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• Community Outreach - Where Should I Go

  - by Roger Brinkley

  A few days ago I was talking to person new to community development and they asked me what guidelines I used to determine the worthiness of a particular event. After our conversation was over I thought about it a little bit more and figured out there are three ways to determine if any event (be it conference, blog, podcast or other social medias) is worth doing: Transferability, Multiplication, and Impact. Transferability - Is what I have to say useful to the people that are going to hear it. For instance, consider a company that has product offering that can connect up using a number of languages like Scala, Grovey or Java. Sending a Scala expert to talk about Scala and the product is not transferable to a Java User Group, but a Java expert doing the same talk with a Java slant is. Similarly, talking about JavaFX to any Java User Group meeting in Brazil was pretty much a wasted effort until it was open sourced. Once it was open sourced it was well received. You can also look at transferability in relation to the subject matter that you're dealing with. How transferable is a presentation that I create. Can I, or a technical writer on the staff, turn it into some technical document. Could it be converted into some type of screen cast. If we have a regular podcast can we make a reference to the document, catch the high points or turn it into a interview. Is there a way of using this in the sales group. In other words is the document purely one dimensional or can it be re-purposed in other forms. Multiplication - On every trip I'm looking for 2 to 5 solid connections that I can make with developers. These are long term connections, because I know that once that relationship is established it will lead to another 2 - 5 from that connection and within a couple of years were talking about some 100 connections from just one developer. For instance, when I was working on JavaHelp in 2000 I hired a science teacher with a programming background. We've developed a very tight relationship over the year though we rarely see each other more than once a year. But at this JavaOne, one of his employees came up to me and said, "Richard (Rick Hard in Czech) told me to tell you that he couldn't make it to JavaOne this year but if I saw you to tell you hi". Another example is from my Mobile & Embedded days in Brasil. On our very first FISL trip about 5 years ago there were two university students that had created a project called "Marge". Marge was a Bluetooth framework that made connecting bluetooth devices easier. I invited them to a "Sun" dinner that evening. Originally they were planning on leaving that afternoon, but they changed their plans recognizing the opportunity. Their eyes were as big a saucers when they realized the level of engineers at the meeting. They went home started a JUG in Florianoplis that we've visited more than a couple of times. One of them went to work for Brazilian government lab like Berkley Labs, MIT Lab, John Hopkins Applied Physicas Labs or Lincoln Labs in the US. That presented us with an opportunity to show Embedded Java as a possibility for some of the work they were doing there. Impact - The final criteria is how life changing is what I'm going to say be to the individuals I'm reaching. A t-shirt is just a token, but when I reach down and tug at their developer hearts then I know I've succeeded. I'll never forget one time we flew all night to reach Joan Pasoa in Northern Brazil. We arrived at 2am went immediately to our hotel only to be woken up at 6 am to travel 2 hours by car to the presentation hall. When we arrived we were totally exhausted. Outside the facility there were 500 people lined up to hear 6 speakers for the day. That itself was uplifting.  I delivered one of my favorite talks on "I have passion". It was a talk on golf and embedded java development, "Find your passion". When we finished a couple of first year students came up to me and said how much my talk had inspired them. FISL is another great example. I had been about 4 years in a row. FISL is a very young group of developers so capturing their attention is important. Several of the students will come back 2 or 3 years later and ask me questions about research or jobs. And then there's Louis. Louis is one my favorite Brazilians. I can only describe him as a big Brazilian teddy bear. I see him every year at FISL. He works primarily in Java EE but he's attended every single one of my talks over the last 4 years. I can't tell you why, but he always greets me and gives me a hug. For some reason I've had a real impact. And of course when it comes to impact you don't just measure a presentation but every single interaction you have at an event. It's the hall way conversations, the booth conversations, but more importantly it's the conversations at dinner tables or in the cars when you're getting transported to an event. There's a good story that illustrates this. Last year in the spring I was traveling to Goiânia in Brazil. I've been there many times and leaders there no me well. One young man has picked me up at the airport on more than one occasion. We were going out to dinner one evening and he brought his girl friend along. One thing let to another and I eventually asked him, in front of her, "Why haven't you asked her to marry you?" There were all kinds of excuses and she just looked at him and smiled. When I came back in December for JavaOne he came and sought me. "I just want to tell you that I thought a lot about what you said, and I asked her to marry me. We're getting married next Spring." Sometimes just one presentation is all it takes to make an impact. Other times it takes years. Some impacts are directly related to the company and some are more personal in nature. It doesn't matter which it is because it's having the impact that matters.

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• Help getting frame rate (fps) up in Python + Pygame

