Reading Notes #30

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Cloud


Programming

Miscellaneous

“[…] A popular saying goes that Programmers are machines that turn caffeine into code. […]”
  • Lowering Higher Education - In this post David S Platt share is idea of what could be the future of Education.... And I like this!
    • “[…] Stanford University announced that its class on artificial intelligence will be available for free online […]”
  • Agile Results for Time Management - This post present a summary of the method call Agile Result. A good way to improve your time management.
  • 500! (Richard Ziade) - If you don't know Readability take few second you should be charmed.
  • Missing Key to Unification (safeerm) - According to this post 2012 will by important in the unification processes.


~Franky

Reading Notes #29

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Cloud


The biggest missing link here, is the extensibility with custom components.  At this moment, it doesn’t look possible to have (de)batching, custom validation, zipping and all these other things we do in BizTalk pipeline components.

Programming


Miscellaneous


~Franky

Reading Notes #28

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Cloud


Programming


    Miscellaneous



    ~Franky

    Reading Notes #27

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    Happy new year everyone! 

    This one is smaller than usual, Holidays vacations...


    2012_cloud_1

     

    Cloud


    Programming


    Miscellaneous



    ~Franky


    Reading Notes #26

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    This is the last post of 2011. Happy Holidays to every one and see you next year for others Reading Notes!


    Cloud


    Programming


    Miscellaneous


    ~Franky


    Reading Notes #25

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    David Fletcher - Lighter Side Of The Cloud

    Cloud


    Programming


      Miscellaneous


      ~Franky

      Reading Notes #24

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      Cloud



      Programming

       

      Miscellaneous


      ~Franky

      Messaging with queue in Azure Service being RESTful

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      I was re-doing some of the labs in the Windows Azure Platform Training Kit (WAPTK) when one of then didn't works: MessagingWithQueue. A got this error message:

      Could not connect to net.tcp://xxxx.servicebus.windows.net:9354/. 
The connection attempt lasted for a time span of 00:00:00.0615234. 
TCP error code 10061: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it.

      Quickly this message is saying that the port 9354 need to be open.  So I was going to ask to open this port, but then I ask my self: “What if I couldn't?” Does Azure service Bus suppose to be super flexible and give me the opportunity to you all kind of connection? Of course it does, so I decide to make a RESTful version of this lab.

      Let’s begin

      Create a new Cloud project in Visual Studio, and add a web role. In fact, regular web project will work just fine, but to keep it close to the original lab I will start with a cloud on. In the content folder add preloader.gif and override the Site.css (all the code, images and files are available here). In the View / Shared folder override the Site.Master and in View / Home override Index.aspx.  You can run now the application, you should see something like that:

      WebPage

      Create Azure AppFabric Service Bus

      On the Azure management portal at windows.azure.com In the Service Bus section, create a new Service Bus.  You will need the Service Gateway, the Default Issuer (always “owner” in the CTP) and the Default Key.

      Create New Queues

      To Create a queue the button “Create” in section B will send the text, the queue name, to the Home controller and let us know the result.  To do that let’s add some JavaScript /JQuery code in the Index page. 
      var getQueuesUrl = '< %= Url.Action("Queues") % >';

$(document).ready(function () {
    loadQueues();
    
    $("#createQueue").submit(function (event) {
        event.preventDefault();
        var url = $(this).attr('action');
        var queueName = $("#queueName").val();
        $(".loading").show();
        $("#send").attr("disabled", "true");
        $("#retrieve").attr("disabled", "true");
        $.post(url, { queueName: queueName })
            .success(function (response) { renderCreateQueueStatus(response); })
            .error(function () { renderCreateQueueStatus(false); });
    });
});

function renderCreateQueueStatus(response) {
    if (response) {
        $("#createQueueStatus").html("Queue created successfully!");
        loadQueues();
    } else {
        $("#createQueueStatus").html("An error occurred, please try again later.");
    }
    $(".loading").hide();
    $("#send").attr("disabled", "");
    $("#retrieve").attr("disabled", "");
}

