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• Laptops on Windows Domain sometimes have problems accessing internet when off-site

  - by FSUScoot

  Hi all-- We've had this problem for a long time. When users travel, sometimes they can't get internet access from a wired or wireless connection. Here are a couple examples: 1) A user goes to a hotel and tries to access the wireless in their room. They can connect to the access point. They open a web browser and they can't get re-directed to the hotel's login page. Because they can't log in, there's no internet access. 2) A user goes to another laboratory/university and tries to access the wired network. They connect, link is fine, PC gets IP from DHCP but no internet access. There's no login page to be re-directed to. It should just "work". What I've found is that it's a DNS issue. Because the computer is on a Windows Domain, it seems it MUST use our DNS servers. Even if you connect to an outside network and do an ipconfig /all, it looks like everything is ok. It'll even show their DNS servers listed in the config. The computer just won't use the other network's DNS server. I found a reg key that keeps our DNS servers listed and it seems that they take priority every time: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\DNSClient All the values under that key are for our AD domain. NameServer and Searchlist never change. What I've found is if the user edits the NameServer string and puts the DNS server of the network they're on, everything works just fine. They get re-directed to the hotel's correct login page or their internet access starts working. It's only a problem if the network they're on blocks outside DNS or a hotel that uses an internal name in their front page redirection that only their DNS server knows about, i.e., not public. If the re-direct page starts with an IP, like 10.10.10.10, it'll work just fine. Obviously this isn't a fix for everyone. Most of my users are pretty knowledgeable so it’s easy for me to walk them through or send them a .reg file that they can edit and run. This problem isn't limited to Windows 7. It was like this with XP as well. It's not hardware related. The problem exists on both wired and wireless, Intel or Broadcom, laptops or desktops. Anyone else have this problem? Is there a GPO I can change that I missed? Got a good work-around for this? Thanks for any help!

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• What DNS server to use for dynamic load-balancing of website?

  - by Marki555

  I will have 2 servers in different datacenters (different countries) and I want to use DNS load-balancing mainly for High Availability of website hosted on those 2 servers. It is just ad tracking site, which records hit in local database and returns few lines on html code. I want to return 2 A records each time because of DNS pinning in browsers (if one server fails, browser will try second A record which it has already cached). Both servers will be acting also as DNS servers for redundancy. Now comes my proposed solution: I will use BIND and have both servers as a master for that zone. On each server there will be running script, which will periodically test availability (http) of both servers and remove IP from DNS in case of failure. Now the questions :) 1) Is BIND suitable for this solution? I think BIND performance is good and it is easy to manipulate the zone file via script. And as I will modify the zone only in case of failure/maintenance, the modifications (and thus bind reload) won't be often. 2) I plan to use TTL of 5 minutes. The website will have about 1000-3000 req/s but from distinct clients (each IP only 1-3 requests), so I think the DNS load won't be too much. I suppose their ISPs will cache the responses for those 5 mins. Is there any reason to lower the TTL even more? 3) Is my master-master approach good? Or should I make one of the servers master and the other one slave? Right now each server can monitor both itself and the other one. If only webservice fails, both DNS nodes will notice it. If the whole server fails, then the remaining DNS node will notice it and the failed node will not answer DNS queries anyway. 4) Is it a big issue when one NS server does not respond to queries? If yes, I can make a third DNS, so anytime at least 2 of them would accept queries... 5) Should I rewrite the zone file via script, or just use dynamic DNS update (for example via nsupdateutility)?

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• Scriptaculous Shaking Effect Problem

  - by TheOnly92

  The scriptaculous shaking effect somehow produce some bugs for Webkit browsers, including Chrome and Safari. When shaking, the element will shift to the top left of the screen covering everything. An example code is given as below, are there any ways of solving this? <html> <head> <script type='text/javascript' src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.6.1/prototype.js'></script> <script type='text/javascript' src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/scriptaculous/1.8.3/scriptaculous.js'></script> <script type='text/javascript' src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/scriptaculous/1.8.3/scriptaculous.js?load=effects'></script> </head> <body> <div style="z-index: 20000; position: fixed; display: block; bottom: 10px; right: 10px; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: white;" id="floating_text"> <p>This should be some floating text.</p> <p>Some more floating text.</p> </div> <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer dui ligula, tempus adipiscing posuere id, sollicitudin sed nulla. Sed neque diam, volutpat non interdum vel, pellentesque vitae lorem. Vivamus et leo risus. Fusce at nunc nulla, non ultricies elit. Aliquam erat volutpat. Aliquam pulvinar mi at purus laoreet eu varius nisl laoreet. Mauris lobortis sapien diam. Maecenas arcu est, ullamcorper fringilla placerat nec, semper ut arcu. Curabitur metus nisl, ornare nec posuere at, tincidunt tempor nisi. Ut ut est risus. Curabitur elit urna, sagittis sagittis cursus quis, accumsan eget nulla. Donec odio ante, rutrum at fermentum vel, tempus gravida odio. Quisque a ante a urna vehicula posuere ac ut orci. Integer luctus sem et justo condimentum consequat. Phasellus pharetra malesuada velit, et commodo arcu imperdiet vitae. Suspendisse vitae risus orci. Maecenas massa tortor, sodales ut luctus ac, lacinia vitae sapien. Vestibulum sit amet rutrum est. Nullam magna erat, semper a volutpat id, porta sed nisl.</p> <p>Praesent nec consectetur sapien. Integer mollis libero a odio pharetra vulputate. Donec mattis consequat arcu, vel ultricies orci imperdiet sit amet. Mauris sit amet tellus libero. Morbi ac venenatis ligula. Cras tellus neque, porttitor sit amet hendrerit nec, ornare quis tellus. Nam iaculis mi at mi bibendum at commodo justo pretium. Ut in nibh non diam hendrerit fermentum a ut odio. Curabitur lorem turpis, tincidunt et rhoncus et, pulvinar a metus. Vestibulum a quam sit amet arcu condimentum cursus vitae feugiat lectus. Sed ut lorem tellus, non sagittis enim. Curabitur lectus eros, commodo a elementum et, molestie eget est. Donec ullamcorper, arcu nec volutpat auctor, sem odio interdum tellus, nec volutpat lacus libero at nisl. Aliquam metus sapien, aliquam a rutrum ac, tincidunt at purus. Donec in erat mi. Quisque semper mauris in massa bibendum sed tincidunt augue facilisis. In tempus lacinia urna ac tristique.</p> <p>Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Fusce tristique urna sem. Etiam iaculis aliquam dui nec porta. Proin tristique diam non augue mattis tristique. Phasellus nulla erat, adipiscing sed cursus sed, pulvinar eget nisl. Maecenas blandit nibh eu nisl facilisis et semper turpis posuere. Pellentesque auctor sem in massa sollicitudin congue. Vivamus quis lacinia massa. Aliquam sodales dictum magna, eget ullamcorper eros placerat at. Quisque gravida diam sit amet nunc porta aliquam. Ut quis aliquet est. Maecenas risus tellus, euismod id porttitor at, porta id turpis. Phasellus id molestie ante. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Aenean purus nibh, egestas vestibulum aliquet eget, luctus nec eros. Nulla facilisi. Quisque molestie, sem interdum posuere lacinia, nisl purus ornare lectus, id dapibus lacus dolor in ipsum. Aenean pharetra leo nulla.</p> <p>Curabitur nisi quam, iaculis eget pellentesque vel, pretium sed massa. In viverra, tellus at sollicitudin fringilla, orci eros blandit elit, a bibendum mauris dolor ut metus. Vivamus pellentesque suscipit diam, vitae euismod mi pellentesque vitae. Nullam neque libero, vehicula ut iaculis at, tincidunt eget leo. Suspendisse vitae velit justo. Nullam vitae sem tincidunt nulla tincidunt mollis in id massa. Duis rhoncus elementum turpis quis mollis. Vivamus egestas urna in velit commodo iaculis. Aenean quis dolor eu odio porttitor rhoncus nec vel eros. Donec ut est eu nisl vehicula pulvinar et id dolor. Donec a dolor neque. Morbi tempus mattis tortor ut rutrum. Phasellus orci metus, pellentesque vel tincidunt nec, pulvinar eu ante. Duis faucibus felis et diam ullamcorper in feugiat urna dignissim. Quisque nec diam mauris, vel viverra arcu. Cras sagittis dignissim nisl in sagittis. Fusce venenatis rhoncus est, nec elementum libero dapibus eget. Donec eu velit metus. Sed sollicitudin felis a diam condimentum in suscipit neque varius. Nulla nec tortor tristique elit malesuada luctus luctus quis leo.</p> <p>Nullam at quam dui. Ut gravida, tellus malesuada faucibus gravida, purus nulla consequat lorem, pellentesque egestas justo quam et enim. Suspendisse fringilla tellus id odio tristique varius. Cras et metus elit. Etiam interdum adipiscing mollis. Aliquam aliquet vestibulum imperdiet. In consectetur, nunc cursus sodales scelerisque, tellus eros tristique nisl, ut luctus augue dolor vel nibh. Fusce eget dui sed eros tristique varius lacinia id sapien. Nullam ac lorem ac lacus cursus ultricies id a risus. Ut eget dolor sem. Aliquam euismod consequat euismod. Duis sit amet neque et massa ullamcorper tempor.</p> <p>Quisque rutrum, ipsum ac volutpat dictum, urna diam facilisis enim, ac vestibulum justo metus eu mi. Curabitur nunc sem, consequat a mollis non, bibendum vitae dolor. Mauris pulvinar pellentesque tellus, vel aliquet mauris vulputate vel. Morbi eu ante id nulla ultricies tincidunt. Proin porta, felis nec tincidunt iaculis, justo nibh laoreet dolor, eu sollicitudin arcu justo et odio. Sed suscipit tellus lobortis est tristique semper fermentum magna laoreet. Sed eget ante nunc, vitae varius purus. Mauris nec viverra neque. Morbi et lectus velit. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Integer sit amet lobortis magna.</p> <p>Phasellus elementum iaculis sem in consectetur. Curabitur nec dictum enim. Nunc at pellentesque augue. Nulla sit amet sapien neque, et molestie augue. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Proin non elit ante. Mauris justo tellus, feugiat at dapibus a, placerat id felis. Nullam lobortis vehicula rutrum. Fusce tristique pharetra urna, ac scelerisque ipsum consequat eget. Morbi at ipsum in tellus luctus volutpat. Duis placerat accumsan lacus, dictum convallis elit porttitor eu.</p> <p>Sed ac neque sit amet neque luctus rhoncus. Vestibulum sit amet commodo ante. Duis ullamcorper est id dui ullamcorper cursus. Maecenas fringilla ultricies turpis, nec pulvinar libero faucibus a. Quisque bibendum aliquam sapien, in fermentum arcu iaculis at. Mauris bibendum, metus sed rhoncus fringilla, nisl purus interdum eros, vitae malesuada felis est rhoncus magna. Phasellus elit justo, sagittis nec interdum tincidunt, mollis quis justo. Suspendisse rhoncus rutrum vestibulum. Aliquam ut nunc lectus, quis aliquam risus. Aliquam vel nulla sed odio blandit sagittis. Nulla facilisi. Vivamus ullamcorper, lectus facilisis eleifend accumsan, purus massa sollicitudin nunc, in sodales tellus dui eget est. Morbi ipsum nisi, semper sit amet vehicula sit amet, semper at mauris. Nam mollis massa sed risus scelerisque quis congue mauris tempus. Vestibulum nec urna magna, vitae ornare massa. Aenean adipiscing tempor rutrum.</p> <p>In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Etiam in dolor eros, eleifend volutpat magna. Sed blandit gravida feugiat. Sed eu dolor in odio sagittis molestie eget ac orci. Phasellus tellus erat, scelerisque tincidunt lacinia sed, placerat eu sapien. Curabitur lobortis feugiat cursus. Nam eu egestas justo. Nullam dignissim enim ipsum, sed semper orci. Donec nulla dui, viverra vel viverra eu, eleifend nec justo. Sed in ultricies turpis. Maecenas ullamcorper, erat ac scelerisque mattis, augue magna laoreet mauris, nec sagittis tellus enim eget tellus. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In vestibulum urna eu magna ultricies adipiscing. Phasellus sed urna at nibh euismod vestibulum at eget dui. Nulla ullamcorper viverra tellus ut volutpat. Praesent hendrerit, purus a imperdiet tempus, turpis est suscipit felis, ut commodo diam orci ac augue. Quisque consectetur varius sapien, vel lobortis ante porttitor sit amet. Proin fermentum blandit justo, id faucibus elit feugiat ut. Nulla quam elit, tristique gravida ultrices in, imperdiet et enim.</p> <p>Aliquam malesuada, nibh eget laoreet malesuada, lorem ligula gravida eros, a consectetur dui odio id urna. Vivamus tincidunt porttitor facilisis. Maecenas vitae lacus at lorem porttitor sodales. Duis et velit ac ipsum cursus ornare. Aliquam eu rhoncus est. Cras nec facilisis tellus. Nunc in felis odio. Nam facilisis dui eu lacus egestas sit amet malesuada dolor volutpat. In placerat dictum turpis ac vulputate. Suspendisse neque odio, elementum sagittis sollicitudin quis, eleifend ac orci. Proin suscipit molestie orci non venenatis. Sed metus mauris, laoreet id lobortis at, tempor eu erat. Mauris tempor, nisi id interdum tempor, tellus ligula pretium mi, a viverra nibh neque vitae est. Integer mattis, lorem ac congue fermentum, quam ipsum gravida erat, in egestas lorem eros ac massa. Vestibulum lobortis ante libero, vel fermentum ante. Aliquam augue ipsum, ullamcorper sit amet dictum id, commodo sit amet lacus. Vivamus elit purus, elementum a vestibulum quis, iaculis id metus. Cras facilisis orci in nulla consequat gravida. Integer blandit, felis at lacinia porta, lacus velit pretium magna, ut eleifend diam magna a justo. Donec scelerisque diam quis nisi molestie vel egestas urna condimentum. </p> <script type="text/javascript"> Effect.Shake('floating_text'); </script> </body> </html>

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• Adding A Custom Dropdown in RCDC for Forefront Identity Manager 2010

  - by Daniel Lackey

  My latest exploration has been FIM 2010 for Identity Management. The following is a post of how to add a custom dropdown for the FIM Portal. I have decided to document this as I cannot find documentation on how to do this anywhere else. I hope that it finds useful to others.   For starters, this was to me not an easy task to figure out. I really would like to know why it is so cumbersome to do something that seems like a lot of people would need to do, but that’s for another day J   The dropdown I wanted to add was for ‘Account Status’ which would display if the account is ‘Enabled’ or ‘Disabled’ in the data source Active Directory. This option would also allow helpdesk users or admins to administer the userAccountControl attribute in AD from the FIM Portal interface.   The first thing I had to do was create the attribute itself. This is done by going to Administration à Schema Management from the FIM 2010 portal. Once here, you click on All Attributes. What is listed here are all attributes and their associated Resource Types in FIM. To create the ‘AccountStatus’ attribute, click on New. As shown below, enter ‘AccountStatus’ with no spaces for the System Name and ‘Account Status’ for the Display Name. The Data Type is going to be ‘Indexed String’. Click Next.           Leave everything on the Localization tab default and click Next.   On the Validation tab as shown below, we will enter the regex expression ^(Enabled|Disabled)?$ with our two desired string values ‘Enabled’ and ‘Disabled’. Click on Finish and then and Submit to complete adding the attribute.       The next step involves associating the attribute with a resource type. This is called ‘Binding’ the attribute. From the Schema Management page, click on All Bindings. From the page that comes up, click on New. As shown below, enter ‘User’ for the Resource Type and ‘Account Status’ for the Attribute Type. This is essentially binding the Account Status attribute to the ‘User’ Resource Type. Click Next.    On the ‘Attribute Override’ tab, type in ‘Account Status’ for the Display Name field. Click Next.   On the ‘Localization’ tab, click Next.   On the ‘Validation’ tab, enter the regex expression ^(Enabled|Disabled)?$ we entered previously for the attribute. Click Finish and then Submit to complete.   Now that the Attribute and the Binding are complete, you have to give users permission to see the attribute on the User Edit page. Go to Administration à Management Policy Rules. Look for the rule named Administration: Administrators can read and update Users and click on it. Once it opens, click on the ‘Target Resources’ tab and look at the section named Resource Attributes. Type in at the end the ‘Account Status’ attribute and check it with the validator. Once done click on OK to save the changes.         Lastly, we need to add the actual dropdown control to the RCDC (Resource Control Display Configuration) for User Editing. Go to Administration à Resource Control Display Configuration. From here navigate until you find the RCDC named Configuration for User Editing RCDC and click on it. The following is what you will see:       First step is to export the Configuration Data file. Click on the Export configuration link and save the file to your desktop of other folder.   Find the file you just exported and open the file in your XML editor of choice. I use notepad but anything will work. Since we are adding a dropdown control, first find another control in the existing file that is already a dropdown in FIM. I used EmployeeType as my example. Copy the control from the beginning tag named <my:Control… to the ending tag </my:Control>. Now take what you copied and paste it in whatever location you desire within the form between two other controls. I chose to place the ‘Account Status’ field after the ‘Account Name’ field. After you paste the control you will need to modify so it looks like this:       Notice where you specify what attribute you are dealing with where it has AccountStatus in the XML. Once you are complete with modifying this, save the file and make sure it is a .xml file.   Now go back to the Configuration for User Editing screen and look at the section named ‘Configuration Data’. Click the ‘Browse’ button and find the XML file you just modified and choose it. Click OK on the bottom of the window and you are done!   Now when you click on a user’s name in the FIM Portal, you should see the newly added dropdown box as below:       Later I will post more about this drop down, specifically on how to automate actually ‘Disabling’ the account in the data source through the FIM Workflows and MAs.   <my:Control my:Name="AccountStatus" my:TypeName="UocDropDownList" my:Caption="{Binding Source=schema, Path=AccountStatus.DisplayName}" my:Description="{Binding Source=schema, Path=AccountStatus.Description}" my:RightsLevel="{Binding Source=rights, Path=AccountStatus}"> <my:Properties> <my:Property my:Name="ValuePath" my:Value="Value"/> <my:Property my:Name="CaptionPath" my:Value="Caption"/> <my:Property my:Name="HintPath" my:Value="Hint"/> <my:Property my:Name="ItemSource" my:Value="{Binding Source=schema, Path=AccountStatus.LocalizedAllowedValues}"/> <my:Property my:Name="SelectedValue" my:Value="{Binding Source=object, Path=AccountStatus, Mode=TwoWay}"/> </my:Properties> </my:Control>

