Search Results

Search found 3101 results on 125 pages for 'daniel scott'.

Page 116/125 | < Previous Page | 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123  | Next Page >

• local msmtp and ovh hosting

  - by klez

  I have my personal email hosted on OVH (personal hosting plan) and I'm not able to send mails using msmtp. Here's a typical session ignoring system configuration file /etc/msmtprc: File o directory non esistente loaded user configuration file /home/klez/.msmtprc using account default from /home/klez/.msmtprc host = ssl0.ovh.net port = 465 timeout = off protocol = smtp domain = localhost auth = choose user = federicoculloca%xxxxxxx password = * ntlmdomain = (not set) tls = on tls_starttls = off tls_trust_file = (not set) tls_crl_file = (not set) tls_fingerprint = (not set) tls_key_file = (not set) tls_cert_file = (not set) tls_certcheck = off tls_force_sslv3 = off tls_min_dh_prime_bits = (not set) tls_priorities = (not set) auto_from = off maildomain = (not set) from = federicoculloca@xxxxxxxx dsn_notify = (not set) dsn_return = (not set) keepbcc = off logfile = (not set) syslog = (not set) reading recipients from the command line TLS certificate information: Owner: Common Name: ssl0.ovh.net Organizational unit: Domain Control Validated Issuer: Common Name: OVH Secure Certification Authority Organization: OVH SAS Organizational unit: Low Assurance Country: FR Validity: Activation time: lun 31 gen 2011 01:00:00 CET Expiration time: mer 15 feb 2012 00:59:59 CET Fingerprints: SHA1: F9:DC:41:F9:A2:38:51:9B:56:E4:98:E6:CD:81:31:42:E6:0E:26:6D MD5: FC:EC:F3:8F:28:E4:7E:28:99:89:E6:BB:C9:DF:71:CE <-- 220 ns0.ovh.net ssl0.ovh.net. You connect to mail427.ha.ovh.net ESMTP --> EHLO localhost <-- 250-ssl0.ovh.net. You connect to mail427.ha.ovh.net <-- 250-AUTH LOGIN PLAIN <-- 250-AUTH=LOGIN PLAIN <-- 250-PIPELINING <-- 250-8BITMIME <-- 250 SIZE 109000000 --> AUTH PLAIN xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <-- 235 ok, go ahead (#2.0.0) --> MAIL FROM:<federicoculloca@xxxxx> --> RCPT TO:<[email protected]> --> DATA <-- 250 ok <-- 250 ok <-- 354 go ahead --> hello world --> . <-- 554 mail server permanently rejected message (#5.3.0) And my configuration # ~/.msmtp # Mostly from Peter Garrett's examples # https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2007-September/122698.html # Accounts from Scott Robbins' `A Quick Guide to Mutt' # http://home.nyc.rr.com/computertaijutsu/mutt.html account xxxxx host ssl0.ovh.net from federicoculloca@xxxxxx auth on user federicoculloca%xxxxxx password xxxxxx tls on tls_certcheck off tls_starttls off Any idea?

  Read the article

• Server compromised. Bounce message contains many email addresses message was not sent to

  - by Tim Duncklee

  This is not a dupe. Please read and understand the issue before marking this as a duplicate question that has been answered already. Several customers are reporting bounce messages like the one below. At first I thought their computers had a virus but then I received one that was server generated so the problem is with the server. I've inspected the logs and these email addresses do not appear in the logs. The only thing I see that I do not remember seeing in the past are entries like this: Apr 30 13:34:49 psa86 qmail-queue-handlers[20994]: hook_dir = '/var/qmail//handlers/before-queue' Apr 30 13:34:49 psa86 qmail-queue-handlers[20994]: recipient[3] = '[email protected]' Apr 30 13:34:49 psa86 qmail-queue-handlers[20994]: handlers dir = '/var/qmail//handlers/before-queue/recipient/[email protected]' I've searched here and the web and maybe I'm just not entering the right search terms but I find nothing on this issue. Does anyone know how a hacker would attach additional email addresses to a message at the server and have them not appear in the logs? CentOS release 5.4, Plesk 8.6, QMail 1.03 Hi. This is the qmail-send program at psa.aaaaaa.com. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out. <[email protected]>: 82.201.133.227 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected. Giving up on 82.201.133.227. <[email protected]>: 64.18.7.10 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 No such user - psmtp Giving up on 64.18.7.10. <[email protected]>: 173.194.68.27 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try 550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient's email address for typos or 550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at 550 5.1.1 http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?answer=6596 w8si1903qag.18 - gsmtp Giving up on 173.194.68.27. <[email protected]>: 207.115.36.23 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 <[email protected]>... Addressee unknown, relay=[174.142.62.210] Giving up on 207.115.36.23. <[email protected]>: 207.115.37.22 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 <[email protected]>... Addressee unknown, relay=[174.142.62.210] Giving up on 207.115.37.22. <[email protected]>: 207.115.37.20 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 <[email protected]>... Addressee unknown, relay=[174.142.62.210] Giving up on 207.115.37.20. <[email protected]>: 207.115.37.23 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 <[email protected]>... Addressee unknown, relay=[174.142.62.210] Giving up on 207.115.37.23. <[email protected]>: 207.115.36.22 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 <[email protected]>... Addressee unknown, relay=[174.142.62.210] Giving up on 207.115.36.22. <[email protected]>: 74.205.16.140 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts; no valid cert for gatewaying (#5.7.1) Giving up on 74.205.16.140. <[email protected]>: 207.115.36.20 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 <[email protected]>... Addressee unknown, relay=[174.142.62.210] Giving up on 207.115.36.20. <[email protected]>: 207.115.37.21 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.2.1 <[email protected]>... Addressee unknown, relay=[174.142.62.210] Giving up on 207.115.37.21. <[email protected]>: 192.169.41.23 failed after I sent the message. Remote host said: 554 qq Sorry, no valid recipients (#5.1.3) --- Below this line is a copy of the message. Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: (qmail 15962 invoked from network); 1 May 2013 06:49:34 -0400 Received: from exprod6mo107.postini.com (64.18.1.18) by psa.aaaaaa.com with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 1 May 2013 06:49:34 -0400 Received: from aaaaaa.com (exprod6lut001.postini.com [64.18.1.199]) by exprod6mo107.postini.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 47F80B8CA4 for <[email protected]>; Wed, 1 May 2013 03:49:33 -0700 (PDT) From: "Support" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Detected Potential Junk Mail Date: Wed, 1 May 2013 03:49:33 -0700 Dear [email protected], junk mail protection service has detected suspicious email message(s) since your last visit and directed them to your Message Center. You can inspect your suspicious email at: ... UPDATE: After not seeing this problem for a while, I personally sent a message and immediately got a bounce with several bad addresses that I know I did not send to. These are addresses that are not on my system or on the server. This problem happens with both Mac and Windows clients and with messages generated from Postini and sent to users on my system. This is NOT backscatter. If it was backscatter it would not have the contents of my message in it. UPDATE #2 Here is another bounce. This one was sent by me and the bounce came back immediately. Hi. This is the qmail-send program at psa.aaaaaa.com. I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out. <[email protected]>: 71.74.56.227 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.1.1 <[email protected]>... User unknown Giving up on 71.74.56.227. <[email protected]>: Connected to 208.34.236.3 but sender was rejected. Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 This system is configured to reject mail from 174.142.62.210 [174.142.62.210] (Host blacklisted - Found on Realtime Black List server 'bl.mailspike.net') <[email protected]>: 66.96.80.22 failed after I sent the message. Remote host said: 552 sorry, mailbox [email protected] is over quota temporarily (#5.1.1) <[email protected]>: 83.145.109.52 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.1.1 <[email protected]>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in virtual mailbox table Giving up on 83.145.109.52. <[email protected]>: 69.49.101.234 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 <[email protected]>... H:M12 [174.142.62.210] Connection refused due to abuse. Please see http://mailspike.org/anubis/lookup.html or contact your E-mail provider. Giving up on 69.49.101.234. <[email protected]>: 212.55.154.36 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550-The account has been suspended for inactivity 550 A conta do destinatario encontra-se suspensa por inactividade (#5.2.1) Giving up on 212.55.154.36. <[email protected]>: 199.168.90.102 failed after I sent the message. Remote host said: 552 Transaction [email protected] failed, remote said "550 No such user" (#5.1.1) <[email protected]>: 98.136.217.192 failed after I sent the message. Remote host said: 554 delivery error: dd Sorry your message to [email protected] cannot be delivered. This account has been disabled or discontinued [#102]. - mta1210.sbc.mail.gq1.yahoo.com --- Below this line is a copy of the message. Return-Path: <[email protected]> Received: (qmail 2618 invoked from network); 2 Jun 2013 22:32:51 -0400 Received: from 75-138-254-239.dhcp.jcsn.tn.charter.com (HELO ?192.168.0.66?) (75.138.254.239) by psa.aaaaaa.com with SMTP; 2 Jun 2013 22:32:48 -0400 User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/12.34.0.120813 Date: Sun, 02 Jun 2013 21:32:39 -0500 Subject: Refinance From: Tim Duncklee <[email protected]> To: Scott jones <[email protected]> Message-ID: <CDD16A79.67344%[email protected]> Thread-Topic: Reference Thread-Index: Ac5gAp2QmTs+LRv0SEOy7AJTX2DWzQ== Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="B_3453053568_12034440" > This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. --B_3453053568_12034440 Content-type: multipart/related; boundary="B_3453053568_11982218" --B_3453053568_11982218 Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="B_3453053568_12000660" --B_3453053568_12000660 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Scott, ... email body here ... Here are the relevant log entries: Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue[2616]: mail: all addreses are uncheckable - need to skip scanning (by deny mode) Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue[2616]: scan: the message(drweb.tmp.i2SY0n) sent by [email protected] to [email protected] should be passed without checks, because contains uncheckable addresses Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue-handlers[2617]: Handlers Filter before-queue for qmail started ... Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue-handlers[2617]: [email protected] Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue-handlers[2617]: [email protected] Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue-handlers[2617]: hook_dir = '/var/qmail//handlers/before-queue' Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue-handlers[2617]: recipient[3] = '[email protected]' Jun 2 22:32:50 psa qmail-queue-handlers[2617]: handlers dir = '/var/qmail//handlers/before-queue/recipient/[email protected]' Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail: 1370226771.060211 starting delivery 57: msg 1540285 to remote [email protected] Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail: 1370226771.060402 status: local 0/10 remote 1/20 Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail: 1370226771.060556 new msg 4915232 Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail: 1370226771.060671 info msg 4915232: bytes 687899 from <[email protected]> qp 2618 uid 2020 Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail-remote-handlers[2619]: Handlers Filter before-remote for qmail started ... Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail-queue-handlers[2617]: starter: submitter[2618] exited normally Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail-remote-handlers[2619]: from= Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail-remote-handlers[2619]: [email protected] Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail: 1370226771.078732 starting delivery 58: msg 4915232 to remote [email protected] Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail: 1370226771.078825 status: local 0/10 remote 2/20 Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail-remote-handlers[2621]: Handlers Filter before-remote for qmail started ... Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail-remote-handlers[2621]: [email protected] Jun 2 22:32:51 psa qmail-remote-handlers[2621]: [email protected]

