Archive for February, 2009
Twilight And The Urban Fantasy Phenomenon
exitiv
Andrew Hawnt asked:
success of the Twilight books, written by Stephanie Meyer, and the subsequent feature film adaptation starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, has brought the Urban fantasy genre to the forefront of genre publishing. SF and fantasy purists may disapprove, but we must all appreciate the fact that Twilight, and things like Buffy before it, have been good for genre publishing as a whole. Why? Because series such as Twilight, Harry Potter and similar franchises are bringing more readers to the genres that spawned them. While these books may not be the best written or best plotted things on the market, they are opening up the minds of young readers to the realms of fantastic fiction in all its forms. Look at it this way: The Twilight books are finite, and once young readers have finished reading the series, they will look for similar titles to read until the next Twilight book comes along. These could be the dark fairy-tales of Neil Gaiman, the vampire hunter books of Laurel K Hamiltion, the varied urban fantasy of Kelley Armstrong, or the excellent vampire novels of S. Roit (aka Sherry Roit), such as the impeccable Paris Immortal. Many bookshops now contain a dedicated Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance section, and while SF and fantasy purists such as myself may have our issues with their contents, these books are bringing a new audience into an industry that desperately needs new readers. Some argue that this is not the case, with Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy readers sticking to similar titles once their favourite series comes to an end, but many of these people will move on to other titles as they mature and their tastes change. The paranormal and fantasy genres have always gained from the addition of popular movie tie-ins and movies themselves, and rather than being empty, vapid pieces of trash fiction, they are the doorway to a universe of wonder for new readers to discover. The same goes for movie and TV tie-in merchandise and tie-in novels from franchises such as Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Buffy and so on- they help strengthen the publishing industry by offering brand familiarity to people who may not usually read. Twilight has brought a number of young teenaged readers new icons in Edward and Bella, but there are so many other characters and stories for them to discover. See Twilight as a stepping stone to greater things, and welcome the new fans that stick around into the genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror with open arms.
success of the Twilight books, written by Stephanie Meyer, and the subsequent feature film adaptation starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, has brought the Urban fantasy genre to the forefront of genre publishing. SF and fantasy purists may disapprove, but we must all appreciate the fact that Twilight, and things like Buffy before it, have been good for genre publishing as a whole. Why? Because series such as Twilight, Harry Potter and similar franchises are bringing more readers to the genres that spawned them. While these books may not be the best written or best plotted things on the market, they are opening up the minds of young readers to the realms of fantastic fiction in all its forms. Look at it this way: The Twilight books are finite, and once young readers have finished reading the series, they will look for similar titles to read until the next Twilight book comes along. These could be the dark fairy-tales of Neil Gaiman, the vampire hunter books of Laurel K Hamiltion, the varied urban fantasy of Kelley Armstrong, or the excellent vampire novels of S. Roit (aka Sherry Roit), such as the impeccable Paris Immortal. Many bookshops now contain a dedicated Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance section, and while SF and fantasy purists such as myself may have our issues with their contents, these books are bringing a new audience into an industry that desperately needs new readers. Some argue that this is not the case, with Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy readers sticking to similar titles once their favourite series comes to an end, but many of these people will move on to other titles as they mature and their tastes change. The paranormal and fantasy genres have always gained from the addition of popular movie tie-ins and movies themselves, and rather than being empty, vapid pieces of trash fiction, they are the doorway to a universe of wonder for new readers to discover. The same goes for movie and TV tie-in merchandise and tie-in novels from franchises such as Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Buffy and so on- they help strengthen the publishing industry by offering brand familiarity to people who may not usually read. Twilight has brought a number of young teenaged readers new icons in Edward and Bella, but there are so many other characters and stories for them to discover. See Twilight as a stepping stone to greater things, and welcome the new fans that stick around into the genres of fantasy, science fiction and horror with open arms.
