Eric Jarvi

Password Complexity

ejarvi — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:46:00 GMT

Alan Myrvold has a new post on the Office 2010 engineering blog covering password complexity and related functionality in Office:

http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2009/10/16/enabling-password-rules-for-office-2010.aspx

Data Driven Engineering

ejarvi — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:24:00 GMT

Test Patterns

ejarvi — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:24:00 GMT

Encouraging to see more thought and effort being put into software test patterns. Alan Page recently posted on this topic over at the MS Press Blog.

Iterative XML Tree Traversal

ejarvi — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:12:00 GMT

Here's a C# code snippet for iterative tree traversal of elements in an XML document using XPathNavigator that takes advantage of parent pointers.

[ download source ]

test.xml

    1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
    2 <test>
    3  <a/>
    4  <b/>
    5  <c>
    6   <c1/>
    7   <c2>
    8    <c2i/>
    9    <c2ii/>
   10   </c2>
   11  </c>
   12 </test>

test.cs

    1 using System;
    2 using System.Xml.XPath;
    3 
    4 public class IterativeTraversal
    5 {
    6 
    7     public static void Main()
    8     {
    9 
   10         XPathDocument doc = new XPathDocument("test.xml");
   11         XPathNavigator nav = doc.CreateNavigator();
   12         nav.MoveToFollowing(XPathNodeType.Element); /* skip xml decl */
   13         XPathNavigator startPosition = nav.Clone();
   14 
   15         bool leaf = false;
   16         bool searching = false;
   17 
   18         do
   19         {
   20             leaf = true;
   21             if (nav.HasChildren)
   22             {
   23                 nav.MoveToFirstChild();
   24                 if (nav.NodeType == XPathNodeType.Element)
   25                 {
   26                     leaf = false;
   27                     nav.MoveToParent();
   28 
   29                     /* begin processing interior node */                   
   30                     Console.WriteLine(nav.Name);
   31                     /* end processing interior node */ 
   32 
   33                     nav.MoveToFirstChild();
   34                 }
   35                 else
   36                 {
   37                     /* parent was a leaf element, this child was not*/
   38                     nav.MoveToParent();
   39                 }
   40             }
   41 
   42             if (leaf)
   43             {
   44                 /* begin processing leaf node */
   45                 Console.WriteLine(nav.Name);
   46                 /* end processing leaf node */
   47 
   48                 if (!nav.MoveToNext(XPathNodeType.Element))
   49                 {
   50                     do
   51                     {
   52                         searching = false;
   53                         nav.MoveToParent();
   54                         if ((!nav.IsSamePosition(startPosition)) &&
   55                              (!nav.NodeType.Equals(XPathNodeType.Root)))
   56                         {
   57                             if (!nav.MoveToNext(XPathNodeType.Element))
   58                             {
   59                                 /* no next sibling, search for parent's next sibling */
   60                                 searching = true;
   61                             }
   62                         }
   63                     } while (searching && !nav.IsSamePosition(startPosition) && !nav.NodeType.Equals(XPathNodeType.Root));
   64                 }
   65             }
   66         } while (!nav.IsSamePosition(startPosition) && !nav.NodeType.Equals(XPathNodeType.Root));
   67 
   68     }
   69 }

Risk Management

ejarvi — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:38:00 GMT

My first article on the topic of security testing and risk management is now published in the March 2009 issue of Testing Experience magazine, pages 28-30.

http://www.testingexperience.com/subscribe.php
(free online subscription takes you to PDF download)

Office Security Team

ejarvi — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 22:13:00 GMT

The Office security team typically targets memory-corruption bugs in the software like buffer overruns, integer overruns, and format strings...

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=159305

Binary File Formats

ejarvi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:11:00 GMT

"posting nearly 5,000 pages of new technical documentation for the Microsoft Office binary file formats for Word, Excel and PowerPoint"

Press release:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jun08/06-30InteropUpdatePR.mspx

Technical specs:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=122062

Traction

ejarvi — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:56:00 GMT

Some ideas on how to "get traction" as a software tester (especially at Microsoft):

http://blogs.msdn.com/dustin_andrews/archive/2007/12/15/learn-to-get-traction-in-your-team.aspx

VSTS Web Access Power Tool

ejarvi — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 04:16:00 GMT

Now with linkable web pages!

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2007/11/30/vsts-web-access-power-tool-for-team-system-2008-released.aspx

Security & Perf Videos

ejarvi — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:32:00 GMT

J.D. Meier has posted a decent index of videos covering performance testing, ASP.NET 2.0, and VSTS:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier/archive/2007/11/22/videos-security-performance-testing-and-visual-studio-team-system.aspx

Information Assurance

ejarvi — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 06:47:00 GMT

The Unintended Consequences of the Information Age Lecture Series: Our Infrastructures: Online and Vulnerable?

