Scott Hanselman

Back to Basics: Assert your assumptions and diff your source code

March 14, 2014 Comment on this post [20] Posted in ASP.NET | Back to Basics
Sponsored By

I've done a whole series of "Back to Basics" posts that I encourage you to check out. Sometimes I'll do a post as a result of a reader emailing me for help and this is one such post.

A person emailed me with an ASP.NET app was behaving differently on his computer vs. another developer's computer.

On his machine when he hit a protected page foo.aspx?returnurl=http://mymachine.domain.com

he would get a FORM element like this:

<form action="foo.aspx?returnurl=http://mymachine.domain.com">

but on everyone else's machines their HTML was:

<form action="foo.aspx">

They debugging and were frustrated and eventually reached out. They said:

1. there's nothing going on in the aspx of login.aspx that would append the querystring.

2. there's nothing going on in the code-behind of the aspx that manipulates Form.Action or messes with the Page.Render in any way.

So, I'm stumped, because the querystring is included on my machine, but not on others. I've tried comparing IIS components, web.config differences, application pool runtime type, machine.config differences, possible differences in Modules for IIS (IISrewrite), but nothing is giving me love. 

I suggested that they assert assumptions and start diffing everything. You can see in the last paragraph that they're comparing stuff but I think you really have to diff everything.

When something "works here but not there" my answer is always, what has changed? What's different? If the answer is "nothing is different" I'm just gonna say it again:

"What's different?"

What are some things we can check?

  • Code
    • Do you know what's on disk?
    • Do you know what ended up in memory? These are different things.
  • Configuration
    • There's local and machine-wide config to check
  • Network Traffic
    • This is often overlooked. The Internet is not a black box, but you'd be surprised how few people hook up a packet sniffer or even just Fiddler to look at HTTP traffic.
    • I've talked to developers who have said "well, that's under SSL so I can't see it." Oh, my friend, if you only knew.

I had them do a sniff and see if there was a difference in HTTP traffic. My assumption was that the HTTP_REFERER HTTP header was different and there was some code that was causing the page to render differently.

We went back and forth over a few days and my reader became frustrated and just added this line in their app's Page_Load:

this.Form.Action = Request.Url.ToString();

Here they are basically reasserting the Form action by pulling it from the URL. It's gross and it's a hack. It's a Band-Aid on Cancer.

They then started looking at the source for ASP.NET proper and then decided to disassemble the code that was running on the other person's machine. They then started to assert their assumptions.

Is the code running what's on disk? For a compiled language, do the binaries reflect the source?

They looked in Temporary ASP.NET files at the compiled ASPX markup pages and found this.

//ExternalSource("D:\WebApplications\Foo\login.aspx",27)
__ctrl.Method = "post";

//ExternalSource("D:\WebApplications\Foo\login.aspx",27)
__ctrl.Action = "login.aspx";

What? Why is someone setting the FORM Action manually? And there's a line number.

They had diff compared all the source code but not the markup/views/html.

Their markup:

<form id="Form1" method="post" runat="server">

Other person's markup:

<form id="Form1" method="post" runat="server" action="Login.aspx">

The other person had hard-coded the action in their source markup. They'd been diffing everything but the markup.

When you are comparing two code-bases, make sure to compare everything or you might just lose a day or two like this person.

Thanks to my reader for sharing this and letting me in on this debugging adventure.

Related Links:


Sponsor: Big thanks to Red Gate for sponsoring the blog feed this week. Check out the Free Starter Edition of their release management tool! Deploy your SQL Server databases, .NET apps and services in a single, repeatable process with Red Gate’s Deployment Manager. Get started now with the free Starter Edition.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

facebook bluesky subscribe
About   Newsletter
Hosting By
Hosted on Linux using .NET in an Azure App Service

Review: A tale of three Lenovo Laptops - X1 Carbon Touch, ThinkPad Yoga, IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro

March 06, 2014 Comment on this post [54] Posted in Reviews
Sponsored By
ThinkPad Yoga, X1 Carbon Touch, and Yoga 2 Pro all together

I'm a big Lenovo fan and have used Thinkpads nearly exclusively since my first T60p. I'm using an first-gen X1 Carbon Touch as my main on the go machine these days. I've also tried using a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro but had a little trouble with its extremely high-dpi display, although the build quality of the hardware is amazing.

