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• SQL SERVER – Tell me What You Want to Listen – My 2 TechED 2011 Sessions

  - by pinaldave

  I am going to present two sessions at TechEd India on March 25th, 2011. I would like to know what do you want me to cover in this session. Watch the video taken by my wife when I was preparing for the session. Sessions Date: March 25, 2011 Understanding SQL Server Behavioral Pattern – SQL Server Extended Events Date and Time: March 25, 2011 12:00 PM to 01:00 PM SQL Server Waits and Queues – Your Gateway to Perf. Troubleshooting Date and Time: March 25, 2011 04:15 PM to 05:15 PM I promise following for both of my sessions: I will share the scripts demonstrated in the session right at the end of the sessions The sessions will be 300-400 level but I promise to make the concept very simple Less slides and lots of meaningful Demos Session close to real life cases and scenarios Surprise gifts to best participants I promise to answer all the questions either in session or right after the hall after the session Lots of Technical Education and FUN! Please leave your comments with your expectation and if you are going to attend the session do let me know here. We will for sure meet at the event and do some interesting talk. You can read the abstract of the session over here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• Need help in determing what, if any, tools can be used to create a free Flash game

  - by ReaperOscuro

  Yes I proudly -and sadly- declare that I am a complete nincompoop when it comes to Flash, and I have been fishing around the big wide web for information. The reason for this is that I have been contracted to create a game(s) for a website -the usual flash-based games caveat. Please I do not mean things like by those gaming generator websites, I mean small yet professional games- but the caveat, as always, is that impossible dream: it needs to be done all for free. The budget...well imagine it as not there. Annoyingly is that I am a game designer yes, but with a ridiculously tight deadline I haven't got much time to re-learn (ah the heady days of programming at uni) everything by the end of March, so I'd like to ask some people who know their stuff rather than keep looking at a gazillion different things. This is my understanding: with the flash sdk you can create a game, albeit you need to be pretty programming savvy. FlashDevelop helps there -yet I am not entirely sure how. Yet even FD says to use Flash for the animation/graphics. Yes its undeniably powerful but as I said there is the unattainable demand of no money. The million dollar question: what, if any, tools can I use to create a free flash game?

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• Need help deciding if Joomla! experience as a good metric for hiring a particular prospective employee.

  - by Stephen

  My company has been looking to hire a PHP developer. Some of the requirements for the job include: an understanding of design patterns, particularly MVC. some knowledge of PHP 5.3's new features. experience working with a PHP framework (it doesn't matter which one). I interviewed a man today who's primary work experience involved working with Joomla!. As an employee, he will be required to work on existing and new web applications that use Zend Framework, CakePHP and/or CodeIgniter. It is my opinion that we shouldn't dismiss hiring a developer just because he has not used the same technologies that he'll be using on the job. So, I'd like to know about the kind of coding experience working with Joomla! can provide. I've never bothered to take more than a brief look (if that) at the Joomla! package, so I'm hoping to lean on the knowledge of my peers. Would you consider Joomla! to contain a professional code-base? Is the package well organized, and/or OO in general, or is it more like WordPress where logic and presentation are commingled? When working with Joomla!, is the developer encouraged to use best practices? In your opinion, would experience working with Joomla! garner the skills needed to get up to speed with Zend or CakePHP quickly, or will there be a steep learning curve ahead of the developer? I'm not saying that Joomla! is a bad technology, or even that it is lower on the totem pole when compared to the frameworks I've mentioned. Maybe it's awesome, I dunno. I simply have no idea!

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• SQL Azure: Notes on Building a Shard Technology