Jointly sponsored by The Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, UW-INSER, the MS Program in Strategic Planning for Critical Infrastucture, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Information School, this series provides a compelling case for increased research in cybersecurity as related to critical infrastructure.

Part 1 will air on UWTV at the following times:

Monday October 29 at 6pm
Wed Oct 31 at 11pm
Thurs November 1 at 10:30am and 7pm
Friday Nov 2 at 4pm
Sunday Nov 4 at 3pm

Future airdates will be posted later on the UWTV website:
http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx?rID=20354&fID=2095

Silverlight on Linux

ejarvi — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 00:41:00 GMT

Something I will definitely be keeping my eyes on. Stuff like this tells me we've come a LONG way since the 1990's ...

"After a great deal of work between the Moonlight and .NET teams, we’re ready to formally announce that we (Microsoft and Novell) will be bringing Silverlight to Linux, fully supported and including application and media codec compatibility."

http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/09/05/silverlight-on-linux.aspx

Team System Web Access Power Tool

ejarvi — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:03:00 GMT

Details on Brian Harry's blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2007/07/30/team-system-web-access-power-tool-available.aspx

Dynamic [Language Runtime | Type System]

ejarvi — Tue, 01 May 2007 00:31:00 GMT

Port 25 is running video on what they're calling "dynamic language runtime" with some innovative type system implementations at the core.

"big trick is deferred compilation ... looks a lot like linq expression trees ... backend can decide on different optimizations ... we can take the code and specialize it for the different types ... "

[1/2] http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/04/30/python-java-ruby-oh-my-cross-platform-net-framework.aspx
[2/2] http://port25.technet.com/archive/2007/04/30/ironruby.aspx

driving data driven unit tests with text files

ejarvi — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I was looking for a simple way to do data driven unit tests on VS 2005 using a plain text file with one entry per line as the data source. I waded through documentation and forum posts using every search trick I know to find a solution. Nothing jumped out at me, so here's what I pieced together:

1) Add a reference to System.Data in your unit test assembly.

2) Add the text file to the solution (eg, data.txt) then Right Click->Properties->set Copy to Output Directory = "Copy always" or "Copy if newer" -- in this example the text file consists of 10 lines of the word “hi” each on its own line. This is in honor of a 10 year old I know who says “hi hi hi hi hi” whenever things get too boring. Change one of the values to “bye” instead of “hi” and the unit test will fail.

3) Plop this code into your unit test assembly:

private TestContext m_testContext;

public TestContext TestContext

{

get { return m_testContext; }

set { m_testContext = value; }

}

[TestMethod]

[DeploymentItem("data.txt")]

[DataSource("System.Data.OleDb", "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=.;Extended Properties='text;FMT=Delimited'", "data.txt", DataAccessMethod.Sequential)]

public void SayHi()

{

//replace next line with a call to your code under test

if (("hi" != (string)TestContext.DataRow[0] ))

{

Assert.Fail("value = " + (string)TestContext.DataRow[0]);

}

Once the unit test has finished executing you can double click on the result and it will present you with an itemized breakdown of the results in a tabular format. The failure message will be included, so the more meaningful, the better.

In full disclosure, after all was said and done, I didn’t actually use this for the problem I was trying to solve. One drawback to this approach for me was the granularity of the reporting during runtime, since you don’t get the breakdown report or status summary until after the entire unit test is completed. With over 6,000 test values to feed into an already slow test function, it would have taken over 20 hours to run just one unit test. In this particular case I actually put together a code generator to turn it into 6000+ individual TestMethods and using partial classes it compiles right into the test assembly without a lot of hassle.

Patterns & Practices Security Videos

ejarvi — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:53:00 GMT

"Click Here"

http://blogs.msdn.com/jmeier/archive/2007/03/24/patterns-practices-security-videos.aspx

EWeek: "Microsoft Plays to All Developers"

ejarvi — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 01:03:00 GMT

Here's an article that catches a glimpse into what makes us tick over here:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2106952,00.asp

"We want to focus on how software development might change over the next 10 years," Kass said. "And as corny as this sounds, I think [VSTS] is a way for us to change the world. I bought into it, and I really believe this is the one company that can do it."

My title for this article (with no character limits imposed) would have probably been "Microsoft Plays to all Developers, Testers, Architects, Managers, DBA's, etc..." since for me that's what VSTS is really all about - being a customizable set of tools that bring together all the key stakeholders on the enterprise software development team in a standard way.

Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset

ejarvi — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 04:06:00 GMT

In today's diagnostics news... Just got email announcing the Winternals RTM of version 5.0 of the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset available to client SA customers via the "Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack" --- http://www.windowsvista.com/optimizeddesktop

Debugging ASP.NET AJAX

ejarvi — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:27:00 GMT

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to debug AJAX from the comfort of the IDE? Gonzo stuff like setting a breakpoint inside of some script that'll get hit client-side?