function loadQueues() {
    $.get(getQueuesUrl).success(function (response) {
        var ul = $("fieldset.center > ul");
        var sendMsgCombo = $("#sendMessageQueue");
        var receiveMsgCombo = $("#retrieveMessageQueue");

        sendMsgCombo.children().remove();
        receiveMsgCombo.children().remove();
        ul.children().remove();

        for (var i = 0; i < response.length; i++) {
            var item = response[i];
            sendMsgCombo.append('<option value="' + item.Name + '">' + item.Name + '</option>');
            receiveMsgCombo.append('<option value="' + item.Name + '">' + item.Name + '</option>');
            ul.append('<li><label>' + item.Name + '</label><div class="msgCountOf' + item.Name.replace(/ /g, '') + '" style="float:right"><label>Messages</label></div></li>');
            updateMessageCountOf(item.Name, item.Messages);
        }
    });

    $(".loading").hide();
}

function updateMessageCountOf(queueName, numberOfMessages) {
 var message = numberOfMessages + " Messages";
 if (numberOfMessages == "0") message = "No Messages";
 if (numberOfMessages == "1") message = numberOfMessages + " Message";
 $("div.msgCountOf" + queueName.replace(/ /g, '') + " > label").html(message);
}

      Once the document is ready loadQueues() is called.  This function will loop through a list of queues name and fill the two listbox  and the build the middle list .

      Using Jquery the $("#createQueue") add a submit function to the button with the ID createQueue and on the success or error will call the function renderCreateQueueStatus to update the content of the Label createQueueStatus.  Then recall loadQueues() so it can refresh the queues lists.

      On the server side now we will need a function CreateQueue that accept a string parameter as queue name and return a JsonResult.  This function should act as a HttpPost. To communicate a token is needed.  This is done by the primary call to Index. It’s creating a token for us with the issuer name and issuer secret of our Service bus with the function GetToken.

      Put the information about your Service Bus (Service Gateway, Issuer and Key) in the Settings.The default constructor load this information.

      To update the list of our queues we will use a function Queues().  This will download the information from “$Resources/Queues” and build a array of Json object with properties: Name and Messages.  It took me some time before this Linq query works, the tricks is to use the namespace when looking for a node.

      public class HomeController : Controller
{
    private String mServiceNamespace;
    private static String mBaseAddress;
    private static String mToken;
    private String mIssuerName;
    private String mIssuerSecret;

    private const String SBHOSTNAME = "servicebus.windows.net";
    private const String ACSHOSTNAME = "accesscontrol.windows.net";

    private const String ATOMNS = "{http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom}";
    private const String SBNS = "{http://schemas.microsoft.com/netservices/2010/10/servicebus/connect}";

    public HomeController()
    {

        mServiceNamespace = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("namespaceAddress");
        mIssuerName = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("issuerName");
        mIssuerSecret = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("issuerSecret");
        mBaseAddress = "https://" + mServiceNamespace + "." + SBHOSTNAME + "/";
    }

    public ActionResult Index()
    {

        try
        {
            // Get a SWT token from the Access Control Service, given the issuerName and issuerSecret values.
            mToken = GetToken(mIssuerName, mIssuerSecret);
        }
        catch (WebException we)
        {
            using (HttpWebResponse response = we.Response as HttpWebResponse)
            {
                if (response != null)
                {
                    ViewBag.Message += Environment.NewLine + (new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd());
                }
                else
                {
                    ViewBag.Message += Environment.NewLine + (we.ToString());
                }
            }
        }
        return View();
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public JsonResult CreateQueue(String queueName)
    {
        try
        {
            var _queueAddress = mBaseAddress + queueName;
            var _webClient = GetWebClient();

            var _putData = @"<entry xmlns=""http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"">
                                <title type=""text"">" + queueName + @"</title>
                                <content type=""application/xml"">
                                <QueueDescription xmlns:i=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"" xmlns=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/netservices/2010/10/servicebus/connect"" />
                                </content>
                             </entry>";

            byte[] _response = _webClient.UploadData(_queueAddress, "PUT", Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(_putData));
            var _queueDescription = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(_response);

            return Json(_queueDescription, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
        }
        catch
        {
            return Json(false, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
        }
    }