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• Bug Triage

  In this blog post brain dump, I'll attempt to describe the process my team tries to follow when dealing with new bug reports (specifically, code defect reports). This is not official Microsoft policy, just the way we do things… if you do things differently and want to share, you can do so at the bottom in the comments (or on your blog).Feature Triage TeamA subset of the feature crew, the triage team (which has representations from the PM, Dev and QA disciplines), looks at all unassigned bugs at regular intervals. This can be weekly or daily (or other frequency) dependent on which part of the product cycle we are in and what the untriaged bug load looks like. They discuss each bug considering the evidence and make a decision of whether the bug goes from Not Yet Assigned to Assigned (plus the name of the DEV to fix this) or whether it goes from Active to Resolved (which means it gets assigned back to the requestor for closure or further debate if they were not present at the triage meeting). Close to critical milestones, the feature triage team needs to further justify bugs they take to additional higher-level triage teams.Bug Opened = Not Yet AssignedSomeone (typically an SDET from the QA team) creates the bug item (e.g. in TFS), ensuring they populate all the relevant fields including: Title, Description, Repro Steps (including the Actual Result at the end of the steps), attachments of code and/or screenshots, Build number that they observed the issue in, regression details if applicable, how it was found, if a test case exists or needs to be created etc. They also indicate their opinion on the Priority and Severity. The bug status is left as Not Yet Assigned."Issue" versus "Fix for issue"The solution to some bugs is easy to determine, e.g. "bug: the column name is misspelled". Obviously the fix is to correct the spelling – still, the triage team should be explicit and enter the correct spelling in the bug's Description. Note that a bad bug name here would be "bug: fix the spelling of the column" (it describes the solution, rather than the problem).Other solutions are trickier to establish, e.g. "bug: the column header is not accessible (can only be clicked on with the mouse, not reached via keyboard)". What is the correct solution here? The last thing to do is leave this undetermined and just assign it to a developer. The solution has to be entered in the description. Behind this type of a bug usually hides a spec defect or a new feature request.The person opening the bug should focus on describing the issue, rather than the solution. The person indicates what the fix is in their opinion by stating the Expected Result (immediately after stating the Actual Result). If they have a complex suggested solution, that should be split out in a separate part, but the triage team has the final say before assigning it. If the solution is lengthy/complicated to describe, the bug can be assigned to the PM. Note: the strict interpretation suggests that any bug with no clear, obvious solution is always a hole in the spec and should always go to the PM. This also ensures the spec gets updated.Not Yet Assigned - Not Yet Assigned (on someone else's plate)If the bug is observed in our feature, but the cause is actually another team, we change the Area Path (which is the way we identify teams in TFS) and leave it as Not Yet Assigned. The triage team may add more comments as appropriate including potentially changing the repro steps. In some cases, we may even resolve the bug in our area path and open a new bug in the area path of the other team.Even though there is no action on a dev on the team, the bug still needs to be tracked. One way of doing this is to implement some notification system that informs the team when the tracked bug changed status; another way is to occasionally run a global query (against all area paths) for bugs that have been opened by a member of the team and follow up with the current owners for stale bugs.Not Yet Assigned - ResolvedThis state transition can only be made by the Feature Triage Team.0. Sometimes the bug description is not clear and in that case it gets Resolved as More Information Needed, so the original requestor can provide it.After understanding what the bug item is about, the first decision is to determine whether it needs to go to a dev.1. If it is a known bug, it gets resolved as "Duplicate" and linked to the existing bug.2. If it is "By Design" it gets resolved as such, indicating that the triage team does not think this is a bug.3. If the bug does not repro on latest bits, it is resolved as "No Repro"4. The most painful: If it is decided that we cannot fix it for this release it gets resolved as "Postponed" or "Won't Fix". The former is typically due to resources and time constraints, while the latter is due to deciding that it is not important enough to consume our resources in any release (yes, not all bugs must be fixed!). For both cases, there are other factors that contribute to the decision such as: existence of a reasonable workaround, frequency we expect users to encounter the issue, dependencies on other team to offer a solution, whether it breaks a core scenario, whether it prohibits customer feedback on a major feature, is it a regression from a previous release, impact of the fix on other partner teams (e.g. User Education, User Experience, Localization/Globalization), whether this is the right fix, does the fix impact performance goals, and last but not least, severity of bug (e.g. loss of customer data, security threat, crash, hang). The bar for fixing a bug goes up as the release date approaches. The triage team becomes hardnosed about which bugs to take, while the developers are busy resolving assigned bugs thus everyone drives for Zero Bug Bounce (ZBB). ZBB is when you have 0 active bugs older than 48 hours.Not Yet Assigned - AssignedIf the bug is something we decide to fix in this release and the solution is known, then it is assigned to a DEV. This is either the developer that will do the work, or a Lead that can further assign it to one of his developer team based on a load balancing algorithm of their choosing.Sometimes, the triage team needs the dev to do some investigation work before deciding whether to take the fix; similarly, the checkin for the fix may be gated on code review by the triage team. In these cases, these instructions are provided in the comments section of the bug and when the developer is done they notify the triage team for final decision.Additionally, a Priority and Severity (from 0 to 4) has to be entered, e.g. a P0 means "drop anything you are doing and fix this now" whereas a P4 is something you get to after all P0,1,2,3 bugs are fixed.From a testing perspective, if the bug was found through ad-hoc testing or an external team, the decision is made whether test cases should be added to avoid future regressions. This is communicated to the QA team.Assigned - ResolvedWhen the developer receives the bug (they should be checking daily for new bugs on their plate looking at bugs in order of priority and from older to newer) they can send it back to triage if the information is not clear. Otherwise, they investigate the bug, setting the Sub Status to "Investigating"; if they cannot make progress, they set the Sub Status to "Blocked" and discuss this with triage or whoever else can help them get unblocked. Once they are unblocked, they set the Sub Status to "Working on Solution"; once they are code complete they send a code review request, setting the Sub Status to "Fix Available". After the iterative code review process is over and everyone is happy with the fix, the developer checks it in and changes the state of the bug from Active (and Assigned to them) to Resolved (and Assigned to someone else).The developer needs to ensure that when the status is changed to Resolved that it is assigned to a QA person. For example, maybe the PM opened the bug, but it should be a QA person that will verify the fix - the developer needs to manually change the assignee in that case. Typically the QA person will send an email to the original requestor notifying them that the fix is verified.Resolved - ??In all cases above, note that the final state was Resolved. What happens after that? The final step should be Closed. The bug is closed once the QA person verifying the fix is happy with it. If the person is not happy, then they change the state from Resolved to Active, thus sending it back to the developer. If the developer and QA person cannot reach agreement, then triage can be brought into it. An easy way to do that is change the status back to Not Yet Assigned with appropriate comments so the triage team can re-review.It is important to note that only QA can close a bug. That means that if the opener of the bug was a PM, when the bug gets resolved by the dev it may land on the PM's plate and after a quick review, the PM would re-assign to an SDET, which is the only role that can close bugs. One exception to this is if the person that filed the bug is external: in that case, we leave it Resolved and assigned to them and also send them a notification that they need to verify the fix. Another exception is if specialized developer knowledge is needed for verifying the bug fix (e.g. it was a refactoring suggestion bug typically not observable by the user) in which case it is fine to have a developer verify the fix, and ideally a different developer to the one that opened the bug.Other links on bug triageA quick search reveals that others have talked about this subject, e.g. here, here, here, here and here.Your take?If you have other best practices your team uses to deal with incoming bug reports, feel free to share in the comments below or on your blog. Comments about this post welcome at the original blog.

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• XNA Notes 007

  - by George Clingerman

  Every week I keep wondering if there’s going to be enough activity in the community to keep doing these notes on a weekly basis and every week I’m reminded of just how awesome and active the XNA community is. There’s engines being made, tutorials being created, games being crafted. There’s information being shared, questions being answered and then there’s another whole community around the Xbox LIVE Indie Games themselves. It’s really incredibly to just watch all that’s going on and I’m glad I’m playing a small part in all of this. So here’s what I noticed happening in the XNA community last week. If there’s things I’m missing, always feel free to let me know. I love learning about new corners of the XNA community that I wasn’t aware of or just have been missing! XNA Developers: Uditha Bandara held an XNA Game Development Workshops at Singapore Universities http://uditha.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/xna-game-development-workshops-at-singapore-universities-event-update/ Binary Tweed gives his talks about Indie City and gives his opinion on the false promise of digital distribution http://www.develop-online.net/news/37053/OPINION-The-false-promise-of-digital-distribution Kris Steele posts his Trivia or Die postmortem http://www.krissteele.net/blogdetails.aspx?id=246 @MadNinjaSkills (James Johnston) posts his feelings on testing for XBLIG http://www.ezmuze.co.uk/101 Simon (@DDReaper) posts hints and tips for XNA developers to help get the size of their projects down http://twitter.com/#!/DDReaper/status/38279440924545024 http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgenesis/archive/2011/02/17/look-at-the-size-of-that-thing.aspx Michael B. McLaughlin proving why he should be an XNA MVP posts the list of commonly used value types in XNA games http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/02/17/list-of-commonly-used-value-types-in-xna-games.aspx http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/38166541354811392 Paul Powell (@ITSligoPaul) posts about a common sprite batch as a game service http://itspaulsblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/xna-common-sprite-batch-as-game-service.html @SigilXNA (John Defenbaugh) posts his new level editor video for the sequel to Opac’s Journey http://twitter.com/SigilXNA/statuses/36548174373982209 http://twitter.com/#!/SigilXNA/status/36548174373982209 http://youtu.be/QHbmxB_2AW8 @jwatte updates kW Animation for XNA 4.0 http://www.enchantedage.com/xna-animation @DSebJ posts Blender to SunBurn http://twitter.com/#!/DSebJ/status/36564920224976896 http://dsebj.evolvingsoftware.com/?p=187 Ads and WP7 Games - @mechaghost shares his revenue data for his ad based games http://www.occasionalgamer.com/2011/02/09/ads-and-wp7-games/ Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Steven Hurdle posts day 100 of his quest to find a fantastic XBLIG purchase every day http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/02/17/day-100-radiangames-ballistic/ Xbox 360 Indie Game Buying Guide - 12 games for $60 including several Xbox LIVE Indie games! (although if the XNA community was asked we could have recommended 60 games for $60...) http://www.indiegamemag.com/xbox360-indie-games-buying-guide/ The best selling Xbox LIVE Indie games of 2010 http://www.1up.com/news/xbox-live-most-popular-games I’d buy that for a dollar! - the California Literary Review points out a few gems on the XBLIG marketplace (and other places) where you can game on the cheap. http://calitreview.com/14125 Armless Octopus Episode 39 - The Indie Gem Octocast http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/02/17/armless-octocast-episode-39-the-indie-gem-octocast/ Ska Studios posts a plethora of updates http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/11/good-morning-gato-49/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/14/vampire-smile-valentines/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/02/16/the-dishwasher-vs-finds-a-home/ Kotaku posts about the Xbox LIVE Indie Game that makes you go Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew http://kotaku.com/#!5760632/the-game-that-makes-you-go-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew GameMarx continues to be active and doing a ton for the XBLIG community reviews and Top 5 indie games of the week 2/4-2/10 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/22/ep-9-february-11-2010.aspx a new podcast Xbox Indie New Releases http://twitter.com/#!/gamemarx/status/36888849107910656 http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/02/13/a-new-podcast-xbox-indie-new-releases.aspx @MasterBlud uploads Indocalypse XBLIG Collections #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzCZSv075mc&feature=youtu.be&a http://twitter.com/#!/MasterBlud/status/37100029697064960 Just Press Start interviews Michael Hicks from MichaelArts, 18 year old creator of Honor in Vengeance http://justpressstart.net/?p=465 Achievement Locked interviews Kris Steele of FunInfused Games http://xboxindies.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/interview-fun-infused-games/ XNA Game Development: XNA -UK launches their XAP test service to help the XNA community http://xna-uk.net/blogs/news/archive/2011/02/18/xna-uk-xap-test-service-now-live.aspx Transmute shows off a video of the standard character editor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqH6gErG948&feature=youtu.be Microsoft Tech Student introduces their first tech student of the month.  Meet Daniel Van Tassel from the University of Utah and learn how he created an Xbox LIVE Indie Game using XNA Studio http://blogs.msdn.com/b/techstudent/archive/2010/12/22/introducing-our-first-tech-student-of-the-month-daniel-van-tassel.aspx XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 3 - Animation (transforms) http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-3-Animation-transforms.aspx XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 4 - Animation (frame based) http://www.silverlightshow.net/items/XNA-for-Silverlight-developers-Part-4-Animation-frame-based.aspx @suhinini tweets about an XNA Sprite Font generation tool http://twitter.com/#!/suhinini/status/36841370131890176 http://www.nubik.com/SpriteFont/ XNATouch 1.5 is out and in it’s words is faster, simpler, more reliable and has the XNA 4.0 API http://monogame.codeplex.com/releases/view/60815 IndieCity is hosting marketing workshops for Indie Developers (UK and US) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/75197/457654.aspx#457654 New York Students - Learn XNA and Silverlight for Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/72753/456964.aspx#456964 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/andrewparsons/archive/2011/01/13/learn-to-build-your-own-games-for-xbox-360-and-windows-phone-7.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/andrewparsons/archive/2011/01/13/build-a-game-in-48-hours-win-a-kinect-or-windows-phone-7.aspx Extra Credits: Videogame Music http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2019-Videogame-Music Steve Pavlina posts an article with useful information for all XNA/XBLIG developers http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/02/completion-vs-perfection/

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• Social Network Updates: While You Were Busy Marketing 2