  - by Herve Roggero

  In Chapter 10 of the book on SQL Azure (http://www.apress.com/book/view/9781430229612) I am co-authoring, I am digging deeper in what it takes to write a Shard. It's actually a pretty cool exercise, and I wanted to share some thoughts on how I am designing the technology. A Shard is a technology that spreads the load of database requests over multiple databases, as transparently as possible. The type of shard I am building is called a Vertical Partition Shard  (VPS). A VPS is a mechanism by which the data is stored in one or more databases behind the scenes, but your code has no idea at design time which data is in which database. It's like having a mini cloud for records instead of services. Imagine you have three SQL Azure databases that have the same schema (DB1, DB2 and DB3), you would like to issue a SELECT * FROM Users on all three databases, concatenate the results into a single resultset, and order by last name. Imagine you want to ensure your code doesn't need to change if you add a new database to the shard (DB4). Now imagine that you want to make sure all three databases are queried at the same time, in a multi-threaded manner so your code doesn't have to wait for three database calls sequentially. Then, imagine you would like to obtain a breadcrumb (in the form of a new, virtual column) that gives you a hint as to which database a record came from, so that you could update it if needed. Now imagine all that is done through the standard SqlClient library... and you have the Shard I am currently building. Here are some lessons learned and techniques I am using with this shard: Parellel Processing: Querying databases in parallel is not too hard using the Task Parallel Library; all you need is to lock your resources when needed Deleting/Updating Data: That's not too bad either as long as you have a breadcrumb. However it becomes more difficult if you need to update a single record and you don't know in which database it is. Inserting Data: I am using a round-robin approach in which each new insert request is directed to the next database in the shard. Not sure how to deal with Bulk Loads just yet... Shard Databases:  I use a static collection of SqlConnection objects which needs to be loaded once; from there on all the Shard commands use this collection Extension Methods: In order to make it look like the Shard commands are part of the SqlClient class I use extension methods. For example I added ExecuteShardQuery and ExecuteShardNonQuery methods to SqlClient. Exceptions: Capturing exceptions in a multi-threaded code is interesting... but I kept it simple for now. I am using the ConcurrentQueue to store my exceptions. Database GUID: Every database in the shard is given a GUID, which is calculated based on the connection string's values. DataTable. The Shard methods return a DataTable object which can be bound to objects.  I will be sharing the code soon as an open-source project in CodePlex. Please stay tuned on twitter to know when it will be available (@hroggero). Or check www.bluesyntax.net for updates on the shard. Thanks!

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• Should I give the answer to a failed interview coding exercise?

  - by GlenH7

  We had a senior level interview candidate fail a nuance of the FizzBuzz question*. I mean, really, utterly, completely, failed the question - not even close. I even coached him through to thinking about using a loop and that 3 and 5 were really worth considering as special cases. He blew it. Just for QA purposes, I gave the same exact question to three teammates; gave them 5 minutes; and then came back to collect their pseudo-code. All of them nailed it and hadn't seen the question before. Two asked what the trick was... On a different logic exercise, the candidate showed some understanding of some of the features available within the language he chose to use (C#). So it's not as if he had never written a line of code. But his logic still stunk. My question is whether or not I should have given him the answer to the logic questions. He knew he blew them, and acknowledged it later in the interview. On the other hand, he never asked for the answer or what I was expecting to see. I know coding exercises can be used to set candidates up for failure (again, see second link from above). And I really tried to help him home in on answering the core of the question. But this was a senior level candidate and Fizz-Buzz is, frankly, ridiculously easy even with accounting for interview jitters. I felt like I should have shown him a way of solving the problem so that he could at least learn from the experience. But again, he didn't ask. What's the right way to handle that situation? *Okay, that's not the link to the actual FizzBuzz question, but it is a good P.SE discussion around FizzBuzz and links to the various aspects of it.

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• How does flocking algorithm work?

  - by Chan

  I read and understand the basic of flocking algorithm. Basically, we need to have 3 behaviors: 1. Cohesion 2. Separation 3. Alignment From my understanding, it's like a state machine. Every time we do an update (then draw), we check all the constraints on both three behaviors. And each behavior returns a Vector3 which is the "correct" orientation that an object should transform to. So my initial idea was /// <summary> /// Objects stick together /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> private Vector3 Cohesion() { Vector3 result = new Vector3(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); return result; } /// <summary> /// Object align /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> private Vector3 Align() { Vector3 result = new Vector3(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); return result; } /// <summary> /// Object separates from each others /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> private Vector3 Separate() { Vector3 result = new Vector3(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); return result; } Then I search online for pseudocode but many of them involve velocity and acceleration plus other stuffs. This part confused me. In my game, all objects move at constant speed, and they have one leader. So can anyone share me an idea how to start on implement this flocking algorithm? Also, did I understand it correctly? (I'm using XNA 4.0)

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• Kent .Net/SqlServer User Group – Upcoming events