    [OutputCache(NoStore = true, Duration = 0, VaryByParam = "*")]
    public JsonResult Queues()
    {
        var _xDoc = XDocument.Parse(GetResources("$Resources/Queues"));

        var _queues = (from entry in _xDoc.Descendants(ATOMNS + "entry")
                       select new
                       {
                           Name = entry.Element(ATOMNS + "title").Value,
                           Messages = entry.Element(ATOMNS + "content").Element(SBNS + "QueueDescription").Element(SBNS + "MessageCount").Value
                       }).ToArray();

        return Json(_queues, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
    }

    private WebClient GetWebClient()
    {
        var _webClient = new WebClient();
        _webClient.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.Authorization] = mToken;
        return _webClient;
    }

    private String GetToken(String issuerName, String issuerSecret)
    {
        var acsEndpoint = "https://" + mServiceNamespace + "-sb." + ACSHOSTNAME + "/WRAPv0.9/";
        var realm = "http://" + mServiceNamespace + "." + SBHOSTNAME + "/";

        var _values = new NameValueCollection();
        _values.Add("wrap_name", issuerName);
        _values.Add("wrap_password", issuerSecret);
        _values.Add("wrap_scope", realm);

        var _webClient = new WebClient();
        byte[] response = _webClient.UploadValues(acsEndpoint, _values);

        var _responseString = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(response);

        var _responseProperties = _responseString.Split('&');
        var _tokenProperty = _responseProperties[0].Split('=');
        var _token = Uri.UnescapeDataString(_tokenProperty[1]);

        return "WRAP access_token=\"" + _token + "\"";
    }

    private String GetResources(String resourceAddress)
    {
 String _fullAddress = mBaseAddress + resourceAddress;
 var _webClient = GetWebClient();
 return _webClient.DownloadString(_fullAddress); ;
    }


}

      Send a Message

      On the client side using JQuery we add a submit event that will call SendMessage from our controller then update the status and the message count.

      $(document).ready(function () {
    
    $("#sendMessage").submit(function (event) {
        event.preventDefault();
        var url = $(this).attr('action');
        var queueName = $("#sendMessageQueue option:selected").val();
        var message = $("#messageToSend").val();
        $(".loading").show();
        $("#create").attr("disabled", "true");
        $("#retrieve").attr("disabled", "true");
        $.post(url, { message: message, queueName: queueName })
            .success(function (response) {
                renderSendMessageStatus(response);
                updateMessageCountOf(queueName, response);
            })
            .error(function () { renderSendMessageStatus(false); });
    });
});


function updateMessageCountOf(queueName, numberOfMessages) {
    var message = numberOfMessages + " Messages";
    if (numberOfMessages == "0") message = "No Messages";
    if (numberOfMessages == "1") message = numberOfMessages + " Message";
    $("div.msgCountOf" + queueName.replace(/ /g, '') + " > label").html(message);
}

function renderSendMessageStatus(response) {
    if (response) $("#sendMessageStatus").html("Message sent successfully!");
    else $("#sendMessageStatus").html("An error occurred, please try again later.");
    $(".loading").hide();
    $("#create").attr("disabled", "");
    $("#retrieve").attr("disabled", "");
}

function updateMessageCountOf(queueName, numberOfMessages) {
    var message = numberOfMessages + " Messages";
    if (numberOfMessages == "0") message = "No Messages";
    if (numberOfMessages == "1") message = numberOfMessages + " Message";
    $("div.msgCountOf" + queueName.replace(/ /g, '') + " > label").html(message);
}

      On the server side the SendMessage function will post our message.  
      [HttpPost]
public JsonResult SendMessage(String queueName, String message)
{
    var _fullAddress = mBaseAddress + queueName + "/messages" + "?timeout=60";
    var _webClient = GetWebClient();

    _webClient.UploadData(_fullAddress, "POST", Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(message));

    return Json("1", JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}

      Retrieve a Message

      Finally to retrieve a message wee need to select a queue then send it to the server side. I modify this part of the code because I’m not using the brokeredMessage so I don't have all the properties from the original code lab.