  - by Mike Stiles

  Since social moves at the speed of data, it’s already time for another update, as we did back in April, on the changes the various social networks have made or gone through while you were busy marketing. Facebook There’s a lot of talk Facebook’s developing a mobile product to act like Flipboard and surface news, from both users and media outlets. The biggest news was Facebook/Instagram’s introduction of 15-second videos, enhanced with with filters, to take some of Vine’s candy. You can also delete parts of videos and rerecord them, and there’s image stabilization. Facebook’s ad revenue is coming along just fine, thank you very much. 35% quarter-to-quarter growth in Q2. And it looks like new formats like Mobile App Install Ads and Unpublished Page Posts are adding to the mix. If you don’t already, you’ll soon see a little camera in comment boxes letting you insert photos right into the comments you make. The drive toward “more visual” continues. The other big news is Facebook’s adoption of our Twitter friend, the hashtag. Adding # sets apart the post topic so it can be easily found or discovered. It’s also being added to Google Plus, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Twitter Want to send someone a promoted tweet when they’re in range of your store? That could be happening by the end of this year. Some users have been seeing automatic in-stream previews of images on Twitter.com. Right now it’s images in your own tweets, but we can assume all tweets are next. Get your followers organized! Twitter raised the limit on the number of lists you can create from 20 to 1,000. They also raised the number of accounts you can have in a list from 500 to 5,000. Twitter started notifying you when someone favorites a tweet you’re mentioned in or re-tweets a tweet you re-tweeted. Anyway, it’s the first time Twitter’s notified you about indirect interactions like that. Who’s afraid of Instagram? A study shows 6-second Vine videos are being posted to Twitter at the rate of 9/second, up from 5/second 2 months ago. Vine has over 13 million users and branded Vines are 4x more likely to be shared than video ads. Google Plus Now featuring a 3-column redesigned stream, and images that take up a whole column. And photo filters Auto Highlight and Auto Awesome work to turn your photos into a real show. Google Hangouts is the workhorse for all Google messaging now, it’s not just an online chat with 9 people anymore. Google Plus Dashboard improves the connection between your company’s Google Plus business page and your Google Plus Local. Updates go out across all Google properties and you can do your managing from the dashboard. With Google Plus’ authorship system, you can build “Author Rank” based on what you write and put on the web. If your stuff is +1’ed and shared a lot, you’re the real deal and there are search result benefits. LinkedIn "Who's Viewed Your Updates" shows you what you’ve shared recently, who saw it and what they did about it in real-time. “Influencers” is, well, influential. Traffic to all LI news products has gone up 8x since it was introduced. LinkedIn is quickly figuring out how to get users to stick around awhile. You and your brand can post images and documents in status updates now. In fact, that whole “document posting” thing is making some analysts wonder if LinkedIn will drift on over to the Dropboxes and YouSendIts of the world. C’mon, admit it. Your favorite part of LinkedIn is being able to see who’s viewed your profile. Now you’ve got even more info and can see what/who you have in common. Premium users get even deeper insights about how people are finding them. If you’re a big fan of security, you’ll love that LinkedIn started offering two-factor authentication (2FA). It’s optional, but step 2 is a one-time code texted to your registered mobile. Pinterest A study showed pins have a looong shelf life compared to other social net posts. “Clicks kept coming for 30 days and beyond.” Most pins are timeless, and the infinite scroll causes people to see older pins. Is it a keeper? Pinterest jumped 82% to 54 million users in the past year. It’s valued at $2.5 billion and is one of the biggest sources of referral traffic there is. That said, CEO Ben Silbermann adds, "Right now, we don't make money." A new search feature stops you from having to endlessly scroll through your own pins looking for that waterfall picture you posted. Simply select “just my pins” in the search bar. New "Rich Pins" lets brands add info like price and availability to pins that can be updated daily via a data feed from your merchant site. Not so fast, you have to apply to Pinterest for it first. Like other social nets, Pinterest does not allow sexual content, nudity, or even partial nudity. However…some art contains nudity, and Pinterest wants to allow art. What constitutes “art” will be judged by…what we have to assume are Pinterest employees who love their job. @mikestilesPhoto: stock.xchng, Tim Marmon

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• Using Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center to Update Solaris via Live Upgrade

  - by LeonShaner

  Introduction: This Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center blog entry provides tips for using Ops Center to update Solaris using Live Upgrade on Solaris 10 and Boot Environments on Solaris 11. Why use Live Upgrade? Live Upgrade (LU) can significantly reduce downtime associated with patching Live Upgrade avoids dropping to single-user mode for long periods of time during patching Live Upgrade relies on an Alternate Boot Environment (ABE)/(BE), which is patched while in multi-user mode; thereby allowing normal system operations to continue with the active BE, while the alternate BE is being patched Activating an newly patched (A)BE is essentially a reboot; therefore the downtime is ~= reboot Admins can easily revert to the prior Boot Environment (BE) as a safeguard / fallback. Why use Ops Center to patch via Live Upgrade, Alternate Boot Environments, and Solaris 11 equivalents? All the benefits of Ops Center's extensive patch and package knowledge base can be leveraged on top of Live Upgrade Ops Center can orchestrate patching based on Live Upgrade and Solaris 11 features, which all works together to minimize downtime Ops Centers advanced inventory and reporting features assurance that each OS is updated to a verifiable, consistent standard, rather than relying on ad-hoc (error prone) procedures and scripts Ops Center gives admins control over the boot environment specifications or they can let Ops Center decide when a BE is necessary, thereby reducing complexity and lowering the opportunity for user error Preparing to use Live Upgrade-like features in Solaris 11 Requirements and information you should know: Global Zone Root file-systems must be separate from Solaris Container / Zone filesystems Solaris 11 has features which are similar in concept to Live Upgrade on Solaris 10, but differ greatly in implementationImportant distinctions: Solaris 11 assumes ZFS root Solaris 11 adds Boot Environments (BE's) as an integrated feature (see beadm) Solaris 11 BE's avoid single-user patching (vs. Solaris 10 w/ ZFS snapshot=ABE). Solaris 11 Image Packaging System (IPS) has hooks for BE creation, as needed Solaris 11 allows pkgs to be installed + upgraded in alternate BE (e.g. instead of the live system) but it is controlled on a per-pkg basis Boot Environments are activated across a reboot; instead of spending long periods installing + upgrading packages in single user mode. Fallback to a prior BE is a function of the BE infrastructure (a la beadm). (Generally) Reboot + BE activation can be much much faster on Solaris 11 Preparing to use Live Upgrade on Solaris 10 Requirements and information you should know: Global Zone Root file-systems must be separate from Solaris Container / Zone filesystems Live Upgrade Pre-requisite patches must be applied before the first Live Upgrade Alternate Boot Environments are created (see "Pre-requisite Patches" section, below...) Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer on ZFS root is the practical starting point for Live Upgrade Live Upgrade with ZFS root is far more straight-forward than any scheme based on Alternative Boot Environments in slices or temporarily breaking mirrors Use Solaris best practices to upgrade the OS to at least Solaris 10 Update 4 (outside of Ops Center) UFS root can (technically) be used, but it is significantly more involved (e.g. discouraged) -- there are many reasons to move to ZFS while going through the process to update to Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer (out side of Ops Center) Recommendation: Start with Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer on ZFS root Recommendation: Start with Ops Center 12c or newer Ops Center 12c can automatically create your ABE's for you, without the need for custom scripts Ops Center 12c Update 2 avoids kernel panic on unpatched Solaris 10 update 9 (and older) -- unrelated to Live Upgrade, but more on the issue, below. NOTE: There is no magic!  If you have systems running Solaris 10 Update 5 or older on UFS root, and you don't know how to get them updated to Solaris 10 on ZFS root, then there are services available from Oracle Advanced Customer Support (ACS), which specialize in this area. Live Upgrade Pre-requisite Patches (Solaris 10) Certain Live Upgrade related patches must be present before the first Live Upgrade ABE's are created on Solaris 10.Use the following MOS Search String to find the “living document” that outlines the required patch minimums, which are necessary before using any Live Upgrade features: Solaris Live Upgrade Software Patch Requirements(Click above – the link is valid as of this writing, but search in MOS for the same "Solaris Live Upgrade Software Patch Requirements" string if necessary) It is a very good idea to check the document periodically and adapt to its contents, accordingly.IMPORTANT:  In case it wasn't clear in the above document, some direct patching of the active OS, including a reboot, may be required before Live Upgrade can be successfully used the first time.HINT: You can use Ops Center to determine what to expect for a given system, and to schedule the “pre-patching” during a maintenance window if necessary. Preparing to use Ops Center Discover + Manage (Install + Configure the Ops Center agent in) each Global Zone Recommendation:  Begin by using OCDoctor --agent-prereq to determine whether OS meets OC prerequisites (resolve any issues) See prior requirements and recommendations w.r.t. starting with Solaris 10 Update 6 or newer on ZFS (or at least Solaris 10 Update 4 on UFS, with caveats) WARNING: Systems running unpatched Solaris 10 update 9 (or older) should run the Ops Center 12c Update 2 agent to avoid a potential kernel panic The 12c Update 2 agent will check patch minimums and disable certain process accounting features if the kernel is not sufficiently patched to avoid the panic SPARC: 142900-05 Obsoleted by: 142900-06 SunOS 5.10: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on SPARC (32-bit) X64: 142901-05 Obsoleted by: 142901-06 SunOS 5.10_x86: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on x86 (32-bit) OR SPARC: 142909-17 SunOS 5.10: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on SPARC (32-bit) X64: 142910-17 SunOS 5.10_x86: kernel patch 10 Oracle Solaris on x86 (32-bit) Ops Center 12c (initial release) and 12c Update 1 agent can also be safely used with a workaround (to be performed BEFORE installing the agent): # mkdir -p /etc/opt/sun/oc # echo "zstat_exacct_allowed=false" > /etc/opt/sun/oc/zstat.conf # chmod 755 /etc/opt/sun /etc/opt/sun/oc # chmod 644 /etc/opt/sun/oc/zstat.conf # chown -Rh root:sys /etc/opt/sun/oc NOTE: Remove the above after patching the OS sufficiently, or after upgrading to the 12c Update 2 agent Using Ops Center to apply Live Upgrade-related Pre-Patches (Solaris 10)Overview: Create an OS Update Profile containing the minimum LU-related pre-patches, based on the Solaris Live Upgrade Software Patch Requirements, previously mentioned. SIMULATE the deployment of the LU-related pre-patches Observe whether any of the LU-related pre-patches will require a reboot The job details for each Global Zone will advise whether a reboot step will be required ACTUALLY deploy the LU-related pre-patches, according to your change control process (e.g. if no reboot, maybe okay to do now; vs. must do later because of the reboot). You can schedule the job to occur later, during a maintenance window Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Once the LU-related pre-patches are applied, you can Ops Center to patch using Live Upgrade on Solaris 10 Using Ops Center to patch Solaris 10 with LU/ABE's -- the GOODS!(this is the heart of the tip): Create an OS Update Profile containing the patches that make up your standard build Use Solaris Baselines when possible Add other individual patches as needed ACTUALLY deploy the OS Update Profile Specify the appropriate Live Upgrade options, e.g. Synchronize the active BE to the alternate BE before patching Do not activate the BE after patching Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Activate the newly patched BE according to your change control process Activate = Reboot to the ABE, making the ABE the new active BE Ops Center does not separate LU activate from reboot, so expect a reboot! Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Examples (w/Screenshots) Solaris 10 and Live Upgrade: Auto-Create the Alternate Boot Environment (ZFS root only) ABE to be created on ZFS with name S10_12_07REC (Example) Uses built in feature to call “lucreate -n S10_12_07REC” behind scenes if not already present NOTE: Leave “lucreate” params blank (if you do specify options, the will be appended after -n $ABEName) Solaris 10 and Live Upgrade: Alternate Boot Environment Creation via Operational Profile (script) The Alternate Boot Environment is to be created via custom, user-supplied script, which does whatever is needed for the system where Live Upgrade will be used. Operational Profile, which provides the script to create an ABE: Very similar to the automatic case, but with a Script (Operational Profile), which is used to create the ABE Relies on user-supplied script in the form of an Operational Profile Could be used to prepare an ABE based on a UFS root in a slice, or on a separate device (e.g. by breaking a mirror first) – it is up to the script author to do the right thing! EXAMPLE: Same result as the ZFS case, but illustrating the Operational Profile (e.g. script) approach to call: # lucreate -n S10_1207REC NOTE: OC special variable is $ABEName Boot Environment Profile, which references the Operational Profile Script = Operational Profile on this screen Refers to Operational Profile shown in the previous section The user-supplied S10_Create_BE Operational Profile will be run The Operational Profile must send a non-zero exit code if there is a problem (so that the OS Update job will not proceed) Solaris 10 OS Update Profile (to provide the actual patch specifications) Solaris 10 Baseline “Recommended” chosen for “Install” Solaris 10 OS Update Plan (two-steps in this case) “Create a Boot Environment” + “Update OS” are chosen. Using Ops Center to patch Solaris 11 with Boot Environments (as needed) Create a Solaris 11 OS Update Profile containing the packages that make up your standard build ACTUALLY deploy the Solaris 11 OS Update Profile BE will be created if needed (or you can stipulate no BE) BE name will be auto-generated (if needed), or you may specify a BE name Check the job status for each node, resolving any issues found Check if a BE was created; if so, activate the new BE Activate = Reboot to the BE, making the new BE the active BE Ops Center does not separate BE activate from reboot NOTE: Not every Solaris 11 OS Update will require a new BE, so a reboot may not be necessary. Solaris 11: Auto BE Create (as Needed -- let Ops Center decide) BE to be created as needed BE to be named automatically Reboot (if necessary) deferred to separate step Solaris 11: OS Profile Solaris 11 “entire” chosen for a particular SRU Solaris 11: OS Update Plan (w/BE)  “Create a Boot Environment” + “Update OS” are chosen. Summary: Solaris 10 Live Upgrade, Alternate Boot Environments, and their equivalents on Solaris 11 can be very powerful tools to help minimize the downtime associated with updating your servers.  For very old Solaris, there are some important prerequisites to adhere to, but once the initial preparation is complete, Live Upgrade can be used going forward.  For Solaris 11, the built-in Boot Environment handling is leveraged directly by the Image Packaging System, and the result is a much more straight forward way to patch, and far fewer prerequisites to satisfy in getting there.  Ops Center simplifies using either approach, and helps you improve consistency from system to system, which ultimately helps you improve the overall up-time across all the Solaris systems in your environment. Please let us know what you think?  Until next time...\Leon-- Leon Shaner | Senior IT/Product ArchitectSystems Management | Ops Center Engineering @ Oracle The views expressed on this [blog; Web site] are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle. For more information, please go to Oracle Enterprise Manager  web page or  follow us at :  Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Linkedin | Newsletter

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• The Low Down Dirty Azure Blues

