How-To Tutorials

If our Lighttpd runs on a multi-processor machine, it can take advantage of that by spawning multiple versions of itself. Also, most Lighttpd installations will not have a machine to themselves; therefore, we should not only measure the speed but also its resource usage. Optimizing Compilers: gcc with the usual settings (-O2) already does quite a good job of creating a fast Lighttpd executable. However, -O3 may nudge the speed up a tiny little bit (or slow it down, depending on our system) at the cost of a bigger executable system. If there are optimizing compilers for our platform (for example, Intel and Sun Microsystems each have compilers that optimize for their CPUs), they might even give another tiny speed boost. If we do not want to invest money in commercial compilers, but maximize on what gcc has to offer, we can use Acovea, which is an open source project that employs genetic algorithms and trial-and-error to find the best individual settings for gcc on our platform. Get it from http://www.coyotegulch.com/products/acovea/ Finally, optimization should stop where security (or, to a lesser extent, maintainability) is compromised. A slower web server that does what we want is way better than a fast web server obeying the commands of a script kiddie. Before we optimize away blindly, we better have a way to measure the "speed". A useful measure most administrators will agree with is "served requests per second". http_load is a tool to measure the requests per second. We can get it from http://www.acme.com/software/http_load/. http_load is very simple. Give it a site to request, and it will flood the site with requests, measuring how many are served in a given amount of time. This allows a very simplistic approach to optimizing Lighttpd: Tweak some settings, run http_load with a sufficient realistic scenario, and see if our Lighttpd handles more or less requests than before. We do not yet know where to spend time optimizing. For this, we need to make use of timing log instrumentation that has been included with Lighttpd 1.5.0 or even use a profiler to see where the most time is spent. However, there are some "big knobs" to turn that can increase performance, where http_load will help us find a good setting. Installing http_load http_load can be downloaded as a source .tar file (which was named .tar.gz for me, though it is not gzipped). The version as of this writing is 12Mar2006. Unpack it to /usr/src (or another path by changing the /usr/src) with: $ cd /usr/src && tar xf /path/to/http_load-12Mar2006.tar.gz$ cd http_load-12Mar2006 We can optionally add SSL support. We may skip this if we do not need it. To add SSL support we need to find out where the SSL libs and includes are. I assume they are in /usr/lib and /usr/include, respectively, but they may or may not be the same on your system. Additionally, there is a "SSL tree" directory that is usually in /usr/ssl or /usr/local/ssl and contains certificates, revocation lists, and so on. Open the Makefile with a text editor and look at line 11 to 14, which reads: #SSL_TREE = /usr/local/ssl#SSL_DEFS = -DUSE_SSL#SSL_INC = -I$(SSL_TREE)/include#SSL_LIBS = -L$(SSL_TREE)/lib -lssl -lcrypto Change them to the following (assuming the given directories are correct): SSL_TREE = /usr/sslSSL_DEFS = -DUSE_SSLSSL_INC = -I/usr/includeSSL_LIBS = -L/usr/lib -lssl -lcrypto Now compile and install http_loadwith the following command: $ make all install Now we're all set to load-test our Lighttpd. Running http_load tests We just need a URL file, which contains URLs that lead to the pages our Lighttpd serves. http_load will then fetch these pages at random as long as, or as often as we ask it to. For example, we may have a front page with links to different articles. We can just start putting a link to our front page into the URL file, which we will name urls to get started; for example, http://localhost/index.html. Note that the file just contains URLs, nothing less, nothing more (for example, http_load does not support blank lines). Now we can make our first test run: $ http_load -parallel 10 -seconds 60 urls This will run for one minute and try to open 10 connections per second. Let's see if our Lighttpd keeps up: 343 fetches, 10 max parallel, 26814 bytes, in 60 seconds78.1749 mean bytes/connection5.71667 fetches/sec, 446.9 bytes/secmsecs/connect: 290.847 mean, 9094 max,15 minmsecs/first-response: 181.902 mean, 9016 max, 15 minHTTP response codes: code 200 - 327   As we can see, it does. http_load needs one of the two start conditions and one of the two stop conditions plus a URL file to run. We can create the URL file manually or crawl our document root(s) with the following python script called crawl.py: #!/usr/bin/python#run from document root, pipe into URLs file. For example:# /path/to/docroot$ crawl.py > urlsimport os, re, syshostname = "http://localhost/"for (root, dirs, files) in os.walk("."): for name in files: filepath = os.path.join(root, name) print re.sub("./", hostname, filepath)   You can download the crawl.oy file from http://www.packtpub.com/files/code/2103_Code.zip. Capture the output into a file to use as URL file. For example, start the script from within our document root with: $ python crawl.py > urls This will give us a urls file, which will make http_load try to get all files (given that we have specified enough requests). Then we can start http_load as discussed in the preceding example. http_load takes the following options:  

Asterisk has a wonderful, built-in ability to record calls. No additional software is required to make this happen. When Asterisk records a call, both sides of the call are recorded and written out to a file for playback on a computer. Call recording is often performed in call centers to ensure call quality, or to keep calls for later review, should the need arise. Asterisk provides the ability to record all of the calls, or to selectively record calls. In this article, we will look the following:   General recording options Recording calls to extensions Recording calls to queues Recording calls to conferences Maintaining call recordings Before enabling call recording for your PBX, make sure that you are aware of the legalities surrounding call recordings and privacy laws. Call recordings are prohibited in certain places, unless the caller is told that the call will be recorded. For example, in the state of California all of the parties on the call must consent to the call being recorded before it begins. Playing back a message stating that the call is being recorded prior to the call being answered is considered a valid form of consent. Recording formats FreePBX allows calls to be recorded in the following formats: WAV WAV49 ULAW ALAW SLN GSM Each format has its own ratio of file size to recording quality, and certain formats will not play on all of the computers. A comparison between all of the  available formats is as follows:

What we will learn in this article? In this article, we will cover the service module and highlight how it fits in with the sales and opportunities management functionality. The key features, from taking a service call to contracting management, will be explained. In order to establish a practical platform for this, a case study will be expanded to utilize the service module. As a part of this section, a complete workflow will be configured from setting the right parameters in the admin section to connecting the information for service personnel. We will learn about : Key terms - The common terminology related to service management will be covered. There is nothing major waiting for you here. We will simply learn what the terms entail with regards to the SAP system. Service module core functions – In this section, the available functions and features will be put into perspective—what is available and how much we can expect from it. For example, you will learn what service operations mean. Case study and your own project – The available features of the service module will then be implemented for the case study. By doing so, knowledge will be provided to implement the service module in your own business. We will review some guidelines which will enable you to translate the case study implementation into a set of activities for your own project. Key terms Let's start with the key terms related to service and contract management in SAP Business ONE. By looking at the key terms, you will get an understanding of what can be accomplished with this module Service contract templates In the admin section, we can define the service contract templates that can later be used as a basis for actual contracts. Please note the template character. All of the parameters we define here will automatically populate the relevant details in the contract once a template is selected. The following screenshot shows that a contract template can be created not only on a per-customer basis, but also for item groups, and a specific item based on serial numbers. In addition, please note the Reminder setting. You can set a reminder which will provide an alert prior to the expiry of the contract. This way, you can be sure that you contact all customers and allow them to renew their contracts. Serial number contract The most common usage may be the Serial Number contract type. Each product will have a specific contractual service eligibility based on the serial number. Consequently, if a customer purchases an item that is managed by a serial number, a warranty contract template can be associated. This will create a customer equipment card. Customer contract However, please note that this concept does not need to be used only for items and serial numbers. As you can see in the previous screenshot, we can create contract templates for customers and whole item groups. For the case study, I will use this concept to create a service contract for key customers. We can then use the service functionality in SAP to make sure these customers get priority treatment. You see, we can use the service functionality in this creative way to improve our service quality. Item group contract Just as we may decide to use the service module to guarantee a specific response time to customers, we can make sure that a specific product line is managed. For example, if you have a new specifi c product line that requires technical expertise for implementation, then a service contract may be offered to customers. Therefore, all customers who purchase an item that belongs to this group will be eligible to purchase a contract and receive the relevant expert support. Customer equipment card The customer equipment card applies to the contracts that are managed by a serial number. Since the serial number contract applies a unique contract situation for each item, you will need to have the relevant information to be able to categorize a service call. For example, you need to know the serial number to identify the customer and the relevant warranty that remains for the specific serial number. In addition, if a customer calls you, you"ll want to be able to look up all of the serial numbers for this customer. This can be done using the customer equipment card. Please note that a customer equipment card is automatically created if a customer purchases an item that is managed by a serial number. You can assign a service contract when this happens on the level of sales order. Service calls Service calls are incoming service requests from business partners. The following screenshot shows that service calls can have many sources. For example, service calls may come via emails, phone calls, web requests, or any other defined Origin. I am highlighting this because, in essence, you can use the service module for any activity where you want to apply a specifi c response time management. Queues As mentioned above, the service module can be used to manage any kind of service-related activity. Queues allow your personnel to be associated with named groups. In the following screenshot, I have created two queues. The first queue is for 1st Level and the second queue for Resolution and Sales. Consequently, I assign personnel who can best accomplish the relevant tasks to each queue as follows: Knowledge base As you work on service calls, you can build a knowledge base that documents how problems were resolved. For example, if the problem resolution department resolved a problem, it will be documented as a part of the service call. If the service call is for a serialized item, then this knowledge is available to the first-level support the next time a problem is reported for the same item type. Therefore, this can take the workload off of the specialized personnel as they can avoid repetitive tasks. In addition, new employees can benefit from the knowledge already acquired for resolved service calls.