I'm also trying out a loaner of a ThinkPad Yoga. What's the difference between the ThinkPad Yoga and the regular Yoga or Yoga 2 Pro? I think of the ThinkPad line, and this Yoga, as a business laptop. It has a TPM which is essential for Bitlocker encryption and VPN/DirectAccess without a Smartcard. Both very similar specs otherwise aside from the Yoga 2 Pro's super-high-res 3200x1800 screen.

Battery life on all these is reasonable, but not truly all-day long epic. You can get 6 hours on any of them, you just need to be thoughtful about what you are doing. Turn down brightness, use power plans smartly, and you're cool.

Frankly, the battery life Haswell brought us hasn't been as life-changing as has been the "RapidCharge" feature on the X1 Carbon Touch. A 30 min layover at an airport can get me almost 80% of my battery back. THAT is a feature that has changed how I work.

Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga

Yoga means the laptop is also a convertible and bends into a tent or a tablet. This is the consumer Yoga. My Mom and my wife both chose and use this model, coincidentally.

  • The ThinkPad Yoga has your choice of processor from a 4th Gen Intel i3 up to a to an i7-4600U at 3.3GHz.
  • You can get the rather low-res touch-enabled 1366x768 screen or the near-deal touch and pen (with a pen you can store in the device!) 1920x1080 screen. Get the 1080p one, I say.
  • This one uses mini-HDMI for its video out.

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro

The Yoga 2 Pro has more options to build out but does top out on the processor side earlier.

  • The Yoga 2 Pro can also clock to up to an i7-4500U at 1.8Ghz.
    • Update: the clock speed for the 4500U is 1.8 and it's Max Turbo Frequency is 3.0.
  • It has a fantastic 13.3" QHD+ 32001800 screen.
  • Micro HDMI video output.
    • This was and remains the one totally unacceptable spec for me. As I present a lot, this connector is useless. It's too small, too weak, too unreliable, and too wonky. It only took three presentations before it broke. I don't blame Lenovo, I blame the connector and its spec. If you aren't going to use video out, don't sweat it at all. But if you are presenting daily, NEVER buy a laptop with micro HDMI. It will let you down.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch

I own and love the first generation X1. I'd really like to get my hands on the new one and its controversial keyboard and compare the two.

The X1 isn't a Yoga and while it does bend to flat and it does have a great touch-screen, it is NOT a tablet.

  • The X1 has goes from 4th Gen Intel i3 up to a to an i7-4600U at 2.1GHz.
    • Update: the clock speed for the 4600U is 2.1 and it's Max Turbo Frequency is 3.3.
  • Mine has a 1600x900 screen but you can now get up to QHD 2560x1440. This isn't as high as the Yoga 2 but when setting Windows at 150% it works nicely. If you have decent eyes you can avoid any high-dpi issues and just run at 100%.
  • The Mini DP Connector is great. I've never had an issue connecting to a projector with this laptop.

Things you need to consider if you travel

We can talk specs all day and you can dig into them if you like. Needless to say, they are fast, they have SSDs and you can get up to 8gig of RAM. Here's some things you may not have thought about when looking at an Ultrabook.

All Lenovo laptops are thin and light

These are all small and all around 3lbs. The Yoga 2 Pro is the sleekest and the most outwardly attractive. The X1 is a close second with its tapered nose. The ThinkPad Yoga is boxy and reliable looking.