  - by SGWellens

  Remember the SETI screen savers that used to be on everyone's computer? As far I as know, it was the first bona-fide use of "Cloud" computing…albeit an ad hoc cloud. I still think it was a brilliant leveraging of computing power. My interest in clouds was re-piqued when I went to a technical seminar at the local .Net User Group. The speaker was Mike Benkovitch and he expounded magnificently on the virtues of the Azure platform. Mike always does a good job. One killer reason he gave for cloud computing is instant scalability. Not applicable for most applications, but it is there if needed. I have a bunch of files stored on Microsoft's SkyDrive platform which is cloud storage. It is painfully slow. Accessing a file means going through layers and layers of software, redirections and security. Am I complaining? Hell no! It's free! So my opinions of Cloud Computing are both skeptical and appreciative. What intrigued me at the seminar, in addition to its other features, is that Azure can serve as a web hosting platform. I have a client with an Asp.Net web site I developed who is not happy with the performance of their current hosting service. I checked the cost of Azure and since the site has low bandwidth/space requirements the cost would be competitive with the existing host provider: Azure Pricing Calculator. And, Azure has a three month free trial. Perfect! I could try moving the website and see how it works for free. I went through the signup process. Everything was proceeding fine until I went to the MS SQL database management screen. A popup window informed me that I needed to install Silverlight on my machine. Silverlight? No thanks. Buh-Bye. I half-heartedly found the Azure support button and logged a ticket telling them I didn't want Silverlight on my machine. Within 4 to 6 hours (and a myriad (5) of automated support emails) they sent me a link to a database management page that did not require Silverlight. Thanks! I was able to create a database immediately. One really nice feature was that after creating the database, I was given a list of connection strings. I went to the current host provider, made a backup of the database and saved it to my machine. I attached to the remote database using SQL Server Studio 2012 and looked for the Restore menu item. It was missing. So I tried using the SQL command: RESTORE DATABASE MyDatabase FROM DISK ='C:\temp\MyBackup.bak' Msg 40510, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Statement 'RESTORE DATABASE' is not supported in this version of SQL Server. Are you kidding me? Why on earth…? This can't be happening! I opened both the source database and destination database in SQL Management Studio. I right clicked the source database, selected "Tasks" and noticed a menu selection called "Deploy Database to SQL Azure" Are you kidding me? Could it be? Oh yes, it be! There was a small problem because the database already existed on the Azure machine, I deployed to a new name, deleted the existing database and renamed the deployed database to what I needed. It was ridiculously easy. Being able to attach SQL Management Studio to remote databases is an awesome but scary feature. You can limit the IP addresses that can access the database which enhances security but when you give people, any people, me included, that much power, one errant mouse click could bring a live system down. My Advice: Tread softly and carry a large backup thumb-drive. Then I created a web site, the URL it returned look something like this: http://MyWebSite.azurewebsites.net/ Azure supports FTP, but I couldn't figure out the settings until I downloaded the publishing profile. It was an XML file that contained the needed information. I still couldn't connect with my FTP client (FileZilla). After about an hour of messing around, I deleted the port number from the FileZilla setup page….and voila, I was in like Flynn.   There are other options of deploying directly from Visual Studio, TFS, etc. but I do not like integrated tools that do things without my asking: It's usually hard to figure out what they did and how to undo it. I uploaded the aspx , cs , webconfig, etc. files. Bu it didn't run. The site I ported was in .NET 3.5. The Azure website configuration page gave me a choice between .NET 2.0 and 4.0. So, I switched to Visual Studio 2010, chose .NET 4.0 and upgraded the site. Of course I have the original version completely backed up and stored in a granite cave beneath the Nevada desert. And I have a backup CD under my pillow. The site uses ReportViewer to generate PDF documents. Of course it was the wrong version. I removed the old references to version 9 and added new references to version 10 (*see note below). Since the DLLs were not on the Azure Server, I uploaded them to the bin directory, crossed my fingers, burned some incense and gave it a try. After some fiddling around it ran. I don't know if I did anything particular to make it work or it just needed time to sort things out. However, one critical feature didn't work: ReportViewer could not programmatically generate PDF documents. I was getting this exception: "An error occurred during local report processing. Parameter is not valid." Rats. I did some searching and found other people were having the same problem, so I added a post saying I was having the same problem: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsazurewebsitespreview/thread/b4a6eb43-0013-435f-9d11-00ee26a8d017 Currently they are looking into this problem and I am waiting for the results. Hence I had the time to write this BLOG entry. How lucky you are. This was the last message I got from the Microsoft person: Hi Steve, Windows Azure Web Sites is a multi-tenant environment. For security issue, we limited some API calls. Unfortunately, some GDI APIS required by the PDF converting function are in this list. We have noticed this issue, and still investigation the best way to go. At this moment, there is no news to share. Sorry about this. Will keep you posted. If I had to guess, I would say they are concerned with people uploading images and doing intensive graphics programming which would hog CPU time.  But that is just a guess. Another problem. While trying to resolve the ReportViewer problem, I tried to write a file to the PDF directory to see if there was a permissions problem with some test code: String MyPath = MapPath(@"~\PDFs\Test.txt"); File.WriteAllText(MyPath, "Hello Azure");     I got this message: Access to the path <my path> is denied. After some research, I understood that since Azure is a cloud based platform, it can't allow web applications to save files to local directories. The application could be moved or replicated as scaling occurs and trying to manage local files would be problematic to say the least. There are other options: Use the Azure APIs to get a path. That way the location of the storage is separated from the application. However, the web site is then tied Azure and can't be moved to another hosting platform. Use the ApplicationData folder (not recommended). Write to BLOB storage. Or, I could try and stream the PDF output directly to the email and not save a file. I'm not going to work on a final solution until the ReportViewer is fixed. I am just sharing some of the things you need to be aware of if you decide to use Azure. I got this information from here. (Note the author of the BLOG added a comment saying he has updated his entry). Is my memory faulty? While getting this BLOG ready, I tried to write the test file again. And it worked. My memory is incorrect, or much more likely, something changed on the server…perhaps while they are trying to get ReportViewer to work. (Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it). *Note: Since Visual Studio 2010 Express doesn't include a Report Editor, I downloaded and installed SQL Server Report Builder 2.0. It is a standalone Report Editor to replace the one not in Visual Studio 2010 Express. I hope someone finds this useful. Steve Wellens CodeProject

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• Seven Worlds will collide…. High Availability BI is not such a Distant Sun.

  - by Testas

  Over the last 5 years I have observed Microsoft persevere with the notion of Self Service BI over a series of conferences as far back as SQLBits V in Newport. The release of SQL Server 2012, improvements in Excel and the integration with SharePoint 2010 is making this a reality. Business users are now empowered to create their own BI reports through a number of different technologies such as PowerPivot, PowerView and Report Builder. This opens up a whole new way of working; improving staff productivity, promoting efficient decision making and delivering timely business reports. There is, however; a serious question to answer. What happens should any of these applications become unavailable? More to the point, how would the business react should key business users be unable to fulfil reporting requests for key management meetings when they require it?  While the introduction of self-service BI will provide instant access to the creation of management information reports, it will also cause instant support calls should the access to the data become unavailable. These are questions that are often overlooked when a business evaluates the need for self-service BI. But as I have written in other blog posts, the thirst for information is unquenchable once the business users have access to the data. When they are unable to access the information, you will be the first to know about it and will be expected to have a resolution to the downtime as soon as possible. The world of self-service BI is pushing reporting and analytical databases to the tier 1 application level for some of Coeo’s customers. A level that is traditionally associated with mission critical OLTP environments. There is recognition that by making BI readily available to the business user, provisions also need to be made to ensure that the solution is highly available so that there is minimal disruption to the business. This is where High Availability BI infrastructures provide a solution. As there is a convergence of technologies to support a self-service BI culture, there is also a convergence of technologies that need to be understood in order to provide the high availability architecture required to support the self-service BI infrastructure. While you may not be the individual that implements these components, understanding the concepts behind these components will empower you to have meaningful discussions with the right people should you put this infrastructure in place. There are 7 worlds that you will have to understand to successfully implement a highly available BI infrastructure   1.       Server/Virtualised server hardware/software 2.       DNS 3.       Network Load Balancing 4.       Active Directory 5.       Kerberos 6.       SharePoint 7.       SQL Server I have found myself over the last 6 months reaching out to knowledge that I learnt years ago when I studied for the Windows 2000 and 2003 (MCSE) Microsoft Certified System Engineer. (To the point that I am resuming my studies for the Windows Server 2008 equivalent to be up to date with newer technologies) This knowledge has proved very useful in the numerous engagements I have undertaken since being at Coeo, particularly when dealing with High Availability Infrastructures. As a result of running my session at SQLBits X and SQL Saturday in Dublin, the feedback I have received has been that many individuals desire to understand more of the concepts behind the first 6 “worlds” in the list above. Over the coming weeks, a series of blog posts will be put on this site to help understand the key concepts of each area as it pertains to a High Availability BI Infrastructure. Each post will not provide exhaustive coverage of the topic. For example DNS can be a book in its own right when you consider that there are so many different configuration options with Forward Lookup, Reverse Lookups, AD Integrated Zones and DNA forwarders to name some examples. What I want to do is share the pertinent points as it pertains to the BI infrastructure that you build so that you are equipped with the knowledge to have the right discussion when planning this infrastructure. Next, we will focus on the server infrastructure that will be required to support the High Availability BI Infrastructure, from both a physical box and virtualised perspective. Thanks   Chris

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• SanjayP&rsquo;s venture after Microsoft involves no Microsoft

  - by eddraper

  When I was at Microsoft, I always found Sanjay Parthasarathy to be a bright and passionate leader.  While he was a bit disconnected at times with what was really going on out in the trenches, I always thought he was true believer in what we in Developer Platform and Evangelism (DPE) were doing.  He got it.  He had started DPE and kicked a lot of doors down up in Redmond to make it happen.  Back in the early 2000s, battles over platform choices at large customers was trench warfare… bayonets and hand grenades at the P-Code level.  This model was not at all suited to Microsoft’s org structure at the time.  While there were plenty of people fully able to have competitive conversations around Windows Server, or AD, or Exchange, or the desktop, there weren’t many that could have deep technical conversations around Java vs .NET and the platform “stack” as a cohesive, unified unit of value.  This task fell to DPE. Sanjay ended up leaving Microsoft a number of months before me in 2009 and I remember thinking these exact words: “holy shit, SanjayP left Microsoft.”  When SanjayP left DPE years before that,  Sheila Gulati had stepped into his shoes and I thought we where starting to miss a beat.  Sheila had built an amazing business at Microsoft India, but I don’t recall being inspired by her as a leader.  SanjayP’s talks felt like the opening scene of “Patton” with George C. Scott pacing in front of the American flag.  Sheila was a voice on a con-call.  When she moved on in 2007, Walid Abu-Hadba was given the reigns.  Personally, I don’t ever recall even seeing his face.  I think I might recall hearing his voice on some con-calls, but for all intents and purposes he was invisible to me.  Perhaps this was the beginning of my carelessness around seeking “visibility.” Fast forward to Build 2011.  First off, we have no PDC – we have Build.  Microsoft had made an 11 year investment by this time in building an organization to make its technology relevant to developers.  One would think such an org would be in the driver’s seat of such an event, but we see Windows product group people on the podiums.  Watching, I could see the messaging unfold… but no story.  It was like the old days.  Demos and PowerPoints by team members building the tech, and in many cases VPs.  The ensuing confusion is almost legendary now.  Windows 8 was, and is, a pretty big deal… but who is telling the story – not just features and benefits, but the story around how it all fits together. Having been out of Microsoft for two years now, and looking in, I can only conclude that the “DPE of old” has at best been emasculated, and at worst been completely marginalized by internal politics, or perhaps the eternal march of the corporate entropy generator that resides at all large companies.  I don’t think this is a good thing for anyone. And now, back to Sanjay who is the father of Microsoft DPE… I noticed that he has moved back to India and is doing start-up work.  His current company Indix looks to be doing some interesting things with “big data” and here’s their stack: Nary a trace of anything Microsoft.  What could account for this?  I wonder….  Better availability of labor and expertise in India for this stack?  Donno, but even in India, leet R and Hadoop skills have to be hard to find. Technical superiority?  This, I sincerely doubt. This stack, with SanjayP’s name as CEO leaves me with an unsettling feeling.  If he did believe, he no longer does.  One doesn’t place bets with real money on things they don’t believe in.  Perhaps he never did believe, and was a corporate creature seeking to find a niche for himself after which he manipulated me and others.  Or perhaps… anger… be it passive aggression or an outright “in your face F*** you” to his former masters. I guess in the end, only he knows the true reason… But I have my theory...

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• Searching for the last logon of users in Active Directory

  - by Robert May

  I needed to clean out a bunch of old accounts at Veracity Solutions, and wanted to delete those that hadn’t used their account in more than a year. I found that AD has a property on objects called the lastLogonTimestamp.  However, this value isn’t exposed to you in any useful fashion.  Sure, you can pull up ADSI Edit and and eventually get to it there, but it’s painful. I spent some time searching, and discovered that there’s not much out there to help, so I thought a blog post showing exactly how to get at this information would be in order. Basically, what you end up doing is using System.DirectoryServices to search for accounts and then filtering those for users, doing some conversion and such to make it happen.  Basically, the end result of this is that you get a list of users with their logon information and you can then do with that what you will.  I turned my list into an observable collection and bound it into a XAML form. One important note, you need to add a reference to ActiveDs Type Library in the COM section of the world in references to get to LargeInteger. Here’s the class: namespace Veracity.Utilities { using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.DirectoryServices; using ActiveDs; using log4net; /// <summary> /// Finds users inside of the active directory system. /// </summary> public class UserFinder { /// <summary> /// Creates the default logger /// </summary> private static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(UserFinder)); /// <summary> /// Finds last logon information /// </summary> /// <param name="domain">The domain to search.</param> /// <param name="userName">The username for the query.</param> /// <param name="password">The password for the query.</param> /// <returns>A list of users with their last logon information.</returns> public IList<UserLoginInformation> GetLastLogonInformation(string domain, string userName, string password) { IList<UserLoginInformation> result = new List<UserLoginInformation>(); DirectoryEntry entry = new DirectoryEntry(domain, userName, password, AuthenticationTypes.Secure); DirectorySearcher directorySearcher = new DirectorySearcher(entry); directorySearcher.PropertyNamesOnly = true; directorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("name"); directorySearcher.PropertiesToLoad.Add("lastLogonTimeStamp"); SearchResultCollection searchResults; try { searchResults = directorySearcher.FindAll(); } catch (System.Exception ex) { log.Error("Failed to do a find all.", ex); throw; } try { foreach (SearchResult searchResult in searchResults) { DirectoryEntry resultEntry = searchResult.GetDirectoryEntry(); if (resultEntry.SchemaClassName == "user") { UserLoginInformation logon = new UserLoginInformation(); logon.Name = resultEntry.Name; PropertyValueCollection timeStampObject = resultEntry.Properties["lastLogonTimeStamp"]; if (timeStampObject.Count > 0) { IADsLargeInteger logonTimeStamp = (IADsLargeInteger)timeStampObject[0]; long lastLogon = (long)((uint)logonTimeStamp.LowPart + (((long)logonTimeStamp.HighPart) << 32)); logon.LastLogonTime = DateTime.FromFileTime(lastLogon); } result.Add(logon); } } } catch (System.Exception ex) { log.Error("Failed to iterate search results.", ex); throw; } return result; } } } Some important things to note: Username and Password can be set to null and if your computer us part of the domain, this may still work. Domain should be set to something like LDAP://servername/CN=Users,CN=Domain,CN=com You’re actually getting a com object back, so that’s why the LongInteger conversions are happening.  The class for UserLoginInformation looks like this:   namespace Veracity.Utilities { using System; /// <summary> /// Represents user login information. /// </summary> public class UserLoginInformation { /// <summary> /// Gets or sets Name /// </summary> public string Name { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets or sets LastLogonTime /// </summary> public DateTime LastLogonTime { get; set; } /// <summary> /// Gets the age of the account. /// </summary> public TimeSpan AccountAge { get { TimeSpan result = TimeSpan.Zero; if (this.LastLogonTime != DateTime.MinValue) { result = DateTime.Now.Subtract(this.LastLogonTime); } return result; } } } } I hope this is useful and instructive. Technorati Tags: Active Directory

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• Sublime text 2 syntax highlighter?

  - by BigSack

  I have coded my first custom syntax highlighter for sublime text 2, but i don't know how to install it. It is based on notepad++ highlighter found here https://70995658-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/lohanplus/files/smali_npp.xml?attachauth=ANoY7criVTO9bDmIGrXwhZLQ_oagJzKKJTlbNDGRzMDVpFkO5i0N6hk_rWptvoQC1tBlNqcqFDD5NutD_2vHZx1J7hcRLyg1jruSjebHIeKdS9x0JCNrsRivgs6DWNhDSXSohkP1ZApXw0iQ0MgqcXjdp7CkJJ6pY_k5Orny9TfK8UWn_HKFsmPcpp967NMPtUnd--ad-BImtkEi-fox2tjs7zc5LabkDQ%3D%3D&attredirects=0&d=1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>fileTypes</key> <array> <string>smali</string> </array> <dict> <key>Word1</key> <string>add-double add-double/2addr add-float add-float/2addr add-int add-int/2addr add-int/lit16 add-int/lit8 add-long add-long/2addr aget aget-boolean aget-byte aget-char aget-object aget-short aget-wide and-int and-int/2addr and-int/lit16 and-int/lit8 and-long and-long/2addr aput aput-boolean aput-byte aput-char aput-object aput-short aput-wide array-length check-cast cmp-long cmpg-double cmpg-float cmpl-double cmpl-float const const-class const-string const-string-jumbo const-wide const-wide/16 const-wide/32 const-wide/high16 const/16 const/4 const/high16 div-double div-double/2addr div-float div-float/2addr div-int div-int/2addr div-int/lit16 div-int/lit8 div-long div-long/2addr double-to-float double-to-int double-to-long execute-inline fill-array-data filled-new-array filled-new-array/range float-to-double float-to-int float-to-long goto goto/16 goto/32 if-eq if-eqz if-ge if-gez if-gt if-gtz if-le if-lez if-lt if-ltz if-ne if-nez iget iget-boolean iget-byte iget-char iget-object iget-object-quick iget-quick iget-short iget-wide iget-wide-quick instance-of int-to-byte int-to-char int-to-double int-to-float int-to-long int-to-short invoke-direct invoke-direct-empty invoke-direct/range invoke-interface invoke-interface/range invoke-static invoke-static/range invoke-super invoke-super-quick invoke-super-quick/range invoke-super/range invoke-virtual invoke-virtual-quick invoke-virtual-quick/range invoke-virtual/range iput iput-boolean iput-byte iput-char iput-object iput-object-quick iput-quick iput-short iput-wide iput-wide-quick long-to-double long-to-float long-to-int monitor-enter monitor-exit move move-exception move-object move-object/16 move-object/from16 move-result move-result-object move-result-wide move-wide move-wide/16 move-wide/from16 move/16 move/from16 mul-double mul-double/2addr mul-float mul-float/2addr mul-int mul-int/2addr mul-int/lit8 mul-int/lit16 mul-long mul-long/2addr neg-double neg-float neg-int neg-long new-array new-instance nop not-int not-long or-int or-int/2addr or-int/lit16 or-int/lit8 or-long or-long/2addr rem-double rem-double/2addr rem-float rem-float/2addr rem-int rem-int/2addr rem-int/lit16 rem-int/lit8 rem-long rem-long/2addr return return-object return-void return-wide rsub-int rsub-int/lit8 sget sget-boolean sget-byte sget-char sget-object sget-short sget-wide shl-int shl-int/2addr shl-int/lit8 shl-long shl-long/2addr shr-int shr-int/2addr shr-int/lit8 shr-long shr-long/2addr sparse-switch sput sput-boolean sput-byte sput-char sput-object sput-short sput-wide sub-double sub-double/2addr sub-float sub-float/2addr sub-int sub-int/2addr sub-int/lit16 sub-int/lit8 sub-long sub-long/2addr throw throw-verification-error ushr-int ushr-int/2addr ushr-int/lit8 ushr-long ushr-long/2addr xor-int xor-int/2addr xor-int/lit16 xor-int/lit8 xor-long xor-long/2addr</string> </dict> <dict> <key>Word2</key> <string>v0 v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6 v7 v8 v9 v10 v11 v12 v13 v14 v15 v16 v17 v18 v19 v20 v21 v22 v23 v24 v25 v26 v27 v28 v29 v30 v31 v32 v33 v34 v35 v36 v37 v38 v39 v40 v41 v42 v43 v44 v45 v46 v47 v48 v49 v50 p0 p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 p10 p11 p12 p13 p14 p15 p16 p17 p18 p19 p20 p21 p22 p23 p24 p25 p26 p27 p28 p29 p30</string> </dict> <dict> <key>Word3</key> <string>array-data .catch .catchall .class .end .end\ local .enum .epilogue .field .implements .line .local .locals .parameter .prologue .registers .restart .restart\ local .source .subannotation .super</string> </dict> <dict> <key>Word4</key> <string>abstract bridge constructor declared-synchronized enum final interface native private protected public static strictfp synchronized synthetic system transient varargs volatile</string> </dict> <dict> <key>Word4</key> <string>(&quot;0)&quot;0</string> </dict> <dict> <key>Word5</key> <string>.method .annotation .sparse-switch .packed-switch</string> </dict> <dict> <key>word6</key> <string>.end\ method .end\ annotation .end\ sparse-switch .end\ packed-switch</string> </dict> <dict> <key>word7</key> <string>&quot; ( ) , ; { } &gt;</string> </dict> <key>uuid</key> <string>27798CC6-6B1D-11D9-B8FA-000D93589AF6</string> </dict> </plist>