{literal} What Are Feeds? Feeds are the way to publish news in Facebook. As we have already mentioned before, there are two types of feeds in Facebook, News feed and Mini feed. News feed instantly tracks activities of a user's online friends, ranging from changes in relationship status to added photos to wall comments. Mini feed appears on individuals' profiles and highlights recent social activity. You can see your news feed right after you log in, and point your browser to http://www.facebook.com/home.php. It looks like the following, which is, in fact, my news feed. Mini feeds are seen in your profile page, displaying your recent activities and look like the following one: Only the last 10 entries are being displayed in the mini feed section of the profile page. But you can always see the complete list of mini feeds by going to http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php. Also the mini feed of any user can be accessed from http://www.facebook.com/minifeed.php?id=userid. There is another close relation between news feed and mini feed. When applications publish a mini feed in your profile, it will also appear in your friend's news feed page. How to publish Feeds Facebook provides three APIs to publish mini feeds and news feeds. But these are restricted to call not more than 10 times for a particular user in a 48 hour cycle. This means you can publish a maximum of 10 feeds in a specific user's profile within 48 hours. The following three APIs help to publish feeds: feed_publishStoryToUser—this function publishes the story to the news feed of any user (limited to call once every 12 hours). feed_publishActionOfUser—this one publishes the story to a user's mini feed, and to his or her friend's news feed (limited to call 10 times in a rolling 48 hour slot). feed_publishTemplatizedAction—this one also publishes mini feeds and news feeds, but in an easier way (limited to call 10 times in a rolling 48 hour slot). You can test this API also from http://developers.facebook.com/tools.php?api, and by choosing Feed Preview Console, which will give you the following interface: And once you execute the sample, like the previous one, it will preview the sample of your feed. Sample application to play with Feeds Let's publish some news to our profile, and test how the functions actually work. In this section, we will develop a small application (RateBuddies) by which we will be able to send messages to our friends, and then publish our activities as a mini feed. The purpose of this application is to display friends list and rate them in different categories (Awesome, All Square, Loser, etc.). Here is the code of our application: index.php<?include_once("prepend.php"); //the Lib and key container?><div style="padding:20px;"><?if (!empty($_POST['friend_sel'])){ $friend = $_POST['friend_sel']; $rating = $_POST['rate']; $title = "<fb:name uid='{$fbuser}' useyou='false' /> just <a href='http://apps.facebook.com/ratebuddies/'>Rated</a> <fb:name uid='{$friend}' useyou='false' /> as a '{$rating}' "; $body = "Why not you also <a href='http://apps.facebook.com/ratebuddies/'>rate your friends</a>?";try{//now publish the story to user's mini feed and on his friend's news feed $facebook->api_client->feed_publishActionOfUser($title, $body, null, $null,null, null, null, null, null, null, 1); } catch(Exception $e) { //echo "Error when publishing feeds: "; echo $e->getMessage(); }}?> <h1>Welcome to RateBuddies, your gateway to rate your friends</h1> <div style="padding-top:10px;"> <form method="POST"> Seect a friend: <br/><br/> <fb:friend-selector uid="<?=$fbuser;?>" name="friendid" idname="friend_sel" /> <br/><br/><br/> And your friend is: <br/> <table> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="funny" /></td> <td valign="middle">Funny</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="hot tempered" /></td> <td valign="middle">Hot Tempered</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="awesome" /></td> <td valign="middle">Awesome</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="naughty professor" /></td> <td valign="middle">Naughty Professor</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="looser" /></td> <td valign="middle">Looser</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="empty veseel" /></td> <td valign="middle">Empty Vessel</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="foxy" /></td> <td valign="middle">Foxy</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="middle"><input name="rate" type="radio" value="childish" /></td> <td valign="middle">Childish</td> </tr> </table> &nbsp; <input type="submit" value="Rate Buddy"/> </form> </div></div> index.php includes another file called prepend.php. In that file, we initialized the facebook api client using the API key and Secret key of the current application. It is a good practice to keep them in separate file because we need to use them throughout our application, in as many pages as we have. Here is the code of that file: prepend.php<?php// this defines some of your basic setupinclude 'client/facebook.php'; // the facebook API library// Get these from ?http://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.phphttp://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php$api_key = 'your api key';//the api ket of this application$secret = 'your secret key'; //the secret key$facebook = new Facebook($api_key, $secret); //catch the exception that gets thrown if the cookie has an invalid session_key in it try { if (!$facebook->api_client->users_isAppAdded()) { $facebook->redirect($facebook->get_add_url()); } } catch (Exception $ex) { //this will clear cookies for your application and redirect them to a login prompt $facebook->set_user(null, null); $facebook->redirect($appcallbackurl); }?> The client is a standard Facebook REST API client, which is available directly from Facebook. If you are not sure about these API keys, then point your browser to http://www.facebook.com/developers/apps.php and collect the API key and secret key from there. Here is a screenshot of that page: Just collect your API key and Secret Key from this page, when you develop your own application. Now, when you point your browser to http://apps.facebooks.com/ratebuddies and successfully add that application, it will look like this: To see how this app works, type a friend in the box, Select a friend, and click on any rating such as Funny or Foxy. Then click on the Rate Buddy button. As soon as the page submits, open your profile page and you will see that it has published a mini feed in your profile.

Using Flash Builder Data Services In this section, we will write the same application that we have written in part one. However this time we will not write the code ourselves instead we'll let the Flash Builder generate the code for us. Flash Builder comes with powerful new features that ease integration with external services. It can auto generate client code that can invoke external services for us and bind the results to existing User Interface components. Let us look at building the same application that we developed in the previous section via the new Data Services and Binding wizardry that Flash Builder provides. Let us create a new Flex Project as shown below: Name this Flex Project as YahooNewsWithDataServices as shown below. We will go with the default settings for the other fields. Click on Finish button. You will get the standard boilerplate code that is produced for the main Application MXML file—YahooNewsWithDataServices.mxml. Switch to the Design View and the Properties tab as shown below. Modify the values for the Layout to spark.layouts.VerticalLayout and the Width and Height to 100%. This means that the main Application window will occupy the maximum area available on your screen and by choosing a Vertical Layout, all visual components dragged to the main Application Canvas will be arranged in a vertical fashion. Stay in Design view. From the Components Tab shown below select Data Controls → DataGrid Drag it onto the canvas on the right side. It will appear as shown below: Keep the DataGrid selected and go to the Properties Tab as shown below. Give it an ID value of dgYahooNews. Set its Width and Height to 100% so that it will occupy the entire parent container like the Application Window. Then click on the Configure Columns button. Clicking on the Configure Columns button will bring up the current columns that are added by default. The screenshot is shown below. We do not need any of these columns at this point. So select each of the columns and click on the Delete button. Finally click on the OK button. Save your work at this point through the Ctrl-S key combination. At this point in time, we will simply create an Application screen with a datagrid on it. Now we need to connect it to the Yahoo News Service and bind the datagrid rows/columns to the data being returned from the Service. In the previous section, we had seen how to do this by writing code. In this case, we will let Flash Builder generate the connectivity code and also do the binding for us. First step is to select the Connect to Data/Service option from the main menu as shown below: This will bring up the wizard as shown in the following screenshot. Flash Builder allows us to connect to several types of backend systems. In our case, we wish to connect to the Yahoo Most Emailed News RSS Service that is available at: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/mostemailed. So we will choose the HTTP Service as shown below and click on the Next button. The next step will be a configuration screen, where we will provide the following information: Service Name: Give the Service a name that you like which u can refer to later. We name it YahooNewsService. Operations: We give an operation name called getNews. The HTTP Method is GET and in the field for URL, you need to provide the RSS Feed URL http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/mostemailed You can enter more than one operation name here. Alternately, if you were invoking a HTTP Service using the POST method, you could even specify the Parameters by adding parameters via the Add button.   Click on Finish. This will display a Message window as shown below which tells you that there is still some incomplete work or a few last steps remaining before you can complete the definition of the service and bind it to a UI Component (in our case it is the DataGrid). Click on OK to dismiss the message. Once again, switch to Design view and click on the button for the Data Provider shown below. What we are going to do is associate/bind the result of the Service invocation to the Data Grid via the data provider. This will bring up the Bind To Data window as show below. It should be clear to you by now that we can select the Service and the Operation whose result we wish to bind to our data grid. Flash Builder automatically shows us the Service Name and an Operation name. If there are more Services defined, it will allow to select the appropriate Service and its respective operations. Note that it asks us to Configure Return Type as shown. This is because Flash Builder needs to understand the data that is going to be returned by the Service invocation and also to help it map the result data types to appropriate Action Script Data structures. Click on the Configure Return Type button. This will bring up the Configure Operation Return Type window. Give a name for the Custom Data Type as we have given below and click on the Next button. The next step is to specify the kind of data that will be returned. Flash Builder simplifies this by allowing us to give the complete URL so that it can invoke it and determine the structure that is returned. If you already have a sample response, you could even choose the third option. In our case, we will go with the second option of entering a complete URL as shown below. We also specify the RSS Feed url. Click on the Next button. This will invoke the RSS Feed and retrieve the HTTP Response. Since the response returned is in XML, Flash Builder is able to generically map it to a tree-like structure as shown below. The structure is a typical RSS XML structure. The root node that is rss is shown in the Select Node and all its children nodes are shown in the grid below. Since we are only interested in the RSS items and extracting out the title and category, we first navigate and choose the item field in the Select Node field. This will show all the children nodes for the item field as shown below: Delete all the fields except for title and category. To delete a field, select it and click on the Delete button. Click on the Finish button. This will bring up the original Bind To Data form. Click on the OK button. We are all set now. Save your work and click on the Run button from the main toolbar. Flash Builder will launch the application. The Data Grid on creation will invoke the HTTP Service and the items will be retrieved. The title and category fields are shown for each news item as shown below: r Summary This article provided an introduction to Flex 4 via its development environment Flash Builder. While the applications that we covered in the article are not too practical, it should give you a glimpse of the power of the Flex framework and its tools and loads of developer productivity that is one of its key strengths. Interested readers are encouraged to use this as a starting point in the world of developing Rich Internet Applications with Flex.