      $(document).ready(function () {

$("#retrieveMessage").submit(function (event) {
        $("#noMessage").hide();
        $("#message").hide();
        event.preventDefault();
        var url = $(this).attr('action');
        var queueName = $("#retrieveMessageQueue option:selected").val();
        $(".loading").show();
        $("#send").attr("disabled", "true");
        $("#create").attr("disabled", "true");
        $.get(url, { queueName: queueName })
            .success(function (response) {
                renderMessage(response == null ? false : response.MessageInfo);
                updateMessageCountOf(queueName, response == null ? 0 : response.MessagesInQueue);
            })
            .error(function () { renderMessage(false); });
    });
});

function renderMessage(response) {
    if (response) {
        $("#body").html("<p>" + response + "</p>")
        $("#message").show();
    } else {
        $("#noMessage").show();
    }
    $(".loading").hide();
    $("#send").attr("disabled", "");
    $("#create").attr("disabled", "");
}

function updateMessageCountOf(queueName, numberOfMessages) {
    var message = numberOfMessages + " Messages";
    if (numberOfMessages == "0") message = "No Messages";
    if (numberOfMessages == "1") message = numberOfMessages + " Message";
    $("div.msgCountOf" + queueName.replace(/ /g, '') + " > label").html(message);
}

      Than back to server side pretty strait forward retrieving the message from “queueName/messages/head"  without all the properties part.  

      public JsonResult RetrieveMessage(String queueName)
{
    var _fullAddress = mBaseAddress + queueName + "/messages/head" + "?timeout=60";
    var _webClient = GetWebClient();

    byte[] response = _webClient.UploadData(_fullAddress, "DELETE", new byte[0]);
    var _message = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(response);

    return Json(new { MessageInfo = _message, MessagesInQueue = GetMessageCount(queueName) }, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);
}


private String GetMessageCount(String queueName)
{
    var _xDoc = XDocument.Parse(GetResources("$Resources/Queues"));

    var _cnt = (from entry in _xDoc.Descendants(ATOMNS + "entry")
                where entry.Element(ATOMNS + "title").Value == queueName
                select entry.Element(ATOMNS + "content").Element(SBNS + "QueueDescription").Element(SBNS + "MessageCount").Value).FirstOrDefault();

    return _cnt;
}

      Conclusion

      This is just a lab so it’s not using all the best practice.  The goal was to try to convert the lab to use REST method… and it works.

      ~Franky


      References

      News about Franky’s Notes

      Labels: ,

      I decide two weeks ago that it was about time to refresh this four years old blog.

      2011-12-05_1107
      Of course change the general look of the blog, and I update my about page. I also add a Contact page with a form to send me comments.

      And finally I get a name space! So for now you can reach this blog on FrankysNotes.com!

      So let's me know your impression!


      ~Franky


      Reading Notes #23

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      From http://www.wadewegner.com

       

      Cloud


      Programming


      Miscellaneous

      ~Franky

      Reading Notes #22

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      Cloud


      Programming



      Miscellaneous


      ~Franky


      Reading Notes #21

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      Cloud

      The Windows Azure HPC Scheduler also allows for job scheduling and resource management, web-based job submission, parallel runtimes with support for MPI applications and WCF services and persistent state management of job queue and resource configuration.

      Programming


      Miscellaneous


      ~Franky


      First step with Ruby: Kindle Clipping Extractor

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      In this post, I'm sharing my last (and first) Ruby script. The script is available on bitbicket here, and you can see the output result on any Reading Notes posts on my blog here: Reading Notes.  I’m still learning Ruby, so feel free to leave me a comment.  I will continue to update the script as I’m getting more comfortable with my new skill.

      Starting Idea

      If you are reading this post there is a good chance you already know that I’m posting every weeks a post about my weekly reading notes.  I use Instapaper to bookmark all my reading stuff and send it to my Kindle.  So order to make my weekly post I need to pass-through the “My Clippings.txt” file on my kindle, than go back on Instapaper, found the link to this article then put all this information together in a nice readable format. 
      So the idea was to speedup this process.