  - by Dave Ballantyne

  At the Kent user group we have two upcoming events.  Both are to be held at F-Keys Training suite http://f-keys.co.uk/ in Rochester, Kent. If you haven’t attended before please note the location here. 14-June Is your code S.O.L.I.D ? Nathan Gloyn Everybody keeps on about SOLID principles but what are they? and why should you care? This session is an introduction to SOLID and I'll aim to walk through each principle telling you about that principle and then show how a code base can be refactored using the principles to make your life easier, Come the end of the session you should have a basic understanding of the principle, why to use it and how using it can improve your code. Building composite applications with OpenRasta 3 Sebastien Lambla A wave of change is coming to Web development on .NET. Packaging technologies are bringing dependency management to .NET for the first time, streamlining development workflow and creating new possibilities for deployment and administration. The sky's the limit, and in this session we'll explore how open frameworks can help us leverage composition for the web. Register here for this event http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1643797643 05-July Tony Rogerson Achieving a throughput of 1.5Terabytes or over 92,000 8Kbyte of 100% random reads per second on kit costing less that 2.5K, and of course what to do with it! The session will focus on commodity kit and how it can be used within business to provide massive performance benefits at little cost. End to End Report Creation and Management using SQL Server Reporting Services  Chris Testa-O'NeillThis session will walk through the authoring, management and delivery of reports with a focus on the new features of Reporting Services 2008 R2. At the end of this session you will understand how to create a report in the new report designer. Be aware of the Report management options available and the delivery mechanisms that can be used to deliver reports. Register here for this event http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1643805667 Hope to see you at one or other ( or even both if you are that way inclined).

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• KERPOOOOW!

  - by Matt Christian

  Recently I discovered the colorful world of comic books.  In the past I've read comics a few times but never really got into them.  When I wanted to start a collection I decided either video games or comics yet stayed away from comics because I am less familiar with them. In any case, I stopped by my local comic shop and picked up a few comics and a few trade paperbacks.  After reading them and understanding their basic flow I began to enjoy not only the stories but the art styles hiding behind those little white bubbles of text (well, they're USUALLY white).  My first stop at the comic store I ended up with: - Nemesis #1 (cover A) - Shuddertown #1 (cover A I think) - Daredevil: King of Hell's Kitchen Trade Paperback - Peter Parker: Spiderman - One Small Break Trade Paperback It took me about 3-4 days to read all of that including re-reading the single issues and glancing over the beginning of Daredevil again.  After a week of looking around online I knew a little more about the comics I wanted to pick up and the kind of art style I enjoyed.  While Peter Parker: Spiderman was ok, I really enjoyed the detailed, realistic look of Daredevil and Shuddertown. Now, a few years back I picked up the game The Darkness for PS3.  I knew it was based off a comic but never read the comic.  I decided I'd pick up a few issues of it and ended up with: - The Darkness #80 (cover A) - The Darkness #81 (cover A) - The Darkness #82 (cover A) - The Darkness #83 (cover A) - The Darkness Shadows and Flame #1  (one-shot; cover A) - The Darkness Origins: Volume 1 Trade Paperback (contains The Darkness #1-6) - New Age boards and bags for storing my comics The Darkness is relatively good though jumping from issue #6 to issue #80 I lost a bit on who the enemy in the current series is.  I think out of all of them, issue #83 was my favorite of them. I'm signed up at the local shop to continue getting Nemesis, The Darkness, and Shuddertown, and I'll probably pick up a few different ones this weekend...

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• Does it matter the direction of a Huffman's tree child node?

  - by Omega

  So, I'm on my quest about creating a Java implementation of Huffman's algorithm for compressing/decompressing files (as you might know, ever since Why create a Huffman tree per character instead of a Node?) for a school assignment. I now have a better understanding of how is this thing supposed to work. Wikipedia has a great-looking algorithm here that seemed to make my life way easier. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffman_coding: Create a leaf node for each symbol and add it to the priority queue. While there is more than one node in the queue: Remove the two nodes of highest priority (lowest probability) from the queue Create a new internal node with these two nodes as children and with probability equal to the sum of the two nodes' probabilities. Add the new node to the queue. The remaining node is the root node and the tree is complete. It looks simple and great. However, it left me wondering: when I "merge" two nodes (make them children of a new internal node), does it even matter what direction (left or right) will each node be afterwards? I still don't fully understand Huffman coding, and I'm not very sure if there is a criteria used to tell whether a node should go to the right or to the left. I assumed that, perhaps the highest-frequency node would go to the right, but I've seen some Huffman trees in the web that don't seem to follow such criteria. For instance, Wikipedia's example image http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Huffman_tree_2.svg/625px-Huffman_tree_2.svg.png seems to put the highest ones to the right. But other images like this one http://thalia.spec.gmu.edu/~pparis/classes/notes_101/img25.gif has them all to the left. However, they're never mixed up in the same image (some to the right and others to the left). So, does it matter? Why?