  Read the article

• WIM2VHD failing with "Cannot derive Volume GUID from mount point."

  - by Jacob

  I'm trying to use WIM2VHD according to the instructions on Scott Hanselman's blog post to create a Sysprepped VHD image to boot from. I've installed the WAIK, and I have my Windows 7 sources mounted as a virtual drive. When I try to run WIM2VHD like this: cscript WIM2VHD.wsf /wim:F:\sources\install.wim /sku:Ultimate /vhd:E:\WindowsSeven.vhd /size:30721 I get the following log: Log for WIM2VHD 6.1.7600.0 on 11/2/2009 at 10:51:18.16 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. MACHINE INFO: Build=7600 Platform=x86fre OS=Windows 7 Ultimate ServicePack= Version=6.1 BuildLab=win7_rtm BuildDate=090713-1255 Language=en-ZA INFO: Looking for IMAGEX.EXE... INFO: Looking for BCDBOOT.EXE... INFO: Looking for BCDEDIT.EXE... INFO: Looking for REG.EXE... INFO: Looking for DISKPART.EXE... INFO: Session key is E01E1ED7-C197-4814-BDE4-43B73E14FCC4 INFO: Inspecting the WIM... INFO: Configuring and formatting the VHD... ******************************************************************************* Error: 0: Cannot derive Volume GUID from mount point. ******************************************************************************* INFO: Unmounting the VHD due to error... WARNING: In order to help resolve the issue, temporary files have not been deleted. They are in: C:\Users\Jacob\AppData\Local\Temp\WIM2VHD.WSF\E01E1ED7-C197-4814-BDE4-43B73E14FCC4 *emphasized text*Summary: Errors: 1, Warnings: 1, Successes: 0 INFO: Done. Any ideas?

  Read the article

• Makecert.exe hangs

  - by Robert

  I was following the steps in Scott Hanselman's blog post describing how to create a certificate authority and code signing certificate for PowerShell scripts. Initially, I created the certificate authority and a personal certifcate and used it to sign a powershell script successfully. All went as described in the blog post. The problem starts (as most do) when I did something that was (probably) stupid, although it seemed reasonable at the time. I wanted to start over and repeat the process again with a clean slate, so from the mmc certificates snap-in console, I deleted the personal certificate and the certificate authority I created previously. After that any time I try to use makecert, (just as I did the first time around), makecert either hangs or faults (which prompts to end or debug). Did I hose something up by deleting via the certificates snap-in? It didn't complain or warn me that it could be potentially hazardous. Is this just coincidence and something else entirely could be hosed? I have Event Log entries from the times when makecert crashed, which all look very similar; here is one: Log Name: Application Source: Application Error Date: 8/5/2009 3:55:04 PM Event ID: 1000 Task Category: (100) Level: Error Description: Faulting application makecert.exe, version 6.0.6000.16384, time stamp 0x4545910b, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 6.0.6002.18005, time stamp 0x49e03821, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00067409, process id 0xe58, application start time 0x01ca160efdf30625. Anyone have any ideas as to what exactly caused this and/or what I can do to fix it. I'm on 32-bit Vista Enterprise w/SP2.

  Read the article

• iis7 large worker process request queue creating process blocking aspnet.config & machine.config amended (bottleneck)

  - by scott_lotus

  ASP.net 2.0 app .net 2.0 framework IIS7 I am seeing a large queue of "requests" appear under the "worker process" option. State recorded appear to be Authenticate Request and Execute Request Handles more than anything else. I have amended aspnet.config in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727 (32 bit path and 64 bit path) to include: maxConcurrentRequestsPerCPU="50000" maxConcurrentThreadsPerCPU="0" requestQueueLimit="50000" I have amended machine.config in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG (32 bit and 64 bit path) to include: autoConfig="true" maxIoThreads="100" maxWorkerThreads="100" minIoThreads="50" minWorkerThreads="50" minFreeThreads="176" minLocalRequestFreeThreads="152" Still i get the issue. The issue manifestes itself as a large number of processes in the Worker Process queue. Number of current connections to the website display 500 when this issue occurs. I dont think i have seen concurrent connections over 500 without this issue occurring. Web application slows as the request block. Refreshing the app pool resolves for a while (as expected) as the load is spread between the two pools. Application pool in question FIXED REQUEST have been set to refresh on 50000. Thank you for any help. Scott quick edit to say hmm, my develeopers are telling me the project was built with .net 3.5 framework. Looking at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.5 there does not appear to be a ASPNET.CONFIG or a MACHINE.CONFIG .... is there a 3.5 equivalent ? after a little searching apparenetly 3.5 uses the 2.0 framework files that 3.5 is missing. So back to the original question , where is my bottleneck ?