  - by Jordan Magnuson

  I am working on a little card-swapping world-travel game that I sort of envision as a cross between Bejeweled and the 10 Days geography board games. So far the coding has been going okay, but the frame rate is pretty bad... currently I'm getting low 20's on my Core 2 Duo. This is a problem since I'm creating the game for Intel's March developer competition, which is squarely aimed at netbooks packing underpowered Atom processors. Here's a screen from the game: ![www.necessarygames.com/my_games/betraveled/betraveled-fps.png][1] I am very new to Python and Pygame (this is the first thing I've used them for), and am sadly lacking in formal CS training... which is to say that I think there are probably A LOT of bad practices going on in my code, and A LOT that could be optimized. If some of you older Python hands wouldn't mind taking a look at my code and seeing if you can't find any obvious areas for optimization, I would be extremely grateful. You can download the full source code here: http://www.necessarygames.com/my_games/betraveled/betraveled_src0328.zip Compiled exe here: www.necessarygames.com/my_games/betraveled/betraveled_src0328.zip One thing I am concerned about is my event manager, which I feel may have some performance wholes in it, and another thing is my rendering... I'm pretty much just blitting everything to the screen all the time (see the render routines in my game_components.py below); I recently found out that you should only update the areas of the screen that have changed, but I'm still foggy on how that accomplished exactly... could this be a huge performance issue? Any thoughts are much appreciated! As usual, I'm happy to "tip" you for your time and energy via PayPal. Jordan Here are some bits of the source: Main.py #Remote imports import pygame from pygame.locals import * #Local imports import config import rooms from event_manager import * from events import * class RoomController(object): """Controls which room is currently active (eg Title Screen)""" def __init__(self, screen, ev_manager): self.room = None self.screen = screen self.ev_manager = ev_manager self.ev_manager.register_listener(self) self.room = self.set_room(config.room) def set_room(self, room_const): #Unregister old room from ev_manager if self.room: self.room.ev_manager.unregister_listener(self.room) self.room = None #Set new room based on const if room_const == config.TITLE_SCREEN: return rooms.TitleScreen(self.screen, self.ev_manager) elif room_const == config.GAME_MODE_ROOM: return rooms.GameModeRoom(self.screen, self.ev_manager) elif room_const == config.GAME_ROOM: return rooms.GameRoom(self.screen, self.ev_manager) elif room_const == config.HIGH_SCORES_ROOM: return rooms.HighScoresRoom(self.screen, self.ev_manager) def notify(self, event): if isinstance(event, ChangeRoomRequest): if event.game_mode: config.game_mode = event.game_mode self.room = self.set_room(event.new_room) def render(self, surface): self.room.render(surface) #Run game def main(): pygame.init() screen = pygame.display.set_mode(config.screen_size) ev_manager = EventManager() spinner = CPUSpinnerController(ev_manager) room_controller = RoomController(screen, ev_manager) pygame_event_controller = PyGameEventController(ev_manager) spinner.run() # this runs the main function if this script is called to run. # If it is imported as a module, we don't run the main function. if __name__ == "__main__": main() event_manager.py #Remote imports import pygame from pygame.locals import * #Local imports import config from events import * def debug( msg ): print "Debug Message: " + str(msg) class EventManager: #This object is responsible for coordinating most communication #between the Model, View, and Controller. def __init__(self): from weakref import WeakKeyDictionary self.listeners = WeakKeyDictionary() self.eventQueue= [] self.gui_app = None #---------------------------------------------------------------------- def register_listener(self, listener): self.listeners[listener] = 1 #---------------------------------------------------------------------- def unregister_listener(self, listener): if listener in self.listeners: del self.listeners[listener] #---------------------------------------------------------------------- def post(self, event): if isinstance(event, MouseButtonLeftEvent): debug(event.name) #NOTE: copying the list like this before iterating over it, EVERY tick, is highly inefficient, #but currently has to be done because of how new listeners are added to the queue while it is running #(eg when popping cards from a deck). Should be changed. See: http://dr0id.homepage.bluewin.ch/pygame_tutorial08.html #and search for "Watch the iteration" for listener in list(self.listeners): #NOTE: If the weakref has died, it will be #automatically removed, so we don't have #to worry about it. listener.notify(event) #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ class PyGameEventController: """...""" def __init__(self, ev_manager): self.ev_manager = ev_manager self.ev_manager.register_listener(self) self.input_freeze = False #---------------------------------------------------------------------- def notify(self, incoming_event): if isinstance(incoming_event, UserInputFreeze): self.input_freeze = True elif isinstance(incoming_event, UserInputUnFreeze): self.input_freeze = False elif isinstance(incoming_event, TickEvent): #Share some time with other processes, so we don't hog the cpu pygame.time.wait(5) #Handle Pygame Events for event in pygame.event.get(): #If this event manager has an associated PGU GUI app, notify it of the event if self.ev_manager.gui_app: self.ev_manager.gui_app.event(event) #Standard event handling for everything else ev = None if event.type == QUIT: ev = QuitEvent() elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and not self.input_freeze: if event.button == 1: #Button 1 pos = pygame.mouse.get_pos() ev = MouseButtonLeftEvent(pos) elif event.type == pygame.MOUSEMOTION: pos = pygame.mouse.get_pos() ev = MouseMoveEvent(pos) #Post event to event manager if ev: self.ev_manager.post(ev) #------------------------------------------------------------------------------ class CPUSpinnerController: def __init__(self, ev_manager): self.ev_manager = ev_manager self.ev_manager.register_listener(self) self.clock = pygame.time.Clock() self.cumu_time = 0 self.keep_going = True #---------------------------------------------------------------------- def run(self): if not self.keep_going: raise Exception('dead spinner') while self.keep_going: time_passed = self.clock.tick() fps = self.clock.get_fps() self.cumu_time += time_passed self.ev_manager.post(TickEvent(time_passed, fps)) if self.cumu_time >= 1000: self.cumu_time = 0 self.ev_manager.post(SecondEvent()) pygame.quit() #---------------------------------------------------------------------- def notify(self, event): if isinstance(event, QuitEvent): #this will stop the while loop from running self.keep_going = False rooms.py #Remote imports import pygame #Local imports import config import continents from game_components import * from my_gui import * from pgu import high class Room(object): def __init__(self, screen, ev_manager): self.screen = screen self.ev_manager = ev_manager self.ev_manager.register_listener(self) def notify(self, event): if isinstance(event, TickEvent): pygame.display.set_caption('FPS: ' + str(int(event.fps))) self.render(self.screen) pygame.display.update() def get_highs_table(self): fname = 'high_scores.txt' highs_table = None config.all_highs = high.Highs(fname) if config.game_mode == config.TIME_CHALLENGE: if config.difficulty == config.EASY: highs_table = config.all_highs['time_challenge_easy'] if config.difficulty == config.MED_DIF: highs_table = config.all_highs['time_challenge_med'] if config.difficulty == config.HARD: highs_table = config.all_highs['time_challenge_hard'] if config.difficulty == config.SUPER: highs_table = config.all_highs['time_challenge_super'] elif config.game_mode == config.PLAN_AHEAD: pass return highs_table class TitleScreen(Room): def __init__(self, screen, ev_manager): Room.__init__(self, screen, ev_manager) self.background = pygame.image.load('assets/images/interface/background.jpg').convert() #Initialize #--------------------------------------- self.gui_form = gui.Form() self.gui_app = gui.App(config.gui_theme) self.ev_manager.gui_app = self.gui_app c = gui.Container(align=0,valign=0) #Quit Button #--------------------------------------- b = StartGameButton(ev_manager=self.ev_manager) c.add(b, 0, 0) self.gui_app.init(c) def render(self, surface): surface.blit(self.background, (0, 0)) #GUI self.gui_app.paint(surface) class GameModeRoom(Room): def __init__(self, screen, ev_manager): Room.__init__(self, screen, ev_manager) self.background = pygame.image.load('assets/images/interface/background.jpg').convert() self.create_gui() #Create pgu gui elements def create_gui(self): #Setup #--------------------------------------- self.gui_form = gui.Form() self.gui_app = gui.App(config.gui_theme) self.ev_manager.gui_app = self.gui_app c = gui.Container(align=0,valign=-1) #Mode Relaxed Button #--------------------------------------- b = GameModeRelaxedButton(ev_manager=self.ev_manager) self.b = b print b.rect c.add(b, 0, 200) #Mode Time Challenge Button #--------------------------------------- b = TimeChallengeButton(ev_manager=self.ev_manager) self.b = b print b.rect c.add(b, 0, 250) #Mode Think Ahead Button #--------------------------------------- # b = PlanAheadButton(ev_manager=self.ev_manager) # self.b = b # print b.rect # c.add(b, 0, 300) #Initialize #--------------------------------------- self.gui_app.init(c) def render(self, surface): surface.blit(self.background, (0, 0)) #GUI self.gui_app.paint(surface) class GameRoom(Room): def __init__(self, screen, ev_manager): Room.