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• Unit test SHA256 wrapper queries

  - by Sam Leach

  I am just beginning to write unit tests. So please bear with me. I have the following SHA256 wrapper. public static string SHA256(string plainText) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); SHA256CryptoServiceProvider provider = new SHA256CryptoServiceProvider(); var hashedBytes = provider.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(plainText)); for (int i = 0; i < hashedBytes.Length; i++) { sb.Append(hashedBytes[i].ToString("x2").ToLower()); } return sb.ToString(); } Do I want to be testing it? If so, what do you recommend? My thought process is as follows: What logic is there here. The answer is my for loop and ToString("x2") so from my understanding I want to be testing this part? I can assume Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(plainText) works. Correct assumption? I can assume SHA256CryptoServiceProvider.ComputeHash() works. Correct assumption? I want to be only testing my logic. In this case is limited to the printing of hex encoded hash. Correct? Thanks.

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• SQL Rally Pre-Con: Data Warehouse Modeling – Making the Right Choices

  - by Davide Mauri

  As you may have already learned from my old post or Adam’s or Kalen’s posts, there will be two SQL Rally in North Europe. In the Stockholm SQL Rally, with my friend Thomas Kejser, I’ll be delivering a pre-con on Data Warehouse Modeling: Data warehouses play a central role in any BI solution. It's the back end upon which everything in years to come will be created. For this reason, it must be rock solid and yet flexible at the same time. To develop such a data warehouse, you must have a clear idea of its architecture, a thorough understanding of the concepts of Measures and Dimensions, and a proven engineered way to build it so that quality and stability can go hand-in-hand with cost reduction and scalability. In this workshop, Thomas Kejser and Davide Mauri will share all the information they learned since they started working with data warehouses, giving you the guidance and tips you need to start your BI project in the best way possible?avoiding errors, making implementation effective and efficient, paving the way for a winning Agile approach, and helping you define how your team should work so that your BI solution will stand the test of time. You'll learn: Data warehouse architecture and justification Agile methodology Dimensional modeling, including Kimball vs. Inmon, SCD1/SCD2/SCD3, Junk and Degenerate Dimensions, and Huge Dimensions Best practices, naming conventions, and lessons learned Loading the data warehouse, including loading Dimensions, loading Facts (Full Load, Incremental Load, Partitioned Load) Data warehouses and Big Data (Hadoop) Unit testing Tracking historical changes and managing large sizes With all the Self-Service BI hype, Data Warehouse is become more and more central every day, since if everyone will be able to analyze data using self-service tools, it’s better for him/her to rely on correct, uniform and coherent data. Already 50 people registered from the workshop and seats are limited so don’t miss this unique opportunity to attend to this workshop that is really a unique combination of years and years of experience! http://www.sqlpass.org/sqlrally/2013/nordic/Agenda/PreconferenceSeminars.aspx See you there!

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• Speaking at SPTechCon Boston 2012

  - by Brian Jackett

  I will be speaking at SPTechCon Boston 2012.  This will be my 3rd time speaking at SPTechCon and 4th time attending.  The conference has steadily been growing over the past few years and is one of the biggest non-Microsoft run conferences for SharePoint in the US.  I’ll be presenting two topics which I have given before but this time around with some updated content.  Registration is currently open and you can save $200 (on top of the current early bird discount of $400) by using the code "JACKETT” during registration.  I highly recommend joining for valuable learning and networking.   Where: SPTechCon Boston 2012 Title: PowerShell for the SharePoint 2010 Developer Audience and Level: Developer, Intermediate Abstract: PowerShell is not just for SharePoint 2010 administrators. Developers also get access to a wide range of functionality with PowerShell. In this session we will dive into using PowerShell with the .Net framework, web services, and native SharePoint commandlets. We will also cover some of the more intermediate to advanced techniques available within PowerShell that will improve your work efficiency. Not only will you learn how to automate your work but also learn ways to prototype solutions faster. This session is targeted to developers and assumes a basic familiarity with PowerShell. Slides and Code download: coming soon   Title: Integrating Line-of-Business Applications with SharePoint 2010 Audience and Level: Developer, Intermediate Abstract: One of the biggest value-adding enhancements in SharePoint 2010 is the Business Connectivity Services (BCS). In this session, we will overview the BCS, demonstrate connecting line-of-business applications and external systems to SharePoint through external content types, and walk through surfacing that data with external lists. This session is targeted at developers. No prior experience with the BCS is required, but a basic understanding of SharePoint Designer 2010 and SharePoint solutions is suggested. Slides and Code download: coming soon         -Frog Out