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• MSSQL: Copying data from one database to another

  - by DigiMortal

  I have database that has data imported from another server using import and export wizard of SQL Server Management Studio. There is also empty database with same tables but it also has primary keys, foreign keys and indexes. How to get data from first database to another? Here is the description of my crusade. And believe me – it is not nice one. Bugs in import and export wizard There is some awful bugs in import and export wizard that makes data imports and exports possible only on very limited manner: wizard is not able to analyze foreign keys, wizard wants to create tables always, whatever you say in settings. The result is faulty and useless package. Now let’s go step by step and make things work in our scenario. Database There are two databases. Let’s name them like this: PLAIN – contains data imported from remote server (no indexes, no keys, no nothing, just plain dumb data) CORRECT – empty database with same structure as remote database (indexes, keys and everything else but no data) Our goal is to get data from PLAIN to CORRECT. 1. Create import and export package In this point we will create faulty SSIS package using SQL Server Management Studio. Run import and export wizard and let it create SSIS package that reads data from CORRECT and writes it to, let’s say, CORRECT-2. Make sure you enable identity insert. Make sure there are no views selected. Make sure you don’t let package to create tables (you can miss this step because it wants to create tables anyway). Save package to SSIS. 2. Modify import and export package Now let’s clean up the package and remove all faulty crap. Connect SQL Server Management Studio to SSIS instance. Select the package you just saved and export it to your hard disc. Run Business Intelligence Studio. Create new SSIS project (DON’T MISS THIS STEP). Add package from disc as existing item to project and open it. Move to Control Flow page do one of following: Remove all preparation SQL-tasks and connect Data Flow tasks. Modify all preparation SQL-tasks so the existence of tables is checked before table is created (yes, you have to do it manually). Add new Execute-SQL task as first task in control flow: Open task properties. Assign destination connection as connection to use. Insert the following SQL as command:   EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? NOCHECK CONSTRAINT ALL' GO   EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'DELETE FROM ?' GO   Save task. Add new Execute-SQL task as last task in control flow: Open task properties. Assign destination connection as connection to use. Insert the following SQL as command:   EXEC sp_MSForEachTable 'ALTER TABLE ? CHECK CONSTRAINT ALL' GO   Save task Now connect first Execute-SQL task with first Data Flow task and last Data Flow task with second Execute-SQL task. Now move to Package Explorer tab and change connections under Connection Managers folder. Make source connection to use database PLAIN. Make destination connection to use database CORRECT. Save package and rebuilt the project. Update package using SQL Server Management Studio. Some hints: Make sure you take the package from solution folder because it is saved there now. Don’t overwrite existing package. Use numeric suffix and let Management Studio to create a new version of package. Now you are done with your package. Run it to test it and clean out all the errors you find. TRUNCATE vs DELETE You can see that I used DELETE FROM instead of TRUNCATE. Why? Because TRUNCATE has some nasty limits (taken from MSDN): “You cannot use TRUNCATE TABLE on a table referenced by a FOREIGN KEY constraint; instead, use DELETE statement without a WHERE clause. Because TRUNCATE TABLE is not logged, it cannot activate a trigger. TRUNCATE TABLE may not be used on tables participating in an indexed view.” As I am not sure what tables you have and how they are used I provided here the solution that should work for all scenarios. If you need better performance then in some cases you can use TRUNCATE table instead of DELETE. Conclusion My conclusion is bitter this time although I am very positive guy. It is A.D. 2010 and still we have to write stupid hacks for simple things. Simple tools that existed before are long gone and we have to live mysterious bloatware that is our only choice when using default tools. If you take a look at the length of this posting and the count of steps I had to do for one easy thing you should treat it as a signal that something has went wrong in last years. Although I got my job done I would be still more happy if out of box tools are more intelligent one day. References T-SQL Trick for Deleting All Data in Your Database (Mauro Cardarelli) TRUNCATE TABLE (MSDN Library) Error Handling in SQL 2000 – a Background (Erland Sommarskog) Disable/Enable Foreign Key and Check constraints in SQL Server (Decipher)

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 27, 2014

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, May 27, 2014Popular ReleasesAD4 Application Designer for flow based .NET applications: AD4.AppDesigner.18.11: AD4.Iteration.18.11(Rendering of flow chart) Bugfix: AppWrapperClassContainer MakeWrapperBuildInstances MakeFlowClassCtor Note: Currently not all elements are shown in flow chart area! This version is able to generate the source code of some samples. See: Sample Applications (You find the flow description in the documents folder of each sample). The gluing code of the AD4.AppDesigner was created by the previous version of the AD4.AppDesigner. You find the current app definition in t...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.71.1: More performance improvements. It's faster and consumes less memory.SQL Server Change Data Capture Application: Release 1: This is the initial release of SQLCDCApp. Download the zip file. Unzip and run SQLCDCApp.exe to start.Role Based Views in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011: Role Based Views in CRM 2011 and 2013 - 1.1.0.0: Issues fixed in this build: 1. Works for CRM 2013 2. Lookup view not getting blockedMathos Parser: 1.0.6.1 + source code: Removed the bug with comma/dot reported and fixed by Diego.Dynamics AX Build Scripts: DynamicsAXCommunity Powershell module (0.3.0): Change log(previous release was 0.2.4) 0.3.0 AxBuild (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn528954.aspx) is supported and used by default. Smarter dealing with versions - e.g. listing configurations for all versions in the same time. $AxVersionPreference shouldn't be normally needed. Additional properties returned by Get-AXConfig. 0.2.5 -StartupCmd and -Wait added to Start-AXClient. Handles console output sent from AX (http://dev.goshoom.net/en/2012/05/console-output-ax/).xFunc: xFunc 2.15.6: Fidex #77QuickMon: Version 3.12: This release is mostly just to improve the UI for the Windows client. There are a few minor fixes as well. 1. Polling frequency presets fixed (slow, normal and fast) 2. Added collector call duration to history 3. History now displays time, state, duration and details in separate columns 4. Added a quick launch drop down list to main Window (only visible when mouse hover over it) 5. Removed the toolbar border. 6. Changed Windows service collector to report error only when all services from al...VK.NET - Vkontakte API for .NET: VkNet 1.0.5: ?????????? ????? ??????.Kartris E-commerce: Kartris v2.6002: Minor release: Double check that Logins_GetList sproc is present, sometimes seems to get missed earlier if upgrading which can give error when viewing logins page Added CSV and TXT export option; this is not Google Products compatible, but can give a good base for creating a file for some other systems such as Amazon Fixed some minor combination and options issues to improve interface back and front Turn bitcoin and some other gateways off by default Minor CSS changes Fixed currenc...SimCityPak: SimCityPak 0.3.1.0: Main New Features: Fixed Importing of Instance Names (get rid of the Dutch translations) Added advanced editor for Decal Dictionaries Added possibility to import .PNG to generate new decals Added advanced editor for Path display entriesTiny Deduplicator: Tiny Deduplicator 1.0.1.0: Increased version number to 1.0.1.0 Moved all options to a separate 'Options' dialog window. Allows the user to specify a selection strategy which will help when dealing with large numbers of duplicate files. Available options are "None," "Keep First," and "Keep Last"C64 Studio: 3.5: Add: BASIC renumber function Add: !PET pseudo op Add: elseif for !if, } else { pseudo op Add: !TRACE pseudo op Add: Watches are saved/restored with a solution Add: Ctrl-A works now in export assembly controls Add: Preliminary graphic import dialog (not fully functional yet) Add: range and block selection in sprite/charset editor (Shift-Click = range, Alt-Click = block) Fix: Expression evaluator could miscalculate when both division and multiplication were in an expression without parenthesisSEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.031.009 Release 1: Added mirroring of ConveyorTubeCurved. Updated Ship cube rotation to rotate ship back to original location (cubes are reoriented but ship appears no different to outsider), and to rotate Grouped items. Repair now fixes the loss of Grouped controls due to changes in Space Engineers 01.030. Added export asteroids. Rejoin ships will merge grouping and conveyor systems (even though broken ships currently only maintain the Grouping on one part of the ship). Installation of this version wi...Player Framework by Microsoft: Player Framework for Windows and WP v2.0: Support for new Universal and Windows Phone 8.1 projects for both Xaml and JavaScript projects. See a detailed list of improvements, breaking changes and a general overview of version 2 ADDITIONAL DOWNLOADSSmooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applications Smooth Streaming Client SDK for Windows Phone 8.1 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8 Applications Microsoft PlayReady Client SDK for Windows 8.1 Applicat...TerraMap (Terraria World Map Viewer): TerraMap 1.0.6: Added support for the new Terraria v1.2.4 update. New items, walls, and tiles Added the ability to select multiple highlighted block types. Added a dynamic, interactive highlight opacity slider, making it easier to find highlighted tiles with dark colors (and fixed blurriness from 1.0.5 alpha). Added ability to find Enchanted Swords (in the stone) and Water Bolt books Fixed Issue 35206: Hightlight/Find doesn't work for Demon Altars Fixed finding Demon Hearts/Shadow Orbs Fixed inst...DotNet.Highcharts: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 with Examples: DotNet.Highcharts 4.0 Tested and adapted to the latest version of Highcharts 4.0.1 Added new chart type: Heatmap Added new type PointPlacement which represents enumeration or number for the padding of the X axis. Changed target framework from .NET Framework 4 to .NET Framework 4.5. Closed issues: 974: Add 'overflow' property to PlotOptionsColumnDataLabels class 997: Split container from JS 1006: Series/Categories with numeric names don't render DotNet.Highcharts.Samples Updated s...PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit: PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit v3.1.3: Added CompressLogs option to the config file. Each Install / Uninstall creates a timestamped zip file with all MSI and PSAppDeployToolkit logs contained within Added variable expansion to all paths in the configuration file Added documentation for each of the Toolkit internal variables that can be used Changed Install-MSUpdates to continue if any errors are encountered when installing updates Implement /Force parameter on Update-GroupPolicy (ensure that any logoff message is ignored) ...WordMat: WordMat v. 1.07: A quick fix because scientific notation was broken in v. 1.06 read more at http://wordmat.blogspot.com????: 《????》: 《????》（c???）??“????”???????，???????????????C?????????。???????,???????????????????????. ??????????????????????????????????；????????????????????????????。New Projects2112110016: BÀI T?P OOP2112110072: 2112110072 Bai tap OOPA more efficient algorithm for an NP-complete problem: Algorithm for finding Hamiltonian cycle.Asprise OCR for C#/VB.NET Sample Applications: Embeded with a high performance OCR (optical character recognition) engine, Asprise OCR SDK library for Java, VB.NET, CSharp.NET, VC++, VB6.0, C, C++, Delphi onDisenio1Obli1: Obligatorio desarrollado por Santiago Perez y Germán Otero Universidad ORT, Año 2014DuAnCuoiKy: lap trinh windows form cuoi ky, quan ly sinh vien truong hoc student management systemEnterprise Integration and BPM - A WF Integration and BPM blueprint: A CQRS based EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) and BMP (Business Process Management) blueprint using Message Queues and Windows Workflow Foundation.GU.ERP: saLaunchPad2: A remote device timing and control systemNMusicCreator: A simple program for creating music.PPM: ??SharePoint 2013 Latency Health Analyzer Rule: Analyze network latency for all SQL Servers using this custom health analyzer rule.SnapPea: A simple MVC content management system.The Bubble Index: The Bubble Index, a Java (TM) application to measure the level of financial bubbles. Published with GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2).Tools for Manufacturing: t4mfg is a set of programs to be used by small to medium sized companies that manufacture goods to order.Unix Project Template: A simple framework for creating unix projects using C++ and make.

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• Taking web sites offline for demonstration