      Kindle part

      First thing first I need to retrieve all my notes in the “My Clippings.txt” file.  I start trying to do it my self and the result was… not good.  Then I found the really nice gem kindleclippings that was doing exactly what I want: parsing the file and give a array of all the notes with all the information about this note well organize with properties.  So my job was to use it correctly… not to bad.

      require 'kindleclippings'

parser = KindleClippings::Parser.new
clippings = parser.parse_file('My Clippings.txt')

#== Build the Html list ==
resume = "<ul>"

clippings.notes.each do |note|
  resume << "\n<li>\n<b><a href=\"#\">#{note.book_title}</a></b> - #{note.content}\n"

  resume << "#{GetBookHightlight(clippings.by_book(note.book_title))}\n</li>"
end

resume << "\n</ul>"

puts resume

      As you can see nothing complicated, looping in the notes building a unsorted list (UL).

      Instapaper part

      Getting the reference link of the article is a little need more work. I need to login into Instapaper with my account, then found the matching bookmark.  Once the good bookmark is found I need to extract url to the full article.  In the same time I will move this bookmark to another folder to keep my “Unread” list short.

      I'm using Watir to do my web scraping.  This nice gem is very well done and can be use for testing user interfaces, but this will be in another post.

      So first thing first I need to login. Here again nothing complexes get username and password and using it to login.
      def InstapaperOpen()
  browser = Watir::Browser.new
  browser.goto 'http://www.instapaper.com/user/login'
  
  puts "What is your Username? "
  username ||= gets.chomp
  
  puts "What is your Password? "
  password ||= gets.chomp

  browser.text_field(:name => 'username').set(username)
  browser.text_field(:name => 'password').set(password)
  browser.button(:type => 'submit').click
  
  abort("Cannot login in Instapaper.") unless browser.link(:text => "Log out").exist?
  
  return browser
end

def InstaPaperClose(browser)
  browser.link(:text => "Log out").click
  browser.close
end

      Next, I need a method to search and return the bookmark matching my Kindle note.


      def SearchTitle(browser, title)
  rgTitle = Regexp.new Regexp.escape(title)
  
  if browser.link(:text, rgTitle).exist?
    anchor = browser.link(:text, rgTitle)
    return anchor
  end
  
  if browser.link(:href, /\/u\/\d+/).span(:text => "Older items").exist?
    #puts "... Searching older..."
    browser.link(:href, /\/u\/\d+/).span(:text => "Older items").click
    anchor = SearchTitle(browser, title)
  end
  
  return anchor
end


def MovePaperTo(paper, destinationFolder)
  #puts "paper: " + paper.id
  aDiv = paper.div(:class, 'secondaryControls')
  #puts "div: " + aDiv.id
  aLink = aDiv.link(:text,'Move')
  #puts "a: " + aLink.title
  bntMoveTo = paper.link(:text, destinationFolder)
  #puts "link: " + bntMoveTo.id
  bntMoveTo.click
end

      2011-11-12_0808So in SearchTitle method using regex I’m looking for an anchor <a> matching the title.  If I didn’t found it I check if I found the “Older items >>” button to search deeper. I doing this calling recursively the method, until I found the matching bookmark or that no more “Older items >>” is present. 

      In MovePaperTo I click on the Move link in the context menu of the bookmark.

      Finally putting all this together (with some improvements) and I got my final script!  Nice way to practice the basic rules of Ruby. Of course it could be more clean more "rubist", but at least it works and I now I have something to practice my refactoring skill…

      Feel free to leave me your comments or suggestions here on this blog or on Bitbuket.

      ~Franky


      References


      Reading Notes # 20

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      Stuff you love to do, Stuff you're good at, Stuff someone will pay you to do.

       

      Cloud


      Programming

      • SQL in the Wild - I didn't know about this "filtered index" feature available in MSSQL 2008. Really nice feature.

      Miscellaneous


      ~Franky


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