  Read the article

• Xvnc4 started from xinetd only displays empty gray X screen

  - by scott8035

  I'm attempting to setup an Ubuntu 10.10 box so that anyone can connect to port 5900 and be greeted by the gdm login manager. To do so, I added a vnc entry in /etc/services and I am starting Xvnc4 using this xinetd config file: service vnc { protocol = tcp socket_type = stream wait = no user = nobody server = /usr/bin/Xvnc server_args = -geometry 1000x700 -depth 24 -broadcast -inetd -once -securitytypes None } This kind of works...I can start multiple sessions all to port 5900, and I get an X screen. The problem is that I only get an empty, gray X screen with no applications started. I know when you run vncserver from the command line it will look to your ~/.vnc/ directory for your passwd and xstartup files, and I think what I want to do is put "gnome-session" into the xstart file. However, which xstartup file? The running user is "nobody" who obviously doesn't have a ~/.vnc/ directory. I tried a /root/.vnc/xstartup file and a ~scott/.vnc/xstartup file and it doesn't look like they were even read. I changed the xinetd vnc service so that it would "strace" Xvnc4. I looked thru all the "open" lines and didn't get a clue as to what file it was trying to read for xstart. Can anyone help? I just want a terminal server where the user is presented with a gdm login screen.

  Read the article

• Rsync when run in cron doesnt work. Rsync between Mac Os x Server and Linux Centos

  - by Brady

  I have a working rsync setup between Mac OS X Server and Linux Centos when run manually in a terminal. I enter the rsync command, it asks for the password, I enter it and off it goes, runs and completes. Now I know thats working I set out to fully automate it via cron. First off I create an SSH authorized key by running this command on the Mac server: ssh-keygen -t dsa -b 1024 -f /Users/admin/Documents/Backup/rsync-key Entering the password and then confirming it. I then copy the rsync-key.pub file accross to the linux server and place in the rsync user .ssh folder and rename to authorized_keys: /home/philosophy/.ssh/authorized_keys I then make sure that the authorized_keys file is chmod 600 in the folder chmod 700. I then setup a shell script for cron to run: #!/bin/bash RSYNC=/usr/bin/rsync SSH=/usr/bin/ssh KEY=/Users/admin/Documents/Backup/rsync-key RUSER=philosophy RHOST=example.com RPATH=data/ LPATH="/Volumes/G Technology G Speed eS/Backup" $RSYNC -avz --delete --progress -e "$SSH -i $KEY" "$LPATH" $RUSER@$RHOST:$RPATH Then give the shell file execute permissions and then add the following to the crontab using crontab -e: 29 12 * * * /Users/admin/Documents/Backup/backup.sh I check my crontab log file after the above command should run and I get this in the log and nothing else: Feb 21 12:29:00 fileserver /usr/sbin/cron[80598]: (admin) CMD (/Users/admin/Documents/Backup/backup.sh) So I asume everything has run as it should. But when I check the remote server no files have been copied accross. If I run the backup.sh file in a terminal as normal it still prompts for a password but this time its through the Mac Key chain system rather than typing into the console window. With the Mac Key Chain I can set it to save the password so that it doesnt ask for it again but Im sure when run with cron this password isnt picked up. This is where I'm asuming where rsync in cron is failing because it needs a password to connect but I thought the whole idea of making the SSH keys was to prevent the use of a password. Have I missed a step or done something wrong here? Thanks Scott

  Read the article

• How to setup Mac server to use two gateways

  - by Brady

  I recently asked this question: How to set Mac server to use different Gateway for internet bound traffic The answer given works but has presented me with another issue that I didnt make clear in that question. Here is my network layout as it stands: At the moment outside staff members use some services on the existing internet 1 link. Those services are hosted by the Mac server. If I change the gateway of the Mac server to the second modem those outside staff lose visabilty on those services. Now I dont know how to go about solving this issue. I want the second link to be used when the Mac server goes to rsync data offsite but everything else use link one. How do I do this? Thanks Scott EDIT: This has been resolved by setting the default gateway on the Mac server to 192.168.1.254 Thus leaving everything on the network as it was before. but to get the Mac server to use the other link for rsync I've added a route to the Mac server to route traffic to the rsync server through the second gateway. sudo route add -net {server IP's}/{Netmask} 192.168.1.1 I've awarded the answer to gravyface for pointing me to a post on how to make this route persistant in Mac

  Read the article

• vSphere - datastore falling off a host

  - by Chadddada

  Recently we have been running the vCheck powershell script daily in order to help in monitoring our vSphere ESX 4.0 environment. One of the oddities that we have been seeing is that some of the datastores on the SAN don't always show up on every host. Our hosts are connected redundantly, via FC, to some brocade FC switches, which then connect via fiber to our EMC Ax4 SAN. While all the datastores are presented to each host we have, and they see them initially, they sometimes seem to fall off and are no longer visible. It easy enough to rescan for datastores and add them back to the hosts the hosts but this seems to be an error. Has anyone else seen this or know why it may be happening? Responses to questions: 1. Is it always the same ESX servers that lose their connection? – Scott Warren No this happens randomly on random hosts. If a VM is running on a particular host, of which the VM's disks are on a SAN datastore, then that datastore won't disappear. It seems to happen if a host doesn't touch a datastore for a bit and it just forgets about it.

  Read the article

• Finding the current user authenticated by basic auth (Apache)

  - by jtd

  When you log in through a basic auth page, is the username you authenticated as stored anywhere (on the server or client machine), maybe in an environment variable? Background: I have a common web administration page for an e-mail server and I'd like to know who is doing what. When a user successfully logs in via basic auth, I somehow want to be able to identify them and log their actions. So each time a request is submitted, I can write to a log file. The basic format would be: $username ran a $function against $useraccount so if a user changed someone's permissions, eg: Admin-Bob ran a permission change against User-Scott So if errors occur, I can easily trace back in the log file what actions lead to the cause. I tried checking the %ENV hash to no avail, any Ideas? I don't really want to get into PHP-like sessions, because that would mean scrapping my basic auth, which gives me a fine degree of control already. If I have to code something with sessions, I'd need to implement a system to block users after maximum tries and so on, which I don't really want to code. I think this is better geared towards serverfault because it pertains to Apache moreso than the programming language. Sessions can be done in a myriad of languages.

  Read the article

• how do i completely delete ask.com from my computer?