__init__(self, screen, ev_manager) #Game mode #--------------------------------------- self.new_board_timer = None self.game_mode = config.game_mode config.current_highs = self.get_highs_table() self.highs_dialog = None self.game_over = False #Images #--------------------------------------- self.background = pygame.image.load('assets/images/interface/game screen2-1.jpg').convert() self.logo = pygame.image.load('assets/images/interface/logo_small.png').convert_alpha() self.game_over_text = pygame.image.load('assets/images/interface/text_game_over.png').convert_alpha() self.trip_complete_text = pygame.image.load('assets/images/interface/text_trip_complete.png').convert_alpha() self.zoom_game_over = None self.zoom_trip_complete = None self.fade_out = None #Text #--------------------------------------- self.font = pygame.font.Font(config.font_sans, config.interface_font_size) #Create game components #--------------------------------------- self.continent = self.set_continent(config.continent) self.board = Board(config.board_size, self.ev_manager) self.deck = Deck(self.ev_manager, self.continent) self.map = Map(self.continent) self.longest_trip = 0 #Set pos of game components #--------------------------------------- board_pos = (SCREEN_MARGIN[0], 109) self.board.set_pos(board_pos) map_pos = (config.screen_size[0] - self.map.size[0] - SCREEN_MARGIN[0], 57); self.map.set_pos(map_pos) #Trackers #--------------------------------------- self.game_clock = Chrono(self.ev_manager) self.swap_counter = 0 self.level = 0 #Create gui #--------------------------------------- self.create_gui() #Create initial board #--------------------------------------- self.new_board = self.deck.deal_new_board(self.board) self.ev_manager.post(NewBoardComplete(self.new_board)) def set_continent(self, continent_const): #Set continent based on const if continent_const == config.EUROPE: return continents.Europe() if continent_const == config.AFRICA: return continents.Africa() else: raise Exception('Continent constant not recognized') #Create pgu gui elements def create_gui(self): #Setup #--------------------------------------- self.gui_form = gui.Form() self.gui_app = gui.App(config.gui_theme) self.ev_manager.gui_app = self.gui_app c = gui.Container(align=-1,valign=-1) #Timer Progress bar #--------------------------------------- self.timer_bar = None self.time_increase = None self.minutes_left = None self.seconds_left = None self.timer_text = None if self.game_mode == config.TIME_CHALLENGE: self.time_increase = config.time_challenge_start_time self.timer_bar = gui.ProgressBar(config.time_challenge_start_time,0,config.max_time_bank,width=306) c.add(self.timer_bar, 172, 57) #Connections Progress bar #--------------------------------------- self.connections_bar = None self.connections_bar = gui.ProgressBar(0,0,config.longest_trip_needed,width=306) c.add(self.connections_bar, 172, 83) #Quit Button #--------------------------------------- b = QuitButton(ev_manager=self.ev_manager) c.add(b, 950, 20) #Generate Board Button #--------------------------------------- b = GenerateBoardButton(ev_manager=self.ev_manager, room=self) c.add(b, 500, 20) #Board Size? #--------------------------------------- bs = SetBoardSizeContainer(config.BOARD_LARGE, ev_manager=self.ev_manager, board=self.board) c.add(bs, 640, 20) #Fill Board? #--------------------------------------- t = FillBoardCheckbox(config.fill_board, ev_manager=self.ev_manager) c.add(t, 740, 20) #Darkness? #--------------------------------------- t = UseDarknessCheckbox(config.use_darkness, ev_manager=self.ev_manager) c.add(t, 840, 20) #Initialize #--------------------------------------- self.gui_app.init(c) def advance_level(self): self.level += 1 print 'Advancing to next level' print 'New level: ' + str(self.level) if self.timer_bar: print 'Time increase: ' + str(self.time_increase) self.timer_bar.value += self.time_increase self.time_increase = max(config.min_advance_time, int(self.time_increase * 0.9)) self.board = self.new_board self.new_board = None self.zoom_trip_complete = None self.game_clock.unpause() def notify(self, event): #Tick event if isinstance(event, TickEvent): pygame.display.set_caption('FPS: ' + str(int(event.fps))) self.render(self.screen) pygame.display.update() #Wait to deal new board when advancing levels if self.zoom_trip_complete and self.zoom_trip_complete.finished: self.zoom_trip_complete = None self.ev_manager.post(UnfreezeCards()) self.new_board = self.deck.deal_new_board(self.board) self.ev_manager.post(NewBoardComplete(self.new_board)) #New high score? if self.zoom_game_over and self.zoom_game_over.finished and not self.highs_dialog: if config.current_highs.check(self.level) != None: self.zoom_game_over.visible = False data = 'time:' + str(self.game_clock.time) + ',swaps:' + str(self.swap_counter) self.highs_dialog = HighScoreDialog(score=self.level, data=data, ev_manager=self.ev_manager) self.highs_dialog.open() elif not self.fade_out: self.fade_out = FadeOut(self.ev_manager, config.TITLE_SCREEN) #Second event elif isinstance(event, SecondEvent): if self.timer_bar: if not self.game_clock.paused: self.timer_bar.value -= 1 if self.timer_bar.value <= 0 and not self.game_over: self.ev_manager.post(GameOver()) self.minutes_left = self.timer_bar.value / 60 self.seconds_left = self.timer_bar.value % 60 if self.seconds_left < 10: leading_zero = '0' else: leading_zero = '' self.timer_text = ''.join(['Time Left: ', str(self.minutes_left), ':', leading_zero, str(self.seconds_left)]) #Game over elif isinstance(event, GameOver): self.game_over = True self.zoom_game_over = ZoomImage(self.ev_manager, self.game_over_text) #Trip complete event elif isinstance(event, TripComplete): print 'You did it!' self.game_clock.pause() self.zoom_trip_complete = ZoomImage(self.ev_manager, self.trip_complete_text) self.new_board_timer = Timer(self.ev_manager, 2) self.ev_manager.post(FreezeCards()) print 'Room posted newboardcomplete' #Board Refresh Complete elif isinstance(event, BoardRefreshComplete): if event.board == self.board: print 'Longest trip needed: ' + str(config.longest_trip_needed) print 'Your longest trip: ' + str(self.board.longest_trip) if self.board.longest_trip >= config.longest_trip_needed: self.ev_manager.post(TripComplete()) elif event.board == self.new_board: self.advance_level() self.connections_bar.value = self.board.longest_trip self.connection_text = ' '.join(['Connections:', str(self.board.longest_trip), '/', str(config.longest_trip_needed)]) #CardSwapComplete elif isinstance(event, CardSwapComplete): self.swap_counter += 1 elif isinstance(event, ConfigChangeBoardSize): config.board_size = event.new_size elif isinstance(event, ConfigChangeCardSize): config.card_size = event.new_size elif isinstance(event, ConfigChangeFillBoard): config.fill_board = event.new_value elif isinstance(event, ConfigChangeDarkness): config.use_darkness = event.new_value def render(self, surface): #Background surface.blit(self.background, (0, 0)) #Map self.map.render(surface) #Board self.board.render(surface) #Logo surface.blit(self.logo, (10,10)) #Text connection_text = self.font.render(self.connection_text, True, BLACK) surface.blit(connection_text, (25, 84)) if self.timer_text: timer_text = self.font.render(self.timer_text, True, BLACK) surface.blit(timer_text, (25, 64)) #GUI self.gui_app.paint(surface) if self.zoom_trip_complete: self.zoom_trip_complete.render(surface) if self.zoom_game_over: self.zoom_game_over.render(surface) if self.fade_out: self.fade_out.render(surface) class HighScoresRoom(Room): def __init__(self, screen, ev_manager): Room.__init__(self, screen, ev_manager) self.background = pygame.image.load('assets/images/interface/background.jpg').convert() #Initialize #--------------------------------------- self.gui_app = gui.App(config.gui_theme) self.ev_manager.gui_app = self.gui_app c = gui.Container(align=0,valign=0) #High Scores Table #--------------------------------------- hst = HighScoresTable() c.add(hst, 0, 0) self.gui_app.init(c) def render(self, surface): surface.blit(self.background, (0, 0)) #GUI self.gui_app.paint(surface) game_components.py #Remote imports import pygame from pygame.locals import * import random import operator from copy import copy from math import sqrt, floor #Local imports import config from events import * from matrix import Matrix from textrect import render_textrect, TextRectException from hyphen import hyphenator from textwrap2 import TextWrapper ############################## #CONSTANTS ############################## SCREEN_MARGIN = (10, 10) #Colors BLACK = (0, 0, 0) WHITE = (255, 255, 255) RED = (255, 0, 0) YELLOW = (255, 200, 0) #Directions LEFT = -1 RIGHT = 1 UP = 2 DOWN = -2 #Cards CARD_MARGIN = (10, 10) CARD_PADDING = (2, 2) #Card types BLANK = 0 COUNTRY = 1 TRANSPORT = 2 #Transport types PLANE = 0 TRAIN = 1 CAR = 2 SHIP = 3 class Timer(object): def __init__(self, ev_manager, time_left): self.ev_manager = ev_manager self.ev_manager.register_listener(self) self.time_left = time_left self.paused = False def __repr__(self): return str(self.time_left) def pause(self): self.paused = True def unpause(self): self.paused = False def notify(self, event): #Pause Event if isinstance(event, Pause): self.pause() #Unpause Event elif isinstance(event, Unpause): self.unpause() #Second Event elif isinstance(event, SecondEvent): if not self.paused: self.time_left -= 1 class Chrono(object): def __init__(self, ev_manager, start_time=0): self.ev_manager = ev_manager self.ev_manager.register_listener(self) self.time = start_time self.paused = False def __repr__(self): return str(self.time_left) def pause(self): self.paused = True def unpause(self): self.paused = False def notify(self, event): #Pause Event if isinstance(event, Pause): self.pause() #Unpause Event elif isinstance(event, Unpause): self.unpause() #Second Event elif isinstance(event, SecondEvent): if not self.paused: self.time += 1 class Map(object): def __init__(self, continent): self.map_image = pygame.image.load(continent.map).convert_alpha() self.map_text = pygame.image.load(continent.map_text).convert_alpha() self.pos = (0, 0) self.set_color() self.map_image = pygame.transform.smoothscale(self.map_image, config.map_size) self.size = self.map_image.get_size() def set_pos(self, pos): self.pos = pos def set_color(self): image_pixel_array = pygame.PixelArray(self.map_image) image_pixel_array.replace(config.GRAY1, config.COLOR1) image_pixel_array.replace(config.GRAY2, config.COLOR2) image_pixel_array.replace(config.GRAY3, config.COLOR3) image_pixel_array.replace(config.GRAY4, config.COLOR4) image_pixel_array.replace(config.GRAY5, config.COLOR5)