  While working in software development in general, and in web development for a couple of customers it is quite common that it is necessary to provide a test bed where the client is able to get an image, or better said, a feeling for the visions and ideas you are talking about. Usually here at IOS Indian Ocean Software Ltd. we set up a demo web site on one of our staging servers, and provide credentials to the customer to access and review our progress and work ad hoc. This gives us the highest flexibility on both sides, as the test bed is simply online and available 24/7. We can update the structure, the UI and data at any time, and the client is able to view it as it suits best for her/him. Limited or lack of online connectivity But what is going to happen when your client is not capable to be online - no matter for what reasons; here are some more obvious ones: No internet connection (permanently or temporarily) Expensive connection, ie. mobile data package, stay at a hotel, etc. Presentation devices at an exhibition, ie. using tablets or iPads Being abroad for a certain time, and only occasionally online No network coverage, especially on mobile Bad infrastructure, like ie. in Third World countries Providing a catalogue on CD or USB pen drive Anyway, it doesn't matter really. We should be able to provide a solution for the circumstances of our customers. Presentation during an exhibition Recently, we had the following request from a customer: Is it possible to let us have a desktop version of ResortWork.co.uk that we can use for demo purposes at the forthcoming Ski Shows? It would allow us to let stand visitors browse the sites on an iPad to view jobs and training directory course listings. Yes, sure we can do that. Eventually, you might think why don't they simply use 3G enabled iPads for that purpose? As stated above, there might be several reasons for that - low coverage, expensive data packages, etc. Anyway, it is not a question on how to circumvent the request but to deliver a solution to that. Possible solutions... or not? We already did offline websites earlier, and even established complete mirrors of one or two web sites on our systems. There are actually several possibilities to handle this kind of request, and it mainly depends on the system or device where the offline site should be available on. Here, it is clearly expressed that we have to address this on an Apple iPad, well actually, I think that they'd like to use multiple devices during their exhibitions. Following is an overview of possible solutions depending on the technology or device in use, and how it can be done: Replication of source files and database The above mentioned web site is running on ASP.NET, IIS and SQL Server. In case that a laptop or slate runs a Windows OS, the easiest way would be to take a snapshot of the source files and database, and transfer them as local installation to those Windows machines. This approach would be fully operational on the local machine. Saving pages for offline usage This is actually a quite tedious job but still practicable for small web sites Tool based approach to 'harvest' the web site There quite some tools in the wild that could handle this job, namely wget, httrack, web copier, etc. Screenshots bundled as PDF document Not really... ;-) Creating screencast or video Simply navigate through your website and record your desktop session. Actually, we are using this kind of approach to track down difficult problems in order to see and understand exactly what the user was doing to cause an error. Of course, this list isn't complete and I'd love to get more of your ideas in the comments section below the article. Preparations for offline browsing The original website is dynamically and data-driven by ASP.NET, and looks like this: As we have to put the result onto iPads we are going to choose the tool-based approach to 'download' the whole web site for offline usage. Again, depending on the complexity of your web site you might have to check which of the applications produces the best results for you. My usual choice is to use wget but in this case, we run into problems related to the rewriting of hyperlinks. As a consequence of that we opted for using HTTrack. HTTrack comes in different flavours, like console application but also as either GUI (WinHTTrack on Windows) or Web client (WebHTTrack on Linux/Unix/BSD). Here's a brief description taken from the original website about HTTrack: HTTrack is a free (GPL, libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure. Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. And there is an extensive documentation for all options and switches online. General recommendation is to go through the HTTrack Users Guide By Fred Cohen. It covers all the initial steps you need to get up and running. Be aware that it will take quite some time to get all the necessary resources down to your machine. Actually, for our customer we run the tool directly on their web server to avoid unnecessary traffic and bandwidth. After a couple of runs and some additional fine-tuning - explicit inclusion or exclusion of various external linked web sites - we finally had a more or less complete offline version available. A very handsome feature of HTTrack is the error/warning log after completing the download. It contains some detailed information about errors that appeared on the pages and the links within the pages that have been processed. Error: "Bad Request" (400) at link www.resortwork.co.uk/job-details_Ski_hire:tech_or_mgr_or_driver_37854.aspx (from www.resortwork.co.uk/Jobs_A_to_Z.aspx)Error: "Not Found" (404) at link www.247recruit.net/images/applynow.png (from www.247recruit.net/css/global.css)Error: "Not Found" (404) at link www.247recruit.net/activate.html (from www.247recruit.net/247recruit_tefl_jobs_network.html) In our situation, we took the records of HTTP 400/404 errors and passed them to the web development department. Improvements are to be expected soon. ;-) Quality assurance on the full-featured desktop Unfortunately, the generated output of HTTrack was still incomplete but luckily there were only images missing. Being directly on the web server we simply copied the missing images from the original source folder into our offline version. After that, we created an archive and transferred the file securely to our local workspace for further review and checks. From that point on, it wasn't necessary to get any more files from the original web server, and we could focus ourselves completely on the process of browsing and navigating through the offline version to isolate visual differences and functional problems. As said, the original web site runs on ASP.NET Web Forms and uses Postback calls for interaction like search, pagination and partly for navigation. This is the main field of improving the offline experience. Of course, same as for standard web development it is advised to test with various browsers, and strangely we discovered that the offline version looked pretty good on Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but not in Internet Explorer. A quick look at the HTML source shed some light on this, and there are conditional CSS inclusions based on the user agent. HTTrack is not acting as Internet Explorer and so we didn't have the necessary overrides for this browser. Not problematic after all in our case, but you might have to pay attention to this and get the IE-specific files explicitly. And while having a view at the source code, we also found out that HTTrack actually modifies the generated HTML output. In several occasions we discovered that <div> elements were converted into <table> constructs for no obvious reason; even nested structures. Search 'e'nd destroy - sed (or Notepad++) to the rescue During our intensive root cause analysis for a couple of HTML/CSS problems that needed some extra attention it is very helpful to be familiar with any editor that allows search and replace over multiple files like, ie. sed - stream editor for filtering and transforming text on Linux or my personal favourite Notepad++ on Windows. This allowed us to quickly fix a lot of anchors with onclick attributes and Javascript code that was addressed to ASP.NET files instead of their generated HTML counterparts, like so: grep -lr -e '.aspx' * | xargs sed -e 's/.aspx/.html?/g' The additional question mark after the HTML extension helps to separate the query string from the actual target and solved all our missing hyperlinks very fast. The same can be done in Notepad++ on Windows, too. Just use the 'Replace in files' feature and you are settled. Especially, in combination with Regular Expressions (regex). Landscape of browsers Okay, after several runs of HTML/CSS code analysis, searching and replacing some strings in a pool of more than 4.000 files, we finally had a very good match of an offline browsing experience in Firefox and Chrome on Linux. Next, we transferred that modified set of files to a Windows 8 machine for review on Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer 7 to 10, and a Mac mini running Mac OS X 10.7 to check the output on Safari and again on Chrome. Besides IE, for reasons already mentioned above, the results were identical. And last but not least it was about to check web site on tablets. Please continue to read on the following articles: Taking web sites offline for demonstration on Galaxy Tablet Taking web sites offline for demonstration on iPad

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• Oracle Hyperion Planning: Nueva versión 11.1.2, ya disponible.

  - by Oracle Aplicaciones

    v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Oralce Hyperion Planning, es una solución centralizada de elaboración de planificaciones, presupuestos y previsiones basada en Excel y en web, que integra procesos de planificación financiera y operativa. Esta aplicación proporciona una visión profunda de las operaciones de negocio y su impacto derivado sobre las finanzas, mediante una integración estrecha de los modelos de planificación financiera y operativa. La nueva versión de Oralce Hyperion Planning 11.1.2, ya está disponible e incorpora nuevas funcionalidades enfocadas a mejorar el proceso de presupuestación en las compañías. Esta nueva release basa sus nuevas mejoras en dotar al sistema de: Mayor Usabilidad Reducir el ciclo de Presupuesto Workflows Sofisticados Mayor control de aprobaciones Microsoft Office Presupuestación en Excel Nuevos Módulos Ampliar Mercados Libros Presupuestarios Información más Rápida Algunas de las principales mejoras incorporadas en esta versión podríamos destacar: 1-. Mejoras en la definición de los formularios, como incluir pestañas y secciones en los propios formularios, validaciones que controlen los datos presupuestados, poder realizar análisis Ad-hoc sobre los formularios en la web todo ello enfocado a hacer más sencilla la presupuestación por parte del usuario, , obteniendo la visión de la presupuestación deseada. Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 2-. Mejoras en la integración con Office: Integración de las tareas tanto en Excel como en Outlook, donde los usuarios podrán controlar los pasos y tareas a realizar en el proceso de presupuestación: Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 3-. Proceso de presupuestación completo en Excel: desde el Acceso a la lista de tareas hasta el envío y aprobación del presupuesto Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} 4-. La funcionalidad de la gestión del proceso (Workflow) ,ha sido mejorada para permitir validaciones y aprobaciones más sofisticadas, soportando organizaciones matriciales con múltiples revisores, y aprobaciones , que pueden cambiar dependiendo de la información introducida por el propio usuario, por ejemplo, si un usuario introduce una inversión de más de 500.000 € la aprobación será realizada por el responsable de Capex y no por el responsable regional. Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Normal 0 21 false false false ES X-NONE X-NONE /* 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-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Estas son solo algunas de las nuevas funcionalidades incorporadas en la release 11.1.2. Para ver mas información sobre Oracle Hyperion Planning haga click aqui

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• A tale of two dev accounts

  - by TechTwaddle

  Note: I am currently in the process of relocating my blog from http://www.geekswithblogs.net/techtwaddle to my new address at http://www.techtwaddle.net I suggest you point your feed readers to the new address as I slowly transition to my new shared-hosted, ad-free wordpress blog :)   You probably remember my rant from a while back about my windows mobile developer account having problems with the new AppHub, well, there have been few developments and I thought I should share it with you. First up, the issue isn’t fixed yet. I still cannot login to AppHub using my windows mobile 6.x developer account and can’t view details of my Minesweeper app. Who knows how many copies its sold. I had numerous exchanges with Microsoft’s support team on the AppHub forums and via email as well (support ticket), but somehow we never managed to get to the root of it. In fact, the support team itself grew so tired of the problem that they suggested I create a new dev account. I grew impatient, and it was really frustrating to have an app ready for submission but not being able to do anything with it. Eventually, the frustration had to show somewhere, and it was on this forum thread Prabhu Kumar in reply to Nick Nick, I feel for you and totally understand the frustration. Since day one I have been getting the XBOX profile linking error, We encountered an issue connecting your App Hub account with your Xbox Live Profile. Please visit Xbox.com and update your contact information. After you have updated your contact information, please return to the App Hub (https://users.create.msdn.com/Register) to continue. I have an app published on the Windows Mobile 6.x marketplace since Aug, now I can't view the details of this app. I completed work on my WP7 application 1.5 months ago and the first version is ready for submission to marketplace, only if I can login. You can imagine how frustrating all this can be, the issue has taken far too long to be fixed, this has drained all my motivation. I have exchanged numerous mails with Microsoft support team on this issue, and from the looks of it they really are trying their best, unfortunately, their best is not good enough for some of us. During the first week of December I was told that there would be an update happening to AppHub around mid of December. I was hoping that the issue would be fixed but it wasn't. After the update the only change I notice is that the xbox.com link on the error page now takes me to the correct link. Previously, this link used to take me to the 404 page you mentioned above. Out of desperation, I am now considering creating another developer account on AppHub with a new live id, even this I am not 100% sure will work. I asked the support team when the next update to AppHub was planned and got this reply, "We do not have  release date to announce for the next App Hub update at this time. In regards to the login issue you are experiencing at this point the only solution would be to create a new account with a different live ID but make sure to go to xbox.com before hand to get all the information in order on that side." I know it's an extra $99, and not that I can't afford it but it doesn't feel right and I shouldn't have to be doing it in the first place. I have lost all hope of this issue being resolved. I went ahead and created a new dev account, the id verification was in progress when Shaun Taulbee of Microsoft, who has been really helpful in the forums, replied saying, If you find it necessary to pay again to create a new account due to a Microsoft problem, send in a support request asking for a refund and we'll review it (and likely approve it given the circumstances). The thought of refund made me happy, but I had my doubts. So once my second account was verified by Geotrust I applied for a refund through the developer dashboard, by creating a support ticket. Couple of days later I got an email from Microsoft saying that the refund had been approved! yay! Few days and the refund showed up on my bill, Well, thank you Microsoft, it means a lot. I am glad it’s over now. The new account works flawlessly. I would still like to get my first account working again and look at my app numbers for Win Mo 6.x, and probably transfer the credits to the new account somehow, but I’ll save it for another day. If you’ve had similar problems with the AppHub, and had to create a new account to submit your app, I suggest you contact the support team and get your dollars refunded!

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• Windows Phone 7 Review &ndash; Part 1: LG Quantum

  - by Nikita Polyakov

  As many of my fellow geeks, I ran out and got a retail windows Phone 7 on the first day. Just had to have it :) I’ve had the developer prototypes in my hands for previous 3 months on and off, so I finally wanted to have one I call my own. I’ve rushed the Launch   I’ve checked out both AT&T and T-Mobile offerings on day 1 and decided on a Samsung Focus. Great screen, super light and thin. If you don’t believe me that this phone can compete with the best of the non-Phone 7 offerings - get it in your hand to compare for yourself. I have to say that even though the on-screen keyboard on Windows Phone 7 is one of the best, the amount of text I write on my phone and my expectation of how long that takes for a short reply are very high. Also the phone being so slick and sexy did not feel solid or confident in my hand or pocket. As the dust settled   Arrives the LG Quantum – now on AT&T and worldwide. First impression of the softer plastic, the back battery cover is solid metal - the entire phone feels solid and indestructible! Phone fits just right in my hand, it’s almost too good. It does not feel like it will crack in your jeans. I feel safe holding it and don’t feel like if I or someone were to bump into me walking it’d fly out of my hand. I’ve dropped and had thrown the Focus a few times on accident as it’s weight is negligible. I won’t even dream of lying the first day adjusting to a 3.5’ LCD screen from the Samsung’s blistering bright and poppy AMOLED 4’ was hard. But the colors and sharpness are still very good. I find it almost easier on the eyes actually for day to day use.  I had a chance to lay the phone down in the line with the prototypes and final versions of other phones that had LCD screens – LG makes HTC looks like a budget LCD compared to a high end LCD in the home theatre department. I am consistently complemented by friends that have the HD7 or Surround on how much better my screen looks. The screen just looks like the most color correct phone out of the line up. Even next to Samsung it makes it look oversaturated, but can’t match the true blacks compensating with true white.   Day to Day Usability   What I also noticed that is a huge difference is how much I am not accidently hitting the soft keys at the bottom. I real pain on Focus since holding it in am average size hand already would accidently touch the controls at the bottom. QWERTY keyboard on this phone is great. It’s like the mission for LG is “make it solid!”. Keyboard has a very durable feel.   LG’s has a secret wild card though is the DLNA support. If you seen an ad for it, you should. Imagine this – playing a song from your phone straight to your network connected A/V receiver. Done. Pictures to TV. Done. Video. Done. DLNA works with components that advertise to as well as Windows 7, XBOX 360 and other consoles.  I will write an extensive review of that experience in near future. LG Exclusive apps – from panorama photo taker to voice to text translator and even look-n-type app that works like a backup inverse camera, there is quite a bit there that won’t be found on the other phones. I’ll review those in more detail in another segment. Conclusion So for a quick comparison: If you want a phone that is super thin, light and is core reference of a Windows Phone 7 – Samsung Focus it is. If you want a great phone with solid secure feel, real keyboard, media features - the hands down winner is LG Quantum.   You can pick up the LG Quantum at AT&T in US and worldwide as LG Optimus 7Q.   Final thought: I have not had SmartPhone that I felt was a reliable trusty primary communication device since Samsung BlackJack II, this time the LG got the crown.   [ Disclosure: Phone was provided to me free of charge. That has been the case for all of my phones for years, nothing new - I get them all. ]

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• Wireless internet connection connects but internet does not work (no packets received). Wired does.

  - by Rodney

  When I connect my PC via ethernet cable to my ADSL router it works fine. When I connect via Wireless it connects and the internet will work for a random amount of time and then stop working. It stays connected with a strong signal but no packets are received. My laptop/iphone are right next to it and wireless works fine. If I open the Wireless USB status, it says it is connected to my SSID with full strength (54 mps - I am 3 meteres away from my router) and the activty shows as Packets 594 SENT and 105 RECEIVED (this goes up VERY slowly) I have tried the following: Turned off anitvirus and firewall completely. Tested the wifi signal- I am writing this on my laptop which is next to my PC and also has full wifi strength. Tried a different wireless adapter - I dug out an old PCI wireless card - it does the exact same thing. Compared all wireless settings to my laptop. I can ping google.com and it replies (sometimes with packet loss) When I reboot the PC it will connect for a minute or two (random time) and then just stops again. I tried Firefox, IE etc. no joy I have updated all latest versions (Netgear WG111v2) and drivers Checked Event Log - nothing unusual Ping the router (and even connect as admin for the few minutes when the internet does work) Changed the MTU down to 1200 using DrTCP Checked Device Manager for conflicts - none. I ping the router from the PC (192.168.0.10 - 192.168.0.1) and it replies with 4 packets. BUT, on my router admin page (which I access via http on my laptop wirelessly) - if I ping 192.168.0.10 all packets timeout (pinging my laptop 192.168.0.12 works fine) My router admin page shows the leased IP address for 192.168.0.10 (ie it is definitely talking to the router initially) Now I am out of ideas - please help. I think it is an OS/Software issue as I have tried 2 different wireless adapaters (PCI and USB) with the same result but all other wireless devices work fine around mine). It's not the firewall. It is getting assigned an IP address correctly (my PC gets 192.168.0.10, my laptop is .12) It is assigned by DHCP. As soon as I plug in the ethernet cable it all works fine. Repairing the adapter sometimes helps but it will always stop working after a random time. The wireless adapter always shows as connected with Excellent signal but the internet does not work. I am running Windows XP SP3 and have tried a Netgear WG111v2 USB adapter. Thanks in advance! UPDATE: The internet seems to be working, it is just either sending packets too small or slow to work (some small pages load bits of them very slowly but then hang). XP seems to have a networking diagnostic app - here is the output: Last diagnostic run time: 08/30/10 08:16:38 IP Configuration Diagnostic Invalid IP address info Valid IP address detected: 192.168.0.10 IP Layer Diagnostic Corrupted IP routing table info The default route is valid info The loopback route is valid info The local host route is valid info The local subnet route is valid Invalid ARP cache entries action The ARP cache has been flushed Gateway Diagnostic Gateway info The following proxy configuration is being used by IE: Automatically Detect Settings:Disabled Automatic Configuration Script: Proxy Server: Proxy Bypass list: info This computer has the following default gateway entry(ies): 192.168.0.1 info This computer has the following IP address(es): 192.168.0.10 info The default gateway is in the same subnet as this computer info The default gateway entry is a valid unicast address info The default gateway address was resolved via ARP in 1 try(ies) info The default gateway was reached via ICMP Ping in 1 try(ies) info TCP port 80 on host 65.55.12.249 was successfully reached info The Internet host www.microsoft.com was successfully reached info The default gateway is OK DNS Client Diagnostic DNS - Not a home user scenario info Using Web Proxy: no info Resolving name ok for (www.microsoft.com): yes No DNS servers DNS failure HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity info FTP (Passive): Successfully connected to ftp.microsoft.com. info HTTP: Successfully connected to www.microsoft.com. warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The operation timed out warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.passport.net: The operation timed out error Could not make an HTTPS connection. info Redirecting user to support call WinSock Diagnostic WinSock status info All base service provider entries are present in the Winsock catalog. info The Winsock Service provider chains are valid. info Provider entry MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP] passed the loopback communication test. info Provider entry MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP] passed the loopback communication test. info Provider entry RSVP UDP Service Provider passed the loopback communication test. info Provider entry RSVP TCP Service Provider passed the loopback communication test. info Connectivity is valid for all Winsock service providers. Wireless Diagnostic Wireless - Service disabled Wireless - User SSID action User input required: Specify network name or SSID Wireless - First time setup info The Wireless Network name (SSID) to which the user would like to connect = RodSof Wifi. Wireless - Radio off info Valid IP address detected: 192.168.0.10 Wireless - Out of range Wireless - Hardware issue Wireless - Novice user Wireless - Ad-hoc network Wireless - Less preferred Wireless - 802.1x enabled Wireless - Configuration mismatch Wireless - Low SNR Network Adapter Diagnostic Network location detection info Using home Internet connection Network adapter identification info Network connection: Name=Local Area Connection 2, Device=Realtek RTL8168C(P)/8111C(P) PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet NIC, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=LAN info Network connection: Name=Wireless USB, Device=NETGEAR WG111v2 54Mbps Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter, MediaType=LAN, SubMediaType=WIRELESS info Both Ethernet and Wireless connections available, prompting user for selection action User input required: Select network connection info Wireless connection selected Network adapter status info Network connection status: Connected HTTP, HTTPS, FTP Diagnostic HTTP, HTTPS, FTP connectivity info FTP (Active): Successfully connected to ftp.microsoft.com. warn HTTP: Error 12007 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The server name or address could not be resolved warn HTTP: Error 12002 connecting to www.hotmail.com: The operation timed out warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.passport.net: The operation timed out warn HTTPS: Error 12002 connecting to www.microsoft.com: The operation timed out error Could not make an HTTP connection. error Could not make an HTTPS connection.