A lot has changed with Essbase since the early days back in the 1990's. Essbase itself has grown and flourished into the world's leading OLAP analytic software and now includes all of the bells and whistles you'd expect and more. The purpose of this article is to go over some exciting new additions to the Essbase family. No longer is it just Essbase, the multidimensional OLAP database. The future of Essbase, beginning with Essbase version 9.x, is now Essbase System 9. Essbase System 9 is now a suite of analytical applications or components of which Essbase is the cornerstone. Some of the components enhance the overall abilities of the suite and some are targeted more to specific computing purposes. Overview of System 9 components When Oracle purchased Hyperion and several other companies, they set out to organize their product catalog and bring together a standardized naming convention as well as standardized software versioning. The Essbase suite of tools and applications is no exception as Essbase version 9.x has become Essbase System 9, and there never really was a commercially released Essbase version 8.x. Oracle now has plans to further integrate the Essbase suite of tools and components into their product catalog and we'll just need to wait and see how this plays out with version 11 and beyond. What we are giving you in this article is a high level look at each new Essbase tool or component and also a slightly lower level look at the hot new additions to the Essbase family. Not to detract from any of the other Essbase family members, but the new Oracle Smart View, for one, is an awesome tool to have in your toolbox. Essbase Analytic Services (Essbase agent) The term Essbase analytic services, while commonly thought to refer to the Essbase suite of applications, actually refers to the common Essbase system structure that is built around the Essbase analytic database engine technology. We know this sounds confusing, but here is how it works. In your Essbase toolbox, you can have many different tools. Some of them are optional and can be added at an additional expense and some of them must be included from the beginning for proper system installation. No matter what tools you want to add to your Essbase toolbox, the Essbase agent or Essbase analytic services must be included and it is the cornerstone of the Essbase suite of applications. The Essbase agent is what you install on your server in order to make it an Essbase analytic server. The Essbase agent is what you use to build, deploy, and maintain your Essbase databases. In a nutshell, Essbase Analytic Services is the heart and soul of your Essbase system. Essbase Planning Also known as Hyperion Planning or even Oracle Planning, Essbase Planning is a centralized Microsoft Excel and web-based planning and forecasting tool that combines data from various internal business activities such as finance, marketing, and so on, into one integrated tool. Planning uses the data to provide a closer look at the company's overall business operations and helps improve the forecast predictability accuracy. Planning makes use of Essbase in an ingenious way. The data for each business activity is stored in its own custom Essbase database or cube. Several business activities can share the same cube and have their own set of dimensions and members. Therefore, Essbase must be started and running in the background so Planning can access the cubes. The various Planning functions are then supported by Planning's seamless accessing of the data from the Essbase cubes and by using the stored business rule feature to apply the customer defined business rules to the data for planning and analysis purposes. The storing of complex business rules to facilitate proper analysis of the data is a huge benefit of Oracle Planning and is accomplished within the module by utilizing a small space on a relational database such as an Oracle or SQL server database. With the aid of pre-packaged process modules, Essbase Planning can also greatly shorten the length of time typically required for budget and forecast cycles, thus lowering the total cost of ownership for this product. Essbase Analytics It's funny, but the word analytics is being tossed about rather often these days.Pretty much anything you do with OLAP or multidimensional database tools,can be termed analytics. In Essbase however, Essbase analytics, to some, usually refers to Essbase's other database engine, the ASO database engine. The reason given for this is that the typical Essbase ASO database is primarily used for presentation, analysis, and reporting which are all analytic functions. The Essbase BSO database, while analytic itself, can also be considered transactional as well. The Essbase analytics nickname dates back to the advent of the ASO database architecture when all you had was the BSO architecture. The new ASO architecture was the analytic tool. Yes, it's funny how Essbase is an analytical package and inside that package is an analytic piece but that's just how it is. Try not to get hung up on the terminology here though. When considering your options, you need to look at all of the same things you have always looked at. How large will the system be? What are the business customer's requirements? What type of system am I building here? When you answer these questions, it will matter less what you call what you are doing than choosing the right tools. Hyperion Application Link/Oracle Application Link The name pretty much says it all. Hyperion Application Link is a suite of ETL tools that allows the user or programmer to integrate Oracle products, like Essbase, with other third party software packages, especially transactional database packages. Hyperion Application Link (HAL) can integrate all of your data loading and ETL functions into one place and offer improved performance. When gathering data for your Essbase application, you may encounter data from many different sources. HAL allows you to set up a link to your favorite Oracle database using an ODBC connection.HAL will also allow you to load data from conveniently delivered flat files too. In fact, you can usually accomplish just about all of your data loading needs for your Essbase System 9 installation by using HAL. Oracle Business Rules This tool can be a tremendous time saver. The Oracle Business Rules tool allows the programmer to create, store, execute, and manage complex business rules as specified by the business customer and as it relates to thebusiness process and the data. All of this is accomplished by using an easy to understand user interface with graphical depictions of the various elements that go into a rule. Imagine a business process that dictates the values for next month's sales commitments as follows: If the actual sales for the prior month are not received by the 15th of the current month, then the committed sales for the current month are to equal the sales number that was forecasted from the prior month If the actual sales for the prior month are received by the 15th, then the number used for the current month's committed sales will be equal to the prior month actual sales * 1.15. This is just one example of a business rule being automatically executed against the data for the users of the system. There are endless possibilities on how to make good use of this tool. The advantages of the Oracle Business Rules tool are clear, especially in today's fast-paced business world where static structures in data load and calculation scripts need almost continual modifying.With the Hyperion Business Rules tool, the dynamic nature of the business can more effectively be supported with the creation of minimal maintenance dynamic rules.