  • What kind of Video Output does it have?
    • You won't get full-sized VGA on 90% of Ultrabooks. It'll be either HDMI, Micro-HDMI (a nightmare), or MiniDP (Mini Display Port.) When in doubt, go MiniDP all the way.
  • USB3 vs. USB2
    • Most Ultrabooks have one USB3 connector and one that's USB2. The USB3 one is almost always blue, that's how you can tell. Think about what your requirements are what if you'll need a nice USB adapter. I recommend combination USB3 hubs with included Ethernet. I own one and love it.
  • Will you dock your laptop a lot?
    • If so, consider the new OneLink Pro dock from Lenovo. It's in the ThinkPad line of laptops, so that's the ThinkPad Yoga or the 2nd Gen X1 Carbon Touch. That means one connector gets you power, USB along with 6 (!) ports, 4 of which are USB3. You'll also get DisplayPort up to 2560x1600 and a DVI-I connector.
    • I own the original USB3 dock which uses USB3 and DisplayLink technology to run up to two additional monitors. The video is compressed and you have to plug in both a USB3 connector and the power. It works, and I'm happy with it, but OneLink is a clear improvement.

Keyboards

I have always loved ThinkPad keyboards. The W520 workhorse has the best laptop keyboard ever, to this day, IMHO. The first generation X1 Carbon Touch is a close second.

X1 Carbon Touch Keyboard

The ThinkPad Yoga's keyboard is good, but a few changes like the removal of the insert button from the top row as well as the de-emphasis of the function keys did slow me down for a few days.

The Yoga also changes the TrackPad a little by making in larger, clickier, and removes the physical buttons for folks who like "The Nub" for their mousing. Note that the buttons are still there, they are just integrated into the top of the TrackPad so your muscle memory doesn't need to change.

ThinkPad Yoga Keyboard

The Yoga 2 Pro keyboard keys don't have the subtle concave shape that the ThinkPad line is known for. The keyboard is nearly flat. It also seemed to show hand grease a little more, although clearly a cloth solves that problem quickly. As a fast touch-typist I'm a little slower on this keyboard but it's certainly reasonable and only took me a few days to adapt. I do prefer the X1, though.

Yoga 2 Pro Keyboard

Resolutions

I just love 1080p on a 13.3" screen. It's just large enough that it feels roomy but not so big that it's squinty. This collection of three laptops straddles that ideal, though. My wife doesn't see the difference and works on the 768 or 900 machines with no complaint. My wife has a retina one and doesn't appreciate it (or notice its screen). I prefer 1080 or 1800 if I'm doing multiple window website debugging. At 1800p the pixels just disappear.

1366x768 you can see the pixels

1600x900 is a nice compromise

3200x1800 is insane. No pixels to be seen.

My Wish List for the Ultimate Lenovo Ultrabook

This is simple.

  • Micro-HDMI is a failed connector. The industry needs to accept this and stop using it.
    • There is only full-sized HDMI or ideally, MiniDP.  Mini Display Port, in my experience, always works and works well. Adapters are many and plentiful and I always feel comfortable going to a conference with a MiniDP laptop as I know they can handle it.
  • I want more RAM. Always. Give me a 12 gig Ultrabook, please, Lenovo. That said, these machines have happily run VS, Outlook and two Virtual Machines without complaint.
  • Anything over 1080p at 13"+ is the sweet spot resolution for me. Retina is nice but Windows 8.1 isn't quite there yet on the desktop. Soon I hope.
  • A 256 gig SSD is the ideal size for me. 128 is a little cramped for a developer.
  • #MOARYOGA - The whole Yoga hinge is brilliant.

Give me an X1 Yoga with the fastest i7, 256G SSD, a Mini DP connector, and a screen that is anything over 1080p and we're cool. You can...

Shut up and take my money

Today, I'm happy using the X1 Carbon Touch until I see the new X1. But I really recommend any of these devices if the tech specs and connectors meet your requirements.

Related Links


Sponsor: Big thanks to ComponentOne, a division of GrapeCity, for sponsoring the blog this week. Their widely popular .NET control suite, Studio Enterprise contains hundreds of data and UI controls such as grids, charts and reports that offer the functionality, features and support you need for current and future application development. Download your trial today!

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

facebook bluesky subscribe
About   Newsletter
Hosting By
Hosted on Linux using .NET in an Azure App Service

NuGet Package of the Week: FluentAutomation for automated testing of Web Applications

March 04, 2014 Comment on this post [25] Posted in NuGet | NuGetPOW | Open Source
Sponsored By

FluentAutomation starting a testLast week I was exploring today's varied choices we have for Automated Browser Testing. There's headless WebKit "browsers" like PhantomJS and cloud powered multi-browser testing tools like BrowserStack and SauceLabs.