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• TotalPhase Aardvark driver's GPL license

  - by Philip

  I'm using an SPI host adapter for a project. The Aardvark from TotalPhase. And I did something crazy, I read that EULA license that everyone just clicks through. The driver installation license includes these bits: This driver installer package also includes a WIN32 driver that is entirely based on the libusb-win32 project (release 0.1.10.1). ... LICENSE: The software in this package is distributed under the following licenses: Driver: GNU General Public License (GPL) Library, Test Files: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) Now, my understanding of of the GPL is that it's sticky and viral. If you include software then the whole project has to be released under the GPL (if you distribute it, you can do whatever you want with in-house projects). If the driver was like the library, and was licensed under the LGPL, it could be used by my closed source proprietary project, as long as it's source and license was passed along with it. But it's not, it's pure GPL. If I include this driver in my project and distribute it, am I required to release my project under the GPL?

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• New Study Guide: "Oracle Solaris 11 System Administration"

  - by Harold Green

  A new helpful resource for Solaris 11 exam preparation has just been released. "Oracle Solaris 11 System Administration" by author and educator Bill Calkins covers effective installation and administration of an Oracle Solaris 11 system. In addition to being a valuable, comprehensive study guide, the book also serves as a complete reference guide for the everyday tasks of an Oracle Solaris System Administrator. This book can be a valuable addition to your preparation for the Oracle Solaris 11 Advanced System Administration (1Z1-822) certification exam. This exam, combined with the Oracle Certified Associate, Oracle Solaris 11 System Administrator (OCA) certification and a training requirement will earn you the Oracle Certified Professional, Oracle Solaris 11 System Administrator (OCP) certification. This valuable credential is designed for Oracle Solaris System Administrators with a strong foundation in the Oracle Solaris 11 Operating System as well as a fundamental understanding of the UNIX operating system, commands and utilities. This certification covers topics on core elements such as: configuring network interfaces, managing swap configurations, crash dumps, and core files. The 822 exam is currently in beta at the greatly discounted rate of $50 USD, but the beta period will soon be closing (likely the end of this month/June 2013), so be take advantage of the opportunity to be one of the first to hold this new certification.  Bill Calkins also recently posted some tips for taking Oracle Solaris 11 certification exams.

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• Does concurrency inherently introduce "randomness" into a game?

  - by Jeff

  When a game is implemented with concurrency (as most games are), does this necessarily, by its very nature, introduce an element of randomness into the game that is outside of the players' control? Note that when I use the word "random", I'm not meaning to launch into a philosophical debate about the deterministic nature of the system. I understand that concurrency is deterministic in the sense that the operating system decides which processes to allow time on the CPU and in what order (or the JVM controls which Thread's turn it is to execute, etc). But my understanding of this is that there is no way to control or predict whether one thread's next command will execute before or after another. The reason I'm asking is because this seems like a fundamental difficulty for game development where a game is supposedly designed around a player's skill. Consider a game like League of Legends. Assume that two players are battling it out. It's a very close contest between the two and it's coming down to the wire -- so much so that whoever gets their last attack off will be the one to kill the other and win the game for their team. If the players are implemented using concurrency and the situation really was like this, is it essentially out of the players' hands at this point? Is the outcome of this match all up to whatever system is arbitrarily deciding which player's thread/process will execute next? If not, what am I misunderstanding about concurrency? If so, is there any way around this problem so that a game of skill can always be a game of skill, especially in those most crucial moments?