Spexception: Trying To Use An Spweb Object That Has Been Closed Or Disposed And Is No Longer Valid
exitiv
KWizCom Corporation asked:
Just about any developer working long enough with SharePoint will, at some point, wake up in the middle of the night with the words “Memory Leak” echoing in through their head… No – it is not the cat’s fault, and no it does not mean you forgot to take out the trash again… What did happen? You came across one of Microsoft’s “best practices” articles regarding disposing of SPWeb and SPSite objects in SharePoint…
According to the original MS guidance, every SPWeb or SPSite object you create (or get) that was not initiated within the page’s context (i.e. not SPContext.Current.Web and not SPControl.GetContextWeb(Context) ) must be disposed of.
It used to be that the “using” statement construct was recommended to avoid forgetting to dispose… in other cases you’d put up a flag and dispose of it at the end of your code’s life cycle – either way was good enough.
Being the “good guys” that we are, we went over and updated all of our codes and components to match these guide lines.
And what happened? Every once in a while disposing these objects would cause baffling errors such as: “Trying to use a SPWeb object that has been closed or disposed and is no longer valid”.
But hey, if we call SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb – the best practices guidelines said we have to dispose of it! Same goes for SPContext.Current.Web.Site and SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb etc.
Recently I came across a great article by Roger Lamb showing a few updates from Microsoft regarding these disposable objects and recommendations.
So – pay close attention to these updates… it just might help you sleep through the night!
* When making a call to SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb – you now have to dispose only of the SPSite object: SPContext.Current.Web.Site!
Basically, you should NOT dispose of the SPSite.RootWeb object directly.
* When calling SPWeb.ParentWeb – you should NOT dispose of the ParentWeb object!
* Same goes to SPList.ParentWeb – do NOT dispose of the SPWeb object.
Other updates I found interesting (and frustrating) are:
* Calling SPWeb.AllWebs collection requires you to dispose of this collection object.
* Creating a new site by SPWeb.Webs.Add() – need to dispose of the web object returned.
* Calling GetLimitedWebPartManager() method? It will create a SPWeb object of its own and not dispose of it properly.
Please review the complete updated best practices guide at MSDN here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973248.aspx
I hope Microsoft will release an update for this issue soon.. Just thinking of all the code lines I wrote under the wrong best practices article is making me dizzy…
Good luck and happy disposing!
Shai Petel.
=~=~= Update =~=~=
Ok, this explains why it took me so long to find this problem…
I had this code in my web part, written according to the original best practices:
using(SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Web.Site)
{
using(SPWeb web = site.RootWeb)
{
//Some code here…
}
}
I cannot explain this but I only got this error on some sites, and on others it worked OK. Strange huh?
What I found is that this code will throw exception on any team site I created within a site collection that is not in the web application root path (i.e. sites under http://server/sites/*).
Anyway – according to the new guidelines, I should not dispose of the RootWeb object in this case. If I dispose of the SPSite object – it disposes of the RootWeb object -in this case my context web object…
So I updated my code to something like this and it worked:
SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb;//No disposing
//Some code here…
Just about any developer working long enough with SharePoint will, at some point, wake up in the middle of the night with the words “Memory Leak” echoing in through their head… No – it is not the cat’s fault, and no it does not mean you forgot to take out the trash again… What did happen? You came across one of Microsoft’s “best practices” articles regarding disposing of SPWeb and SPSite objects in SharePoint…
According to the original MS guidance, every SPWeb or SPSite object you create (or get) that was not initiated within the page’s context (i.e. not SPContext.Current.Web and not SPControl.GetContextWeb(Context) ) must be disposed of.
It used to be that the “using” statement construct was recommended to avoid forgetting to dispose… in other cases you’d put up a flag and dispose of it at the end of your code’s life cycle – either way was good enough.
Being the “good guys” that we are, we went over and updated all of our codes and components to match these guide lines.
And what happened? Every once in a while disposing these objects would cause baffling errors such as: “Trying to use a SPWeb object that has been closed or disposed and is no longer valid”.