Overview of the D-Cube In Analyst, data is stored in a D-Cube. The D-Cube is a multi-dimensional data structure similar to an OLAP or Excel pivot table. Each of the dimensions contains a list of related data. For example, in a four dimensional cube, the first dimension may contain the items in  P&L statement, the second may list the departments, the third show the timescale, and the fourth may show the version (Budget or Actual). In this example, you have the  P&L statement by month, by department, and by version. The D-Cube must have at least two dimensions. If more than two dimensions exist, the other dimensions appear as pages. The following screenshot depicts a four dimensional D-Cube. The first two dimensions form the rows and columns. The third and fourth dimensions are displayed as pages, in the upper-left corner of the D-Cube. You can switch to different pages in the cube by clicking the page drop-down list and selecting another page. Creating a D-Cube Creating a D-Cube takes a few simple steps but it requires a great deal of forethought. Before creating the D-Cube, you must think through the dimensions that will form the cube. You must know what data will populate the D-Cube. You must know what category of D-Lists your selection falls under so that you can prioritize the calculations appropriately. You must know what function the D-Cube performs. Is it an input cube, a calculation cube, a summary or reporting cube, or a staging cube? You must also know in which library the D-Cube will be stored, and whether the D-Cube will be shared or will be exclusive to a model. Finally, you must consider size and performance, especially if you plan to deploy the D-Cube in Contributor. To create a D-Cube: Click on File | New | D-Cube. In the Create new D-Cube box, select the D-List that makes up the D-Cube. Drop the D-List onto the lower pane. Order the D-List. Click on OK. Enter the D-Cube name, and then click on OK. By default, the D-Cube opens with the longest D-List as the rows and the timescale as the columns. You can transpose the cube or swap the dimensions by dragging and dropping them. When you close and reopen the D-Cube, it will revert to the default view. Order of dimensions It is important to have the proper order of dimensions in the D-Cube. The order of dimensions is important because it determines which calculation takes precedence when calculations from two separate D-Lists intersect. The order also determines the priority of formats when the cell has opposing formats. As a rule, the dimensions must follow this order: Calculation: Calculation D-Lists contain mathematical operations over and above simple addition. Any use of operators, such as multiplication, subtraction, division, or the use of a BiF, make the D-List a calculation D-List. Aggregation: Aggregation D-Lists usually contain a hierarchy of items, such as an organizational hierarchy, a list of products, customers, or cost centers, or a list of items with a simple subtotal. Non-Calculating: Non-Calculating D-Lists contain no calculations. Timescale: Timescale D-Lists contains items that span a period of time, such as months, weeks, or days. Versions: Version D-Lists contain iterations of the data, such as Actual, Budget, Forecast, and Revised Budget. It is critical to set the proper order of dimensions before building the Contributor application. If you reorder the dimensions after the application is created, all of the data in the D-Cube will be deleted. In addition, reordering dimensions changes the structure of the import tables and, therefore, the way that you import data into Contributor. Size considerations The size of the D-Cube is measured by the number of cells in it. The number of cells you can have in a D-Cube is limited only by your computer's memory. When you build a D-Cube, you should keep in mind the amount of memory available on the computer on which the model will be used. You will not be able to open a large cube if your PC does not have enough memory to handle the data. If the model is deployed in Contributor, size is an even more important consideration. Even with a powerful computer, you will experience performance lag because a large model must pass through the organization's network. In a wide area network, the problem associated with a large model becomes more apparent. To determine the number of cells, find the product of the number of items in all of the D-lists in the D-Cube. For instance, if a D-Cube has five D-Lists, which have the following number of items: 8, 1, 10, 5, and 12, the number of cells in the D-Cube will be 4,800. This is 8*1*10*5*12. You can find the number of cells in the dimension selection box, as illustrated in the following screenshot: The number of items in a dimension has an inverse impact on the magnitude of size increases for additions to the cube. The fewer the items, the bigger the impact that an addition will have to the size of the cube. In the example of the cube above, if you add one item to a dimension that has only one item, you will double the size of the cube. However, if you add one item to a dimension that has 10 items, you will increase the size of the cube by only ten percent. One clue that your D-Cube may have a problem with size is the number of dimensions. While there is no limitation on the number of dimensions that a cube can have, having too many of them can become a problem. With a D-Cube that has too many dimensions, any additional item in one of the D-Lists increases the size in an order of magnitude depending on the number of items in the D-List. If possible, keep the number of dimensions to not more than five. If you need to have a D-Cube that provides views of data beyond five dimensions, consider splitting the D-Cube. You are more likely to require less memory if you have several smaller cubes than with one super cube. With Analyst, you can open a D-Cube that has several million cells on a PC that has 512MB of RAM. However, if you plan to deploy the model in Contributor, the threshold for the number of cells is much lower. An acceptable benchmark is roughly 500,000 cells per e.List. This benchmark is subject to many other factors, such as network latency, client PC memory, and CPU, all of which can contribute to model performance. Working with the D-Cube When working with the D-Cube, you have several functionalities that help you to hone in on the information that you want. By default, the D-Cube opens in full view, but you can open only a slice of the cube and save the slice for later viewing. Opening a full view of the D-Cube The most straightforward way to view the D-Cube is to open all dimensions. To open a full D-Cube: Click on File | Open | D-Cube. Select the D-Cube. Click on OK. Select the Full option. Click on OK. Opening a selection of the D-Cube A selection is a subset of a D-Cube. You can only open the specific items of the dimensions that you want to view. Because the data in a selection is fewer than the full view, less memory is required and the D-Cube opens and recalculates faster. To open a selection of the D-Cube: Click on File | Open | D-Cube. Select the D-Cube. Click on OK. Select the Edit Selection option. This option opens the dimension selection box, where you can select the items that you want to view in the D-Cube slice. As shown in the following illustration, the item selection box lets you select the items from a dimension that you want to include in your view. In the item selection box, each tab represents a D-List. To select the items, move the items from the Items available pane (on the left) to the Items included pane (on the right). Click on OK. Viewing different slices of the D-Cube You can view the D-Cube in a variety of ways. You can open a selection of the D-Cube, or several selections at the same time. If you have a selection open, you can change it to another selection. The ability to switch views makes it easier to work with the D-Cube. For instance, suppose you have a D-Cube that has two versions: Budget and Actual. If you want to enter only budget data, you may want to open only the Budget dimension and keep the Actual dimension closed. You can have multiple selections of the D-Cube open at the same time in the same way that you open the D-Cube. This allows you to arrange the selections next to each other on the same screen. To modify the views of the D-Cube: With the D-Cube open, click on D-CubeSelections: New Slice: This option allows you to create a new view of the same D-Cube, with the same selection. Reselect: Modify the current selection. Selecting this option allows you to add or remove dimensions in the current view. Save: Save the current selection as a saved selection. This option allows you to save the current view so that you can open it again later. If you select Reselect, move the items that you want to add to or remove from the current view from the Items included to the Items available pane, or vice versa, respectively. Click on OK. Saving a selection You can select a view of a D-Cube and then save this selection so that you do not have to reselect the same view the next time that you open the cube. When you save a selection, you create a "saved selection"—an object that is derived from the cube. To save a selection: Click File | Open | D-Cube. Select the D-Cube. Under Mode, select Edit Selection. Select the D-List items that you want to view in the D-Cube, and move them from the Items available pane to the Items included pane. If you do not select anything in the Items available pane, then all of the items will be included in the selection, including any future additions to the D-List. Under the Save Selections option on the lower-right corner of the dialog box, click on the Save button. Enter the name of the saved selection. Click on OK. If you have a saved selection, you can load it into the item selection box. The dimension item selection box is used in many functions, including export, D-List imports, and D-Cube allocations (to be discussed later). Opening the saved selection Once saved, the selection becomes a separate object that can be copied and shared. However, because it is a subset of the cube, you have to go through the cube to access the saved selection. To open the saved selection: Click on File | Open | D-Cube. Select the D-Cube. Under Mode, select Saved Selection. Select the Saved Selection. Click on OK    

Structured Content Types Support for structured content is a key feature of OpenCms. Structured content types allow different templates to be used to re-skin a site, or to share content with other sites that have a different look. Structured content types are defined by creating XSD schemas and placing them into modules. Once a new content type has been defined, the Workplace Explorer provides a user interface to create new instances of the content and allows it to be edited. There are some sample content types and templates that come with the Template One group of modules. These content types are very flexible and allow a site to be built using them right away. However, they may not fit our site requirements. In general, site requirements and features will determine the design of the structured content types and templates that need to be developed. BlogEntry Content Type For designing a blog website it is required that the content type contains blog entries. The schema file for the BlogEntry content type looks like the following : <!-- ======================================================== Content definition schema for the BlogEntry type ========================================================== --> <!-- 1. Root Element --> <xsd:schema elementFormDefault="qualified"> <!-- 2. Define the location of the schema location --> <xsd:include schemaLocation="opencms://opencms-xmlcontent.xsd"/> <!-- 3. Root element name and type of our XML type --> <xsd:element name="BlogEntrys" type="OpenCmsBlogEntrys"/> <!-- 4. Definition of the type described above --> <xsd:complexType name="OpenCmsBlogEntrys"> <xsd:sequence> <xsd:element name="BlogEntry" type="OpenCmsBlogEntry" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/> </xsd:sequence> </xsd:complexType> <!-- 5. Data field definitions --> <xsd:complexType name="OpenCmsBlogEntry"> <xsd:sequence> <xsd:element name="Title" type="OpenCmsString" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" /> <xsd:element name="Date" type="OpenCmsDateTime" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" /> <xsd:element name="Image" type="OpenCmsVfsFile" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" /> <xsd:element name="Alignment" type="OpenCmsString" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" /> <xsd:element name="BlogText" type="OpenCmsHtml" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" /> <xsd:element name="Category" type="OpenCmsString" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="10" /> </xsd:sequence> <!-- 6. locale attribute is required --> <xsd:attribute name="language" type="OpenCmsLocale" use="required"/> </xsd:complexType> <!—optional code section --> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo> <!-- Mappings allow data fields to be mapped to content properties --> <mappings> <mapping element="Title" mapto="property:Title" /> <mapping element="Date" mapto="attribute:datereleased" /> </mappings><!-- Validation rules for fields --> <validationrules> <rule element="BlogText" regex="!.*[Bl]og.*" type= "warning" message="${key.editor.warning.BlogEntry. dontallowblog|${validation.path}}"/> </validationrules> <!-- Default values for fields --> <defaults> <default element="Date" value="${currenttime}"/> <default element="Alignment" value="left"/> </defaults> <!-- user interface widgets for data fields --> <layouts> <layout element="Image" widget="ImageGalleryWidget"/> <layout element="Alignment" widget="SelectorWidget" configuration="left|right|center" /> <layout element="Category" widget="SelectorWidget" configuration="silly|prudent|hopeful|fearful| worrisome|awesome" /> <layout element="BlogText" widget="HtmlWidget"/> </layouts> <!-- UI Localization --> <resourcebundle name="com.deepthoughts.templates.workplace"/> <!-- Relationship checking --> <relations> <relation element="Image" type="strong" invalidate="node" /> </relations> <!-- Previewing URI --> <preview uri="${previewtempfile}" /> <!-- Model Folder for content models --> <modelfolder uri="/system/modules/com.deepthoughts.templates /defaults/" /> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:schema> The BlogEntry content type file is named as blogentry.xsd and it placed in the folder named schemas in modules. Designing a Custom Widget Referring to the highlighted code in BlogEntry content type schema file we can see that the category field is populated from a drop-down list provided by SelectorWidget. The SelectorWidget obtains its values from the static configuration string defined within the blog schema file. This design is problematic as we would like category values to be easily changed or added. Ideally, the list of category values should be able to be updated by site content editors. Fortunately, we can create our own custom widget to handle this requirement. An OpenCms widget is a Java class that implements the I_CmsWidget interface, located in the org.opencms.widgets package. The interface contains a number of methods that must be implemented. First there are some methods dealing with instantiation and configuration of the widget: newInstance: This returns a new instance of the widget. setConfiguration: This method is called after the widget has been initialized to configure it. The configuration information is passed as a string value coming from the declaration of the widget within the schema file of the content type using it. getConfiguration: This is called to retrieve the configuration information for the widget. Next, there are some methods used to handle the rendering. These methods are called by widget enabled dialogs that might be used in a structured content editor or an administration screen. The methods provide any Javascript, CSS, or HTML needed by the widget dialogs: getDialogIncludes: This method is called to retrieve any Javascript or CSS includes that may be used by the widget. getDialogInitCall: This method may return Javascript code that performs initialization or makes calls to other Javascript initialization methods needed by the widget. getDialogInitMethod: This method may return Javascript code containing any functions needed by the widget. getDialogHtmlEnd: This method is called at the end of the dialog and may be used to return an HTML or Javascript needed by the widget. getDialogWidget: This method returns the actual HTML and Javascript used to render the widget along with its values. getHelpBubble: This method returns the HTML for displaying the help icon relating to this widget. getHelpText: This method returns the HTML for displaying the help text relating to this widget. Lastly, there are some methods used to get and set the widget value: getWidgetStringValue: This method returns the value selected from the widget. setEditorValue: This method sets the value into the widget. All these methods have base implementations in the A_CmsWidget class. In most cases, the base methods do not need to be overridden. As such, we will not cover all the methods in detail. If it is necessary to override the methods, the best way to get an idea of how to implement them is to look at the code using them. All widgets are used in dialog boxes which have been enabled for widgets, by implementing the I_CmsWidgetDialog interface. There are two general instances of these dialogs, one is used for editing structured XML content, the other is found in any dialog appearing in the Administration View. The two classes implementing this interface are: org.opencms.workplace.CmsWidgetDialog org.opencms.workplace.editors.CmsXmlContentEditor The CmsWidgetDialog class is itself a base class, which is used by all dialogs found in the Administrative View. Before designing a new widget, it is useful to examine the existing widget code. The default OpenCms widgets can be found in the org.opencms.widgets package. All the widgets in this package subclass the A_CmsWidget class mentioned earlier. Often, a new widget design may be subclassed from an existing widget. Designing the Widget As mentioned earlier, we would like to have a widget that obtains its option data values dynamically rather than from a fixed configuration string value. Rather than create a widget very specific to our needs, we will use a flexible design where the data source location can be specified in the configuration parameter. The design will allow for other data sources to be plugged into the widget. This way, we can use a single widget to obtain dynamic data from a variety of sources. To support this design, we will use the configuration parameter to contain the name of a Java class used as a data source. The design will specify a pluggable data source through a Java interface that a data source must implement. Furthermore, a data source can accept parameters via the widget configuration string. With this design, an example declaration for a widget named CustomSourceSelectWidget would look like this: <layout element="Category" widget="CustomSourceSelectWidget" configuration="source='com.widgets.sources.MySource'| option1='some config param'| option2='another param'" /> This declaration would appear in the schema of a content type, using the widget as covered earlier. The configuration parameter consists of name/value pairs, delimited by the vertical bar character. Each name/value pair is separated by the equal to sign and the value is always enclosed in single quotes. The design requires that at least the source parameter be specified. Additional parameters will depend upon the specific data source being used. The example declaration specifies that the data field named Category will use the CustomSourceSelectWidget widget for its layout. The configuration parameter contains the name of the Java class to be used to obtain the data source. The data source will receive the two parameters named option1 and option2 along with their values. Next, lets move on to the code to see how this all gets implemented.