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• DAO/Webservice Consumption in Web Application

  - by Gavin

  I am currently working on converting a "legacy" web-based (Coldfusion) application from single data source (MSSQL database) to multi-tier OOP. In my current system there is a read/write database with all the usual stuff and additional "read-only" databases that are exported daily/hourly from an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system by SSIS jobs with business product/item and manufacturing/SCM planning data. The reason I have the opportunity and need to convert to multi-tier OOP is a newer more modern ERP system is being implemented business wide that will be a complete replacement. This newer ERP system offers several interfaces for third party applications like mine, from direct SQL access to either a dotNet web-service or a SOAP-like web-service. I have found several suitable frameworks I would be happy to use (Coldspring, FW/1) but I am not sure what design patterns apply to my data access object/component and how to manage the connection/session tokens, with this background, my question has the following three parts: Firstly I have concerns with moving from the relative safety of a SSIS job that protects me from downtime and speed of the ERP system to directly connecting with one of the web services which I note seem significantly slower than I expected (simple/small requests often take up to a whole second). Are there any design patterns I can investigate/use to cache/protect my data tier? It is my understanding data access objects (the component that connects directly with the web services and convert them into the data types I can then work with in my Domain Objects) should be singletons (and will act as an Adapter/Facade), am I correct? As part of the data access object I have to setup a connection by username/password (I could set up multiple users and/or connect multiple times with this) which responds with a session token that needs to be provided on every subsequent request. Do I do this once and share it across the whole application, do I setup a new "connection" for every user of my application and keep the token in their session scope (might quickly hit licensing limits), do I set the "connection" up per page request, or is there a design pattern I am missing that can manage multiple "connections" where a requests/access uses the first free "connection"? It is worth noting if the ERP system dies I will need to reset/invalidate all the connections and start from scratch, and depending on which web-service I use might need manually close the "connection/session"

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• Beyond S&OP: Integrated Business Planning

  - by Paul Homchick

  In most corporations, planning is done at the department level — leaving disconnects and gaps across different departments. Finance sets revenue and profit goals with minimum validation from Manufacturing that the company has the resources, material, capacity, or demand to reach these goals. On the operations side, Manufacturing is developing plans to balance demand and supply but seldom knows if the resulting "plan" will meet the budgets on which the company's revenue and profit goals are based. The Sales department agrees to quotas that meet Finance's revenue goals without a complete understanding of what manufacturing can deliver. Integrated Business Planning (IBP) bridges these gaps in corporate planning systems. Integrated Business Planning integrates the financial planning provided by EPM systems with operations planning provided by Sales and Operations Planning solutions. This means that revenue goals and budgets are validated against a bottom-up operating plan, and that the operating plan is reconciled against financial goals. When detailed changes are made to the operations plan, planners can immediately see the big picture impact of the changes. IBP also addresses one the CFO's big concerns—the reliability of the revenue forecast. Operating plans are updated daily or weekly from a precise forecast based on current market conditions. These updated plans are then made available so that financial analysts are working with data that best represents what is going to happen - not what they projected would happen based on last quarter's data. For a discussion in more depth, see my article: Improve Reliability of Financial Forecasts with Integrated Business Planning in Supply & Demand Chain-Executive Magazine.

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• Beyond S&OP: Integrated Business Planning

  - by Paul Homchick

  In most corporations, planning is done at the department level — leaving disconnects and gaps across different departments. Finance sets revenue and profit goals with minimum validation from Manufacturing that the company has the resources, material, capacity, or demand to reach these goals. On the operations side, Manufacturing is developing plans to balance demand and supply but seldom knows if the resulting "plan" will meet the budgets on which the company's revenue and profit goals are based. The Sales department agrees to quotas that meet Finance's revenue goals without a complete understanding of what manufacturing can deliver. Integrated Business Planning (IBP) bridges these gaps in corporate planning systems. Integrated Business Planning integrates the financial planning provided by EPM systems with operations planning provided by Sales and Operations Planning solutions. This means that revenue goals and budgets are validated against a bottom-up operating plan, and that the operating plan is reconciled against financial goals. When detailed changes are made to the operations plan, planners can immediately see the big picture impact of the changes. IBP also addresses one the CFO's big concerns—the reliability of the revenue forecast. Operating plans are updated daily or weekly from a precise forecast based on current market conditions. These updated plans are then made available so that financial analysts are working with data that best represents what is going to happen - not what they projected would happen based on last quarter's data. For a discussion in more depth, see my article: Improve Reliability of Financial Forecasts with Integrated Business Planning in Supply & Demand Chain-Executive Magazine.