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• Replies to request coming over a relay goes to relay's internal IP, not to original request's source IP

  - by seaquest

  Dhcpd running on Linux gets a dhcp request over dhcrelay which is running on other remote machine. Oct 6 10:09:46 2012 dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:1e:68:06:eb:37 (oguz-U300) via 172.16.17.81 tcpdump: listening on eth1, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 96 bytes 10:35:01.112500 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: UDP (17), length: 328) 192.168.0.81.67 > 192.168.0.1.67: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from 00:1e:68:06:eb:37, length: 300, hops:1, xid:0xe378fc7e, flags: [none] (0x0000) Gateway IP: 172.16.17.81 Client Ethernet Address: 00:1e:68:06:eb:37 [|bootp] It matches to a subnet and send reply. However reply does not go to the requesting dhcrelay external IP(192.168.0.81). Instead, it goes to the internal interface IP of machine running dhcrelay. And I think because of this remote machine running dhcrelay or the dhcrealy itself discarding packet. Oct 6 10:09:46 2012 dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 172.16.17.11 to 00:1e:68:06:eb:37 (oguz-U300) via 172.16.17.81 10:35:02.050108 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: UDP (17), length: 328) 192.168.0.1.67 > 172.16.17.81.67: BOOTP/DHCP, Reply, length: 300, hops:1, xid:0xe378fc7e, flags: [none] (0x0000) Your IP: 172.16.17.11 Gateway IP: 172.16.17.81 Client Ethernet Address: 00:1e:68:06:eb:37 [|bootp] Is this a normal behaviour? Machine running dhcrelay: eth1(ext) Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:0B:21:43:F4 inet addr:192.168.0.81 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 eth2(int) Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:0B:21:43:F5 inet addr:172.16.17.81 Bcast:172.16.17.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 3582 ? Ss 0:00 /usr/sbin/dhcrelay -i eth2 192.168.0.1 Machine running dhcpd: eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:90:0B:23:97:D1 inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 option domain-name "test.com"; option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0; authoritative; ignore client-updates; ddns-update-style ad-hoc; default-lease-time 86400; max-lease-time 86400; subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.0.135 192.168.0.169; option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255; option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1; option domain-name "test.com"; option routers 192.168.0.1; } subnet 172.16.17.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { local-address 192.168.0.1; server-identifier 192.168.0.1; range 172.16.17.10 172.16.17.11; option broadcast-address 172.16.17.255; option routers 172.16.17.81; } (I put local-address and server-identifier. But this does not help ) Regards, -- Oguz YILMAZ UPDATE: The first problem is found. I have configured dhcrelay only on listening internel interface. It seems (of course) is should also listen to external interface for replies. It appears it is not important where the packet destined to. dhrelay will forward it to internal net. HOWEVER, I have deleted route on dhcpd server to reach 172.16.17.x subnet. It again tries to send reply to 172.16.17.81. Because it does not know the route it send it from default gateway to the internet. eth0: IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 0, offset 0, flags [DF], proto: UDP (17), length: 328) 192.168.1.2.67 > 172.16.17.81.67: BOOTP/DHCP, Reply, length: 300, hops:1, xid:0x32830125, secs:3, flags: [none] (0x0000) eth0: Your IP: 172.16.17.11 eth0: Gateway IP: 172.16.17.81 eth0: Client Ethernet Address: 00:1e:68:06:eb:37 [|bootp] How can I force dhcpd to force to send replies to requesting IP? Because, it is not much meaningful to add routes to subnet we distribute IP for. Internet - dhcpd - 192.168.0.1 - SOMENET - 192.168.0.81 - dhcrelay - 172.16.17.0/24 192.168.0.1 has no route for 172.16.17.0 and has no interface directly attached to that net.

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• Jagran Prakashan Increases Staff Productivity by 40%

  - by Michael Snow

  Jagran Prakashan Increases Staff Productivity by 40%, Launches New IT Projects up to 4x Faster, Enables Mobile Service, and Improves Business Agility Oracle Customer: JPL Location:  Uttar Pradesh, India Industry: Media and Entertainment Employees:  10,000 Annual Revenue:  $100 to $500 Million Jagran Prakashan Ltd. (JPL) is one of India's premier media and communications groups with interests spanning print, advertising, event management, and mobile services for weather, cricket scores, and educational activities. It is a major media enterprise, with 300 locations across 15 states. Its impressive stable of print publications includes Dainik Jagran, the world’s most widely read daily newspaper––with a readership of over 55 million––the country’s leading afternoon dailies, and a range of popular local, bilingual, and English language newspapers. JPL was using multiple systems to manage its business processes. Users were resistant to using multiple passwords for various applications, preferring to continue their less efficient, legacy work practices. In addition, there was no single repository for sharing documents across the organization, such as company announcements or project documents. The company relied on e-mail to disseminate up-to-date company information, often missing employees. It was also time-consuming and difficult for managers to track the status of ongoing assignments or projects because collaboration and document sharing was inefficient and ineffective.With diverse businesses and many geographic locations, JPL needed to implement a centralized and user-friendly enterprise portal to improve document sharing and collaboration and increase business agility. The company implemented Oracle WebCenter Portal to create a dynamic, secure, and intuitive self-service enterprise portal to improve the user experience and increase operating efficiency. It improved staff productivity by 40%, accelerated new IT projects by up to 4x, boosted staff morale, and increased business agility.   Increases Staff Productivity by 40%, Launches New Products up to 2x Faster A word from JPL "With Oracle WebCenter Portal, we gained a dynamic, secure, and intuitive self-service enterprise portal that provided an exceptional user experience and enabled us to engage employees in a collaborative environment. It increased IT staff productivity by 40%, delivered new projects up to 4x faster, and enabled mobile service to improve our business agility.” Sarbani Bhatia, Vice President IT, Jagran Prakashahn Ltd Before implementing Oracle WebCenter Portal, JPL stored project-critical information, such as page planning of daily newspaper editions and the launch of new editions or supplements on individual laptops or in the e-mail system. Collaboration between colleagues was limited to physical meetings, telephone discussions, and e-mail. It was difficult to trace and recover important project documents when a staff member resigned, which represented a significant risk to business continuity. Employees were also averse to multiple passwords and resisted using the systems, affecting staff productivity. With Oracle WebCenter Portal, JPL created a dynamic, secure, and intuitive self-service enterprise portal with business activity streams. The portal allowed users to navigate, discover, and access information, such as advertising rates, requisition approvals, ad-hoc queries, and employee surveys from a single entry point with a single password. Managers can also upload important documents, such as new pricing for advertisers or newspaper distributors, and share them through the information and instruction section in the portal. In addition, managers can now easily track and review timelines for projects online rather than gathering information from meetings and e-mails. The company gained the ability to centrally manage information, ensured business continuity, and improved staff productivity by 40%.“In the media industry, news has a very short shelf life, so speed is crucial. Information delayed is like information lost,” said Sarbani Bhatia, vice president IT, Jagran Prakashahn Ltd. “Thanks to Oracle WebCenter Portal’s contextual collaboration tools, we can provide and share feedback for new project launches, such as career or education supplements, up to 2x faster through discussion forums or knowledge groups. Tasks that previously required four months, we now complete in one month.”In addition, the company can broadcast announcements, flash employee birthdays, and promote important events through the message section on the webpage, instead of using the e-mail system. The company can also conduct opinion polls to gauge employee response to organizational issues and improve management decision-making.“With over 10,000 employees across 300 locations, it is critical for management to hear the voice of employees and develop a cohesive organizational culture. Oracle WebCenter Portal enables employees to engage with business processes and systems in a collaborative environment, providing users with an exceptional experience,” Bhatia said. Enables Mobility Access and Increases Business Agility Newspaper advertisements generate the majority of JPL’s revenue. With most sales staff on the move, the company needed to ensure timely approval of print advertisement discounts for specific clients and meet tight publication deadlines.  By integrating Oracle WebCenter Portal seamlessly with its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and other applications, such as the organizational mass mailing system, business intelligence, and management information system, JPL embedded its approval workflow processes into the enterprise portal and provided users with an integrated and intuitive interface. About 30% of JPL’s sales staff members now have tablets and receive advertising discount approval from managers while in the field and no longer need to return to the office, which has significantly improved efficiency and increased business agility.“Application mobility was critical for sales representatives in the field to meet stringent auditing requirements for online accountability, particularly for our newspaper advertising business. Staff member satisfaction has improved significantly now that the sales team can use tablets to access the portal––a capability we will extend to smart phones in the second stage of the implementation,” Bhatia said. Accelerates Application Development by up to 4x and Cuts Costs by up to 60% With Oracle WebCenter Portal, users can easily create, modify, and upload information to their personalized webpages without IT assistance. By seamlessly integrating Oracle WebCenter Portal with the payroll database, managers can decide which members of their team can access the page and with whom they will share information, a decision based on role or geographical location. A sales representative selling advertising space for a local language daily newspaper, for example, can upload an updated advertising rate relevant only to that particular publication. Users can also easily adapt to the new platform, thanks to its intuitive design and look, reducing the need for training and lowering resistance to using the system.Using Oracle WebCenter Portal’s out-of-the-box reusable components, such as portal pages and templates, provided JPL’s developers with a comprehensive and flexible user experience platform and increased the speed of application development. In less than five months, JPL developed more than 55 workflows. The IT team accelerated deployment of new applications by up to 4x, as they do not need to install them on individual machines now that they have a web-based environment.   “Previously, we would have spent a whole day deploying a new application for each department or location. With a browser-based environment, we have cut costs by up to 60% by reducing deployment time to zero, because our IT team can roll out a new application from a single point, thanks to Oracle WebCenter Portal,” Bhatia said. Challenges Provide a dynamic, secure, and intuitive self-service enterprise portal to improve staff productivity and ensure business continuity Enable seamless integration with multiple enterprise applications to improve workflow efficiency—including approval of print advertisement discounts—and increase business agility Improve engagement with employees and enable collaboration to enhance management decision-making Accelerate time-to-market for new services, such as new advertising programs Solutions Oracle Product and ServicesOracle WebCenter Portal 11g Increased staff productivity by 40% and enhanced user satisfaction by enabling employees to easily navigate, discover, and access information from a single, self-service enterprise portal without IT assistance Launched new products, such as career or education supplements, up to 2x faster by enabling peer collaboration and incorporating feedback generated through discussion forums, thanks to Oracle WebCenter Portal’s out-of-the-box collaboration tools Accelerated application development up to 4x by enabling developers to optimize reusable components for managing and deploying new applications in a browser-based environment rather than spending one day to install applications for each department, cutting costs by up to 60% Ensured business continuity by enabling managers to easily track and review project timelines online rather than storing important documents on individual laptops or relying on the e-mail system Increased business agility and operational efficiency by seamlessly integrating with the in-house, ERP system and embedding business processes into a single portal Boosted company revenue by enabling sales team members to submit print-advertising discount requests through mobile devices instead of waiting to return to office, ensuring timely approval from managers to meet tight publication deadlines Improved management decision-making by enabling employees to easily share and access feedback through opinion polls or forums, boosting staff morale Introduced the single sign-on capability and enhanced security by enabling managers to decide access level for staff members based on role or geographical location Reduced the need for staff training and minimized user resistance to systems by providing a dynamic and intuitive user experience Why Oracle JPL did not consider other products because the company was already using Oracle Database, Enterprise Edition with Real Application Clusters and had a positive experience with Oracle. JPL chose Oracle WebCenter Portal to ensure no compatibility issues for integration with its existing Oracle products and to take advantage of the experience and support of a reputable vendor to ensure business continuity. “We chose Oracle because we knew we could rely on its support and experience. In addition, Oracle WebCenter Portal’s speed, agility, and mobile access features were a perfect fit for our business requirements,” Bhatia said. Implementation Process JPL launched the enterprise portal to 500 users in the first phase of the project, and plans to extend this to 2,000 users when the portal is fully launched. Oracle partner PricewaterhouseCoopers used Oracle Application Development Framework for the intial set-up, user training and to develop and design sample workflows. JPL’s internal IT staff then took charge of the implementation, bringing it to completion on budget. Partner Oracle PartnerPricewaterhouseCoopers (India)

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• What's New in Database Lifecycle Management in Enterprise Manager 12c Release 3