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• SQLAuthority News – Spot the SQLAuthority Baby Contest – SQL Server Cheat Sheet

  - by pinaldave

  Last Year during the TechEd India 2009 SQL Server Cheat Sheets were instant hit. Yesterday when I announce that I am going to attend TechED India 2010 at Bangalore, I received many requests for the same. I have only 30 copies available at this moment.  I will print more copies of the same after this event. For the moment I am going to run quick content to win SQL Server Cheat Sheet during this event. The contest is very simple. My 7 months old daughter will join me in this trip. She will be staying with me in the same hotel where the event is organized. Here is the detail for contest: Contest: If you Spot SQLAuthority Baby, get one SQL Server Cheat Sheet. Rules: Every hour the first person to spot SQLAuthority Baby will get 1 SQL Server Cheat Sheet. If you spot her and the hourly SQL Server Cheat Sheet is given away, you still have chance to get a copy. Drop your business card or email address and we will contact you for your copy. SQLAuthority Baby is very easy to spot. Shaivi Dave If you are not attending this event and want copy, you can easily download the same from link below. Download SQL Server Cheat Sheet from here. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Cheat Sheet, TechEd, TechEdIn

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• A training world nugget for being taught by the best

  - by Testas

  June represents an exciting time for the SQL Server community with events all over the country in the next few months and there is plenty of knowledge to be gained from willing speakers enthusiastically sharing their knowledge. Furthermore, Paul Randall and Kimberley Trip will be conducting their highly recommended immersion events at London Heathrow in June.There are other big names within SQL Server that will be teaching this year. The company I used to work for, QA, has excellent trainers teaching SQL Server who I would always recommend. Occasionally a big name speaker will be take a course, unknowingly to the community. Solid Quality Mentors is such a company where their staff will teach at QA offices from time to time. And I know from conversation with Itzik Ben-Gan that he will be teaching Advanced TSQL within QA offices in London during the week of Oct 3-7. A link to the course details can be found here.http://www.qa.com/training-courses/technical-it-training/microsoft/microsoft-sql-server/microsoft-sql-server-2008-and-r2/advanced-t-sql-querying,-programming-and-tuning-for-sql-server-2005--2008So if you want to be taught by the best experts, consider checking www.QA.com for their advanced SQL courses, you could find yourself being taught by the best in the business in their field.Chris  

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• SQL SERVER – SELECT TOP Shortcut in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

  - by pinaldave

  This is tool is pretty old, yet always comes as a handy tip. I had a great trip at TechEd in India. And, during one of my presentations, I was asked if there are any shortcuts to SELECT only TOP 100 records from SSMS. I immediately told him that if he explores the table in SSMS, he can just right click on it and SELECT TOP 1000 records. If he wanted only 100 records, then he could edit that 1000 to 100 by means of going to Options. Go to Options, then hover the mouse over the SQL Server Object Explorer, then proceed to Commands. Afterwards, change the Value for Select Top <n> Audit Records. After narrating the steps, he told me that he was not looking for the right click option; rather he was asking if there is any kind of keyboard shortcut for convenience’s sake. Actually, a keyboard shortcut is also possible. SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) lets you configure the settings you want using a shortcut. Here is how you can do it. Go to Options, then to Environment. Proceed to Keyboard, and from there, configure your T-SQL with the desired keyword. Now, open SSMS New Query Window, and then click and type in any table name.  After that, just hit the shortcut you just made earlier. Doing this should display TOP 100 records in the Result window. I am sure this trick is quite old, but it is still helpful to many. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Add-On, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• West Palm Beach .Net User Group Meeting - April 27th 2010 - Ted Neward - MVP & INETA Speaker

  - by Sam Abraham

  Ted Neward, MVP & INETA Speaker spoke to us at the West Palm Beach .Net User Group meeting at CompTec about Microsoft OSLO and DSLs on Tuesday April 27th 2010. Ted kept the audience well engaged throughout his presentation and shared his experience with DSLs in a humorous and fun setting. At the conclusion of the talk, we had our free raffle and concluded the evening with networking while enjoying the pizza and soda brought to us by Sherlock Technology (www.sherstaff.com) This meeting was also Vishal Shukla's last appearance at the West Palm Beach .Net User Group as he will be leaving for India in mid-May. Vishal has worked hard side-by-side with the Fladotnet leadership to run the West Palm Beach Group and will sure be missed by all of us. On behalf of the group, I would like to wish Vishal best of luck on his future endeavors and we are all looking forward to seeing him again soon. Thank you Ted for making such a long trip from Redmond to FL to share with us your expertise and knowledge of DSLs and thank you INETA for making this happen with your support of user groups. You can get in touch with Ted through his website (www.tedneward.com)

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• Game Development World Championship 2013 for all game developers

  - by Hanhviope

  Interested in games and programming? Want to be visible in global game industry? Missing Viope Game Programming Contest 2012? Want to win a trip to Finland, visit top game studio and other attractive rewards? This is your CHANCE! Viope Solutions proudly announces Game Development World Championship 2013, as a sequel of successful Viope Game Programming Contest 2012 WHAT? The contest is organized by Viope Solutions. Students and freelancers are invited to compete in different categories. Participants can compete for Computer/Console game or Mobile Phone game. The competition involves partners and judges from Rovio, Microsoft, Unity, ArtiGames, Housemarque, Redlynx, Remedy, GrandCru, GameReactor and IGDA WHO? The contest is open to everyone around the world. WHERE? The submission of your game will be done via Viope World e-learning platform. WHEN? The contest is open from 08th October 2013 till 26th January 2014. HOW? Individuals and team of up to 4 members can register through our website. For information, please visit website www.viope.com/contest WE CHALLENGE YOU TO CREATE THE BEST GAMES EVER! Share this to all your friends who would be interested in this contest!

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• ASP.NET in Moscow!

  - by Stephen Walther

  I’m traveling to Russia and speaking in Moscow next week at the DevConf. This will be the first time that I have visited Russia, and I know that there is a strong ASP.NET community in Russia, so I am very excited about the trip. I’m speaking at the DevConf (http://www.devconf.ru/). I don’t speak Russian, so the only words that I recognize off the home page of the conference website are ASP.NET and JavaScript (PHP, Perl, Python, and Ruby must be Russian words). I’m giving talks on both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC: What’s New in ASP.NET 4 Web Forms Learn about the new features just released with ASP.NET 4 Web Forms and Visual Studio 2010 that enable you to be more productive and build better websites. Learn how to take control of your markup, client IDs, and view state. Learn how to take advantage of routing with Web Forms to make your websites more search engine friendly.   What’s New in ASP.NET MVC 2 Come learn about the new features being introduced with ASP.NET MVC 2. Templated helpers allow associating edit and display elements with data types automatically. Areas provide a means of dividing a large Web application into multiple projects. Data annotations allows attaching metadata attributes on a model to control validation. Client validation enables form field validation without the need to perform a roundtrip to the server. Learn how these new features enable you to be more productive when building ASP.NET MVC applications. Hope to see you at the conference next week!

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• Entity Framework v1 &ndash; tips and Tricks Part 3

