which is on the ad' desk on the Hard Rock Café, which is on the NY street, which is a postcard, which is one of the tiles on a book stamp, which is ..............................

Top N Firefox Addons/Extension

2009-01-12T13:20:00.008+02:00

Updated: 23/7/2009

First of all - why Top N? Well, it's just cause I'm completely fatigued by all those "Top 10..", "Top 50..", "Best everyday..." and similar that became ubiquitous in the blog space.

So here is just the list of FireFox addons that I found to be useful for myself and use on everyday basis.
I basically gonna use this post as a book-keeping entry to myself.

Here it goes:

Adblock Plus - cleans out most of annoying ads from web pages you visiting. Supports update of cleaning rules set (check it in its options). Enables to create your own blocking rules for the stuff you don't want to see.

BugMeNot - automatically login to forums and site, for which you were to lazy to pass tedious registration process using infamous http://www.bugmenot.com/ site.

Download Statusbar - see download status and manage your downloads from a tidy status bar, rather that using default download window.
FoxyProxy - easy proxies management.

Video Download Helper - instantaneously download videos displayed on a web-page you visit (e.g. YouTube).

FlashGot - instantaneously integrate your favourite downloads manager with FireFox.

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer - this one is especially cool. Synchronize your bookmarks between your computers (work/home/laptop/...). Don forget to set HTTPS as a default communication protocol in option to secure your information!

Gmail Notifier - get notifications on new e-mails in your Gmail account, check mails and easily switch between few Gmail accounts.

IE Tab - open sites in FireFox-hosted IE window by one click. Setup sites to be automatically opened in embedded IE tab.

LinkedIn Companion for FireFox - manage you Linked In account and automatically get job insiders in your network for the site you've visited.

NoScript- disable/enable JavaScript per site or globally for better security.

PDF Download - whenever you click link to a PDF document - you may choose to either Save, Open or Open as HTML.

Tab Mix Plus - improved tabs management + possibility to save sessions/lists of currently open tabs.

Ghostery - show list of web trackers used by site you visiting.

No sound in Flash over Citrix connection

2008-12-03T17:11:00.001+02:00

Here are some tips that may help:
1) Try uninstalling Flash, logon with a new administrator account that's never been used, switch to install mode (change user /install), install flash, launch and test flash, switch to execute mode (change user /execute).
2) Check that you have 'Enable Sound' on ICA Client and on server-side.
3) Uninstall PSE450R02W2K3040 Windows Update

Very interesting interview with Jeremy Grantham

2008-12-03T16:34:00.001+02:00

How to specify maxJsonLength property in web.config

2008-12-03T16:05:00.003+02:00

If you're getting the following exception while using JavaScriptSerializer:
"Error during serialization or deserialization using the JSON JavaScriptSerializer. The length of the string exceeds the value set on the maxJsonLength property." - you may enlarge the default maxJsonLength value in web.config:

<system.web.extensions>
 <scripting>
 <webServices>
 <jsonSerialization maxJsonLength="123456"></jsonSerialization>
 </webServices>
 </scripting>
</system.web.extensions>

Reading ini-file from C# - used in Open Simulator

2008-11-26T00:19:00.003+02:00

My class for reading settings from old-style .ini files using C# was used in Open Simulator.

Над финансовой системой кризис тучи собирает.

2008-11-26T00:08:00.002+02:00

(Really good black humor - in Russian).

Над финансовой системой кризис тучи собирает.
Между долларом и евро гордо реет Неликвидность, конфискации подобна.
То обрушивая рынки, то зашкаливая ставки,
Неликвидность торжествует, -
спекулянты чуют гибель в её воплях громогласных.

В этом стоне - жажда денег!
Обрушенье котировок, экономики паденье и уверенность в банкротстве слышат рынки в этом крике.
Глупый Минфин перед бурей робко мечется по рынкам,
в девальвации готовый спрятать страх перед дефолтом.

Олигархи тоже стонут, - олигархам недоступно наслажденье дерзким рынком, чудной рыночной стихией: разоренье их пугает.
Все мрачней и ниже индекс опускается над биржей, и бегут прочь
капиталы, в бездну сбрасывая курсы.

Гром грохочет. Все сверкает. Это рухнул "Леман Бразерс".
В пене гнева конгрессмены принимают план спасенья.
И с размаху в дикой злобе миллиарды выделяют для спасенья "Голдман Сакса".

Неликвидность с криком реет, черной молнии подобна, как стрела пронзает биржи, банки в бездну отправляя.
Кризис носится, как демон, - гордый, черный демон рынка, - и смеется,
и хохочет...
Над банкирами смеется, над правительством хохочет!