Selenium is kind of the gold standard and offers not only a lot of "drivers" but also a lot of language bindings with which drive a browser. Sometimes browsers update so fast there can be some version incompatibilities with Selenium, but for the most part it works great once you've settled in.

One option I've been looking at is FluentAutomation. It's a fluent automation API that supports Selenium as well as WatiN along with all their flavors and drivers. Since Fluient supports Selenium, that means you can use the Selenium ChromeDriver, IEDriver, Remote Web Driver or even the headless PhantomJS. FluentAutomation is on GitHub, of course, as well as on NuGet.

FluentAutomation has great (and growing) documentation and has adopted and interesting fluent style for it's API.

Now, not everyone likes a "fluent" API so it may take a while to get used to. Often you'll be doing things over many lines when it's really just one line, for example, this is one line:

I.Open("http://automation.apphb.com/forms")
.Select("Motorcycles").From(".liveExample tr select:eq(0)")
.Select(2).From(".liveExample tr select:eq(1)")
.Enter(6).In(".liveExample td.quantity input:eq(0)")
.Expect
.Text("$197.72").In(".liveExample tr span:eq(1)")
.Value(6).In(".liveExample td.quantity input:eq(0)");

Notice the method chaining as well as the use of CSS selectors.

FluentAutomation also has the cool concept of a PageObject to take your potentially brittle scripts and give them more structure. PageObjects group your actions, expectations, and assertions and let you reuse code when a page appears in multiple tests.

For example you could have a high level test (this is XUnit, but you can use whatever you want):

public class SampleTest : FluentTest {
public SampleTest() {
SeleniumWebDriver.Bootstrap(SeleniumWebDriver.Browser.Chrome);
}

[Fact]
public void SearchForFluentAutomation() {
new BingSearchPage(this)
.Go()
.Search("FluentAutomation")
.FindResultUrl("http://fluent.stirno.com/blog/FluentAutomation-scriptcs/");
}
}

Then you can have separate PageObjects that have your own public methods specific to that page, as well as assertions you can reuse.

public class BingSearchPage : PageObject<BingSearchPage> {
public BingSearchPage(FluentTest test) : base(test) {
Url = "http://bing.com/";
At = () => I.Expect.Exists(SearchInput);
}

public BingSearchResultsPage Search(string searchText) {
I.Enter(searchText).In(SearchInput);
I.Press("{ENTER}");
return this.Switch<BingSearchResultsPage>();
}

private const string SearchInput = "input[title='Enter your search term']";
}

public class BingSearchResultsPage : PageObject<BingSearchResultsPage> {
public BingSearchResultsPage(FluentTest test) : base(test) {
At = () => I.Expect.Exists(SearchResultsContainer);
}

public BingSearchResultsPage FindResultUrl(string url) {
I.Expect.Exists(string.Format(ResultUrlLink, url));
return this;
}

private const string SearchResultsContainer = "#b_results";
private const string ResultUrlLink = "a[href='{0}']";
}

You don't have to be all structure and OO if you don't want. You can just as easily write scripts with FluentAutomation and head in a different direction.

FluentAutomation along with ScriptCS = Automating your Browser with C# Script

I've usually used Python with my Selenium scripts. I like being able to just make a text file and start scripting, then run, debug, continue, all from the command line. It feels simple and lightweight. Creating a DLL and running Unit Tests in C# usually comes later, as I can move faster with a "scripting language."

You can do that with ScriptsCS as it gives you project-less C# that effectively is C# as scripting language. Combine this with FluentAutomation and you've potentially got the best of both worlds.

To install, first you need the Windows apt-get open source equivalent, the oddly-named and -spelled Chocolatey. Then you get ScriptCS and the packages for FluentAutomation.

