C#, SQL, Episerver/Optimizely, performance, and beyond
Anker MagGo Power Bank, Qi2 Certified 15W MagSafe Compatible Portable Charger, 10.000mAh Battery Pack
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Soundcore by Anker Q20i Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling Headphones Wireless Over-Ear
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Regina Chamomile Paper 3-Ply Toilet Paper | 56 Roll Packs
Reduced to kr250.63
Reduced to kr131
Fjällräven Greenland Winter Jacket, size S
Normally 3999kr, reduced to kr2,363.89
Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro
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Kenwood Titanium Chef Baker Silver KVC85.004SI, Kitchen Assistant Food Processor, Integrated Scale, 3 Hook and Beaters for Mixing Stainless Steel and Rubber Beater, Bowls of 5L and 3.5L, 1200W, Silver
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Fluke Fluke 117 Multimeter, 600 V, Black, Yellow
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https://amzn.to/3ZVMC40
8Bitdo Ultimate C Bluetooth Controller for Switch with 6-axis Motion Control and Rumble Vibration (Pink)
Reduced to kr249.00, and a further 15% if buy 10 qualifying items with Prime membership
https://amzn.to/3BRKi69
Anker Prime Charger, 200W 6-Port GaN Charging Station
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Philips Airfryer Combi 7000 Series XXL – 8.3L (2kg), 22-in-1 airfryer (HD9876/90)
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Anker 335 67W Charger
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LEGO 10311 Icons Orkidé
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PlayStation VR2
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AUDIO TECHNICA AudioT AT2035 Condenser Microphone
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Fjällräven Women’s Expedition Parka No.1 W Jacket
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Philips Connected AC4236/10 Air Purifier
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Levi’s herr Jeans 501 Original Fit
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LG 32GS60QC-B – Ultragear monitor, 32″ QHD, 2560 x 1440, VA panel, 16:9, HDMI, 1 ms, 180Hz, FreeSync
Reduced to kr2,458.00
Fjallraven Expedition Long Down Parka W Jacket for Women
Reduced to kr4,546.31
PC GAMING Aqua PC Gamer – NVIDIA RTX 4060 8G – Watercooling 240mm white – Aqua View XT Case – B760-WIFI – Corsair Vengeance SL 2X8GB DDR4 3600 WH – SSD 1TB PCI 4.0 – Windows 11 Pro
Reduced to kr8,635.64
Merrell Herr Moab 3 GTX vandringssko
Reduced to kr773.00
PlayStation VR2
Reduced to kr4,697.07
Verbatim 43888 External Slimline Blu-Ray Burner
One of my last purchase in 2024 turned out to be one of the best. I wanted to rip my bluray collection for a while, for convenience, but has always been put off by selecting the right drive. I have no space for an internal drive, and not every drive can rip 4K bluray – you will need to flash firmware. Turned out there is one that just works out of the box. Pop out the drive, plug it in, and start ripping. Simple as that.
It is fairly quiet most of the time (depending on the disc), and it just works. Speed is a bit slow given size of the 4K bluray, and it is a slim, external drive, but I can’t really complain
https://amzn.to/4iH4oAn at around 1200kr (1300kr with 100kr coupon at check out at the time of writing)
OXO Good Grips Kitchen & Herb Scissors
This is my favorite kitchen scissors. Victorinox one is good also, but this feels more sturdy when holding. And boys it just cut through every thing – for example if you need to cut down a chicken. It does not shy to cut through bone. And it’s stainless steel so you can just throw it to the dish washing machine. It can be quickly dissembled and assembled in seconds. Nothing to complain about, just a terrific kitchen scissors
https://amzn.to/4fnpKjG at around 250kr
The runner is Victorinox one
https://amzn.to/4fFiNL3 at around 220kr
Nordic Ware 44671AMZ Prism Large and Half Sheet Set, Aluminum
The absolute best baking sheets by Nordic Ware, in thick aluminum, made in the USA. If you are a fan of baking cookies, they are a must. Sadly at this point of writing they are out of stock, but they were available for around 250kr for a long time. Make sure to snatch one when it’s available again, a steal at that price – one piece is more than that (250kr) in other stores, and here you get two
OXO Good Grips Y Peeler
There are many good peelers out there and my best performance on price would be from Victorinox – it can peel carrots like there is no tomorrow. and it’s that good. Sadly it is no longer available from Amazon themselves and you have to buy from 3rd party seller which means additional shipping fees.
https://amzn.to/3ZLz4bg at around kr54.30
I also have an OXO peeler which I bought a few years ago but did not use it that much, but a friend of mine visited recently and insist that I buy for her this (she is of course paying). It is a great peeler anyway and some might prefer it to the Victorinox one as the handle is more comfortable. I bought one for my friend and she is more than happy with it. Maybe you will, too.
https://amzn.to/3BNYI75 at around 125kr.