  - by Rohit Gupta

  General Tips on Entity Framework v1 & Linq to Entities: ToTraceString() If you need to know the underlying SQL that the EF generates for a Linq To Entities query, then use the ToTraceString() method of the ObjectQuery class. (or use LINQPAD) Note that you need to cast the LINQToEntities query to ObjectQuery before calling TotraceString() as follows: 1: string efSQL = ((ObjectQuery)from c in ctx.Contact 2: where c.Address.Any(a => a.CountryRegion == "US") 3: select c.ContactID).ToTraceString(); ================================================================================ MARS or MultipleActiveResultSet When you create a EDM Model (EDMX file) from the database using Visual Studio, it generates a connection string with the same name as the name of the EntityContainer in CSDL. In the ConnectionString so generated it sets the MultipleActiveResultSet attribute to true by default. So if you are running the following query then it streams multiple readers over the same connection: 1: using (BAEntities context = new BAEntities()) 2: { 3: var cons = 4: from con in context.Contacts 5: where con.FirstName == "Jose" 6: select con; 7: foreach (var c in cons) 8: { 9: if (c.AddDate < new System.DateTime(2007, 1, 1)) 10: { 11: c.Addresses.Load(); 12: } 13: } 14: } ================================================================================= Explicitly opening and closing EntityConnection When you call ToList() or foreach on a LINQToEntities query the EF automatically closes the connection after all the records from the query have been consumed. Thus if you need to run many LINQToEntities queries over the same connection then explicitly open and close the connection as follows: 1: using (BAEntities context = new BAEntities()) 2: { 3: context.Connection.Open(); 4: var cons = from con in context.Contacts where con.FirstName == "Jose" 5: select con; 6: var conList = cons.ToList(); 7: var allCustomers = from con in context.Contacts.OfType<Customer>() 8: select con; 9: var allcustList = allCustomers.ToList(); 10: context.Connection.Close(); 11: } ====================================================================== Dispose ObjectContext only if required After you retrieve entities using the ObjectContext and you are not explicitly disposing the ObjectContext then insure that your code does consume all the records from the LinqToEntities query by calling .ToList() or foreach statement, otherwise the the database connection will remain open and will be closed by the garbage collector when it gets to dispose the ObjectContext. Secondly if you are making updates to the entities retrieved using LinqToEntities then insure that you dont inadverdently dispose of the ObjectContext after the entities are retrieved and before calling .SaveChanges() since you need the SAME ObjectContext to keep track of changes made to the Entities (by using ObjectStateEntry objects). So if you do need to explicitly dispose of the ObjectContext do so only after calling SaveChanges() and only if you dont need to change track the entities retrieved any further. ======================================================================= SQL InjectionAttacks under control with EFv1 LinqToEntities and LinqToSQL queries are parameterized before they are sent to the DB hence they are not vulnerable to SQL Injection attacks. EntitySQL may be slightly vulnerable to attacks since it does not use parameterized queries. However since the EntitySQL demands that the query be valid Entity SQL syntax and valid native SQL syntax at the same time. So the only way one can do a SQLInjection Attack is by knowing the SSDL of the EDM Model and be able to write the correct EntitySQL (note one cannot append regular SQL since then the query wont be a valid EntitySQL syntax) and append it to a parameter. ====================================================================== Improving Performance You can convert the EntitySets and AssociationSets in a EDM Model into precompiled Views using the edmgen utility. for e.g. the Customer Entity can be converted into a precompiled view using edmgen and all LinqToEntities query against the contaxt.Customer EntitySet will use the precompiled View instead of the EntitySet itself (the same being true for relationships (EntityReference & EntityCollections of a Entity)). The advantage being that when using precompiled views the performance will be much better. The syntax for generating precompiled views for a existing EF project is : edmgen /mode:ViewGeneration /inssdl:BAModel.ssdl /incsdl:BAModel.csdl /inmsl:BAModel.msl /p:Chap14.csproj Note that this will only generate precompiled views for EntitySets and Associations and not for existing LinqToEntities queries in the project.(for that use CompiledQuery.Compile<>) Secondly if you have a LinqToEntities query that you need to run multiple times, then one should precompile the query using CompiledQuery.Compile method. The CompiledQuery.Compile<> method accepts a lamda expression as a parameter, which denotes the LinqToEntities query  that you need to precompile. The following is a example of a lamda that we can pass into the CompiledQuery.Compile() method 1: Expression<Func<BAEntities, string, IQueryable<Customer>>> expr = (BAEntities ctx1, string loc) => 2: from c in ctx1.Contacts.OfType<Customer>() 3: where c.Reservations.Any(r => r.Trip.Destination.DestinationName == loc) 4: select c; Then we call the Compile Query as follows: 1: var query = CompiledQuery.Compile<BAEntities, string, IQueryable<Customer>>(expr); 2:  3: using (BAEntities ctx = new BAEntities()) 4: { 5: var loc = "Malta"; 6: IQueryable<Customer> custs = query.Invoke(ctx, loc); 7: var custlist = custs.ToList(); 8: foreach (var item in custlist) 9: { 10: Console.WriteLine(item.FullName); 11: } 12: } Note that if you created a ObjectQuery or a Enitity SQL query instead of the LINQToEntities query, you dont need precompilation for e.g. 1: An Example of EntitySQL query : 2: string esql = "SELECT VALUE c from Contacts AS c where c is of(BAGA.Customer) and c.LastName = 'Gupta'"; 3: ObjectQuery<Customer> custs = CreateQuery<Customer>(esql); 1: An Example of ObjectQuery built using ObjectBuilder methods: 2: from c in Contacts.OfType<Customer>().Where("it.LastName == 'Gupta'") 3: select c This is since the Query plan is cached and thus the performance improves a bit, however since the ObjectQuery or EntitySQL query still needs to materialize the results into Entities hence it will take the same amount of performance hit as with LinqToEntities. However note that not ALL EntitySQL based or QueryBuilder based ObjectQuery plans are cached. So if you are in doubt always create a LinqToEntities compiled query and use that instead ============================================================ GetObjectStateEntry Versus GetObjectByKey We can get to the Entity being referenced by the ObjectStateEntry via its Entity property and there are helper methods in the ObjectStateManager (osm.TryGetObjectStateEntry) to get the ObjectStateEntry for a entity (for which we know the EntityKey). Similarly The ObjectContext has helper methods to get an Entity i.e. TryGetObjectByKey(). TryGetObjectByKey() uses GetObjectStateEntry method under the covers to find the object, however One important difference between these 2 methods is that TryGetObjectByKey queries the database if it is unable to find the object in the context, whereas TryGetObjectStateEntry only looks in the context for existing entries. It will not make a trip to the database ============================================================= POCO objects with EFv1: To create POCO objects that can be used with EFv1. We need to implement 3 key interfaces: IEntityWithKey IEntityWithRelationships IEntityWithChangeTracker Implementing IEntityWithKey is not mandatory, but if you dont then we need to explicitly provide values for the EntityKey for various functions (for e.g. the functions needed to implement IEntityWithChangeTracker and IEntityWithRelationships). Implementation of IEntityWithKey involves exposing a property named EntityKey which returns a EntityKey object. Implementation of IEntityWithChangeTracker involves implementing a method named SetChangeTracker since there can be multiple changetrackers (Object Contexts) existing in memory at the same time. 1: public void SetChangeTracker(IEntityChangeTracker changeTracker) 2: { 3: _changeTracker = changeTracker; 4: } Additionally each property in the POCO object needs to notify the changetracker (objContext) that it is updating itself by calling the EntityMemberChanged and EntityMemberChanging methods on the changeTracker. for e.g.: 1: public EntityKey EntityKey 2: { 3: get { return _entityKey; } 4: set 5: { 6: if (_changeTracker != null) 7: { 8: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanging("EntityKey"); 9: _entityKey = value; 10: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanged("EntityKey"); 11: } 12: else 13: _entityKey = value; 14: } 15: } 16: ===================== Custom Property ==================================== 17:  18: [EdmScalarPropertyAttribute(IsNullable = false)] 19: public System.DateTime OrderDate 20: { 21: get { return _orderDate; } 22: set 23: { 24: if (_changeTracker != null) 25: { 26: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanging("OrderDate"); 27: _orderDate = value; 28: _changeTracker.EntityMemberChanged("OrderDate"); 29: } 30: else 31: _orderDate = value; 32: } 33: } Finally you also need to create the EntityState property as follows: 1: public EntityState EntityState 2: { 3: get { return _changeTracker.EntityState; } 4: } The IEntityWithRelationships involves creating a property that returns RelationshipManager object: 1: public RelationshipManager RelationshipManager 2: { 3: get 4: { 5: if (_relManager == null) 6: _relManager = RelationshipManager.Create(this); 7: return _relManager; 8: } 9: } ============================================================ Tip : ProviderManifestToken – change EDMX File to use SQL 2008 instead of SQL 2005 To use with SQL Server 2008, edit the EDMX file (the raw XML) changing the ProviderManifestToken in the SSDL attributes from "2005" to "2008" ============================================================= With EFv1 we cannot use Structs to replace a anonymous Type while doing projections in a LINQ to Entities query. While the same is supported with LINQToSQL, it is not with LinqToEntities. For e.g. the following is not supported with LinqToEntities since only parameterless constructors and initializers are supported in LINQ to Entities. (the same works with LINQToSQL) 1: public struct CompanyInfo 2: { 3: public int ID { get; set; } 4: public string Name { get; set; } 5: } 6: var companies = (from c in dc.Companies 7: where c.CompanyIcon == null 8: select new CompanyInfo { Name = c.CompanyName, ID = c.CompanyId }).ToList(); ;

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• .NET Rocks is on the Road Again!

  - by Scott Spradlin

  Carl and Richard are loading up the DotNetMobile (a 30 foot RV) and driving to our town again to show off their favorite bits of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0! Richard talks about Web load testing and Carl talks about Silverlight 4.0 and multimedia. And to make the night even more fun, they are going to bring a mystery rock star from the Visual Studio world to the event and interview them for a special .NET Rocks Road Trip show series. Along the way we’ll be giving away some great prizes, showing off some awesome technology and having a ton of laughs. So come out to the most fun you can have in a geeky evening - and learn a few things along the way about web load testing and Silverlight 4! And one lucky person at the event will win "Ride Along with Carl and Richard" and get to board the RV and ride with the boys to the next town on the tour -- Chicago. (don’t worry, they will get you home again!) So come out to the most fun you can have in a geeky evening – and find out what’s new and cool in Visual Studio 2010! To get insure we have sufficient food for everyone, please register for this event at http://stlnet.eventbrite.com This registration information will only be used to obtain accurate counts for food preparation. All other answers are optional and will be used for purely statistical analysis. No information will be shared outside the St. Louis .NET User Group. Here is a list of prizes to be given away at the event: Telerik Premium Collection Pre-Emptive One Year Commercial Runtime Intelligence license Red Gate ANTS Memory Profiler Quest Toad Extension for Visual Studio DevExpress Code Rush and Refactor Pro Grape City Active Report/BI Suite Grape City Spread 5.0 JetBrains Resharper Component One Studio for ASP.NET Component One Studio for Silverlight Please check out the event sponsors: Visit http://www.dotnetrocks.com/roadtrip for more information! Thursday, April 29, 2010 6:00 pm - Food and social 6:30 pm - .NET Rocks Interview 7:15 pm - Richard Campbell 8:00 pm - Carl Franklin 8:45 pm - prizes!