  - by celyn

  I have used Final Uninstaller (unregistered version) to remove it. So it removed the toolbar and the things in its folder from C:Program Files/Ask.com except for one thing; remaining are "Ask.com" folder > "Updater" folder > "Updater.exe" I have not checked my registry yet. But if there is something I want it to be gone! As to why I can't delete that updater thing, my laptop asks me permission (says need to be admin) whenever I tried to delete anything from ask.com folder, or its folder at all. I have googled, came to and followed the instructions from "Scott McClenning" in this post. Does not really work. When I say "not really", means, this error message pops up everytime I tried to do that: An error occurred applying attributes to the file: C:/Program Files/Ask.com Access is denied. How can I gain access? I AM the admin for this computer. And... don't ask me to download too many things for my computer, it adds to my frustration. Just in case you are wondering, I got this from FormatFactory when I updated it to 2.70. I should not have done so. Update: Now after I restarted my computer, I got the "EVERYONE" group in and it is under Full Control with every box ticked except for the last one (Special). When I tried to delete that folder and the .exe file, this keeps popping up as i click "try again", only goes away when I click "cancel"

  Read the article

• SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn

  - by Claus Jandausch

  Ich war nicht nur irritiert, ich war sogar regelrecht schockiert - und für einen kurzen Moment sprachlos (was nur selten der Fall ist). Gerade eben hatte mich jemand gefragt "Wann Oracle denn etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde - und ob überhaupt?" War ich hier im falschen Film gelandet? Ich konnte nicht anders, als meinen Unmut kundzutun und zu erklären, dass die Fragestellung normalerweise anders herum läuft. Zugegeben - es mag vielleicht strittige Punkte geben im Vergleich zwischen Oracle und SQL Server - bei denen nicht unbedingt immer Oracle die Nase vorn haben muss - aber das Thema Clustering für Hochverfügbarkeit (HA), Disaster Recovery (DR) und Skalierbarkeit gehört mit Sicherheit nicht dazu. Dieses Erlebnis hakte ich am Nachgang als Einzelfall ab, der so nie wieder vorkommen würde. Bis ich kurz darauf eines Besseren belehrt wurde und genau die selbe Frage erneut zu hören bekam. Diesmal sogar im Exadata-Umfeld und einem Oracle Stretch Cluster. Einmal ist keinmal, doch zweimal ist einmal zu viel... Getreu diesem alten Motto war mir klar, dass man das so nicht länger stehen lassen konnte. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wie die Microsoft Marketing Abteilung es geschafft hat, unter dem AlwaysOn Brading eine innovative Technologie vermuten zu lassen - aber sie hat ihren Job scheinbar gut gemacht. Doch abgesehen von einem guten Marketing, stellt sich natürlich die Frage, was wirklich dahinter steckt und wie sich das Ganze mit Oracle vergleichen lässt - und ob überhaupt? Damit wären wir wieder bei der ursprünglichen Frage angelangt.  So viel zum Hintergrund dieses Blogbeitrags - von meiner Antwort handelt der restliche Blog. "Windows was the God ..." Um den wahren Unterschied zwischen Oracle und Microsoft verstehen zu können, muss man zunächst das bedeutendste Microsoft Dogma kennen. Es lässt sich schlicht und einfach auf den Punkt bringen: "Alles muss auf Windows basieren." Die Überschrift dieses Absatzes ist kein von mir erfundener Ausspruch, sondern ein Zitat. Konkret stammt es aus einem längeren Artikel von Kurt Eichenwald in der Vanity Fair aus dem August 2012. Er lautet Microsoft's Lost Decade und sei jedem ans Herz gelegt, der die "Microsoft-Maschinerie" unter Steve Ballmer und einige ihrer Kuriositäten besser verstehen möchte. "YOU TALKING TO ME?" Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer bei seiner Keynote auf der 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas am 9. Januar   Manche Dinge in diesem Artikel mögen überspitzt dargestellt erscheinen - sind sie aber nicht. Vieles davon kannte ich bereits aus eigener Erfahrung und kann es nur bestätigen. Anderes hat sich mir erst so richtig erschlossen. Insbesondere die folgenden Passagen führten zum Aha-Erlebnis: “Windows was the god—everything had to work with Windows,” said Stone... “Every little thing you want to write has to build off of Windows (or other existing roducts),” one software engineer said. “It can be very confusing, …” Ich habe immer schon darauf hingewiesen, dass in einem SQL Server Failover Cluster die Microsoft Datenbank eigentlich nichts Nenneswertes zum Geschehen beiträgt, sondern sich voll und ganz auf das Windows Betriebssystem verlässt. Deshalb muss man auch die Windows Server Enterprise Edition installieren, soll ein Failover Cluster für den SQL Server eingerichtet werden. Denn hier werden die Cluster Services geliefert - nicht mit dem SQL Server. Er ist nur lediglich ein weiteres Server Produkt, für das Windows in Ausfallszenarien genutzt werden kann - so wie Microsoft Exchange beispielsweise, oder Microsoft SharePoint, oder irgendein anderes Server Produkt das auf Windows gehostet wird. Auch Oracle kann damit genutzt werden. Das Stichwort lautet hier: Oracle Failsafe. Nur - warum sollte man das tun, wenn gleichzeitig eine überlegene Technologie wie die Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) zur Verfügung steht, die dann auch keine Windows Enterprise Edition voraussetzen, da Oracle die eigene Clusterware liefert. Welche darüber hinaus für kürzere Failover-Zeiten sorgt, da diese Cluster-Technologie Datenbank-integriert ist und sich nicht auf "Dritte" verlässt. Wenn man sich also schon keine technischen Vorteile mit einem SQL Server Failover Cluster erkauft, sondern zusätzlich noch versteckte Lizenzkosten durch die Lizenzierung der Windows Server Enterprise Edition einhandelt, warum hat Microsoft dann in den vergangenen Jahren seit SQL Server 2000 nicht ebenfalls an einer neuen und innovativen Lösung gearbeitet, die mit Oracle RAC mithalten kann? Entwickler hat Microsoft genügend? Am Geld kann es auch nicht liegen? Lesen Sie einfach noch einmal die beiden obenstehenden Zitate und sie werden den Grund verstehen. Anders lässt es sich ja auch gar nicht mehr erklären, dass AlwaysOn aus zwei unterschiedlichen Technologien besteht, die beide jedoch wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) basieren. Denn daraus ergeben sich klare Nachteile - aber dazu später mehr. Um AlwaysOn zu verstehen, sollte man sich zunächst kurz in Erinnerung rufen, was Microsoft bisher an HA/DR (High Availability/Desaster Recovery) Lösungen für SQL Server zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Replikation Basiert auf logischer Replikation und Pubisher/Subscriber Architektur Transactional Replication Merge Replication Snapshot Replication Microsoft's Replikation ist vergleichbar mit Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate stellt jedoch die umfassendere Technologie dar und bietet High Performance. Log Shipping Microsoft's Log Shipping stellt eine einfache Technologie dar, die vergleichbar ist mit Oracle Managed Recovery in Oracle Version 7. Das Log Shipping besitzt folgende Merkmale: Transaction Log Backups werden von Primary nach Secondary/ies geschickt Einarbeitung (z.B. Restore) auf jedem Secondary individuell Optionale dritte Server Instanz (Monitor Server) für Überwachung und Alarm Log Restore Unterbrechung möglich für Read-Only Modus (Secondary) Keine Unterstützung von Automatic Failover Database Mirroring Microsoft's Database Mirroring wurde verfügbar mit SQL Server 2005, sah aus wie Oracle Data Guard in Oracle 9i, war funktional jedoch nicht so umfassend. Für ein HA/DR Paar besteht eine 1:1 Beziehung, um die produktive Datenbank (Principle DB) abzusichern. Auf der Standby Datenbank (Mirrored DB) werden alle Insert-, Update- und Delete-Operationen nachgezogen. Modi Synchron (High-Safety Modus) Asynchron (High-Performance Modus) Automatic Failover Unterstützt im High-Safety Modus (synchron) Witness Server vorausgesetzt     Zur Frage der Kontinuität Es stellt sich die Frage, wie es um diesen Technologien nun im Zusammenhang mit SQL Server 2012 bestellt ist. Unter Fanfaren seinerzeit eingeführt, war Database Mirroring das erklärte Mittel der Wahl. Ich bin kein Produkt Manager bei Microsoft und kann hierzu nur meine Meinung äußern, aber zieht man den SQL AlwaysOn Team Blog heran, so sieht es nicht gut aus für das Database Mirroring - zumindest nicht langfristig. "Does AlwaysOn Availability Group replace Database Mirroring going forward?” “The short answer is we recommend that you migrate from the mirroring configuration or even mirroring and log shipping configuration to using Availability Group. Database Mirroring will still be available in the Denali release but will be phased out over subsequent releases. Log Shipping will continue to be available in future releases.” Damit wären wir endlich beim eigentlichen Thema angelangt. Was ist eine sogenannte Availability Group und was genau hat es mit der vielversprechend klingenden Bezeichnung AlwaysOn auf sich?   SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn Zwei HA-Features verstekcne sich hinter dem “AlwaysOn”-Branding. Einmal das AlwaysOn Failover Clustering aka SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) - zum Anderen die AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Entspricht ungefähr dem Stretch Cluster Konzept von Oracle Setzt auf Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) auf Bietet HA auf Instanz-Ebene AlwaysOn Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Ähnlich der Idee von Consistency Groups, wie in Storage-Level Replikations-Software von z.B. EMC SRDF Abhängigkeiten zu Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Bietet HA auf Datenbank-Ebene   Hinweis: Verwechseln Sie nicht eine SQL Server Datenbank mit einer Oracle Datenbank. Und auch nicht eine Oracle Instanz mit einer SQL Server Instanz. Die gleichen Begriffe haben hier eine andere Bedeutung - nicht selten ein Grund, weshalb Oracle- und Microsoft DBAs schnell aneinander vorbei reden. Denken Sie bei einer SQL Server Datenbank eher an ein Oracle Schema, das kommt der Sache näher. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema. Wenn Sie die genauen Unterschiede kennen möchten, finden Sie eine detaillierte Beschreibung in meinem Buch "Oracle10g Release 2 für Windows und .NET", erhältich bei Lehmanns, Amazon, etc.   Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Wie man sieht, basieren beide AlwaysOn Technologien wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC), um einerseits Hochverfügbarkeit auf Ebene der Instanz zu gewährleisten und andererseits auf der Datenbank-Ebene. Deshalb nun eine kurze Beschreibung der WSFC. Die WSFC sind ein mit dem Windows Betriebssystem geliefertes Infrastruktur-Feature, um HA für Server Anwendungen, wie Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, etc. zu bieten. So wie jeder andere Cluster, besteht ein WSFC Cluster aus einer Gruppe unabhängiger Server, die zusammenarbeiten, um die Verfügbarkeit einer Applikation oder eines Service zu erhöhen. Falls ein Cluster-Knoten oder -Service ausfällt, kann der auf diesem Knoten bisher gehostete Service automatisch oder manuell auf einen anderen im Cluster verfügbaren Knoten transferriert werden - was allgemein als Failover bekannt ist. Unter SQL Server 2012 verwenden sowohl die AlwaysOn Avalability Groups, als auch die AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances die WSFC als Plattformtechnologie, um Komponenten als WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen zu registrieren. Verwandte Ressourcen werden in eine Ressource Group zusammengefasst, die in Abhängigkeit zu anderen WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen gebracht werden kann. Der WSFC Cluster Service kann jetzt die Notwendigkeit zum Neustart der SQL Server Instanz erfassen oder einen automatischen Failover zu einem anderen Server-Knoten im WSFC Cluster auslösen.   Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Eine SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanz (FCI) ist eine einzelne SQL Server Instanz, die in einem Failover Cluster betrieben wird, der aus mehreren Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Knoten besteht und so HA (High Availability) auf Ebene der Instanz bietet. Unter Verwendung von Multi-Subnet FCI kann auch Remote DR (Disaster Recovery) unterstützt werden. Eine weitere Option für Remote DR besteht darin, eine unter FCI gehostete Datenbank in einer Availability Group zu betreiben. Hierzu später mehr. FCI und WSFC Basis FCI, das für lokale Hochverfügbarkeit der Instanzen genutzt wird, ähnelt der veralteten Architektur eines kalten Cluster (Aktiv-Passiv). Unter SQL Server 2008 wurde diese Technologie SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering genannt. Sie nutzte den Windows Server Failover Cluster. In SQL Server 2012 hat Microsoft diese Basistechnologie unter der Bezeichnung AlwaysOn zusammengefasst. Es handelt sich aber nach wie vor um die klassische Aktiv-Passiv-Konfiguration. Der Ablauf im Failover-Fall ist wie folgt: Solange kein Hardware-oder System-Fehler auftritt, werden alle Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache auf Platte geschrieben Alle entsprechenden SQL Server Services (Dienste) in der Ressource Gruppe werden auf dem aktiven Knoten gestoppt Die Ownership der Ressource Gruppe wird auf einen anderen Knoten der FCI transferriert Der neue Owner (Besitzer) der Ressource Gruppe startet seine SQL Server Services (Dienste) Die Connection-Anforderungen einer Client-Applikation werden automatisch auf den neuen aktiven Knoten mit dem selben Virtuellen Network Namen (VNN) umgeleitet Abhängig vom Zeitpunkt des letzten Checkpoints, kann die Anzahl der Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache, die noch auf Platte geschrieben werden müssen, zu unvorhersehbar langen Failover-Zeiten führen. Um diese Anzahl zu drosseln, besitzt der SQL Server 2012 eine neue Fähigkeit, die Indirect Checkpoints genannt wird. Indirect Checkpoints ähnelt dem Fast-Start MTTR Target Feature der Oracle Datenbank, das bereits mit Oracle9i verfügbar war.   SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Ein SQL Server Multi-Subnet Failover Cluster entspricht vom Konzept her einem Oracle RAC Stretch Cluster. Doch dies ist nur auf den ersten Blick der Fall. Im Gegensatz zu RAC ist in einem lokalen SQL Server Failover Cluster jeweils nur ein Knoten aktiv für eine Datenbank. Für die Datenreplikation zwischen geografisch entfernten Sites verlässt sich Microsoft auf 3rd Party Lösungen für das Storage Mirroring.     Die Verbesserung dieses Szenario mit einer SQL Server 2012 Implementierung besteht schlicht darin, dass eine VLAN-Konfiguration (Virtual Local Area Network) nun nicht mehr benötigt wird, so wie dies bisher der Fall war. Das folgende Diagramm stellt dar, wie der Ablauf mit SQL Server 2012 gehandhabt wird. In Site A und Site B wird HA jeweils durch einen lokalen Aktiv-Passiv-Cluster sichergestellt.     Besondere Aufmerksamkeit muss hier der Konfiguration und dem Tuning geschenkt werden, da ansonsten völlig inakzeptable Failover-Zeiten resultieren. Dies liegt darin begründet, weil die Downtime auf Client-Seite nun nicht mehr nur von der reinen Failover-Zeit abhängt, sondern zusätzlich von der Dauer der DNS Replikation zwischen den DNS Servern. (Rufen Sie sich in Erinnerung, dass wir gerade von Multi-Subnet Clustering sprechen). Außerdem ist zu berücksichtigen, wie schnell die Clients die aktualisierten DNS Informationen abfragen. Spezielle Konfigurationen für Node Heartbeat, HostRecordTTL (Host Record Time-to-Live) und Intersite Replication Frequeny für Active Directory Sites und Services werden notwendig. Default TTL für Windows Server 2008 R2: 20 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 1 Minute DNS Update Replication Frequency in Windows Umgebung: 180 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 15 Minuten (minimaler Wert)   Betrachtet man diese Werte, muss man feststellen, dass selbst eine optimale Konfiguration die rigiden SLAs (Service Level Agreements) heutiger geschäftskritischer Anwendungen für HA und DR nicht erfüllen kann. Denn dies impliziert eine auf der Client-Seite erlebte Failover-Zeit von insgesamt 16 Minuten. Hierzu ein Auszug aus der SQL Server 2012 Online Dokumentation: Cons: If a cross-subnet failover occurs, the client recovery time could be 15 minutes or longer, depending on your HostRecordTTL setting and the setting of your cross-site DNS/AD replication schedule.    Wir sind hier an einem Punkt unserer Überlegungen angelangt, an dem sich erklärt, weshalb ich zuvor das "Windows was the God ..." Zitat verwendet habe. Die unbedingte Abhängigkeit zu Windows wird zunehmend zum Problem, da sie die Komplexität einer Microsoft-basierenden Lösung erhöht, anstelle sie zu reduzieren. Und Komplexität ist das Letzte, was sich CIOs heutzutage wünschen.  Zur Ehrenrettung des SQL Server 2012 und AlwaysOn muss man sagen, dass derart lange Failover-Zeiten kein unbedingtes "Muss" darstellen, sondern ein "Kann". Doch auch ein "Kann" kann im unpassenden Moment unvorhersehbare und kostspielige Folgen haben. Die Unabsehbarkeit ist wiederum Ursache vieler an der Implementierung beteiligten Komponenten und deren Abhängigkeiten, wie beispielsweise drei Cluster-Lösungen (zwei von Microsoft, eine 3rd Party Lösung). Wie man die Sache auch dreht und wendet, kommt man an diesem Fakt also nicht vorbei - ganz unabhängig von der Dauer einer Downtime oder Failover-Zeiten. Im Gegensatz zu AlwaysOn und der hier vorgestellten Version eines Stretch-Clusters, vermeidet eine entsprechende Oracle Implementierung eine derartige Komplexität, hervorgerufen duch multiple Abhängigkeiten. Den Unterschied machen Datenbank-integrierte Mechanismen, wie Fast Application Notification (FAN) und Fast Connection Failover (FCF). Für Oracle MAA Konfigurationen (Maximum Availability Architecture) sind Inter-Site Failover-Zeiten im Bereich von Sekunden keine Seltenheit. Wenn Sie dem Link zur Oracle MAA folgen, finden Sie außerdem eine Reihe an Customer Case Studies. Auch dies ist ein wichtiges Unterscheidungsmerkmal zu AlwaysOn, denn die Oracle Technologie hat sich bereits zigfach in höchst kritischen Umgebungen bewährt.   Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Die sogenannten Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) sind - neben FCI - der weitere Baustein von AlwaysOn.   Hinweis: Bevor wir uns näher damit beschäftigen, sollten Sie sich noch einmal ins Gedächtnis rufen, dass eine SQL Server Datenbank nicht die gleiche Bedeutung besitzt, wie eine Oracle Datenbank, sondern eher einem Oracle Schema entspricht. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema.   Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe setzt sich zusammen aus einem Set mehrerer Benutzer-Datenbanken, die im Falle eines Failover gemeinsam als Gruppe behandelt werden. Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe unterstützt ein Set an primären Datenbanken (primäres Replikat) und einem bis vier Sets von entsprechenden sekundären Datenbanken (sekundäre Replikate).       Es können jedoch nicht alle SQL Server Datenbanken einer AlwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zugeordnet werden. Der SQL Server Spezialist Michael Otey zählt in seinem SQL Server Pro Artikel folgende Anforderungen auf: Verfügbarkeitsgruppen müssen mit Benutzer-Datenbanken erstellt werden. System-Datenbanken können nicht verwendet werden Die Datenbanken müssen sich im Read-Write Modus befinden. Read-Only Datenbanken werden nicht unterstützt Die Datenbanken in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe müssen Multiuser Datenbanken sein Sie dürfen nicht das AUTO_CLOSE Feature verwenden Sie müssen das Full Recovery Modell nutzen und es muss ein vollständiges Backup vorhanden sein Eine gegebene Datenbank kann sich nur in einer einzigen Verfügbarkeitsgruppe befinden und diese Datenbank düerfen nicht für Database Mirroring konfiguriert sein Microsoft empfiehl außerdem, dass der Verzeichnispfad einer Datenbank auf dem primären und sekundären Server identisch sein sollte Wie man sieht, eignen sich Verfügbarkeitsgruppen nicht, um HA und DR vollständig abzubilden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Instanzen-Ebene (FCI) und Datenbank-Ebene (Availability Groups) ist von hoher Bedeutung. Vor kurzem wurde mir gesagt, dass man mit den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen auf Shared Storage verzichten könne und dadurch Kosten spart. So weit so gut ... Man kann natürlich eine Installation rein mit Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und ohne FCI durchführen - aber man sollte sich dann darüber bewusst sein, was man dadurch alles nicht abgesichert hat - und dies wiederum für Desaster Recovery (DR) und SLAs (Service Level Agreements) bedeutet. Kurzum, um die Kombination aus beiden AlwaysOn Produkten und der damit verbundene Komplexität kommt man wohl in der Praxis nicht herum.    Availability Groups und WSFC AlwaysOn hängt von Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) ab, um die aktuellen Rollen der Verfügbarkeitsreplikate einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zu überwachen und zu verwalten, und darüber zu entscheiden, wie ein Failover-Ereignis die Verfügbarkeitsreplikate betrifft. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt de Beziehung zwischen Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und WSFC:   Der Verfügbarkeitsmodus ist eine Eigenschaft jedes Verfügbarkeitsreplikats. Synychron und Asynchron können also gemischt werden: Availability Modus (Verfügbarkeitsmodus) Asynchroner Commit-Modus Primäres replikat schließt Transaktionen ohne Warten auf Sekundäres Synchroner Commit-Modus Primäres Replikat wartet auf Commit von sekundärem Replikat Failover Typen Automatic Manual Forced (mit möglichem Datenverlust) Synchroner Commit-Modus Geplanter, manueller Failover ohne Datenverlust Automatischer Failover ohne Datenverlust Asynchroner Commit-Modus Nur Forced, manueller Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust   Der SQL Server kennt keinen separaten Switchover Begriff wie in Oracle Data Guard. Für SQL Server werden alle Role Transitions als Failover bezeichnet. Tatsächlich unterstützt der SQL Server keinen Switchover für asynchrone Verbindungen. Es gibt nur die Form des Forced Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust. Eine ähnliche Fähigkeit wie der Switchover unter Oracle Data Guard ist so nicht gegeben.   SQL Sever FCI mit Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Neben den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen kann eine zweite Failover-Ebene eingerichtet werden, indem SQL Server FCI (auf Shared Storage) mit WSFC implementiert wird. Ein Verfügbarkeitesreplikat kann dann auf einer Standalone Instanz gehostet werden, oder einer FCI Instanz. Zum Verständnis: Die Verfügbarkeitsgruppen selbst benötigen kein Shared Storage. Diese Kombination kann verwendet werden für lokale HA auf Ebene der Instanz und DR auf Datenbank-Ebene durch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt dieses Szenario:   Achtung! Hier handelt es sich nicht um ein Pendant zu Oracle RAC plus Data Guard, auch wenn das Bild diesen Eindruck vielleicht vermitteln mag - denn alle sekundären Knoten im FCI sind rein passiv. Es existiert außerdem eine weitere und ernsthafte Einschränkung: SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanzen (FCI) unterstützen nicht das automatische AlwaysOn Failover für Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Jedes unter FCI gehostete Verfügbarkeitsreplikat kann nur für manuelles Failover konfiguriert werden.   Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate Ein oder mehrere Verfügbarkeitsreplikate in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe können für den lesenden Zugriff konfiguriert werden, wenn sie als sekundäres Replikat laufen. Dies ähnelt Oracle Active Data Guard, jedoch gibt es Einschränkungen. Alle Abfragen gegen die sekundäre Datenbank werden automatisch auf das Snapshot Isolation Level abgebildet. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Versionierung der Rows. Microsoft versuchte hiermit die Oracle MVRC (Multi Version Read Consistency) nachzustellen. Tatsächlich muss man die SQL Server Snapshot Isolation eher mit Oracle Flashback vergleichen. Bei der Implementierung des Snapshot Isolation Levels handelt sich um ein nachträglich aufgesetztes Feature und nicht um einen inhärenten Teil des Datenbank-Kernels, wie im Falle Oracle. (Ich werde hierzu in Kürze einen weiteren Blogbeitrag verfassen, wenn ich mich mit der neuen SQL Server 2012 Core Lizenzierung beschäftige.) Für die Praxis entstehen aus der Abbildung auf das Snapshot Isolation Level ernsthafte Restriktionen, derer man sich für den Betrieb in der Praxis bereits vorab bewusst sein sollte: Sollte auf der primären Datenbank eine aktive Transaktion zu dem Zeitpunkt existieren, wenn ein lesbares sekundäres Replikat in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen wird, werden die Row-Versionen auf der korrespondierenden sekundären Datenbank nicht sofort vollständig verfügbar sein. Eine aktive Transaktion auf dem primären Replikat muss zuerst abgeschlossen (Commit oder Rollback) und dieser Transaktions-Record auf dem sekundären Replikat verarbeitet werden. Bis dahin ist das Isolation Level Mapping auf der sekundären Datenbank unvollständig und Abfragen sind temporär geblockt. Microsoft sagt dazu: "This is needed to guarantee that row versions are available on the secondary replica before executing the query under snapshot isolation as all isolation levels are implicitly mapped to snapshot isolation." (SQL Storage Engine Blog: AlwaysOn: I just enabled Readable Secondary but my query is blocked?)  Grundlegend bedeutet dies, dass ein aktives lesbares Replikat nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden kann, ohne das primäre Replikat vorübergehend stillzulegen. Da Leseoperationen auf das Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level abgebildet werden, kann die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf dem primären Replikat durch Transaktionen auf einem oder mehreren sekundären Replikaten geblockt werden - z.B. durch eine lang laufende Abfrage auf dem sekundären Replikat. Diese Bereinigung wird auch blockiert, wenn die Verbindung zum sekundären Replikat abbricht oder der Datenaustausch unterbrochen wird. Auch die Log Truncation wird in diesem Zustant verhindert. Wenn dieser Zustand längere Zeit anhält, empfiehlt Microsoft das sekundäre Replikat aus der Verfügbarkeitsgruppe herauszunehmen - was ein ernsthaftes Downtime-Problem darstellt. Die Read-Only Workload auf den sekundären Replikaten kann eingehende DDL Änderungen blockieren. Obwohl die Leseoperationen aufgrund der Row-Versionierung keine Shared Locks halten, führen diese Operatioen zu Sch-S Locks (Schemastabilitätssperren). DDL-Änderungen durch Redo-Operationen können dadurch blockiert werden. Falls DDL aufgrund konkurrierender Lese-Workload blockiert wird und der Schwellenwert für 'Recovery Interval' (eine SQL Server Konfigurationsoption) überschritten wird, generiert der SQL Server das Ereignis sqlserver.lock_redo_blocked, welches Microsoft zum Kill der blockierenden Leser empfiehlt. Auf die Verfügbarkeit der Anwendung wird hierbei keinerlei Rücksicht genommen.   Keine dieser Einschränkungen existiert mit Oracle Active Data Guard.   Backups auf sekundären Replikaten  Über die sekundären Replikate können Backups (BACKUP DATABASE via Transact-SQL) nur als copy-only Backups einer vollständigen Datenbank, Dateien und Dateigruppen erstellt werden. Das Erstellen inkrementeller Backups ist nicht unterstützt, was ein ernsthafter Rückstand ist gegenüber der Backup-Unterstützung physikalischer Standbys unter Oracle Data Guard. Hinweis: Ein möglicher Workaround via Snapshots, bleibt ein Workaround. Eine weitere Einschränkung dieses Features gegenüber Oracle Data Guard besteht darin, dass das Backup eines sekundären Replikats nicht ausgeführt werden kann, wenn es nicht mit dem primären Replikat kommunizieren kann. Darüber hinaus muss das sekundäre Replikat synchronisiert sein oder sich in der Synchronisation befinden, um das Beackup auf dem sekundären Replikat erstellen zu können.   