Fixing Firefox Flash Video Sound problem on Ubuntu Dapper

I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux as my main OS at home. After upgrading to Ubuntu Dapper recently, Firefox refuses to play flash video sound from time to time. After some googling I found two methods to solve this problem.

Method 1

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libesd.so.0 /usr/lib/libesd.so.1sudo mkdir -p /tmp/.esd/sudo touch /tmp/.esd/socket 

Method 2

sudo aptitude install alsa-osssudo gedit /etc/firefox/firefoxrc

FIREFOX_DSP=”aoss”

TechWorks:Software-Engineering

• Operating-Systems
• Linux

Using CruiseControl.NET with MSBuild

Introduction

Originated from Extreme programming, the concept of Continuous Integration has been gradually adopted to other traditional software development methodologies. I think it will bring tremendous value to our .NET based projects so I decided to set up the environment and give it a try.

CruiseControl.NET is one of the most commonly used Continuous Integration tools on the .NET platform. It works well with NAnt to build Visual Studio 2003 based projects, but as of NAnt 0.85-rc 4 there is no support for task for Visual Studio 2005 projects. As a result, NAnt can only compile Visual Studio 2005 solution on a per project basis. By default, unlike VS 2003, Visual Studio 2005 uses a new file structure based Web project, which doesn’t have a project file. This imposes even more problems for NAnt to work with VS 2005 solutions.

Setting up CruiseControl.NET and NAnt to work with Visual Studio 2003 projects is relatively easy, so I will try to set up CruiseControl.NET to work with Visual Studio 2005 projects here. Since Visual Studio 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0, Microsoft introduced a new extensible, XML-based build engine named MSBuild. In fact, the solution files and project files in VS 2005 are all written in MSBuild format. So instead of using NAnt with CruiseControl.NET, we are able to leverage MSBuild for compiling VS 2005 based solutions.

Prepare to install

First make sure the project compiles with MSBuild, by checking out a fresh copy and navigate to the project root directory then issue “msbuild MyProject.sln”

Install CruiseControl.NET

Installing CruiseControl.NET is easy. Simple grab the installer from CruiseControl.NET at Thoughtworks. I also downloaded and installed CCTray. CCTray is used to view and control the build process from client side, it can be installed locally on the build server as well as remotely.

The approach

In this approach, I use CruiseControl.NET to run NAnt scripts which in turn use MSBuild for compiling the Visual Studio 2005 solution. MSBuild is more capable then just compiling, but I am more familiar with NAnt so it’s easier for me to setup NAnt the way I wanted. Basically I use NAnt script to clean up directory, get source code, and call MSBuild executable to compile. I am sure CruiseControl.NET can employ MSBuild directly and MSBuild is able to do things like cleaning up the directory and getting the source code. But I won’t get to that until I actually have time to learn MSBuild.

Files that will be edited/created are as follows:

• NAnt.exe.config – NAnt config file (located in the NAnt bin directory)

• ccnet.config – CruiseControl.NET config file (located in the CruiseControl.NET installation directory)

• cruise.build – NAnt build script (new file created in “C:\ProjectBuild\CruiseControl.NET\server\MyProject\WorkingDirectory”)

Configure CruiseControl.NET
Add settings to ccnet.config file, add project section as follows

    MyProject    http://localhost/ccnet/default.aspx?_action_ViewProjectReport=true&server=local&project=MyProject

       $/MyProjectRoot/MyProject

       MyUserName

       MyPassword

       \\server\vss

        C:\ProjectBuild\nant-0.85-rc3\bin\nant.exe        C:\ProjectBuild\CruiseControl.NET\server\MyProject\WorkingDirectory        cruise.build

          run

         1200

As aforementioned the configuration didn’t use MSBuild directly, rather it relies on NAnt to define the build tasks.

Configure NAnt

NAnt config file
MSBuild does not come with a XML Logger by default, so I need to use an external logger to get this functionality. I download the dll from here. And then I move the ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MsBuild.dll file to “C:\ProjectBuild\CruiseControl.NET\Tools”.

Add MSBuild property to properties section
NAnt.exe.config

 

    value="C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\MSBuild.exe" overwrite="false" />

    value="ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MsBuild.XmlLogger" overwrite="false" />

    value="C:\ProjectBuild\CruiseControl.NET\Tools\ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.MsBuild.dll" overwrite="false" />

NAnt build file
Finally, this is my NAnt build file
cruise.build

            password="MyPassword"

            localpath="Source"

            recursive="true"

            replace="true"

            writable="false"

            dbpath="\\server\vss\srcsafe.ini"

            path="$/MyProjectRoot/MyProject"/>

References

• Using CruiseControl.NET with MSBuild
• MsBuild Task

Sharepoint 2007 comes with Blogs, Wikis and RSS

The up-coming Sharepoint 2007 will come with features found in most Portal/Content Management sites. Check out the video on Channel9 Sharepoint 2007 — Blogs, Wikis, RSS

TechWorks:Software-Engineering

• Microsoft

Reading the Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns book

I am half way through reading the Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns book written by Jimmy Nilsson.I have always wondered how do domain-driven design, test-driven development and O/R mapper play together. Eric Evans’s Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software got me started on Domain-driven development. The book talked a lot about the different theories behind domain-driven development and the importance of ubiquitous language but it lacked concrete example. As a newbie to domain-driven development, I was very much in need for some concrete examples.

The Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns book serves as an excellent complement to Eric’s book. I like author’s pragmatic style. The author understands the nature of software very well so he doesn’t try to establish a “standard” way of solving a problem but rather providing several solutions with their pros and cons enumerated. Therefore, I will be able to choose the best solution that fits the problem. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t come with any source code and the NWorkspace framework mentioned by the author is no where found on the Internet.

TechWorks:Software-Engineering

• Readings
• Domain-Driven-Development