Neutrogena Concentrated unscented hand cream (50 ml)
In many positive things about Sweden, I suffer from the cold, dry winter, and my hands suffer the most. My collection of hand moisturizers could somewhat be comparable to my wife’s skincare collection. I had anything from O’Keefee’s to Cerave to Eucerin, they helped a little but nothing really solved my problem. Enter Neutrogena hand cream. Really a life saver. Wish I knew it 9 years ago.
https://amzn.to/4glZh7e at around 38kr
Fjallraven 87177-244 Vidda PRO Pants M Sports Pants Men’s Suede Brown Size 48/L
Easily 2000kr on other shops
Dreame L40 Ultra Robot Vacuum Cleaner with Removable and Liftable Mop, Extendable and Liftable Side Brush, 11000Pa Suction Power, 65°C Mop and Washboard Self-Cleaning, Automatic Draining, Automatic
Reduced to kr9,770.29
Yes Max Power Dishwasher Liquid Pomegranate 650ml, Easy and smooth cleaning, even for your dirtiest pots and pots
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Dreame Z10 Station with auto empty station
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Philips SONICARE W2 Optimal White Standard Sonic Toothbrush Heads in Original Design – Pack of 8 Units in White
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ECCO Men’s Track 25 Mid GtxClassic Boots
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Waterpik Ultra Professional Water Flosser, Mouth Shower With 7 Nozzles And Advanced Control Of Water Pressure With 10 Settings, Tool For Removing Plaque, White (WP-660EU)
reduced to kr599 (reduced 100kr at check out)
Apple iPad Pro 11 tum (M4): Ultra Retina XDR-skärm, 512 GB, skärmkamera på långsidan med 12 MP/kamera på baksidan med 12 MP, wifi 6E + 5G, batteri som räcker hela dagen, Standardglas – silver
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Philips Sonicare Original W2 Optimal White HX6066/10
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Several UGREEN USB C Hub reduced to Black Friday prices
Thermos Bottle + Tea/FRUIT Filter Infuser, Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottle, BPA Free | Drink Bottle + Tea Infuser / Fruit Insert, 450ml To-Go Thermo Cup Thermo Flask: Office Sports School
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Philips Hx9611/19 Sonicare Expertclean 7300 Elektrisk Tandborste, Vit, Paket med 2
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Merrell Moab 3 GTX men trekking shoes
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LEGO Technic Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut Grey Hyper Car, Construction Set for Boys and Girls, Toy Car for Kids, Buildable Model Set, Gift Idea for Motor Enthusiasts 42173
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Produkt: Apple MacBook Air 15.3″ (2024) – M3 OC 10C GPU 16GB RAM 512GB SSD
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TIMEMORE Coffee Scale Basic 2.0 Espresso Scale
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Technics EAH-AZ80E-K Wireless Headphones with Noise Cancellation, Multipoint Bluetooth 3 Devices, Comfortable In-Ear Headphones, Wireless Charging, Black
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Eneloop Pro BK-3HCDE/4BE Batteries AA
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ESI U22 XT | Professional 24-bit USB Sound Card
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Leschi HEAT CUSHION for Neck and Shoulders/for Microwave and Oven/Wheat Grain Pillow for Babies, Kids and Adults/Heating Animals: Noah the Fox, Red Grey Black.
Reduced from 299 SEK to 199 SEK
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Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance (Xbox Series X)
.NET developers have been in the transition to move from synchronous APIs to asynchronous API. That was boosted a lot by await/async keyword of C# 5.0, but we are now in a dangerous middle ground: there are as many synchronous APIs as there are async ones. The mix of them requires the ability to call async APIs from a synchronous context, and vice versa. Calling synchronous APIs from an async context is simple – you can fire up a task and let it does the work. Calling async APIs from a sync context is much more complicated. And that is where AsyncHelper comes to the play.
AsyncHelper is a common thing used to run async code in a synchronous context. It is simple helper class with two methods to run async APIs
public static TResult RunSync<TResult>(Func<Task<TResult>> func)
{
var cultureUi = CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture;
var culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
return _myTaskFactory.StartNew(() =>
{
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = culture;
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = cultureUi;
return func();
}).Unwrap().GetAwaiter().GetResult();
}
public static void RunSync(Func<Task> func)
{
var cultureUi = CultureInfo.CurrentUICulture;
var culture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;
_myTaskFactory.StartNew(() =>
{
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = culture;
Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = cultureUi;
return func();
}).Unwrap().GetAwaiter().GetResult();
}There are slight variants of it, with and without setting the CurrentCulture and CurrentUICulture, but the main part is still spawning a new Task to run the async task, then blocks and gets the result using Unwrap().GetAwaiter().GetResult();
One of the reason it was so popular was people think it was written by Microsoft so it must be safe to use, but it is actually not true: the class is introduced as an internal class by AspNetIdentity AspNetIdentity/src/Microsoft.AspNet.Identity.Core/AsyncHelper.cs at main · aspnet/AspNetIdentity (github.com) .That means Microsoft teams can use it when they think it’s the right choice to do, it’s not the default recommendation to run async tasks in a synchronous context.