Vergleich von Microsoft AlwaysOn mit der Oracle MAA Ich komme wieder zurück auf die Eingangs erwähnte, mehrfach an mich gestellte Frage "Wann denn - und ob überhaupt - Oracle etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde?" und meine damit verbundene (kurze) Irritation. Wenn Sie diesen Blogbeitrag bis hierher gelesen haben, dann kennen Sie jetzt meine darauf gegebene Antwort. Der eine oder andere Punkt traf dabei nicht immer auf Jeden zu, was auch nicht der tiefere Sinn und Zweck meiner Antwort war. Wenn beispielsweise kein Multi-Subnet mit im Spiel ist, sind alle diesbezüglichen Kritikpunkte zunächst obsolet. Was aber nicht bedeutet, dass sie nicht bereits morgen schon wieder zum Thema werden könnten (Sag niemals "Nie"). In manch anderes Fettnäpfchen tritt man wiederum nicht unbedingt in einer Testumgebung, sondern erst im laufenden Betrieb. Erst recht nicht dann, wenn man sich potenzieller Probleme nicht bewusst ist und keine dedizierten Tests startet. Und wer AlwaysOn erfolgreich positionieren möchte, wird auch gar kein Interesse daran haben, auf mögliche Schwachstellen und den besagten Teufel im Detail aufmerksam zu machen. Das ist keine Unterstellung - es ist nur menschlich. Außerdem ist es verständlich, dass man sich in erster Linie darauf konzentriert "was geht" und "was gut läuft", anstelle auf das "was zu Problemen führen kann" oder "nicht funktioniert". Wer will schon der Miesepeter sein? Für mich selbst gesprochen, kann ich nur sagen, dass ich lieber vorab von allen möglichen Einschränkungen wissen möchte, anstelle sie dann nach einer kurzen Zeit der heilen Welt schmerzhaft am eigenen Leib erfahren zu müssen. Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass es Ihnen nicht anders geht. Nachfolgend deshalb eine Zusammenfassung all jener Punkte, die ich im Vergleich zur Oracle MAA (Maximum Availability Architecture) als unbedingt Erwähnenswert betrachte, falls man eine Evaluierung von Microsoft AlwaysOn in Betracht zieht. 1. AlwaysOn ist eine komplexe Technologie Der SQL Server AlwaysOn Stack ist zusammengesetzt aus drei verschiedenen Technlogien: Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) SQL Server Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Man kann eine derartige Lösung nicht als nahtlos bezeichnen, wofür auch die vielen von Microsoft dargestellten Einschränkungen sprechen. Während sich frühere SQL Server Versionen in Richtung eigener HA/DR Technologien entwickelten (wie Database Mirroring), empfiehlt Microsoft nun die Migration. Doch weshalb dieser Schwenk? Er führt nicht zu einem konsisten und robusten Angebot an HA/DR Technologie für geschäftskritische Umgebungen.  Liegt die Antwort in meiner These begründet, nach der "Windows was the God ..." noch immer gilt und man die Nachteile der allzu engen Kopplung mit Windows nicht sehen möchte? Entscheiden Sie selbst ... 2. Failover Cluster Instanzen - Kein RAC-Pendant Die SQL Server und Windows Server Clustering Technologie basiert noch immer auf dem veralteten Aktiv-Passiv Modell und führt zu einer Verschwendung von Systemressourcen. In einer Betrachtung von lediglich zwei Knoten erschließt sich auf Anhieb noch nicht der volle Mehrwert eines Aktiv-Aktiv Clusters (wie den Real Application Clusters), wie er von Oracle bereits vor zehn Jahren entwickelt wurde. Doch kennt man die Vorzüge der Skalierbarkeit durch einfaches Hinzufügen weiterer Cluster-Knoten, die dann alle gemeinsam als ein einziges logisches System zusammenarbeiten, versteht man was hinter dem Motto "Pay-as-you-Grow" steckt. In einem Aktiv-Aktiv Cluster geht es zwar auch um Hochverfügbarkeit - und ein Failover erfolgt zudem schneller, als in einem Aktiv-Passiv Modell - aber es geht eben nicht nur darum. An dieser Stelle sei darauf hingewiesen, dass die Oracle 11g Standard Edition bereits die Nutzung von Oracle RAC bis zu vier Sockets kostenfrei beinhaltet. Möchten Sie dazu Windows nutzen, benötigen Sie keine Windows Server Enterprise Edition, da Oracle 11g die eigene Clusterware liefert. Sie kommen in den Genuss von Hochverfügbarkeit und Skalierbarkeit und können dazu die günstigere Windows Server Standard Edition nutzen. 3. SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering - Abhängigkeit zu 3rd Party Storage Mirroring  Die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur unterstützt den Aufbau eines Stretch Clusters, basiert dabei aber auf dem Aktiv-Passiv Modell. Das eigentlich Problematische ist jedoch, dass man sich zur Absicherung der Datenbank auf 3rd Party Storage Mirroring Technologie verlässt, ohne Integration zwischen dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) und der darunterliegenden Mirroring Technologie. Wenn nun im Cluster ein Failover auf Instanzen-Ebene erfolgt, existiert keine Koordination mit einem möglichen Failover auf Ebene des Storage-Array. 4. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - Vier, oder doch nur Zwei? Ein primäres Replikat erlaubt bis zu vier sekundäre Replikate innerhalb einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe, jedoch nur zwei im Synchronen Commit Modus. Während dies zwar einen Vorteil gegenüber dem stringenten 1:1 Modell unter Database Mirroring darstellt, fällt der SQL Server 2012 damit immer noch weiter zurück hinter Oracle Data Guard mit bis zu 30 direkten Stanbdy Zielen - und vielen weiteren durch kaskadierende Ziele möglichen. Damit eignet sich Oracle Active Data Guard auch für die Bereitstellung einer Reader-Farm Skalierbarkeit für Internet-basierende Unternehmen. Mit AwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppen ist dies nicht möglich. 5. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - kein asynchrones Switchover  Die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen wird auch als geeignetes Mittel für administrative Aufgaben positioniert - wie Upgrades oder Wartungsarbeiten. Man muss sich jedoch einem gravierendem Defizit bewusst sein: Im asynchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus besteht die einzige Möglichkeit für Role Transition im Forced Failover mit Datenverlust! Um den Verlust von Daten durch geplante Wartungsarbeiten zu vermeiden, muss man den synchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus konfigurieren, was jedoch ernstzunehmende Auswirkungen auf WAN Deployments nach sich zieht. Spinnt man diesen Gedanken zu Ende, kommt man zu dem Schluss, dass die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen für geplante Wartungsarbeiten in einem derartigen Umfeld nicht effektiv genutzt werden kann. 6. Automatisches Failover - Nicht immer möglich Sowohl die SQL Server FCI, als auch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen unterstützen automatisches Failover. Möchte man diese jedoch kombinieren, wird das Ergebnis kein automatisches Failover sein. Denn ihr Zusammentreffen im Failover-Fall führt zu Race Conditions (Wettlaufsituationen), weshalb diese Konfiguration nicht länger das automatische Failover zu einem Replikat in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe erlaubt. Auch hier bestätigt sich wieder die tiefere Problematik von AlwaysOn, mit einer Zusammensetzung aus unterschiedlichen Technologien und der Abhängigkeit zu Windows. 7. Problematische RTO (Recovery Time Objective) Microsoft postioniert die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur als brauchbare HA/DR Architektur. Bedenkt man jedoch die Problematik im Zusammenhang mit DNS Replikation und den möglichen langen Wartezeiten auf Client-Seite von bis zu 16 Minuten, sind strenge RTO Anforderungen (Recovery Time Objectives) nicht erfüllbar. Im Gegensatz zu Oracle besitzt der SQL Server keine Datenbank-integrierten Technologien, wie Oracle Fast Application Notification (FAN) oder Oracle Fast Connection Failover (FCF). 8. Problematische RPO (Recovery Point Objective) SQL Server ermöglicht Forced Failover (erzwungenes Failover), bietet jedoch keine Möglichkeit zur automatischen Übertragung der letzten Datenbits von einem alten zu einem neuen primären Replikat, wenn der Verfügbarkeitsmodus asynchron war. Oracle Data Guard hingegen bietet diese Unterstützung durch das Flush Redo Feature. Dies sichert "Zero Data Loss" und beste RPO auch in erzwungenen Failover-Situationen. 9. Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate mit Einschränkungen Aufgrund des Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level für lesbare sekundäre Replikate, besitzen diese Einschränkungen mit Auswirkung auf die primäre Datenbank. Die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf der primären Datenbank, wird beeinflusst von lang laufenden Abfragen auf der lesabaren sekundären Datenbank. Die lesbare sekundäre Datenbank kann nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden, wenn es aktive Transaktionen auf der primären Datenbank gibt. Zusätzlich können DLL Änderungen auf der primären Datenbank durch Abfragen auf der sekundären blockiert werden. Und imkrementelle Backups werden hier nicht unterstützt.   Keine dieser Restriktionen existiert unter Oracle Data Guard.