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• Thoughts on the new JavaFX by Jim Connors

  - by Jacob Lehrbaum

  First, a brief editorial if I may.  The upcoming JavaFX 2.0 platform has been getting overwhelmingly positive reaction from the community so far.  While the public sentiment seems to be cautiously optimistic, I've heard nothing but positive reactions from everyone that I've spoken to about the platform.   In fact, many of the early adopters of JavaFX have told us directly that they are very encouraged about the direction the platform is taking.One such early adopter is Oracle's own Jim Connors.  As his day job, Jim is a principal sales consultant (basically an engineer that supports Oracle's sales efforts) in the New York area.  However, Jim also co-wrote a book with Jim Clarke and Eric Bruno on JavaFX and has spoken and conducted training sessions at events like the New York Java Developer Day, the Java Road Trip, and other events.In his thoughtful editorial, Jim discusses some of the reasons why he believes the new directions Oracle is taking JavaFX make sense, including:Better developer toolsLower barriers to adoption -> better accessibility to existing Java developersImproved performanceMore flexibility (ability to use other dynamic languages, etc)To read more about Jim's thoughts on the new JavaFX, check out his blog.  Or if you want to learn more about the JavaFX platform, pick up a copy of his book.  And if you still want to use JavaFX Script, you can check out Project Visage

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• Booby Traps and Locked-in Kids: An Interview with a Safecracker

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  While most of our articles focus on security of the digital sort, this interview with a professional safecracker is an interesting look the physical side of securing your goods. As part of their Interviews with People Who Have Interesting or Unusual Jobs series over at McSweeney’s, they interviewed Ken Doyle, a professional a locksmithing and safecracking veteran with 30 years of industry experience. The interview is both entertaining and an interesting read. One of the more unusual aspects of safecracking he highlights: Q: Do you ever look inside? A: I NEVER look. It’s none of my business. Involving yourself in people’s private affairs can lead to being subpoenaed in a lawsuit or criminal trial. Besides, I’d prefer not knowing about a client’s drug stash, personal porn, or belly button lint collection. When I’m done I gather my tools and walk to the truck to write my invoice. Sometimes I’m out of the room before they open it. I don’t want to be nearby if there is a booby trap. Q: Why would there be a booby trap? A: The safe owner intentionally uses trip mechanisms, explosives or tear gas devices to “deter” unauthorized entry into his safe. It’s pretty stupid because I have yet to see any signs warning a would-be culprit about the danger. HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting How to Convert News Feeds to Ebooks with Calibre How To Customize Your Wallpaper with Google Image Searches, RSS Feeds, and More

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• Dutch ACEs SOA Partner Community Award Celebration

  - by JuergenKress

  When you win you need to celebrate. This was the line of thinking when I found out that I was part of a group that won the Oracle SOA Community Country Award. Well – thinking about a party is one thing, preparing it and finally having the small party is something completely different. It starts with finding a date that would be suitable for the majority of invited people. As you can imagine the SOA ACEs and ACE Directors have a busy life, that takes them places. Alongside that they are engaged with customers who want to squeeze every bit of knowledge out of them. So everybody is pretty busy (that’s what makes you an ACE). After some deliberation (and checks of international Oracle events, Trip-it, blogs and tweets) a date was chosen. Meeting on a Friday evening for some drinks is probably not a Dutch-only activity. But as some of the ACEs are self-employed they miss the companies around them to organize such events. Come the day a turn-out of almost 50% was great – although I expected some more folks . This was mainly due to some illness and work overload. Luckily the mini-party got going, (alcoholic) beverages were consumed, food was appreciated, a decent picture was made (see below) and all had a good chat and hopefully a good time. (Above from left to right: Eric Elzinga, Andreas Chatziantoniou, Mike van Aalst, Edwin Biemond) All in all a nice evening and certainly a "meeting" which can be repeated.  For the full article please visit Andreas's blog Want to organize a local SOA & BPM community? Let us know we are more than happy to support you! To receive more information become a member of the SOA & BPM Partner Community please register at http://www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) Blog Twitter LinkedIn Mix Forum Technorati Tags: Eric Elzinga,Andreas Chatziantoniou,Mike van Aalst,Edwin Biemond,Dutsch SOA Community,SOA Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress,ACE

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• Week 11: Spring Break Destination: Specialization

  - by sandra.haan

  Oh how we miss Spring Break - a whole week off from school to play in the sun and get re-charged. You are probably sitting at your computer right now wishing your feet were in the sand on a warm beach somewhere instead of at your desk. Sadly, we can't transport you to a tropical paradise, but we can offer a quick Spring Break with OPN Specialized (shoes optional). Ingredients: 1 dose of Sun FAQ 1 pinch of OPN Specialized awareness 6 OPN Specialized Webcasts 1.5 months of promotional pricing Slather yourself in Sun knowledge by reviewing the FAQ. Once armed with the direction for Sun partners, relax and dive into a good read on OPN Specialized - ahh yes, that's right - the new OPN program offering you the ability to differentiate yourself. You must be exhausted from all of that work - you are on break after all. Once rested, map out an excursion and plan to attend 1 of 6 upcoming OPN Specialized sessions. These will walk you through the steps you need to take to become Specialized. Once completed, reflect on your journey and join OPN Specialized while the promotional pricing is still available. Just like any other trip, you want to know what others are saying about the destination - listen in as Judson talks about the OPN Specialized Webcast series: Feel free to add your own ingredients to this recipe and don't forget to reach out to the Oracle Partner Business Center with any of your questions on OPN Specialized. Happy Spring Break, The OPN Communications Team

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• What are the options for simple Ajax calls for a Java webapp?

  - by Cedric Martin

  I've got a very simple need and I don't know what are the options available. If I simplify, users see webpage like this server by a Java webapp server: [-] red [x] green [-] blue [-] yellow The selected color is green And then I want the user to be able to select the yellow color and have the part of the page containing the relevant text change to: [-] red [-] green [-] blue [x] yellow The selected color is yellow Basically I want something a bit more user friendly than simply using HTTP GET all the time. There shall be a lot of options the user can select from and this shall affect an (HTML formatted) text displayed on the page. And I want the user to see his change as soon as possible, without having the page to fully reload and without being redirected to another page. There shall be a client/server round-trip (the information to display depending on the options selected ain't available on the client-side so I cannot do it all in JavaScript in the browser). I'd like to use Ajax requests but I don't know which way to go: jQuery GWT something else What are my options and what would be the pros and cons of the various approach? P.S: I'm very familiar with Java (SCP since the last century and basically being a Java programmer for the last 12 years or so) but not familiar at all with JavaScript (though I did hack a few Ajaxy-calls years ago, way before great libraries existed).