Unfortunately I’ve seen a fair share of threads stuck in AsyncHelper.RunSync stacktrace, likely have fallen victims of a deadlock situation.
756A477F9790 75ABD117CF16 [HelperMethodFrame_1OBJ] (System.Threading.Monitor.ObjWait)
756A477F98C0 75AB62F11BF9 System.Threading.ManualResetEventSlim.Wait(Int32, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
756A477F9970 75AB671E0529 System.Threading.Tasks.Task.SpinThenBlockingWait(Int32, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
756A477F99D0 75AB671E0060 System.Threading.Tasks.Task.InternalWaitCore(Int32, System.Threading.CancellationToken)
756A477F9A40 75AB676068B8 System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(System.Threading.Tasks.Task, System.Threading.Tasks.ConfigureAwaitOptions)
756A477F9A60 75AB661E4FE7 System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter`1[[System.__Canon, System.Private.CoreLib]].GetResult()An further explanation of why this is bad can be read here
c# – Is Task.Result the same as .GetAwaiter.GetResult()? – Stack Overflow
Async/sync is a complex topic and even experienced developers make mistake. There is no simple way to just run async code in a sync context. AsyncHelper is absolutely not. It is simple, convenient way, but does not guarantee to be correct thing in your use case. I see it as a shortcut to solve some problems but create bigger ones down the path.
Just because you can. doesn’t mean you should. That applies to AsyncHelper perfectly
Recently I helped to chase down a ghost (and you might be surprised to know that I, for most part, spend hours to be a ghostbuster, it could be fun, sometimes). A customer reported a weird issue when a visitor goes to their website, have every thing correct in the cart, including the discount, only to have the discount disappeared when they check out. That would be a fairly easy task to debug and fix if not for the problem is random in nature. It might happen once in a while, but on average, daily. It could not be reproduced locally, or reproduced consistently on production, so all fix is based on guess work.
After a lot of dry code reading and then log reading, it turned out that it seems the problem with missing discount was problem with the missing cache. Once in a while, the cache that contains the promotion list is returned empty, resulting that no discount is applied to the order.
But why?
After a few guesses, it eventually came to me that the problem is with the caching using Dictionary, more specifically, campaigns are loaded and cached using a Dictionary, using IMarket as a key. It would be fine and highly efficient and well, if not for the fact that the default implementation of IMarket is not suitable to be a Dictionary key. It does not implement IComparable<T> and IEquatable<T> which means, for the only case that two IMarket instances to be equal, is that they are the same instances. Otherwise even if their properties all equal in value, they will not be equal.
This is a short program that demonstrates the problem. You can expect it write “False” to the output console.
public class Program
{
private static Dictionary<AClass, int> dict = new Dictionary<AClass, int>();
public static void Main()
{
dict.Add(new AClass("abc", 1), 1);
dict.Add(new AClass("xyz", 2), 2);
Console.WriteLine(dict.ContainsKey(new AClass("abc", 1)));
}
}
public class AClass
{
public AClass(string a, int b)
{
AString = a;
AnInt = b;
}
public string AString { get; set; }
public int AnInt { get; set; }
}The question arises is that if the key is not matched and an empty list of campaigns returns, why this only happens sometimes. The answer is the IMarket instances themselves are cached, by default in 5 minutes. So for the problem to occur, a cache for campaigns must be loaded in memory, just before the cache for IMarket instances to be expired (then new instances are created). Once the new IMarket instances are loaded, then the campaigns cache must be accessed again before itself expires (default to 30 seconds). The timing needs to be “right” which causes this problem elusive and hard to find from normal testing – both automated and manual.
Time to some blaming and finger pointing. When I fix something I usually try to check the history of the code to understand the reason behind the original idea and intention. Was there a reason or just an overlook. And most importantly
Who wrote such code?
Me, about 7 months ago.
Uh oh.
The fix was simple enough. Instead of IMarket, we can change the key to MarketId which implements both IEquatable<T> and IComparer<T>. So it does not matter if you have two different instances of MarketId, as long as they have the same value, they will be equal.
A workaround was sent to the customer to test and after a week or so they reported back the problem is gone. The official fix is in Commerce 14.31 which was released yesterday https://nuget.optimizely.com/package/?id=EPiServer.Commerce.Core&v=14.31.0 , so you’re, always, highly recommended to upgrade.
Lessons learned:
IEquatable<T> and IComparable<T> , properly I might ask. In general, a struct is a better choice than a class, if you can.