В общем стоне "волатильность!" демон зрит давно усталость.
Он уверен: центробанки не спасут от краха биржи.
Пресса воет... Дети плачут. И инвесторы рыдают...
Красным пламенем пылают биржевые котировки. И сгорают триллионы: -
Кризис! Скоро грянет кризис!

Это смело и свободно реет дух Стихии Рынка над ревущим гневно миром;
то кричит пророк победы: - Пусть сильнее грянет КРИЗИС!

Link: Best Practices for Production ASP.NET

2008-11-24T15:44:00.003+02:00

Great article on Best Practices for Production ASP.NET...
Important addition to item 4 - if ScriptMode of ScriptManageer is set to "Auto" – then setting deployment retail to "true" would also switch ScriptMode to Release, i.e. release versions of AJAX scripts would be loaded in your page. (I think the main difference is that there is no parameters validation in release version).
The seting is defined in machine.config.

Joseph de la Vega on credit crunch

2008-11-16T17:51:00.003+02:00

Joseph de la Vega was a Portuguese Jewish author who at first described practices of stock exchange in Amsterdam (including usage of derivatives). He came to his own financial fiasco in crisis of 1688. Following to this blog - I want to re-quote him…

Joseph de la Vega, 1688: "This year too was a year of confusion for many unlucky speculators declared in one voice that the present crisis was a labyrinth of labyrinths, the terror of terrors, the confusion of confusions...".

Doesn't that mean that this 2008 year wasn't a labyrinth of labyrinths in a backward perspective? I promise to return to it in 1 year.

Enable XSS Detect in VS 2008

2008-08-28T12:18:00.004+03:00

XSS Detect is a code-analysis tool proposed, as suggested by its name, for reveal of XSS vulnerabilities in web-applications.
It's developed by MS ACE Team and could be downloaded here: XSS Detect

The problem is that out of the box it works in VS 2005 only. Here is how to enable it in Visual Studio 2008:

Open %USERPROFILE%\Application Data\Microsoft\MSEnvShared\Addins

Insert < Version > 9.0 < /Version > in HostApplication section

Preventing XSS in server code in .aspx files using AntiXss

2008-08-28T12:01:00.003+03:00

Preventing XSS in server code in .aspx files using AntiXss:

_someID=
<%=Microsoft.Security.Application.AntiXss.HtmlEncode(Request.Form["someID"])%>

Note that you need to specify fully qualified assembly name for the AntiXss.

Pixel Ruler

2008-08-24T16:31:00.002+03:00

Here is great (and free) tool to measure sizes of your UI elements - Pixel Ruler

Viewing log4net files in notepad++

2008-08-04T10:45:00.007+03:00

If you're a frequent user of notepad++ and log4net - here is a nice trick I've discovered, that brings a synergism between two. As you know - notepad++ has an option to highlight syntax for subset of supported languages. It is either applied automatically, based on the file extension or could be chosen manually from the Language menu.
And here is the trick - just select VB language for opened log4net file (<Alt>+L,V,Enter) and you have a very readable syntactic highlights.

SQL Tips: Using MERGE SQL statement in SQL 2008

2008-07-22T15:21:00.005+03:00

... And still one more from the same generous source ...

SQL Server 2008's new MERGE statement allows you to insert, update, or delete data based on certain join conditions in the same statement.

MERGE SalesArchive AS SA
USING (
    SELECT
        CustomerID,
        LoadDate = MIN(CONVERT(VARCHAR(8), GETDATE(), 112)),
        TotalSalesAmount = SUM(SaleAmount),
        TotalSalesCount = COUNT(*)
    FROM SalesFeed
    GROUP BY CustomerID
) AS SalesFeedCTE (CustomerID, LoadDate, TotalSalesAmount, TotalSalesCount)
ON (SA.CustomerID = SalesFeedCTE.CustomerID AND SA.SalesDate = SalesFeedCTE.LoadDate )

WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
INSERT (CustomerID, SalesDate, TotalSalesAmount, TotalSalesCount, CreationDate, UpdatedDate)
    VALUES( SalesFeedCTE.CustomerID, SalesFeedCTE.LoadDate, SalesFeedCTE.TotalSalesAmount, SalesFeedCTE.TotalSalesCount, GETDATE(), GETDATE())
WHEN MATCHED THEN
UPDATE
    SET SA.TotalSalesAmount = SA.TotalSalesAmount + SalesFeedCTE.TotalSalesAmount,
            SA.TotalSalesCount = SA.TotalSalesCount + SalesFeedCTE.TotalSalesCount,
            SA.UpdatedDate = GETDATE();

Also, there is a new ability to pass a table variable to the stored procedures:

DECLARE @MyTable TABLE (Col1 INT, Col2 Varchar(100))
EXEC MySP @Par1 = @MyTable OUTPUT

SQL Tips: Using Regular Expressions in SQL Query

2008-07-14T15:54:00.003+03:00

One more; courtesy of our greate DBA - K. Fridman:

DECLARE @RegExp VARCHAR(100)
SET @RegExp = '%[^a-zA-Z0-9._-]%'
SELECT *
FROM Clients
WHERE PATINDEX(@RegExp, UserName) > 0

SQL Tips: Search String In All SP's

2008-07-14T15:46:00.003+03:00

This is nice one; courtesy of our great DBA - Kostya Fridman:

SELECT name, OBJECT_DEFINITION(object_id)
FROM sys.procedures
WHERE OBJECT_DEFINITION(object_id) LIKE '%Search String%'

How to configure Excel to work with IIS/ASP.NET

2008-06-16T10:06:00.003+03:00

Detailed instruction on how to configure Excel to work with IIS/ASP.NET:

http://blog.crowe.co.nz/archive/2006/03/02/589.aspx

touch command for DOS/command line

2008-06-15T18:23:00.003+03:00

Following command would simulate UNIX touch command in DOS:
copy /b test.txt +,,
(command was changed following to the comments).

ArgumentOutOfRangeException at HttpCachePolicy.UtcSetLastModified if assembly file with script control has future date relatively to the machine date

2008-06-15T17:25:00.006+03:00

It seems that I discovered an annoying bug in the AJAX engine:
if you have a JavaScript file of script control, which is loaded through the WebResource.axd and the DLL module that embeds this JavaScript file has a file creation date, which is in the future relatively to the current machine date – you would get an unhandled ArgumentOutOfRangeException exception, raising from System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep:


System.Web.HttpCachePolicy.UtcSetLastModified(DateTime utcDate)
System.Web.HttpCachePolicy.SetLastModified(DateTime date)
System.Web.Handlers.AssemblyResourceLoader.System.Web.IHttpHandler.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute()
System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

This would cause JavaScript error "Type NNN is undefined or null" in your browser.
The simple resolution for this problem is to "touch" the affected DLL to update it's date to current machine date time:
copy /y nul tt.txt

Enable flash .flv video streaming in with IIS / ASP.NET

2008-06-10T17:42:00.000+03:00

Enable flash .flv video streaming in with IIS / ASP.NET:
1) Adding .FLV MIME Type in IIS
2) FLV Flash video streaming with ASP.NET 2.0, IIS and HTTP handler

Funny automatic translation (English to Russian):

2008-04-08T16:36:00.002+03:00

Original:
ThreadPoolSynchronizer marshals all calls to a custom thread pool, where the calls are first queued up, then multiplexed on the available threads. The size of the pool is provided as a construction parameter. If the pool is maxed out, the call will be pending in the queue until a thread is available. You can also provide a pool name (which will be the prefix of the name of the threads in the pool). Disposing or closing ThreadPoolSynchronizer kills all threads in the pool gracefully...

Translated:
ThreadPoolSynchronizer маршалы все звонит таможенному бассейну нитки, где призывы сначала стоятся в очереди, тогда multiplexed на доступных нитках. Размер бассейна обеспечивается в качестве строительного параметра. Если бассейн maxed, призыв будет находящийся на рассмотрении в очереди прежде чем нитка имеется в распоряжении. Вы можете также обеспечить имя бассейна (который будет префикс имени ниток в бассейне). Размещая или закрытие ThreadPoolSynchronizer убивает все нитки в бассейне грациозно...

Redistributable installation of Microsoft .NET framework 3.0 SP 1

2008-04-07T16:50:00.001+03:00

Somehow there are no direct link and installation instructions for the .NET framework 3.0 SP 1 on MS site.
Here is how to get it:
1) Make sure .NET 2.0 SP 1 is installed.
2) Get redistributable install of .NET 3.0 SP 1 from here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/F/E/8FEEE89D-9E4F-4BA3-993E-0FFEA8E21E1B/NetFx30SP1_x86.exe
3) You may need to install XPSEPSC before installation of .NET 3.0 SP 1. Get it here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/D/4/8D4C4B2F-269B-44E1-80EA-BF59143D7BAC/XPSEPSC-x86-en-US.exe

How to install Windows Media Player 11 on Windows Server 2003

2008-04-01T11:04:00.003+03:00

1) Download the installation file wmp11-windowsxp-x86-enu.exe and then extract its content to subfolder
2) Change value of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows\CSDVersion from 100 to 200
3) Go to this sub-folder and change compatibility mode of wmfdist11.exe to WindowsXP. Run it.
4) Change compatibility mode compatibility mode of wmfdist11.exe to WindowsXP. Run it.
5) Change compatibility mode compatibility mode of wmdbexport.exe. to WindowsXP. Run it.
6) RESTART!!!
7) Return to the extracted files, change compatibility of wmp11.exe to Windows XP and run it
8) Change value of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows\CSDVersion from 200 back to 100
9) Enjoy

How to uninstall SQL 2005 if it's missing in Add/Remove Programs

2007-10-15T10:57:00.000+02:00

First of all - here is the support KB article.
In my case - I was unable to uninstall SQL 2005 even manually from the command line (ArpWrapper was ceasing to work, displaying some "Registry Enumeration Failed" error and uninstalling components with MsiExec using their GUID's listed in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall just didn't worked).