(For more resources on Plone, see here.) Popular add-on Plone products One of the best things about open source development is the proliferation of products to solve common use cases. Plone themers are fortunate to have a solid set of tools available to them to solve these use cases. Enabling drop downs using webcouturier.dropdownmenu As most themers know, a lot of clients desire drop-down menus. In the past, this required coding HTML strings and the use of a product by Quintagroup named qPloneDropDownMenu. This product is still the recommended drop-down menu product for Plone 2.5x, but for 3.x, the real star is Denys Mishunov's product, webcouturier.dropdownmenu. The joy of this product is that you install it, and it works instantly. The product works by subclassing the globalsections viewlet via the following code, found in the browser/configure.zcml file of the webcouturier.dropdownmenu product: <!-- Override global sections viewlet --> <browser:viewlet name="plone.global_sections" manager="plone.app.layout.viewlets.interfaces.IPortalHeader" class=".dropdown.DropdownMenuViewlet" layer=".interfaces.IDropdownSpecific" permission="zope2.View" /> In the event that you've already customized your globalsections viewlet, you will have to subclass the DropdownMenuViewlet class in the webcouturier.dropdownmenu product. Unlike older drop-down menu products, webcouturier.dropdownmenu does not require any ongoing maintenance or manual adjustment of URLs. It is controlled by the navigation settings found in the Site Setup area, so you can control what types of items display in the navigation. The product also provides some basic CSS styling that can be easily adjusted in your own theme product, if desired. It can be downloaded here: http://plone.org/products/webcouturier-dropdownmenu/ Collage Another helpful Plone product is Malthe Borch's Collage. Collage allows you to create a grid containing rows and columns, and within those columns you can pull in the contents of other objects—a folder, a page, a collection, or even an image. Using this mechanism, you can create a complex page layout without knowing any programming. Until very recently, Collage did not have hooks that allowed it to be styled using CSS, and it did not respect different views. For example, if you created a special mysection_view.pt (same as a homepage_view), and you assigned that view to your page, Collage would default to the original document_view. This behavior has now been altered so that CSS hooks are available and different views are respected. This is a huge win for sites that are heavily styled and need to maintain consistency. It's suggested that when using Collage, you do not create your objects within the Collage itself; you should instead create the objects in your normal Plone content tree, and pull those items in as aliases. The reason for suggesting this is that it is not possible to access the contents of a Collage via the standard folder_contents view that is normally possible in a folder. Hence, if you need to move that content to another area of your site, you cannot. This also invites some jeopardy when migrating to a new version of Plone. It's worth mentioning that Collage will not become part of core Plone in the future, as the mechanism for organizing blocks of content on a page in the future will be accomplished via a new drag-and-drop mechanism. The lead programmer for Collage has stated, however, that there will be a migration path, but the reality of this is unknown. Finally, the usability of the Collage product is a bit clunky, but with some common sense, it's easy to use and can be a quite powerful layout tool for Plone 3. It can be downloaded here: http://plone.org/products/collage. Tableless styling using Plone Tableless A popular product for CSS purists is Simon Kaeser's plone.tableless. Plone's default main_template is created using tables, which many themers do not wish to use. To get a tableless version of Plone's main_template, simply install this product; make sure your site's portal_css is in debug mode, and test the following code: #portal-column-one {float:right;}#portal-column-two {float:left;} If you're able to switch the position of these two columns, the product works and you can style in full tableless mode. There are a few issues with Plone and tableless layouts that are unrelated to this product, but in general it works. As of this writing, the product was not tested against some of the newer browsers. It can be downloaded here: http://plone.org/products/plone-tableless/. CSSManager End users often want to have some control over basic modifications to their site—background color, link colors, and so on. The WebLion Group from Penn State University created CSSManager, a product that gives a simple, through the web interface to let users change the colors, borders, site logo, and other visual characteristics of their Plone site. Essentially, it uses the DTML variables defined in the base_properties.props file available within Plone. The product can be downloaded here: http://plone.org/products/cssmanager. To use it, install the product, go to your site's Site Setup area, and find the configlet for this tool, and try changing a few options. The CSSManager tool will supersede a theme product's base_properties if the CSSManager skin layer is above the theme product's skin layers in portal_skins/properties in the ZMI. If uninstalled, your settings can still be found in the custom folder for your Plone site via this URL: http://localhost:8080/mysite/portal_skins/custom/base_properties/manage_propertiesForm. So you can feel confident removing it if you no longer need it. Products.EasyAsPiIE Until IE7, there was no fully native support for PNG alpha channel transparency in Internet Explorer. However, since IE5.5, there has been some support in the form of a proprietary filter called AlphaImageLoader. Internet Explorer filters can be applied directly in your CSS (for both inline and background images), or by setting the same CSS property with JavaScript. Unfortunately, there's no CSS property called filter in the W3C CSS spec. It's a proprietary extension added by Microsoft that could potentially cause other browsers to reject your entire CSS rule. Also, AlphaImageLoader does not magically add full PNG transparency support so that a PNG in the page will just start working. Instead, when applied to an element in the page, it draws a new rendering surface in the same space that element occupies and loads a PNG into it. If that sounds weird, it is. However, by and large the result is that PNGs with an alpha channel can be accommodated. The WebLion Group's Products.EasyAsPiIE product uses this filter approach to handle transparent PNGs with IE6. All it does is enable JavaScript written by Angus Turnbull: http://www.twinhelix.com. You can download it from here: http://plone.org/products/productseasyaspiie/ and follow the installation instructions. Optionally, if you choose not to use this product, you can also just export to PNG8 format, instead of PNG24, to get around IE6 problems, and of course there are a lot of alternative solutions out there as well. You can read more about PNGs here: http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/09/18/png8-the-clear-winner/. Both Photoshop and Fireworks can export to PNG8, though other graphical programs may not. collective.skinny Another Plone product that has surfaced is Daniel Nouri's collective.skinny, which can be downloaded from http://plone.org/products/collectiveskinny/. This product is an example implementation of a separate, public-facing skin that abstracts away some of the complexity of the theming process. According to the product page, it's been described as being vastly easier than skinning Plone the conventional way, but it also has a few drawbacks. For example, you can't use it for community sites where people other than your site editors log in and modify content. It's also a little confusing from my perspective, but it's a product adventurous themers might pay attention to. It's probable that Deliverance and collective.xdv (the future of theming for Plone) will make this product obsolete, as Deliverance removes a lot of complexity and makes theming accessible to individuals who don't even know what Plone is. FS Dump For themers who started their skin creation through the web or who have content they wish to extract from the ZMI, FS Dump is an excellent tool. To use it, download the product from http://www.plone.org/products/fsdump and follow the installation instructions. This is a product that lives in the Products namespace, so it is not installed like egg-based products. Once installed, use the Add drop-down menu, found at http://www.mysite.com/manage_main, and create a Dumper instance in a folder (or product) that contains the TTW code to be dumped. This tool appears to work best when trying to dump items from the custom/ folder, though, hypothetically, it should work for any other folder in the ZMI. Next, supply an absolute path to a directory on the filesystem in which the dumper is to create the files, for example /opt. (Note that the user for whom Zope is running needs write access to this directory.) Click the Change and Dump button to do the dump to the indicated directory, and then copy the dumped files into your theme product's skins/ folder in the appropriate locations. qPloneSkinDump Another popular dumper product is known as Plone Skin Dump (qPloneSkinDump) by Quintagroup. Plone Skin Dump allows users to create a Plone product in the Products namespace by exporting the custom/ folder. It creates an old-school Plone theme product for you, but it does not provide the plonetheme-type of product. The product has not been tested against Plone 3, so it may not be the best option. Moreover, at the time this article was written, it was not possible to download the product from its SourceForge repository. In the event you wish to try this product, you can find it here: http://plone.org/products/plone-skin-dump. Again, it is in the Products namespace, so all you need to do is drop it in your buildout's products/ folder. You can then follow the directions posted on the product page. It's a bit more complicated than FS Dump, but obviously it does a bit more. Collection and static portlets While portlets are not add-on products, they are tools that can greatly enhance the impact of your site and worth mentioning. Default Plone provides collection and static portlets that can be added on any page by clicking on the Manage Portlets link on your site. These portlets provide great power and can be styled using CSS. A collection portlet, for example, can be set to display random contents fitting certain criteria—maybe a randomized spotlight content type tagged with a special keyword. This keeps the look and feel of a site fresh and gives some power to the end user. These portlets have the same structure as other portlets, so they will use any default styling that may be applied.