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• SQL Cruise Alaska 2011

  - by Grant Fritchey

  I had the extreme good fortune to get sent on the last SQL Cruise to Alaska. I love my job. In case you don't what this is, SQL Cruise is a trip on a cruise ship during which you get to attend classes while on the boat, learning all about SQL Server and related topics as well as network with the instructors and the other Cruisers. Frankly, it's amazing. Classes ran from Monday, 5/30, to Saturday, 6/4. The networking was constant, between classes, at night on cruise ship, out on excursions in Alaskan rainforests and while snorkeling in ocean waters. Here's a run down of the experience from my point of view. Because I couldn't travel out 2 days early, I missed the BBQ that occurred the day before the cruise when many of the Cruisers received their swag bags. Some of that swag came from Red Gate. I researched what was useful on a cruise like this and purchased small flashlights and binoculars for all the Cruisers. The flashlights were because, depending on your cabin, ships can be very dark. The binoculars were so that the cruisers could watch all the beautiful landscape as it flowed by. I would have liked to have been there when the bags were opened, but I heard from several people that they appreciated the gifts. Cruisers "In" the hot tub. Pictured: Marjory Woody, Michele Grondin, Kyle Brandt, Grant Fritchey, John Halunen Sunday I went to board the ship with my wife. We had a bit of an adventure because I messed up our documents. It all worked out and we got on board to meet up at the back of the boat at one of the outdoor bars with the other Cruisers, thanks to tweets letting everyone know where to go. That was the end of electronic coordination on the trip (connectivity in Alaska was horrible for everyone except AT&T). The Cruisers were a great bunch of people and it was a real honor to meet them and get to spend time with them. After everyone settled into their cabins, our very first activity was a contest, sponsored by Red Gate. The Cruisers, in an effort to get to know each other and the ship, were required to go all over taking various photographs, some of them hilarious. The winning team of three would all win prizes. Some of the significant others helped out and I tagged along with a team that tied for first but lost the coin toss. The winning team consisted of Christina Leo (blog|twitter), Ryan Malcom (twitter), Neil Hambly (blog|twitter). They then had to do math and identify the cabin with the lowest prime number, oh, and get a picture of it and be the first to get back up to the bar where we were waiting. Christina came in first and very happily carried home an Ipad2. Ryan won a 1TB portable hard drive and Neil won a wireless mouse (picture below, note my special SQL Server Central Friday Shirt. Thanks Steve (blog|twitter)). Winners: Christina Leo, Neil Hambly, Ryan Malcolm. Just Lucky: Grant Fritchey Monday morning classes started. Buck Woody (blog|twitter) was a special guest speaker on this cruise. His theme was "Three C's on the High Seas: Career, Communication and Cloud." The first session was all on Career. I'm not going to type out all my notes from the session, but let's just say, if you get the chance to hear Buck talk about how to manage your career, I suggest you attend. I have a ton of blog posts that I'll be putting together over the next several months (yes, months) both here and over on ScaryDBA. I also have a bunch of work I'm going to be doing to get my career performance bumped up a notch or two (and let's face it, that won't be easy). Later on Monday, Tim Ford (blog|twitter) did a session on DMOs. Specifically the session was on Tim's Period Table of DMOs that he has put together, and how to use some of the more interesting DMOs in your day to day job. It was a great session, packed with good information. Next, Brent Ozar (blog|twitter) did a session on how to monitor and guide SAN configuration for the DBA that doesn't have access to the SAN. That was some seriously useful information. Tuesday morning we only had a single class. Kendra Little (blog|twitter) taught us all about "No Lock for Yes Fun".  It was all about the different transaction isolation levels and how they work. There is so often confusion in this area and Kendra does a great job in clarifying the information. Also, she tosses in her excellent drawings to liven up the presentation. Then it was excursion time in Juneau. My wife and I, along with several other Cruisers, took a hike up around the Mendenhall Glacier. It was absolutely beautiful weather and walking through the Alaskan rain forest was a treat. Our guide, Jason, was a great guy and it was a good day of hiking. Wednesday was an all day excursion in Skagway. My wife and I took the "Ghost and Good Time Girls" walking tour that ended up at a bar that used to be a brothel, the Red Onion. It was a great history of the town. We went back out and hit a few museums and exhibits. We also hiked up the side of the mountain to see the Dewey Lake and some great views of the town. Finally we hiked out to the far side of town to see the Gold Rush cemetery. Hiking done we went back to the boat and had a quiet dinner on our own. Thursday we cruised through Glacier Bay and saw at least four different glaciers including sitting next to the Marjory Glacier for  about an hour. It was amazing. Then it got better. We went into class with Buck again, this time to talk about Communication. Again, I've got pages of notes that I'm going to be referring back to for some time to come. This was an excellent opportunity to learn. Snorkelers: Nicole Bertrand, Aaron Bertrand, Grant Fritchey, Neil Hambly, Christina Leo, John Robel, Yanni Robel, Tim Ford Friday we pulled into Ketchikan. A bunch of us went snorkeling. Yes, snorkeling. Yes, in Alaska. Yes, snorkeling in the ocean in Alaska. It was fantastic. They had us put on 7mm thick wet suits (an adventure all by itself) so it was basically warm the entire time we were in the water (except for the occasional squirt of cold water down my back). Before we got in the water a bald eagle flew up and landed about 15 feet in front of us, which was just an incredible event. Then our guide pointed out about 14 other eagles in the area, hanging out in the trees. Wow! The water was pretty clear and there was a ton of things to see. That was absolutely a blast. Back on the boat I presented a session called Execution Plans: The Deep Dive (note the nautical theme). It seemed to go over well and I had several good questions come out of the session that will lead to new blog posts. After I presented, it was Aaron Bertrand's (blog|twitter) turn. He did a session on "What's New in Denali" that provided a lot of great information. He was able to incorporate new things straight out of Tech-Ed, so this was expanded beyond his usual presentation. The man really knows what he's talking about and communicates it well. Saturday we were travelling so there was time for a bunch of classes. Jeremiah Peschka (blog|twitter) did a great overview of some of the NoSQL databases and what they should be used for. The session was called "The Database is Dead" but it was really about how there are specific uses for these databases that SQL Server doesn't fill, but also that these databases can't replace SQL Server in other areas. Again, good material. Brent Ozar presented again with a session on Defensive Indexing. It was an overview of how indexes work and a deep dive into how to apply them appropriately in your databases to better support access. A good session, as you would expect. Then we pulled into Victoria, BC, in Canada and had a nice dinner with several of the Cruisers, including Denny Cherry (blog|twitter). After that it was back to Seattle on Sunday. By the way, the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle isn't a Science Fiction Museum any more. I was very disappointed to discover this. Overall, it was a great experience. I'm extremely appreciative of Red Gate for sending me and for Tim, Brent, Kendra and Jeremiah for having me. The other Cruisers were all amazing people and it was an honor & privilege to meet them and spend time with them. While this was a seriously fun time, it was also a very serious training opportunity with solid information coming from seasoned industry pros.

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• Watson Ties Against Human Jeopardy Opponents

  - by ETC

  In January we showed you a video of Waton in a practice round against Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Last night they squared off in a real round of Jeopardy with Watson in a tie with Rutter. Watson held his own against the two champions leveraging the 90 IBM Power 750 servers, 2,880 processors, and the 16TB of memory driving him to his full advantage. It was impressive to watch the round unfold and to see where Watson shined and where he faltered. Check out the video below to footage of Watson in training and then in action on Jeopardy. Pay special attention to the things that trip him up. Watson answers cut and dry questions with absolute lighting speed but stumbles when it comes to nuances in language–like finis vs. terminus in the train question that Jennings answered correctly. Watch Part 2 of the video above here. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Internet Explorer 9 RC Now Available: Here’s the Most Interesting New Stuff Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines MyPaint is an Open-Source Graphics App for Digital Painters Can the Birds and Pigs Really Be Friends in the End? [Angry Birds Video] Add the 2D Version of the New Unity Interface to Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04 MightyMintyBoost Is a 3-in-1 Gadget Charger Watson Ties Against Human Jeopardy Opponents Peaceful Tropical Cavern Wallpaper

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• SQLAuthority News – Story of Seattle – SQLPASS 2011 Event Log

  - by pinaldave

  Just like every year I attended SQL PASS in Seattle earlier this month. The event was scheduled from Oct 11-14, 2011 in the convention center of the Seattle. I have been to Seattle more than 6 times so far so it is not a new city for me anymore. The city has always impressed me with its vibrant life and pleasant weather. Just like every other time, I had excellent experience once again in the city. Though I just arrived on the day of the event and left right after the event was over – I hardly visited Seattle – still some good experience to share. Here are few quick photographs from my quick trip of Seattle city. Skyline of Seattle Seattle Convention Center A Shop Tenzing Momo and Co at Pike St Market The Seattle Gum Wall Shoreline in Seattle Nigel and Paras First Starbucks (Relocated) People on Street of Seattle Food at Sandy’s – All Veg Well, this is a short summary of my extremely quick city tour of Seattle. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL PASS, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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• Geek Bike Ride Sao Paulo

  - by Tori Wieldt

  What do you do on sunny Saturday in Sao Paulo when you have several Java enthusiasts, street lanes closed off for bicyclists, new cool Duke jerseys, and some wonderful bike angels to provide a tour through the city? A GEEK BIKE RIDE, of course! The weekend before JavaOne Latin America, the Sao Paulo geek bike ride was held today. We had 20+ riders and a wonderful route that took us from the Bicycle Park to and through downtown. It was a 30Km ride, but our hosts were kind enough to give riders the option to take the subway for part of the trip. Thanks to our wonderful bike angels, the usual rental bike problems like rubbing brakes, dropped chains, and even a flat tire were handled with ease.  The geek bike ride wasn't just for out-of-towners. Loiane Groner, who lives in Sao Paulo said, "I love the Geek Bike Ride! The last time I was in these parts of the city, I think I was five years-old!" A good time was had by all. (My only crash of the day was riding up an escalator with my bike. Luckily, the bikers with me were so busy helping me that no pictures were taken. <phew>) Enjoy this video by Hugo Lavalle You can also view Hugo's pictures. More pictures to come on Stephen Chin's blog.  So, what city is up next?  