  • Install Chocolatey - one line installation here
  • Run "cinst ScriptCS" from your command line to use Chocolatey to install ScriptCS
  • Now, get the ScriptCS script packages for FluentAutomation like this:
    • scriptcs -install FluentAutomation.SeleniumWebDriver
    • scriptcs -install ScriptCs.FluentAutomation

Now, as a quick test, create a folder and put a text file called start.csx in it with just these contents:

var Test = Require<F14N>()
.Init<FluentAutomation.SeleniumWebDriver>()
.Bootstrap("Chrome")
.Config(settings => {
// Easy access to FluentAutomation.Settings values
settings.DefaultWaitUntilTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1);
});

Test.Run("Hello Google", I => {
I.Open(http://google.com);
});

Notice how there's no namespace, no classes, no main. It's just a script, except it's using C#. You can change the "Chrome" to "IE" or "Firefox" as well, to play around.

Random: I love this Selenium feature, exposed by FluentAutomation...take screenshot!

// Take Screenshot
I.TakeScreenshot("LoginScreen");

If you don't want ScriptCS, while it can act as a REPL itself, there is also the start of a dedicated FluentAutomation REPL (read–eval–print loop). This is basically a command prompt that lets you explore you app interactively and facilitates building your scripts. You can get the Repl as a Chocolatey package as well and just "cinst FluentAutomation.Repl"

You've got LOTS of choices in the world of automated testing. There's so many choices that there's just no good excuse. Pick a library, pick a language, and start automating your web app today.

Related Links


Sponsor: Big thanks to ComponentOne, a division of GrapeCity, for sponsoring the blog this week. Their widely popular .NET control suite, Studio Enterprise contains hundreds of data and UI controls such as grids, charts and reports that offer the functionality, features and support you need for current and future application development. Download your trial today!

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

facebook bluesky subscribe
About   Newsletter
Hosting By
Hosted on Linux using .NET in an Azure App Service

Hanselman's Newsletter of Wonderful Things: January 21st, 2014

March 04, 2014 Comment on this post [1] Posted in Newsletter
Sponsored By

I have a "whenever I get around to doing it" Newsletter of Wonderful Things. Why a newsletter? I dunno. It seems more personal somehow. Fight me.

You can view all the previous newsletters here. You can sign up here to the Newsletter of Wonderful Things or just wait and get them some weeks later on the blog, which hopefully you have subscribed to. If you're signed up via email, you'll get all the goodness FIRST. I also encourage you to subscribe to my blog. You can also have all my blog posts delivered via email if you like.

Here's the Newsletter from January. Subscribers get the new one first. ;) 


Thanks again for signing up for this experiment. Here's some interesting things I've come upon this week. If you forwarded this (or if it was forwarded to you) a reminder: You can sign up at http://hanselman.com/newsletter and the archive of all previous Newsletters is here.

Remember, you get the newsletter here first. This one will be posted to the blog as an archive in a few weeks.

Scott Hanselman

(BTW, since you *love* email you can subscribe to my blog via email here: http://feeds.hanselman.com/ScottHanselman DO IT!)

P.P.S. You know you can forward this to your friends, right?


Sponsor: Big thanks to ComponentOne, a division of GrapeCity, for sponsoring the blog this week. Their widely popular .NET control suite, Studio Enterprise contains hundreds of data and UI controls such as grids, charts and reports that offer the functionality, features and support you need for current and future application development. Download your trial today!

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

facebook bluesky subscribe
About   Newsletter
Hosting By
Hosted on Linux using .NET in an Azure App Service

When is it stealing?

February 26, 2014 Comment on this post [89] Posted in Musings
Sponsored By

Image by Duncan Hill, used under Creative Commons from http://flic.kr/p/7YkGurAnything you put on the internet is gonna get stolen. It's preferable if it gets shared or linked to but often it gets copied and copied again.

RSS is magical but it makes it even easier to programmatically syndicate (copy) content. Search around and you'll likely find complete copies of your entire blog mirrored in other countries'.

There's so many websites (now "media empires") that have taken aggregation to the extreme, giving it the more palatable name "content curation." Now, to be clear, I respect the work involved in curation. Sites like http://dumbesttweets.com require work and attribute creators. But taking a post, copying unique content, even paraphrasing, and then including a small link just isn't kind. Forget about the legality of it, remembering IANAL, but it's just poor netiquette to not to ask permission before using non-Creative Commons content.