Create web site project and add LinqDataSource control Open Visual Studio 2008 from its shortcut on the desktop. Click File | New | Web Site...(or Shift+Alt+N) to open the New Web Site window. Change the default name of the site to a name of your choice (herein LinqDemo)on your local web server as shown. Make sure you are creating a .NET Framework 3.5 web site as shown here. Drag and drop a LinqDataSource control from Toolbox|Data shown in the next figure on to the Default.aspx This creates an instance of the control LinqDataSource1 as shown. The figure also shows the smart tasks of this control as shown. Create a data context for the LinqDataSource control In order to use this control you also need to create a data context. Right click the localhost web site and choose Add New Item...to open the Add New Item - http://localhost/ LinqDemo window as shown. In the Visual Studio installed templates highlight Linq to SQL Classes. Change the default name from DataClasses.dbml to a name of your choosing. Herein MyDC.dbml. Click Add. This pops-up a Microsoft Visual Studio warning message as shown. The preferred location for this file is in the App_Code folder of your project as suggested here. Click on Yes. This adds a MyDC.dbml file to APP_Code folder as shown. MyDC.dbml consists of two components MyDC.dbml and MyDC.designer.vb to the App_Code folder as shown . Double click the MyDC.dbml node in the APP_Code folder. This opens the ObjectRelational Designer and the designer surface with two panes as shown. Read the instructions in the windows. In the left pane you can drag and drop items from the Server Explorer in Visual Studio to create the appropriate classes and in the right pane you can drag and drop stored procedures. In this article we will be looking at just creating classes from table objects.

Several methods were introduced to reduce the usage of IP addresses in the internet including: Classless Interdomain Routing (CIDR): This introduced the death of classful addressing (for example Class A, B, C) by a new subnetting method which is not limited, unlike the classful method. Network Address Translation (NAT): Using NAT you do not need to use public IP addresses on your internal hosts. Using CIDR subnets and NAT only helped IPv4 to live a few years longer, but was not the ultimate cure to the problem. Besides the addressing issues, there were other problems with IPv4 which could not be easily solved. These issues include the following: The size of internet routing tables was growing rapidly and this forced backbone providers to upgrade their networking gears. The IPv4 was very inefficient for high throughput links and did not support QoS by nature. Back in the early 90s, IETF had started a workgroup to solve the deficiencies of the IP protocol. In 1995, the IETF published the initial drafts of IPv6 as the next generation IP. Since then, the protocol has matured enormously and been implemented in many operating systems. IPv6 Facts If you are not familiar with IPv6, here is a very quick look at the difference between IPv4 and IPv6. (For a more detailed insight into IPv6 and its configuration in various operating systems, it is recommended that you read Running IPv6 book by Iljitsch van Beijnum). Fact One—Addressing Addressing in IPv6 is quite different from legacy IPv4 addresses. IPv6 uses 128-bit address space unlike the 32-bit addressing system in IPv4. A typical IPv6 address would look like—2002:a00:1:5353:20a:95ff:fef5:246e Fact Two—Address Types There are 4 types of addresses in IPv6: Unicast: A typical IPv6 address you use on a host. Multicast: Addresses that start with ff:: are equivalent to IPv4 multicast. Anycast: A typical IPv6 address that is used on a router. Reserved: Includes loopback, link-local, site-local, and so on. Fact Three—ARP There is no ARP! MAC to IP mapping is no longer needed as MAC addresses are embedded into IPv6 addresses. Instead, ND is born. ND is used to auto-configure addresses on hosts, duplicated detection, and so on. Fact Four—Interface Configuration If you are new to IPv6, you will be shocked to see an IPv6 address, telling yourself that you are in trouble assigning addresses to interfaces or remembering the addresses. However, it is not all that hard. In most cases, you can have your host autoconfigure IPv6 address on its interfaces. Typically, you should set this up only on your network gateway (router) manually. Using IPv6 Running FreeBSD 7, the kernel is already IPv6 enabled. However, you should manually enable IPv6 in the UserLand, by adding the following line to the /etc/rc.conf configuration file: ipv6_enable="YES" And manually start the appropriate rc script (or reboot the system) for the changes to take effect: # /etc/rc.d/network_ipv6 start This will enable IPv6 on all interfaces that are IPv6 capable. This behavior is changed by modifying the following variable in the /etc/rc.conf file: ipv6_network_interfaces="fxp0 bge0" This will enable IPv6 support on specified interfaces. The default value for this variable is auto. Once you enable IPv6, interfaces will discover the IPv6 enabled routers on the network and build their own IPv6 addresses based on the network prefix they receive from the router. Configuring Interfaces In a typical scenario, IPv6 network stack will automatically look for an IPv6 enabled router on the same network for each interface and try to automatically configure the IPv6 address on the interface. The following is an example of an automatically configured interface(replace the $ with %): # ifconfig ed0 ed0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500 ether 00:1c:42:8d:5d:bf inet6 fe80::21c:42ff:fe8d:5dbf$ed0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 inet 192.168.0.225 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255 inet6 2a01:3c8::21c:42ff:fe8d:5dbf prefixlen 64 autoconf media: Ethernet autoselect (10baseT/UTP) Beside the IPv4 address, there are two IPv6 addresses on the interface. One address begins with fe80:: and identified with the scopeid 0x1 tag, which is called a link-local address. Another address begins with 2a01:3c8::, which is the unicast address of this interface. The unicast address prefix is obtained from the IPv6 router on the network. The whole address is created using the 64 bits Extended Unique Identifier (EUI-64) algorithm, which consists of the hosts MAC address with some minor modifications. The link-local address (that is from the reserved address pool) always starts with fe80:: and is used for local network usage. This can be compared with RFC1819 private addresses that are suitable for local use. The network stack will automatically assign a link-local address to each IPv6 enabled interface, regardless whether an IPv6 router is discovered on the network. This means that in a scenario of a home network or a lab network, you do not need to run an IPv6 router or have a valid IPv6 prefix in order to establish an IPv6 network. All the hosts will be automatically provisioned with a link-local address, so they can exchange IPv6 traffic. The network discovery protocol (NDP) helps the host find the router on the network and then create a unicast address for the interface. NDP is known as the equivalent to ARP protocol in IPv6. The ndp(8) utility is used to control the behavior of this protocol: # ndp -a Neighbor Linklayer Address Netif Expire S Flags 2a01:3c8:: 0:16:cb:98:d4:bf ed0 20s R R 2a01:3c8::21c:42ff:fe8d:5dbf 0:1c:42:8d:5d:bf ed0 permanent R fe80::216:cbff:fe98:d4bf$ed0 0:16:cb:98:d4:bf ed0 23h58m48s S R fe80::21c:42ff:fe8d:5dbf$ed0 0:1c:42:8d:5d:bf ed0 permanent R fe80::1%lo0 (incomplete) lo0 permanent R The above example shows the discovered IPv6 hosts(replace the $ with %). The ed0 interface is connected to an IPv6 enabled network and receives a valid prefix via a router (the first entry of the list). The second entry is the unicast address of the ed0. The third and the fourth entries are link-local address for the router and our host. And the last entry belongs to the local host. As you have seen so far, there are some special (reserved) IPv6 addresses. The following table shows a list of reserved addresses:   Address Name Description :: Unspecified Equivalent to 0.0.0.0 in Pv4 ::1 Loopback address Equivalent to 127.0.0.1 in IPv4 fe80:: Link-local fec0:: Site-local ff00:: Multicast   In case you want to configure the static IPv6 address on an interface, it can be done as in a typical IPv4 scenario: # ifconfig vr0 inet6 2a01:3c8::21c:42ff:dead:beef prefixlen 64 This will manually configure an IP address on the specified interface. Note the prefixlen keyword that is equivalent to subnet mask in IPv4.