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• general questions about link spam

  - by hen3ry

  Hello, A CMS-based site I manage is suffering from a small but ominously growing number of almost certainly bot-emplaced, invisible spam links placed in registered-user-only shoutboxes and user forums. "Link Spam", yes? Until recently, I've kept my eyes on narrow tech issues, and I'm having trouble understanding what's going on. I understand that we need to tighten up our registration procedures, but more generally... Do I understand correctly that our primary interest in combatting link spam on our site is that major search engines reduce or zero the search visibility of sites that contain link spam? Although we're non-commercial, we don't want to be at the bottom of the rankings, or eliminated altogether. Are the linked-to sites the direct beneficiaries of the spam links, or is there some kind of indirection? What is the likely relationship between the link-spammers and the owners of the (directly or indirectly) linked-to sites? Are the owners of the linked-to sites paying the link-spammers for higher visibility? Are the owners aware that this method is being used? It is my impression that major search engines are capable these days of detecting that given sites are being promoted by link spam, and that these sites may consequently be reduced in search rank or dropped altogether. Do these sanctions occur frequently? Is there any potential value in sending notifications to the owners of the linked-to sites that their visibility is at risk? TIA, hen3ry

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• Unit Tests as a learning tool - a good idea?

  - by Ekkehard.Horner

  I'm interested in ways and means for learning (a) programming language(s) efficiently. I believe that using Unit Test concepts and infrastructure early in that process is a good thing, even better than starting with "Hello world". Why: To write a decent program even for a toy/restricted problem in a new language, you'll have to master many heterogenous concepts (control flow & variables & IO ...), you are tempted to glance over details just to get your program 'to work'. Putting (your understanding of) the facts about the new language in assertions with good descriptions (=success messages) enforces thinking thru/clearness/precision. Grouping topics and adding assertions to such groups is much easier than incorporation features from the 2. chapter of your "Learning X" book to your chapter 1 program. Why not: 'Real' Unit Tests are meant to output "1234 tests ok; 1 failure: saveWorld() chokes on negative input"; 'didactic' Unit Tests should output relevant facts about the new language like perl6 10-string.t # ### p5chop ... ok 13 - p5chop( "cbä" ) returns "ä" ok 14 - after that, victim is changed to "cb" # ### (p6) chop ... ok 27 - (p6) chop( "cbä" ) returns chopped copy: "cb" ok 18 - after that, victim is unchanged: "cbä" # ### chomp ... So (mis?)using Unit Tests may be counterproductive - practicing actions while learning you wouldn't use professionally. How: Writing 'didactic' Unit Tests in languages with lightweight testing systems (Perl 5/6) is easy; (mis?)using more elaborate systems (JUnit, CppUnit) may be not worth the effort or not suitable for a person just starting with a new language. So Is using Unit Tests as a learning tool a bad idea? Can the Unit Test tool(s) of your favourite language(s) used didactically? Should implementation details (eventually) be discussed here or over at stackoverflow.com?

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• Installation experiences with NDepend under Win7/64 with restricted user permissions

  - by Marko Apfel

  Today Patrick gives me a new license for his static code analysis tool NDepend for my fresh machine with Win7/64. This platform is new for me, so some things are different to Win XP. Maybe that till yet some of these things are not well enough understandanded from me. So i stepped in some traps. Here are my notes to get NDepend running. Download of NDepend Professional Edition from http://www.ndepend.com/NDependDownload.aspx   Extracted to c:\program files (x86)\NDepend   Started NDepend.Install.VisualStudioAddin.exe this failed with Okay – sounds plausible.   Copy NDependProLicense.xml to this folder   Next try with NDepend.Install.VisualStudioAddin.exe opens the integration dialog   Registering in Visual Studio failed with   Manually unblock as described (first solution hint)   and here comes my largest understanding problem. After unblocking this file   and closing this dialog the next opening shows the blocking again: Why? So the same error during integration pops up.   Okay – tried the second solution hint with copying folders Copy all to a full accessable folder under c:\temp\   Now the installation works   looks good   copying the folders back to c:\program files (x86)\NDepend   starting Visual Studio failed with     Okay – copying the folder to a private application folder c:\users\apf\My Applications\NDepend   Installing again   Now Visual Studio runs and NDepend is integrated Nevertheless my machine is only used by me, i prefer “all user”-installations. The described way works sadly only for my account.

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• Does command/query separation apply to a method that creates an object and returns its ID?