  - by HariSrinivasan

  Enterprise Manager 12c Release 3 includes improvements and enhancements across every area of the product. This blog provides an overview of the new and enhanced features in the Database Lifecycle Management area. I will deep dive into specific features more in depth in subsequent posts. "What's New?"  In this release, we focused on four things: 1. Lifecycle Management Support for new Database12c - Pluggable Databases 2. Management of long running processes, such as a security patch cycle (Change Activity Planner) 3. Management of large number of systems by · Leveraging new framework capabilities for lifecycle operations, such as the new advanced ‘emcli’ script option · Refining features such as configuration search and compliance 4. Minor improvements and quality fixes to existing features · Rollback support for Single instance databases · Improved "OFFLINE" Patching experience · Faster collection of ORACLE_HOME configurations Lifecycle Management Support for new Database 12c - Pluggable Databases Database 12c introduces Pluggable Databases (PDBs), the brand new addition to help you achieve your consolidation goals. Pluggable databases offer unprecedented consolidation at database level and native lifecycle verbs for creating, plugging and unplugging the databases on a container database (CDB). Enterprise Manager can supplement the capabilities of pluggable databases by offering workflows for migrating, provisioning and cloning them using the software library and the deployment procedures. For example, Enterprise Manager can migrate an existing database to a PDB or clone a PDB by storing a versioned copy in the software library. One can also manage the planned downtime related to patching by  migrating the PDBs to a new CDB. While pluggable databases offer these exciting features, it can also pose configuration management and compliance challenges if not managed properly. Enterprise Manager features like inventory management, topology associations and configuration search can mitigate the sprawl of PDBs and also lock them to predefined golden standards using configuration comparison and compliance rules. Learn More ... Management of Long Running datacenter processes - Change Activity Planner (CAP) Currently, customers resort to cumbersome methods to create, execute, track and monitor change activities within their data center. Some customers use traditional tools such as spreadsheets, project planners and in-house custom built solutions. Customers often have weekly sync up meetings across stake holders to collect status and updates. Some of the change activities, for example the quarterly patch set update (PSU) patch rollouts are not single tasks but processes with multiple tasks. Some of those tasks are performed within Enterprise Manager Cloud Control (for example Patch) and some are performed outside of Enterprise Manager Cloud Control. These tasks often run for a longer period of time and involve multiple people or teams. Enterprise Manger Cloud Control supports core data center operations such as configuration management, compliance management, and automation. Enterprise Manager Cloud Control release 12.1.0.3 leverages these capabilities and introduces the Change Activity Planner (CAP). CAP provides the ability to plan, execute, and track change activities in real time. It covers the typical datacenter activities that are spread over a long period of time, across multiple people and multiple targets (even target types). Here are some examples of Change Activity Process in a datacenter: · Patching large environments (PSU/CPU Patching cycles) · Upgrading large number of database environments · Rolling out Compliance Rules · Database Consolidation to Exadata environments CAP provides user flows for Compliance Officers/Managers (incl. lead administrators) and Operators (DBAs and admins). Managers can create change activity plans for various projects, allocate resources, targets, and groups affected. Upon activation of the plan, tasks are created and automatically assigned to individual administrators based on target ownership. Administrators (DBAs) can identify their tasks and understand the context, schedules, and priorities. They can complete tasks using Enterprise Manager Cloud Control automation features such as patch plans (or in some cases outside Enterprise Manager). Upon completion, compliance is evaluated for validations and updates the status of the tasks and the plans. Learn More about CAP ...  Improved Configuration & Compliance Management of a large number of systems Improved Configuration Comparison:  Get to the configuration comparison results faster for simple ad-hoc comparisons. When performing a 1 to 1 comparison, Enterprise Manager will perform the comparison immediately and take the user directly to the results without having to wait for a job to be submitted and executed. Flattened system comparisons reduce comparison setup time and reduce complexity. In addition to the previously existing topological comparison, users now have an option to compare using a “flattened” methodology. Flattening means to remove duplicate target instances within the systems and remove the hierarchy of member targets. The result are much easier to spot differences particularly for specific use cases like comparing patch levels between complex systems like RAC and Fusion Apps. Improved Configuration Search & Advanced EMCLI Script option for Mass Automation Enterprise manager 12c introduces a new framework level capability to be able to script and stitch together multiple tasks using EMCLI. This powerful capability can be leveraged for lifecycle operations, especially when executing a task over a large number of targets. Specific usages of this include, retrieving a qualified list of targets using Configuration Search and then using the resultset for automation. Another example would be executing a patching operation and then re-executing on targets where it may have failed. This is complemented by other enhancements, such as a better usability for designing reusable configuration searches. IN EM 12c Rel 3, a simplified UI makes building adhoc searches even easier. Searching for missing patches is a common use of configuration search. This required the use of the advanced options which are now clearly defined and easy to use. Perform “Configuration Search” using the EMCLI. Users can find and execute Configuration Searches from the EMCLI which can be extremely useful for building sophisticated automation scripts. For an example, Run the Search named “Oracle Databases on Exadata” which finds all Database targets running on top of Exadata. Further filter the results by refining by options like name, host, etc.. emcli get_targets -config_search="Databases on Exadata" –target_name="exa%“ Use this in powerful mass automation operations using the new emcli script option. For example, to solve the use case of – Finding all DBs running on Exadata and housing E-Biz and Patch them. Create a Python script with emcli functions and invoke it in the new EMCLI script option shell. Invoke the script in the new EMCLI with script option directly: $<path to emcli>/emcli @myPSU_Patch.py Richer compliance content:  Now over 50 Oracle Provided Compliance Standards including new standards for Pluggable Database, Fusion Applications, Oracle Identity Manager, Oracle VM and Internet Directory. 9 Oracle provided Real Time Monitoring Standards containing over 900 Compliance Rules across 500 Facets. These new Real time Compliance Standards covers both Exadata Compute nodes and Linux servers. The result is increased Oracle software coverage and faster time to compliance monitoring on Exadata. Enhancements to Patch Management: Overhauled "OFFLINE" Patching experience: Simplified Patch uploads UI to improve the offline experience of patching. There is now a single step process to get the patches into software library. Customers often maintain local repositories of patches, sometimes called software depots, where they host the patches downloaded from My Oracle Support. In the past, you had to move these patches to your desktop then upload them to the Enterprise Manager's Software library through the Enterprise Manager Cloud Control user interface. You can now use the following EMCLI command to upload multiple patches directly from a remote location within the data center: $emcli upload_patches -location <Path to Patch directory> -from_host <HOSTNAME> The upload process filters all of the new patches, automatically selects the relevant metadata files from the location, and uploads the patches to software library. Other Improvements:  Patch rollback for single instance databases, new option in the Patch Plan to rollback the patches added to the patch plans. Upon execution, the procedure would rollback the patch and the SQL applied to the single instance Databases. Improved and faster configuration collection of Oracle Home targets can enable more reliable automation at higher level functions like Provisioning, Patching or Database as a Service. Just to recap, here is a list of database lifecycle management features:  * Red highlights mark – New or Enhanced in the Release 3. • Discovery, inventory tracking and reporting • Database provisioning including o Migration to Pluggable databases o Plugging and unplugging of pluggable databases o Gold image based cloning o Scaling of RAC nodes •Schema and data change management •End-to-end patch management in online and offline modes, including o Patch advisories in online (connected with My Oracle Support) and offline mode o Patch pre-deployment analysis, deployment and rollback (currently only for single instance databases) o Reporting • Upgrade planning and execution of the upgrade process • Configuration management including • Compliance management with out-of-box content • Change Activity Planner for planning, designing and tracking long running processes For more information on Enterprise Manager’s database lifecycle management capabilities, visit http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/oem/lifecycle-mgmt/index.html

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• 3 Trends for SMBs around Social, Mobile, and Sensor

  - by Socially_Aware_Enterprise

  While I often am talking to big companies or discussing enterprise solutions. There are times when individuals ask me about Small or Medium sized business trends.  Interestingly,  the Enterprise Social, Mobile, and Sensor initiatives I regularly discuss are in fact related to even the Mom and Pop storefront. The eco-system of new service players in the Social-Mobile-Sensor space generally emerge developing partnerships with enterprises as they develop and bring economy to scale to their services for the larger market. And of course Oracle has an entire division dedicated for delivering products and support to help emerging companies compete without the need to open an industrial strength credit line.. So here are some trends that we are helping large enterprises to deploy today, but small and medium businesses should be able to take advantage of by the end of this year and starting into 2015. 1) The typical small business is generally "Localized". But the ability to be "Hyper-Localized" will come as location based services become ubiquitous. Many small businesses have one or several storefronts and theirs are typically within a single regional economic footprint. While the internet provides global reach, it will be the businesses that invest in social, mobile and local that will win in the end.  Of course I am a huge SoMoLo evangelist. The SMBs' content and targeting with platforms for Geo-Fencing, Geo-Conquesting and Path-Matching to HHI are all going to be accessible to them, if not for Mobile Apps, then via Mobile messaging in Social Networks that offer it.. Expect to be able to target FaceBook messaging not by city, but by store or mall… This makes being able to be "Hyper-Local" even more important. And with new proximity services coming online more than ever before, SMBs will operate and service customers with pinpoint accuracy right down to where they stand in an aisle. Geo-Conquesting will be huge for small players to place ads when customers pass through competitors regions. Car Dealers are doing this now.. But also of course iBeacons are now very cheap and getting easier to put in retail stores. The ability for sales to happen anywhere in the store via a mobile phone or tablet is huge, as it will give the small shop the flexibility to not have to "Guard the Register" as more or most transactions will be digital. Thus, M-Commerce and T-Commerce will change the job of cashier dramatically.. 2) Intra-Brand Advocacy, the idea now is that rather than just depend on your trusty social media manager and his team, you are going to push more and more individuals with expertise inside the organization to help manage, reach-out, and utilize social channels to manage the incoming questions and answers customers need. While for years CRM was the tool of the enterprise, today CRMs enable this now "Salesforce et al" capability to trickle throughout the company. This gives greater pressure to organize roles, but also flatten out the organization. Internal collaboration around topics and customer needs is going to be the key for SMBs to finally get serious about customer experiences. Their customers are online and in social networks. This includes not just B2C SMBs but also B2B companies as well. Don't believe me? To find the players just use hashtag #SocialSelling and you will see… 3) The Visual Networks will begin to move from Content Aggregators to Content Collaboration platforms, which means Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, & others will begin to move to add more features brands want, first marketing platforms, rather than unique brand partnerships as they do today, but this will open ways for SMBs to engage with clear brand messaging and metrics. Eventually providing more "Collaboration" between Brand and Consumer.. Don't think for a minute Facebook bought Oculus Rift so you could see your timeline in 3-D. The Social Networks I advise customers to invest in are ones that are audio and visual intrinsically. Players from SoundCloud to Pinterest are deploying ways for brands to harness their interactive visual or audio based social networks to sell ad units aka brand messaging. While the Social Media revolution is going on, the emphasis was on the social, today it more and more about the media in social, that enterprises soon small and medium businesses will be connected to. 

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• The Stub Proto: Not Just For Stub Objects Anymore

  - by user9154181

  One of the great pleasures of programming is to invent something for a narrow purpose, and then to realize that it is a general solution to a broader problem. In hindsight, these things seem perfectly natural and obvious. The stub proto area used to build the core Solaris consolidation has turned out to be one of those things. As discussed in an earlier article, the stub proto area was invented as part of the effort to use stub objects to build the core ON consolidation. Its purpose was merely as a place to hold stub objects. However, we keep finding other uses for it. It turns out that the stub proto should be more properly thought of as an auxiliary place to put things that we would like to put into the proto to help us build the product, but which we do not wish to package or deliver to the end user. Stub objects are one example, but private lint libraries, header files, archives, and relocatable objects, are all examples of things that might profitably go into the stub proto. Without a stub proto, these items were handled in a variety of ad hoc ways: If one part of the workspace needed private header files, libraries, or other such items, it might modify its Makefile to reach up and over to the place in the workspace where those things live and use them from there. There are several problems with this: Each component invents its own approach, meaning that programmers maintaining the system have to invest extra effort to understand what things mean. In the past, this has created makefile ghettos in which only the person who wrote the makefiles feels confident to modify them, while everyone else ignores them. This causes many difficulties and benefits no one. These interdependencies are not obvious to the make, utility, and can lead to races. They are not obvious to the human reader, who may therefore not realize that they exist, and break them. Our policy in ON is not to deliver files into the proto unless those files are intended to be packaged and delivered to the end user. However, sometimes non-shipping files were copied into the proto anyway, causing a different set of problems: It requires a long list of exceptions to silence our normal unused proto item error checking. In the past, we have accidentally shipped files that we did not intend to deliver to the end user. Mixing cruft with valuable items makes it hard to discern which is which. The stub proto area offers a convenient and robust solution. Files needed to build the workspace that are not delivered to the end user can instead be installed into the stub proto. No special exceptions or custom make rules are needed, and the intent is always clear. We are already accessing some private lint libraries and compilation symlinks in this manner. Ultimately, I'd like to see all of the files in the proto that have a packaging exception delivered to the stub proto instead, and for the elimination of all existing special case makefile rules. This would include shared objects, header files, and lint libraries. I don't expect this to happen overnight — it will be a long term case by case project, but the overall trend is clear. The Stub Proto, -z assert_deflib, And The End Of Accidental System Object Linking We recently used the stub proto to solve an annoying build issue that goes back to the earliest days of Solaris: How to ensure that we're linking to the OS bits we're building instead of to those from the running system. The Solaris product is made up of objects and files from a number of different consolidations, each of which is built separately from the others from an independent code base called a gate. The core Solaris OS consolidation is ON, which stands for "Operating System and Networking". You will frequently also see ON called the OSnet. There are consolidations for X11 graphics, the desktop environment, open source utilities, compilers and development tools, and many others. The collection of consolidations that make up Solaris is known as the "Wad Of Stuff", usually referred to simply as the WOS. None of these consolidations is self contained. Even the core ON consolidation has some dependencies on libraries that come from other consolidations. The build server used to build the OSnet must be running a relatively recent version of Solaris, which means that its objects will be very similar to the new ones being built. However, it is necessarily true that the build system objects will always be a little behind, and that incompatible differences may exist. The objects built by the OSnet link to other objects. Some of these dependencies come from the OSnet, while others come from other consolidations. The objects from other consolidations are provided by the standard library directories on the build system (/lib, /usr/lib). The objects from the OSnet itself are supposed to come from the proto areas in the workspace, and not from the build server. In order to achieve this, we make use of the -L command line option to the link-editor. The link-editor finds dependencies by looking in the directories specified by the caller using the -L command line option. If the desired dependency is not found in one of these locations, ld will then fall back to looking at the default locations (/lib, /usr/lib). In order to use OSnet objects from the workspace instead of the system, while still accessing non-OSnet objects from the system, our Makefiles set -L link-editor options that point at the workspace proto areas. In general, this works well and dependencies are found in the right places. However, there have always been failures: Building objects in the wrong order might mean that an OSnet dependency hasn't been built before an object that needs it. If so, the dependency will not be seen in the proto, and the link-editor will silently fall back to the one on the build server. Errors in the makefiles can wipe out the -L options that our top level makefiles establish to cause ld to look at the workspace proto first. In this case, all objects will be found on the build server. These failures were rarely if ever caught. As I mentioned earlier, the objects on the build server are generally quite close to the objects built in the workspace. If they offer compatible linking interfaces, then the objects that link to them will behave properly, and no issue will ever be seen. However, if they do not offer compatible linking interfaces, the failure modes can be puzzling and hard to pin down. Either way, there won't be a compile-time warning or error. The advent of the stub proto eliminated the first type of failure. With stub objects, there is no dependency ordering, and the necessary stub object dependency will always be in place for any OSnet object that needs it. However, makefile errors do still occur, and so, the second form of error was still possible. While working on the stub object project, we realized that the stub proto was also the key to solving the second form of failure caused by makefile errors: Due to the way we set the -L options to point at our workspace proto areas, any valid object from the OSnet should be found via a path specified by -L, and not from the default locations (/lib, /usr/lib). Any OSnet object found via the default locations means that we've linked to the build server, which is an error we'd like to catch. Non-OSnet objects don't exist in the proto areas, and so are found via the default paths. However, if we were to create a symlink in the stub proto pointing at each non-OSnet dependency that we require, then the non-OSnet objects would also be found via the paths specified by -L, and not from the link-editor defaults. Given the above, we should not find any dependency objects from the link-editor defaults. Any dependency found via the link-editor defaults means that we have a Makefile error, and that we are linking to the build server inappropriately. All we need to make use of this fact is a linker option to produce a warning when it happens. Although warnings are nice, we in the OSnet have a zero tolerance policy for build noise. The -z fatal-warnings option that was recently introduced with -z guidance can be used to turn the warnings into fatal build errors, forcing the programmer to fix them. This was too easy to resist. I integrated 7021198 ld option to warn when link accesses a library via default path PSARC/2011/068 ld -z assert-deflib option into snv_161 (February 2011), shortly after the stub proto was introduced into ON. This putback introduced the -z assert-deflib option to the link-editor: -z assert-deflib=[libname] Enables warning messages for libraries specified with the -l command line option that are found by examining the default search paths provided by the link-editor. If a libname value is provided, the default library warning feature is enabled, and the specified library is added to a list of libraries for which no warnings will be issued. Multiple -z assert-deflib options can be specified in order to specify multiple libraries for which warnings should not be issued. The libname value should be the name of the library file, as found by the link-editor, without any path components. For example, the following enables default library warnings, and excludes the standard C library. ld ... -z assert-deflib=libc.so ... -z assert-deflib is a specialized option, primarily of interest in build environments where multiple objects with the same name exist and tight control over the library used is required. If is not intended for general use. Note that the definition of -z assert-deflib allows for exceptions to be specified as arguments to the option. In general, the idea of using a symlink from the stub proto is superior because it does not clutter up the link command with a long list of objects. When building the OSnet, we usually use the plain from of -z deflib, and make symlinks for the non-OSnet dependencies. The exception to this are dependencies supplied by the compiler itself, which are usually found at whatever arbitrary location the compiler happens to be installed at. To handle these special cases, the command line version works better. Following the integration of the link-editor change, I made use of -z assert-deflib in OSnet builds with 7021896 Prevent OSnet from accidentally linking to build system which integrated into snv_162 (March 2011). Turning on -z assert-deflib exposed between 10 and 20 existing errors in our Makefiles, which were all fixed in the same putback. The errors we found in our Makefiles underscore how difficult they can be prevent without an automatic system in place to catch them. Conclusions The stub proto is proving to be a generally useful construct for ON builds that goes beyond serving as a place to hold stub objects. Although invented to hold stub objects, it has already allowed us to simplify a number of previously difficult situations in our makefiles and builds. I expect that we'll find uses for it beyond those described here as we go forward.

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