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• Distributed Database Services?

  - by Cameron

  I'm working on a database-driven web service with clients in the US and Australia. We're currently hosted in the US, however our Australian clients are experiencing lag. The lag is primarily due to the fact that the pages launch AJAX queries which require some db work to be done on our database in the US and these take a while to perform a round trip. Ideally, we're looking for some kind of distributed database system which replicates our main US database in Australia (and possibly other locations if we choose to expand later on). Does anyone have any suggestions for services which offer something like this? Something like a CDN (CacheFly etc), which is web-based, simple to set up etc but for databases instead of static files. Ideally it would be completely transparent to the application and abstract away all the distributed database management, syncs etc.

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• Oracle ADF at Oracle OpenWorld 2012

  - by Shay Shmeltzer

  This year is going to be very busy for Oracle ADF developers who'll attend Oracle Open World. Check out the list of Oracle ADF related sessions, labs, demos and other Oracle ADF activities.  This list will help you not to miss any ADF related activity. We have over 50 ADF related sessions, multiple labs including new ones on ADF Mobile, Application Life Cycle Management and ADF in Eclipse, we'll have several demo booths where you can meet product managers, and we'll be featured in several keynotes as well. While we have several "beginners" sessions, you'll find that we have a lot of in-depth technical sessions and sessions that cover best-practices too. Of course, it is not just us product managers presenting about Oracle ADF, there are a lot of Oracle ADF sessions presented by customers, Oracle ACEs, and other developers. So you can learn from the experience of real life implementations. Note that the ADF content starts early on Sunday with a full set of Oracle ADF sessions arranged for you by the Oracle ADF Enterprise Methodology Group - so plan your trip accordingly and be there early Sunday morning. First thing on Monday morning, don't miss the keynote for Oracle ADF developers at 10:45 at the Marriott Marquis - Salon 8 - "The Future of Development for Oracle Fusion—From Desktop to Mobile to Cloud". We are also arranging a meet-up of developers using Oracle ADF at the OTN Lounge on Wed at 4:30pm - and we would love to meet you there - this will also give you an opportunity to meet other Oracle ADF users and members of the community. And after that we can all head over to the big Wed party to see Pearl Jam and Kings of Leon. One recommendation for those who are already registered - start planning your schedule and booking your place in the sessions now through the schedule builder. This will guarantee that you won't be left out of sessions you want to attend due room size limitations. Oracle OpenWorld 2013 will be a must attend event for serious Oracle ADF developers - don't miss it.

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• What do Oracle VM Templates for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1 have to do with your Next Vacation!

  - by Monica Kumar

  Oracle VM Templates for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1 Update 2 and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 9.1.3.3 are now available for download from Oracle Software Delivery Cloud. So, what do Oracle VM Templates have to do with your next vacation? Well, how about time savings so you can plan for that next vacation and have the peace of mind since Oracle did the work and the testing for you!! What’s inside the new Oracle VM Templates release? The Oracle VM Templates for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne enables you to rapidly install JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. The complete stack includes: JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Applications Release 9.1 Update 2 JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Tools 9.1 Update 3, maintenance pack 3 (9.1.3.3) Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Oracle WebLogic Server 10.3.5 All pre-configured and pre-tested to run on Oracle Linux 5. Yes, the OS is included in the template! Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher 11.1.1.7.1 for use with JD Edwards EnterpriseOne One View Reporting JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Business Services Server and Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) 11.1.1.5, for use with the JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Mobile Applications All pre-tuned to support up to 100 interactive users The templates can be installed to Oracle VM Server for x86 release 3.1 or later, to the Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, and to the Oracle Database Appliance. Simply visit http://edelivery.oracle.com/oraclevm. Download and unzip the files and read the readme and you’re ready to go. How long would take you to install each of the components above, configure and tune them all from scratch? We know that you can get 7-10x faster deployment using the Oracle VM Templates. Now, how about that snorkeling trip to Belize!!

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• System 67 error scheduled task to transfer files

  - by grom

  Running directly on command line the batch script works. But when scheduled to run (Windows 2003 R2 server) as the local administrator, I get the following error: D:\ScadaExport\exported>ping 192.168.10.78 Pinging 192.168.10.78 with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 192.168.10.78: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=61 Reply from 192.168.10.78: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=61 Reply from 192.168.10.78: bytes=32 time=29ms TTL=61 Reply from 192.168.10.78: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=61 Ping statistics for 192.168.10.78: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 29ms, Average = 16ms D:\ScadaExport\exported>net use Z: \\192.168.10.78\bar-pccommon\scada\ System error 67 has occurred. The network name cannot be found. Any ideas? Google is turning up nothing useful, just keep finding results relating to DNS etc, but using IP address here.

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• FoxTales: Behind the Scenes at Fox Software by Kerry Nietz

  Flash backs from the past! It's truly amazing to discover that software development from freshman to senior level as well as project management hasn't changed that much. Kerry Nietz describes his memoir from his final year at college to his first job at Fox Software to 'an early retirement' at Microsoft. This title also brought his other fictional novels to my attention. Once again here is the review I published on Amazon: Built to last! I have been around in software development for more than a decade now but honestly I have to admit it is only now that I took the opportunity to read about the history of my used to be primary programming language. In fact, I started with Visual FoxPro 6 back in 1999 and went only down to FoxPro for Windows 2.6 during migration projects - long after the stories described in this title. It is really interesting to see how they actually managed to create a great product with such a small team of developers. "Create the best Report Writer in the world, out of only sawdust, bubblegum, and dreams." - That's the best sentence I'm going to quote from this title in the future. An inspiration to achieve the impossible, only by taking small steps. Just begin the journey - one step after the next one. If you fall, stand up and continue to walk. Kerry takes the reader on an amazing trip through almost 4 years working at a small software company in Perrysburg, Ohio. That went from a another 'look-alike' of the mighty Ashton-Tate dBase to the leading force in database development, long before Microsoft Access (project name: Cirrus) was even finished. It survived Borland Paradox and even nowadays Visual FoxPro is still in daily use in thousands of companies world-wide. Actually, I'm glad that I had the chance to foster my programming knowledge with Visual FoxPro. After his excellent work in software development, Kerry went for a second career as a writer. I'm looking forward to read his other titles soon:

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• Dynamically changing DVT Graph at Runtime

  - by mona.rakibe(at)oracle.com

  I recently came across this requirement where the customer wanted to change the graph type at run-time based on some selection. After some internal discussions we realized this can be best achieved by using af:switcher to toggle between multiple graphs. In this blog I will be sharing the sample that I build to demonstrate this.[Note] : In the below sample, every-time user changes graph type there is a server trip, so please use this approach with performance implications in mind.This sample can be downloaded  from DynamicGraph.zipSet-up: Create a BAM data control using employees DO (sample)(Refer this entry)Steps:Create the View Create a new JSF page .From component palette drag and drop "Select One Radio" into this page Enter some Label and click "Finish"In Property Editor set the "AutoSubmit" property to trueNow drag and drop "Switcher" from components into this page.In the Structure pane select the af:switcher right click and surround with "PanelGroupLayout"In Property Editor set the "PartialTriggers"  property of PanelGroupLayout to the id of af:selectOneRadioAgain in the Structure pane select the af:switcher right click and select "Insert inside af:switcher->facet"Enter Facet name (ex: pie)Again in the Structure pane select the af:switcher right click and select "Insert inside af:switcher->facet" Enter  another Facet name (ex: bar)From "Data Controls" drag and drop "Employees->Query"  into the pie facet as "Graph->Pie" (Pie: Sales_Number and Slices: Salesperson)From "Data Controls" drag and drop "Employees->Query"  into the bar facet as "Graph->Bar" (Bars :Sales_Number and X-axis : Salesperson).Now wire the switcher to the af:selectOneRadio using their "facetName" and "value" property respectively.Now run the page, notice that graph renders as per the selection by user.

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