I was able to do it by uninstalling SQL components manually with Microsoft Windows Install Clean Up utility (do it in order, specified in KB article).

How to create WCF service proxy without publishing mex endpoint #2

2007-10-10T17:21:00.000+02:00

Important update to my previous article: if your service is defined inside of a namespace - you must specify the namespace using /serviceName option during the 1st step (WSDL and XSD creation).
Updated step #1 example:
svcutil /serviceName:MyNamespace.MyService MyServiceSvc.exe /reference:SomeReference.dll
If you'll miss specification of the namespace - resulting proxy code would be wrong (including even endpoing binding defintion).

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site - Operation aborted

2007-10-10T17:10:00.000+02:00

I was affected by this issue and it took me some time to figure out what's the reason of it (in my case it was quite tricky). Generally - the reasons causing this error in IE are quite known. (Here are some for your reference :)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/927917

http://dean.edwards.name/weblog/2005/09/busted2/

http://www.mysticcoders.com/blog/2007/03/20/internet-explorer-cannot-open-the-internet-site-operation-aborted/

http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.InternetExplorerProgrammingBugs

In my case it was a completely different story - it was caused by few IE DOM implementation bugs. Consider you have code on the IE client side that parses page body nodes and then removes them:

while (body && body.hasChildNodes()) {
var node = body.firstChild;
// ... app logic
body.removeChild(node);
}

Now consider that body content is created by Response.Write() on the server side (I write down some context in ... paragraphs sections).
My application was working as a blaze, but occasionally I was getting "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site - Operation aborted" in IE. In Firefox it was never happen.
After some research I narrowed down the reason to the fact that body context is created by Response.Write and then I catched up what the problem was - it was related to the fact that on the server side I was writing body nodes in 4 steps:
1) ‘’
2) app-specific content
3) ‘’
4) Flush() output.

So - sometimes on the client side the code was running while paragraph weren't fully formed (e.g. only starting was written).
In this case body.hasChildNodes() still returns true (IE bug #1) and body.removeChild(node) will cause "operation aborted" (IE bug #2).
As I noted - it's IE-specific and not happens in other browsers.

Fortunatelly - I had Response() bufferring turned off at the server side - o/w above problem would still happen, but with much lower frequency, making it very difficult to track it down.
The solution, as you may guess, is to write whole node at once on the server side...

.NET 3.5 Beta 2 - no LINQ performance improvements?

2007-09-19T15:33:00.000+02:00

Today I've got a comment on my post where I compared performance of LINQ vs. DAAB vs. ADO.NET, saying that I should repeat my test with .NET Framework 3.5 beta 2. Indeed there are a lot of posts about performance improvements introduced in it, so I've rushed and repeated my test, compiling it in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, targeting .NET 3.5 beta 2.
Not sure that proverb "no news - good news" is correct in this case, but - well - no news. I mean that performance results are absolutely the same - LINQ is about 30% slower than raw ADO.NET (4.28 ms per call for ADO.NET vs. 5.51 ms per call for LINQ). Also, using LINQ rather than ADO.NET makes application much more CPU intensive (something like ~20% of CPU intensity with LINQ vs. ~2% of CPU intensity with ADO.NET - difference of order of magnitude!). You may see screenshots below.

Timing results

CPU Intensity._{(First third - ADO, second - DAAB, third - LINQ.)}

So it seems to me that there are no significant performance improvements, unless there is something fundamentally wrong with my tests (check code here).

Yet - I want to develop here something I've mentioned in my previous post. This additional performance cost doesn't mean "don't use LINQ". You'll probably never will get to performance incur of 30% in the real project. In the real life scenario you'll never abuse your DB by shooting thousands of SP calls in a batch, without doing something with results. There is always some business logic around, some DAL, some timings, etc - so the performance costs are never so high and they will be spread around evenly, rather than composed into a performance-loss peak. Also - mind that LINQ greatly improves coding productivity, decreases amount of code and project complexity. This means that developers would spend less timing coding and the costly thing for the project is the developer time. In the very worst case - profile your application to find the bottlenecks of 20:80 rule and use ADO.NET in critical sections of your code. And buy quicker CPU - they are cheap today :) ...

P.S.
Few links to related articles:

My post with previous benchmarking data and code

Quick LINQ link list in Fabrice's weblog

DLinq (Linq to SQL) Performance (part 1)

LINQ to SQL Performance test