Binding Components Service Engines are pluggable components which connect to the Normalized Message Router (NMR) to perform business logic for clients. Binding components are also standard JSR 208 components that plug in to NMR and provide transport independence to NMR and Service Engines. The role of binding components is to isolate communication protocols from JBI container so that Service Engines are completely decoupled from the communication infrastructure. For example, BPEL Service Engine can receive requests to initiate BPEL process while reading files on the local file system. It can receive these requests from SOAP messages, from a JMS message, or from any of the other binding components installed into JBI container. Binding Component is a JSR 208 component that provides protocol independent transport services to other JBI components. The following figure shows how binding components fit into the JBI Container architecture: In this figure, we can see that the role of BC is to send and receive messages both internally and externally from Normalized Message Router using protocols, specific to the binding component. We can also see that any number of binding components can be installed into the JBI container. This figure shows that like Service Engines (SE), binding components do not communicate directly with other binding components or with Service Engines. All communication between individual binding components and between binding components and Service Engines is performed via sending standard messages through the Normalized Message Router. NetBeans Support for Binding Components The following table lists which binding components are installed into the JBI container with NetBeans 5.5 and NetBeans 6.0:   As is the case with Service Engines, binding components can be managed within the NetBeans IDE. The list of Binding Components installed into the JBI container can be displayed by expanding the Servers | Sun Java System Application Server 9 | JBI | Binding Components node within the Services explorer. The lifecycle of binding components can be managed by right-clicking on a binding component and selecting a lifecycle process—Start, Stop, Shutdown, or Uninstall. The properties of an individual binding component can also be obtained by selecting the Properties menu option from the context menu as shown in the following figure. Now that we've discussed what binding components are, and how they communicate both internally and externally to the Normalized Message Router, let's take a closer look at some of the more common binding components and how they are accessed and managed from within the NetBeans IDE. File Binding Component The file binding component provides a communications mechanism for JBI components to interact with the file system. It can act as both a Provider by checking for new files to process, or as a Consumer by outputting files for other processes or components. The figure above shows the file binding component acting as a Provider of messages. In this scenario, a message has been sent to the JBI container, and picked up by a protocol-specific binding component (for example, a SOAP message has been received). A JBI Process then occurs within the JBI container which may include routing the message between many different binding components and Service Engines depending upon the process. Finally, after the JBI Process has completed, the results of the process are sent to File Binding Component which writes out the result to a file. The figure above shows the file binding component acting as a Consumer of messages. In this situation, the File Binding Component is periodically polling the file system looking for files with a specified filename pattern in a specified directory. When the binding component finds a file that matches its criteria, it reads in the file and starts the JBI Process, which may again cause the input message to be routed between many different binding components and Service Engines. Finally, in this example, the results of the JBI Process are output via a Binding Component. Of course, it is possible that a binding component can act as both a provider and a consumer within the same JBI process. In this case, the file binding component would be initially responsible for reading an input message from the file system. After any JBI processing has occurred, the file binding component would then write out the results of the process to a file. Within the NetBeans Enterprise Pack, the entire set of properties for the file binding component can be edited within the Properties window. The properties for the binding component are displayed when either the input or output messages are selected from the WSDL in a composite application as shown in the following figure.

  Take note that we'll see how these Joomla! 1.5 items differ in use from a Joomla! 1.0 template, so that those of you looking to update a Joomla! 1.0 template to 1.5 can quickly get a handle on what to update in your templates and what new features to add. Consider this article your "cheat sheet". Jdoc include tags The jdoc include tags are new to Joomla! 1.5 templates. Previously in Joomla! 1.0, more complicated, abstract PHP code, originally created for Mambo, was used. The jdoc tags are much cleaner, visually make sense (no more guessing what attribute values like "-3" mean), and, thus, are much easier to remember. Site header information tag This is pretty simple: the tag outputs all the appropriate meta tags and header information that corresponds to your site and each individual page: <jdoc:include type="head" /> Joomla! 1.0 to 1.5 conversion If you're converting a 1.0 template to 1.5, you'll replace this PHP function in your 1.0 template's header with the above jdoc tag: <head>...<?php mosShowHead(); ?>... The component include tag Wherever you place this include, all component content will appear (from articles to poll results to contact forms, and so on): <jdoc:include type="component" /> Joomla! 1.0 to 1.5 conversion The 1.0 equivalent of this tag is the mosMainBody function. You'll replace this PHP function with the above jdoc include: <?php mosMainBody(); ?> Module position tags With module tags, we have a few options to work with. So, we can control what modules load into the area, thus assigning their positions as well as what style to output the module content with: <jdoc:include type="modules" name="position" style="styleName" /> Module position styles In the jdoc include example above, within the style attribute, you can place one of the following six style names to various effect:

Specializing the algorithms for segmentation with classes So far, we have been developing applications that split work into multiple independent jobs and created classes to generalize the algorithms for segmentation. We simplified the creation of segmented and parallelized algorithms, generalizing behaviors to simplify our code and to avoid repeating the same code on every new application. However, we did not do that using inheritance, a very powerful object-oriented capability that simplifies code re-use. C# is an object-oriented programming language that supports inheritance and offers many possibilities to specialize behaviors to simplify our code and to avoid some synchronization problems related to parallel programming. How can we use C# object-oriented capabilities to define specific segmented algorithms prepared for running each piece in an independent thread using ParallelAlgorithm and ParallelAlgorithmPiece as the base classes? The answer is very simple—by using inheritance and the factory method class creational pattern (also known as virtual constructor). Thus, we can advance into creating a complete framework to simplify the algorithm optimization process. Again, we can combine multithreading with object-oriented capabilities to reduce our development time and avoid synchronization problems. Besides, using classes to specialize the process of splitting a linear algorithm into many pieces will make it easier for the developers to focus on generating very independent parts that will work well in a multithreading environment, while avoiding side-effects. Time for action – Preparing the parallel algorithm classes for the factory method You made the necessary changes to the ParallelAlgorithmPiece and the ParallelAlgorithm classes to possibly find planets similar to Mars in the images corresponding to different galaxies. NASA's CIO was impressed with your parallel programming capabilities. Nevertheless, he is an object-oriented guru, and he gave you the advice to apply the factory method pattern to specialize the parallel algorithm classes in each new algorithm. That could make the code simpler, more re-usable, and easier to maintain. He asked you to do so. The NASA scientists would then bring you another huge image processing challenge for your parallel programming capabilities—a sunspot analyzer. If you resolve this problem using the factory method pattern or something like that, he will hire you! However, be careful, because you must avoid some synchronization problems! First, we are going to create a new project with tailored versions of the ParallelAlgorithmPiece and ParallelAlgorithm classes. This way, later, we will be able to inherit from these classes and apply the factory method pattern to specialize in parallel algorithms: Create a new C# Project using the Windows Forms Application template in Visual Studio or Visual C# Express. Use SunspotsAnalyzer as the project's name. Open the code for Program.cs. Replace the line [STAThread] with the following line (before the Main method declaration): [MTAThread] Copy the file that contains the original code of the ParallelAlgorithmPiece and the ParallelAlgorithm classes (ParallelAlgorithm.cs) and include them in the project. Add the abstract keyword before the declarations of theParallelAlgorithmPiece and the ParallelAlgorithm classes, as shown in the following lines (we do not want to create instances directly from these abstract classes): abstract class ParallelAlgorithmPieceabstract class ParallelAlgorithm Change the ThreadMethod method declaration in the ParallelAlgorithmPiece class (add the abstract keyword to force us to override it in subclasses): public abstract void ThreadMethod(object poThreadParameter); Add the following public abstract method to create each parallel algorithm piece in the ParallelAlgorithm class (the key to the factory method pattern): public abstract ParallelAlgorithmPieceCreateParallelAlgorithmPiece(int priThreadNumber); Add the following constructor with a parameter to the ParallelAlgorithmPiece class: public ParallelAlgorithmPiece(int priThreadNumberToAssign){priThreadNumber = priThreadNumberToAssign;} Copy the original code of the ParallelAlgorithmPiece class CreatePieces method and paste it in the ParallelAlgorithm class (we move it to allow creation of parallel algorithm pieces of different subclasses). Replace the lloPieces[i].priBegin and lloPieces[i].priEnd private variables' access with their corresponding public properties access lloPieces[i].piBegin and lloPieces[i].piEnd. Change the new CreatePieces method declaration in the ParallelAlgorithm class (remove the static clause and add the virtual keyword to allow us to override it in subclasses and to access instance variables): public virtual List<ParallelAlgorithmPiece>CreatePieces(long priTotalElements, int priTotalParts) Replace the line lloPieces[i] = new ParallelAlgorithmPiece(); in the CreatePieces method declaration in the ParallelAlgorithm class with the following line of code (now the creation is encapsulated in a method, and also, a great bug is corrected, which we will explain later): lloPieces.Add(CreateParallelAlgorithmPiece(i)); Comment the following line of code in the CreatePieces method in the ParallelAlgorithm class (now the new ParallelAlgorithmPiece constructor assigns the value to piThreadNumber): //lloPieces[i].piThreadNumber = i; Replace the line prloPieces = ParallelAlgorithmPiece. CreatePieces(priTotalElements, priTotalParts); in the CreateThreads method declaration in the ParallelAlgorithm class with the following line of code (now the creation is done in the new CreatePieces method): prloPieces = CreatePieces(priTotalElements, priTotalParts); Change the StartThreadsAsync method declaration in the ParallelAlgorithm class (add the virtual keyword to allow us to override it in subclasses): public virtual void StartThreadsAsync() Change the CollectResults method declaration in the ParallelAlgorithm class (add the abstract keyword to force us to override it in subclasses): public abstract void CollectResults(); What just happened? The code required to create subclasses to implement algorithms, following a variation of the factory method class creational pattern, is now held in the ParallelAlgorithmPiece and ParallelAlgorithm classes. Thus, when we create new classes that will inherit from these two classes, we can easily implement a parallel algorithm. We must just fill in the gaps and override some methods, and we can then focus on the algorithm problems instead of working hard on the splitting techniques. We also solved some bugs related to the previous versions of these classes. Using C# programming language's excellent object-oriented capabilities, we can avoid many problems related to concurrency and simplify the development process using high-performance parallel algorithms. Nevertheless, we must master many object-oriented design patterns to help us in reducing the complexity added by multithreading and concurrency. Defining the class to instantiate One of the main problems that arise when generalizing an algorithm is that the generalized code needed to coordinate the parallel algorithm must create instances of the subclasses that represent the pieces. Using the concepts introduced by the factory method class creational pattern, we solved this problem with great simplicity. We made the necessary changes to the ParallelAlgorithmPiece and ParallelAlgorithm classes to implement a variation of this design pattern. First, we added a constructor to the ParallelAlgorithmPiece class with the thread or piece number as a parameter. The constructor assigns the received value to the priThreadNumber private variable, accessed by the piThreadNumber property: public ParallelAlgorithmPiece(int priThreadNumberToAssign){priThreadNumber = priThreadNumberToAssign;} The subclasses will be able to override this constructor to add any additional initialization code. We had to move the CreatePieces method from the ParallelAlgorithmPiece class to the ParallelAlgorithm class. We did this because each ParallelAlgorithm subclass will know which ParallelAlgorithmPiece subclass to create for each piece representation. Thus, we also made the method virtual, to allow it to be overridden in subclasses. Besides, now it is an instance method and not a static one. There was an intentional bug left in the previous CreatePieces method. As you must master lists and collections management in C# in order to master parallel programming, you should be able to detect and solve this little problem. The method assigned the capacity, but did not add elements to the list. Hence, we must use the add method using the result of the new CreateParallelAlgorithmPiece method. lloPieces.Add(CreateParallelAlgorithmPiece(i)); The creation is now encapsulated in this method, which is virtual, and allows subclasses to override it. The original implementation is shown in the following lines: public virtual ParallelAlgorithmPiece CreateParallelAlgorithmPiece(int priThreadNumber){return (new ParallelAlgorithmPiece(priThreadNumber));} It returns a new ParallelAlgorithmPiece instance, sending the thread or piece number as a parameter. Overriding this method, we can return instances of any subclass of ParallelAlgorithmPiece. Thus, we let the ParallelAlgorithm subclasses decide which class to instantiate. This is the principle of the factory method design pattern. It lets a class defer instantiation to subclasses. Hence, each new implementation of a parallel algorithm will have its new ParallelAlgorithm and ParallelAlgorithmPiece subclasses. We made additional changes needed to keep conceptual integrity with this new approach for the two classes that define the behavior of a parallel algorithm that splits work into pieces using multithreading capabilities.