We're getting there, and could use feedback. Noah has a great post on this with screenshots - check it out:

http://blogs.msdn.com/noahc/archive/2007/03/01/script-debugging-improvements-in-orcas.aspx

Visual Studio 2005 Profiler Documentation

ejarvi — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 03:56:00 GMT

If you're looking for MSDN documentation on the Visual Studio 2005 Profiler, here's the main starting point:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/z9z62c29(VS.80).aspx

I just realized this page doesn't actually have the word "profiler" anywhere on it, making it really hard to find for people searching on the "profiler" keyword.

PS: This is not entirely an attempt to manipulate weak minded search bots. I've actually had real people ask me this!

TFS Power Tools Video

ejarvi — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:46:00 GMT

"Ed Hintz, development lead on the Team Foundation Server team, gave us a demo of the newly released Team Foundation Server Power Tools v1.2 . Ed demonstrates a new tool for monitoring the status and uptime of Team Foundation Server as well as a new Process Template Editor for visually customizing work item forms, workflow, and more."

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=285202

Fixing "Service Unavailable" After TFS Installation

ejarvi — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:57:00 GMT

Just in case anyone else out there hits this issue. A friend called me yesterday asking for help troubleshooting a TFS installation problem. After installing TFS and "doing everything right" he still got 503 Service Unavailable messages. I logged in and this repro'd in the TFC client and straight browser. http://localhost/reports worked but nothing else did.

Reviewing the system event log showed the problem to be that the two new accounts created for TFS were having trouble logging in at startup. In the user account manager I discovered that both were set to require a new password at first login. Since these were system accounts that had been initialized with a secure password, unchecking that box (and restarting for convenience sake) fixed the problem.

There are undoubtedly countless other causes of 503 Service Unavailable. But if you're running low on troubleshooting ideas try checking the system event log for clues. Hope that helps!

SourceSafe on Vista

ejarvi — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 23:44:00 GMT

If you're a SourceSafe on Vista type of person, here's some current information from Richard Berg to be aware of --

Part 1:
http://blogs.msdn.com/richardb/archive/2007/01/23/clarifying-sourcesafe-support-on-vista.aspx

Part 2:
http://blogs.msdn.com/richardb/archive/2007/01/26/sourcesafe-on-vista-part-2.aspx

Congrats to Team Test!

ejarvi — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:38:00 GMT

Congratulations to Team Test for their award in the December issue of STP Magazine - having worked closely with that team from the start I know how many long hours and intense meetings they put in to get this product out the door!

Command Arguments Lost and Reset (VC and Perforce)

ejarvi — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 21:11:00 GMT

I just got this email followup on newsgroup post from years ago related to command arguments getting lost and reset in VC with perforce. May be of use to someone in the future, so posting here... (name removed for privacy)

Question (from user):

Basically, every time I get my vcproj file out of source control (Perforce), my "local" settings are stomped. You seem to imply below that the settings are "stored local", but you do not imply that they should therefore continually be reset by changes other users make. In fact, it should be impossible for other users to disrupt my settings. Is this what you meant? Has this bug been fixed?"

Answer (from same user, 2 years later):

"We now know what causes this, and it's not fixed in 2003. I have no information on whether it's fixed in 2005.

If you do a sync of a vcproj from perforce, and you have this vcproj loaded in .NET, a dialog box will pop in .NET. If and only if you say "Reload", your user-specific settings will be lost. Saying "Ignore" and manually reloading the project works fine."

If the same user does the check in, the command arguments are fine.

It happens (100%) when another user checks in our Game.vcproj file. I did a dif before and after, and the only line that was changed, was: PreprocessorDefinitions="..."

Thx for your feedback !

Initial Newsgroup Post:

> > Subject: Command Arguments getting lost/reset (VS.NET)

> > Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 14:24:40 -0400

> >

> > Whenever a project is checked in by a different user, the Command Arguments

> > (Project Properties,Debugging) gets resets to empty. I'm seeing this

> > bug in VS.NET, but never had it in VC6. Is there a work around? Or am I

> > doing something wrong?

> >

> > Cheers

> Are you saying that this setting is getting obliterated on the same user

> machine each time a checkin happens, or does it just not persist across all

> users?

> Visual Studio .NET now stores these settings on a per-user basis, which

> means each user is going to have to set them up individually. :( I talked

> with someone in this area yesterday and he said basically that this is a

> known issue, they are aware it is a major pain, and that they have some

> ideas on how to improve the situation for the next version.

> However if this is something where the setting is not persisting even on

> the same user's machine we might need to investigate further...

> --

> Eric Jarvi, Microsoft Visual C++ Team

> <http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/ejarvi/>

> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no

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