  - by Gilles

  Let's pretend we have a service that calls a business process. This process will call on the data layer to create an object of type A in the database. Afterwards we need to call again on another class of the data layer to create an instance of type B in the database. We need to pass some information about A for a foreign key. In the first method we create an object (modify state) and return it's ID (query) in a single method. In the second method we have two methods, one (createA) for the save and the other (getId) for the query. public void FirstMethod(Info info) { var id = firstRepository.createA(info); secondRepository.createB(id); } public void SecondMethod(Info info) { firstRepository.createA(info); var key = firstRepository.getID(info); secondRepository.createB(key); } From my understanding the second method follows command query separation more fully. But I find it wasteful and counter-intuitive to query the database to get the object we have just created. How do you reconcile CQS with such a scenario? Does only the second method follow CQS and if so is it preferable to use it in this case?

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• Oracle University Seminars April/May/June 2012

  - by A&C Redaktion

  Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";} Oracle University's Expert Seminars are exclusive events delivered by top experts with years of experience in working with Oracle products. The seminars topics cover the breadth of the Oracle portfolio and are aimed at helping you to get the most of your Oracle products and to stay connected with new technologies. We currently have the following events scheduled: RAC Performance Tuning Online with Arup Nanda - 30 Apr 2012 Understanding Explain Plans & Index Utilization Online with Dan Hotka - 8-9 May 2012 Writing Optimal SQL & Troubleshooting & Tuning with Jonathan Lewis, Düsseldorf, 9-10 May 2012 Flashback Techniques in Oracle11g with Carl Dudley, München, 14 May 2012 Minimize Downtime with Rolling Upgrade using Data Guard with Uwe Hesse, München, 16 May 2012 Enterprise Business Intelligence 11g Advanced Development Online with Mark Rittman – 24-25 May Mastering Backup & Recovery with Francisco Munoz Alvarez, Düsseldorf, 29-30 May 2012 Real World Java EE 6 – Re-thinking Best Practice with Adam Bien, München, 15 Jun 2012

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• Improve Customer Experience with Real-Time Scheduling

  - by ruth.donohue

  Recently, my husband rearranged his busy work schedule so that he could stay home an entire afternoon to wait for the alarm company to reset the password to our alarm system, only to discover at the end of the afternoon that the field service rep wasn’t going to be able to make the appointment after all. And, the company asked him to reschedule and block off time for another afternoon. Needless to say, my husband wasn’t happy with that experience. Unfortunately, customer experiences like this happen every day. As a business, you can’t afford these types of encounters. It’s too easy for your customers to turn to one of your competitors once they’ve reached the point of frustration. Customer experience and customer loyalty are more important than ever. So how can you prevent something like this from occurring? With the newly available Siebel Field Service Integration with Oracle Real-Time Scheduler, your service organization can: Create cost-optimized plans and schedules to improve operating efficiencies Deliver more accurate ETA’s and shorten appointment windows Minimize the impact of in-day events such as delays on site, sickness, poor weather conditions, and vehicle breakdowns Rather than requiring them to wait for an entire afternoon, imagine asking customers to be available for only an hour. And being able to commit to that time by working around unforeseen events and understanding the impact of delays or re-routings before they become customer issues. What would your customer experience and customer satisfaction be like then? Learn more about the Siebel Field Service Integration with Oracle Real-Time Scheduler: Register for and attend the upcoming webcast on Thursday, March 10th at 8:30 AM Pacific Time Read the press release, data sheet, and solution brief Visit the Siebel Field Service webpage

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• Whois status "pending delete" with expiration date in November 2011???

  - by Sylver

  A friend of mine is in the process of being scammed by a domain registrar and I am trying to sort out the mess. However I could use a hand understanding some of the details. He paid for 2 years of domain name registration on 6 november 2009. The whois record reads: Domain ID:XXXXXXXXXX Domain Name:XXXXXXXXX.ORG Created On:06-Nov-2009 09:23:12 UTC Last Updated On:17-Dec-2010 00:15:10 UTC Expiration Date:06-Nov-2011 09:23:12 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:OnlineNIC Inc. (R64-LROR) Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED Status:HOLD Status:PENDING DELETE SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE Registrant ID:ONLC-XXXXXXX-X Registrant Name:My friend's name ... Registrant Email:Old email The registrar charged a renewal fee a week ago and is now asking an extra $150 to "reclaim" the domain name, even though the domain name is apparently still in my friend's name and it looks like there is still another 10 months before the expiry date. The expiration date on the WhoIs record looks right (Nov 2011), so I don't understand why the domain status says "PENDING DELETE SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE". Can someone explain me better what the deal is and explain what I need to do get the domain name transfered to a more honest registrar? I already have a registrar for my own domain names, been using them for 10 years without problems, so I know where to transfer the domain names to, I just don't know how to proceed.

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