But hey, if we call SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb – the best practices guidelines said we have to dispose of it! Same goes for SPContext.Current.Web.Site and SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb etc.
Recently I came across a great article by Roger Lamb showing a few updates from Microsoft regarding these disposable objects and recommendations.
So – pay close attention to these updates… it just might help you sleep through the night!
* When making a call to SPContext.Current.Web.Site.RootWeb – you now have to dispose only of the SPSite object: SPContext.Current.Web.Site!
Basically, you should NOT dispose of the SPSite.RootWeb object directly.
* When calling SPWeb.ParentWeb – you should NOT dispose of the ParentWeb object!
* Same goes to SPList.ParentWeb – do NOT dispose of the SPWeb object.
Other updates I found interesting (and frustrating) are:
* Calling SPWeb.AllWebs collection requires you to dispose of this collection object.
* Creating a new site by SPWeb.Webs.Add() – need to dispose of the web object returned.
* Calling GetLimitedWebPartManager() method? It will create a SPWeb object of its own and not dispose of it properly.
Please review the complete updated best practices guide at MSDN here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa973248.aspx
I hope Microsoft will release an update for this issue soon.. Just thinking of all the code lines I wrote under the wrong best practices article is making me dizzy…
Good luck and happy disposing!
Shai Petel.
=~=~= Update =~=~=
Ok, this explains why it took me so long to find this problem…
I had this code in my web part, written according to the original best practices:
using(SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Web.Site)
{
using(SPWeb web = site.RootWeb)
{
//Some code here…
}
}
I cannot explain this but I only got this error on some sites, and on others it worked OK. Strange huh?
What I found is that this code will throw exception on any team site I created within a site collection that is not in the web application root path (i.e. sites under http://server/sites/*).
Anyway – according to the new guidelines, I should not dispose of the RootWeb object in this case. If I dispose of the SPSite object – it disposes of the RootWeb object -in this case my context web object…
So I updated my code to something like this and it worked:
SPWeb web = SPContext.Current.Site.RootWeb;//No disposing
//Some code here…
Introduction of Performance Testing Tools in UK
exitiv
Introduction of performance testing tools in UK asked:
Software testing tactic is a vital method that includes mechanism of software development lifecycle. There are lots of firms that stopped working to execute QC (Quality Control) effectively and standards describe the range of tests for application can deconstruct product reliability, damage the overall project and create a cost feast.
Software testing plan form is a part of the project documentation. The functional, objectives and goals needs of software application are restricted and scoped by the project planning. Mostly, test documents are planned to make test cases to succeed the application for platform constancy, system strength, functional fit, performance and usability.
First of all, functional test needs are performed throughout the last all stages of the first software construction. Development team OR developer locates software through a cycle of tests to make sure that it rally the primary stakeholder needs and to prepare the path for more testing team, end user testing and beta testing, for testing sample. Sometime employed specialised software is during the testing phase. Deterioration software permits the development team to build record and adjustment the changes along the way. This allows ‘rollback’ in the occasion that a change negotiations accessible code utilities.
Testing phase permits fresh eyes set to subject the function to a range of ‘real world’ testing external the paperwork followed by team. It can contain testing software on different machines with different OS, testing for simplicity of application and functional testing. Reaction from this permits development team to make better applications performance and ease of use. In some cases, at first release of the software is offered to plan viewers to secure a wider range of testimonial.
Software testing tactic is a vital method that includes mechanism of software development lifecycle. There are lots of firms that stopped working to execute QC (Quality Control) effectively and standards describe the range of tests for application can deconstruct product reliability, damage the overall project and create a cost feast.
Software testing plan form is a part of the project documentation. The functional, objectives and goals needs of software application are restricted and scoped by the project planning. Mostly, test documents are planned to make test cases to succeed the application for platform constancy, system strength, functional fit, performance and usability.