Maintaining content As you continue to add content to your web site, you will need to ensure that your content is properly moderated, that old content is removed, and that changes to web site content are tracked. Creating content revisions Good Eatin' Goal: Create revisions of content to ensure that you have a complete record of changes to your web site's content. Additional modules needed: None. Basic steps We have simply updated our pages as necessary to add new functionality and content. However, if you have many editors, content that changes frequently, a need to view the history of a page, or need the ability to easily return to an old version of a page, you will want to store multiple revisions of your pages. To do this, carry out the following steps: Edit the content for which you want to create a new revision. Make the changes as needed and, before saving, expand the Revision information section. Select the Create new revision option and enter a message describing the changes that you have made to the node. When you save the content, you will see a new tab called Revisions. Clicking on this tab will show you a list of all of the revisions that have been created for the page. If you would like to return to an older version of the page, you can click the revert link. Or, if you want to remove an older revision, you can click the delete link to get rid of it permanently. You can control which users have access to the revision system by using the Permissions Manager. Drupal allows you to control which users can: view revisions, revert revisions, and delete revisions. If you want to force users to always create new revisions when editing content, edit the content type and then expand the Workflow settings. Change the default options to select the Create new revision option. When editors change content, the Create new revision option will be selected by default, and they will not be able to change the option unless they have the administer nodes permission. If you want to approve all revisions before publication, you can deselect the Published checkbox. Comparing content revisions Good Eatin' Goal: Compare the text of two different revisions of a page. Additional modules needed: Diff (http://drupal.org/project/diff). Basic steps Although the built-in functionality for creating revisions in Drupal works perfectly well, it can be difficult to review the changes that were made in each revision. The Diff module makes comparing revisions very easy. Begin by installing and activating the Diff module. To use the Diff module, simply view the revisions for any page. You will notice that the Revisions list has changed to allow you to select the revisions to be compared. Select the revisions to compare and then click on the Show diff button. Drupal will then display information about the text that has been changed, added, or deleted. Moderate content Good Eatin' Goal: Find questionable or offensive content, and remove it from your site, easily. Additional modules needed: Modr8 (http://drupal.org/project/modr8). Basic steps An unfortunate side effect of having a web site on the Internet is that, at some point, a malicious user will attempt to post inappropriate content on your site. If your site is extremely busy, you may find yourself with a large amount of content to review and approve. The Modr8 module can help you manage the workload and can send emails to users letting them know when their content has been approved or rejected. Begin by installing and activating the Modr8 module. The settings for the Modr8 module can be accessed by selecting Site configuration and then Modr8, from the Administer menu. The basic settings control how often logs are removed. Alternatively, you can choose to keep the logs forever. You can also change the number of items in the moderation queue to be displayed at a time, as well as the default action for the content that requires moderation. You can also configure the email settings for the moderation queue, including the text of the emails, and whether or not emails should be sent to the user who posted the content when their content is approved and/or when their content is rejected. You can also choose to send an email if the moderator does not take action for the item and wants to send a note to the author. If you would like new content to be added to the moderation queue automatically, you can edit the content type and select the In moderation queue setting in the workflow section. To view the moderation queue, select Content management and then Moderated content, from the Administer menu. The moderation queue appears as follows: From this page, you can approve, delete, or defer action on any content that needs moderation. After you make your changes, click Save to complete your selections. You can also display a log of all the moderation actions, by clicking on Reports and then Content moderation log. The moderation log appears as follows: Allowing users to report questionable or offensive content. Good Eatin' Goal: Get feedback from users to learn what they find offensive so the objectionable content can be removed. Additional modules needed: Abuse (http://drupal.org/project/abuse). Basic steps In the last task, we reviewed methods that allowed you to moderate every piece of content that is added to the site. However, this can be a time-intensive task if the proportion of content that you receive that is questionable is low. If this is the case, you can allow your users to help you to moderate the content by using the Abuse module, to let them report items that they find offensive. This strategy has a couple of advantages. Firstly, you are freed from the maintenance of pre-approving all content before it is published. Secondly, it ensures that the content meets community standards, rather than placing you or your editors in charge of defining community standards. The Abuse module also has a Watchlist component that allows you to flag content as suspicious or banned, and automatically move them into a queue for review by an administrator. Begin by downloading and installing the Abuse and Watchlist modules, both of which are included in the Abuse installation. We will begin by editing the Watchlist settings, which can be accessed by selecting Site configuration and then Watchlist settings, from the Administer menu. You can include any words that you want to, in the Watch list and Filtered/banned word list, depending on your target audience and your site's needs; just make sure that you enter one word per line. Items on the Watch list can be viewed while they are in the review queue, and items on the Filtered/banned word list will be hidden until they are reviewed. You can also control which items are automatically added to the Watch list or banned list, based on the Watchlist word settings configured above. You can also force moderation for specific types if they are more prone to abuse. We can now modify the Abuse Moderation settings by selecting Site configuration and then Abuse Moderation settings, from the Administer menu. The first setting controls what content types are subject to abuse reports. The next section of controls how abuse tickets are to be handled by your moderators. If you have multiple moderators for your site, you can select the Abuse Assigned Moderators option. If you use this, you will also need to store the maximum number of items that have been flagged for abuse that are added to the moderator's queue. If moderators live in different time zones, you can set an hour of the day at which all moderation queues are cleared, so that items do not remain in the moderation queue for an overly-long period of time. Finally, you can configure the settings related to all of the items that have been flagged as abusive by a user. The Abuse threshold controls how many complaints must be registered for an item before it is moved into the moderation queue. 3 is a good number to start with, but you may want to increase or decrease the threshold depending on the needs of your site. You can edit the reasons for flagging an item for abuse by selecting Site configuration, then Abuse Moderation settings, and finally Abuse Moderation reasons, from the Administer menu. All available reasons will be listed on the page using a format similar to the example above. You can add new reasons, remove reasons, or change the text for reasons from this page. Before the abuse module is activated, you need to assign permissions to users, so that they can flag content for review. Content that has the abuse module activated will have a new Flag as offensive link added to it, as shown in the following screenshot: When the user clicks on the Flag as offensive link, he or she will be presented with a form where he or she can specify their contact information, and a reason why he or she believes that the content is offensive. Administrators can review content that has been flagged as offensive by clicking on Content management and then Moderate. The administrators can click on the Get More Tickets link to have additional items assigned to them. Once a ticket has been assigned to them, the administrator can view information about the user who submitted the content as well as the user who flagged the content, and choose what action to take for the content. The administrator can either allow the content, or remove the content from the web site. The administrator can also optionally send a warning to the user without further action.