Every week or two I get an email from some large aggregation site that says "We'd love to reprint your post...it'll get you more readers." The few times I've done this they've gotten 50,000 views and I've gotten 300 referral views. Likely because the "originally appeared on Hanselman.com" link a the bottom is in 4 point font.

Sites like ViralNova and BuzzFeed are effectively reblogging and embedding machines powered by linkbait copyrighters. "What happened next will shock you."

Even if you make a piece of software, someone may just wrap/embed your installer with their own installer and build a whole business around it.

Narrating your blog posts

Today It was pointed out to me that a nearly 7 year old (and not very good) blog post of mine had be narrated - effectively turned into a podcast - by a startup called Umano. BTW, it's more than a little ironic that my post wasn't even mine. It's an excerpt - published with permission - of my friend Patrick Cauldwell's larger post.

I've used the Umano developer tools and embedded the narrated version here.

First, let me just say that this is essentially a great idea. It's the opposite of transcribing a podcast. It's creating podcasts from existing content using professional narrators, not just text to speech. This could be great for not just the visually impaired but also for anyone who wants to catch up on blogs while commuting.

UPDATE! Umano has narrated THIS blog post! Have a listen! http://umano.me/c/AExmo

Where did the Content come from?

Here's a screenshot of the post on Umano's site. You can see my name "Hanselman" is there, but it's not a link. The headline is a link, but you'd never know until you hovered over it. There's really no easy way to tell where, when, and how this content came about. I think that Umano could easily redesign this site to put the content owner front and center.

image

Podcasts and audio snippets from blog posts? Great idea, except I wrote the script for this podcast. If I wrote the script and they did the narration, then this must be a partnership, right?

However, if we look at Umano's own Terms of Use:

SoThree claims no ownership or control over any of the content you post to the Service ("Your User Content"). You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all copyright, patent, and trademark rights to any of the content you post on or through the Service. You are responsible for protecting those rights.

Ok, they don't own the content.

By posting Your User Content on or through the Service, you grant SoThree a universal, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt, distribute and publish such content through the Service and for the purpose of promoting SoThree and its services.

I'm pretty sure I haven't granted them a universal license to my content as I didn't submit this link. On their home page they say that "you tell us what articles should be voiced." The community submits links, sometimes to content they are a fan of, but don't own, then Umano narrates it.

You may not aggregate, copy, or duplicate any SoThree Content.

Wait, but I can't copy their content? Their content that was generated from my content.

Does this mean I can get a book from the library and narrate it? Turn it into a podcast?

I am told by Umano's twitter account that I'm the first person to object to their content being copied without permission.

I certainly don't think Umano is are malicious. Umano is perhaps naive, if they think can narrate blogs without someone speaking up. That said, their narrators are top notch and their site and app are both attractive and usable. Frankly, I'd be happy if they narrated my whole blog (or at least the good stuff and not the lousy decade-old stuff) and made a podcast feed of my blog like their competitor Castify. But I'd like Umano to do it with me.

Sites like this should ask creators first and their business model should be based on partnerships with content creators, not assumptions. Stitcher has the right idea. I've submitted my content to them and entered into a partnership. They didn't just suck my podcasts in and make a radio station.

Even a single email from Umano like "hey, we would love to narrate your blog, click here and sign this little form" would have be sufficient. 

Narrate first, ask questions later? Michael Dunbar nails it with this tweet:

This is an easily solved problem, and it's not just a problem with Umano. This applies to all businesses and startups that rely on content created by others. I think it's important to honor attribution. This isn't about money or even copyright, although those things do apply. Rather, this is about netiquette. When you're building a business model, build it around partnerships and transparency, not assumptions around fair use and copyright. Aask first.

What are your thoughts, Dear Reader?

(If they narrate this one, I'll update the post and complete the circle. ;) )

Related Links

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

facebook bluesky subscribe
About   Newsletter
Hosting By
Hosted on Linux using .NET in an Azure App Service

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.