First of all, functional test needs are performed throughout the last all stages of the first software construction. Development team OR developer locates software through a cycle of tests to make sure that it rally the primary stakeholder needs and to prepare the path for more testing team, end user testing and beta testing, for testing sample. Sometime employed specialised software is during the testing phase. Deterioration software permits the development team to build record and adjustment the changes along the way. This allows ‘rollback’ in the occasion that a change negotiations accessible code utilities.
Testing phase permits fresh eyes set to subject the function to a range of ‘real world’ testing external the paperwork followed by team. It can contain testing software on different machines with different OS, testing for simplicity of application and functional testing. Reaction from this permits development team to make better applications performance and ease of use. In some cases, at first release of the software is offered to plan viewers to secure a wider range of testimonial.
What is a Game Server?
exitiv
eSports Game Servers asked:
So, just what is a game server? Before answering that question, it’s important to understand how online gaming works. Many popular games today, first person shooters in particular, support online play. Such Internet-based play expands the game to whole new levels, and provides an experience not possible in single player environments. Players ranging in numbers from half a dozen to as many as sixty-four can all join what’s called a game server and play on the same map (game level) at the same time. Gaming servers work much like web servers, but instead of hosting websites, host game matches that others can join. Though the game itself is not loaded from the server, important game information such as player scores and rules are. Think of them in terms of a soccer stadium. The stadium provides a scoreboard and a field to play on, and the players come to the stadium to play.
While it is possible for a gamer to host a server on his computer, such servers are only suitable for a small number of players due to the slow speed of their connections. Game servers of any decent size are hosted by what are known as server providers in large data centers. With high-speed connection speeds and high-end server hardware, these providers can host servers of any size. The most popular games hosted these days include the Battlefield series, Counter Strike: Source, the Call of Duty games, the Medal of Honor series, and Unreal Tournament. Most providers offer free support, the ability to change the hosted game on the fly, free voice servers for oral communication, and web hosting. Prices for gaming servers vary greatly from provider to the provider and game to game, but the average is around $2 per player. People who run game servers sometimes pay for them out of their own pockets, but often times a group of gamers will form what is called a clan and share the cost of the server. Once a server is setup, anyone can play on a server for free, though some servers are private and require a password to join.
They make it possible for game lovers worldwide to get together and play their favorite games in an online environment, and have created a whole new market in the gaming world and have changed the way people view gaming. As technology increases, it will be interesting to see how the game server market changes.
So, just what is a game server? Before answering that question, it’s important to understand how online gaming works. Many popular games today, first person shooters in particular, support online play. Such Internet-based play expands the game to whole new levels, and provides an experience not possible in single player environments. Players ranging in numbers from half a dozen to as many as sixty-four can all join what’s called a game server and play on the same map (game level) at the same time. Gaming servers work much like web servers, but instead of hosting websites, host game matches that others can join. Though the game itself is not loaded from the server, important game information such as player scores and rules are. Think of them in terms of a soccer stadium. The stadium provides a scoreboard and a field to play on, and the players come to the stadium to play.
While it is possible for a gamer to host a server on his computer, such servers are only suitable for a small number of players due to the slow speed of their connections. Game servers of any decent size are hosted by what are known as server providers in large data centers. With high-speed connection speeds and high-end server hardware, these providers can host servers of any size. The most popular games hosted these days include the Battlefield series, Counter Strike: Source, the Call of Duty games, the Medal of Honor series, and Unreal Tournament. Most providers offer free support, the ability to change the hosted game on the fly, free voice servers for oral communication, and web hosting. Prices for gaming servers vary greatly from provider to the provider and game to game, but the average is around $2 per player. People who run game servers sometimes pay for them out of their own pockets, but often times a group of gamers will form what is called a clan and share the cost of the server. Once a server is setup, anyone can play on a server for free, though some servers are private and require a password to join.
They make it possible for game lovers worldwide to get together and play their favorite games in an online environment, and have created a whole new market in the gaming world and have changed the way people view gaming. As technology increases, it will be interesting to see how the game server market changes.
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