  Read the article

• Copying Columns from Grid to Clipboard in SQL Developer

  - by thatjeffsmith

  There are several ways to get data from a query or a table|view to the clipboard. You know the tried and true, copy and paste. But what if you only want one or more columns, not every column? There are several ways to do this, let’s see if we can’t identify all of them. Write your query to only include the data you want Obvious? Yes. Needed to be said? Definitely. The best tuning tip is to only ask for the data you need, only when you absolutely need it. But let’s look at a few more practical ways to do this. Hide the unwanted columns Mouse right click on an column header. In the context menu, select ‘Columns.’ Hide the columns you don’t want. Copy and paste. WYSIWYG Grids, Hide Columns and Filter Rows Mouse select the columns Obvious, but a bit painful. For a very large dataset, you’ll be holding down the Shift and PageDown buttons – but it works. Remember to use Ctrl+Shift+C to get the column headers with the data. Use the Export Wizard This used to be called ‘Unload’ – agreed, not a great name. So, we changed it. In a grid, right mouse click on the data, and on the context menu, select ‘Export…’ Select your format – I suggest ‘delimited’ or ‘fixed’ for copying data to the clipboard. You can export to the clipboard, yes you can! Click ‘Next.’ Click in the Columns dialog, and choose the columns you want copied. Trim the columns you don't want copied Click ‘Finish.’ Alt or Ctrl tab to your window or application of choice. And Paste! "FIRST_NAME" "LAST_NAME" "Donald" "OConnell" "Douglas" "Grant" "Jennifer" "Whalen" "Pat" "Fay" "Susan" "Mavris" "William" "Gietz" "Alexander" "Hunold" "Bruce" "Ernst" "David" "Austin" "Valli" "Pataballa" "Diana" "Lorentz" "Daniel" "Faviet" "John" "Chen" "Ismael" "Sciarra" "Jose Manuel" "Urman" "Luis" "Popp" "Alexander" "Khoo" "Shelli" "Baida" "Sigal" "Tobias" "Guy" "Himuro" "Karen" "Colmenares" "Matthew" "Weiss" "Adam" "Fripp" "Payam" "Kaufling" "Shanta" "Vollman" "Kevin" "Mourgos" "Julia" "Nayer" "Irene" "Mikkilineni" ... There’s probably at least 2 or 3 more ways, but… But, try these and let me know how we can improve things. I’ve already gotten a request to be able to include the SQL text used to populate the dataset on the the copy to clipboard, and it’s now on our to-do list

  Read the article

• How to build Open JavaFX for Android.

  - by PictureCo

  Here's a short recipe for baking JavaFX for Android dalvik. We will need just a few ingredients but each one requires special care. So let's get down to the business.  SourcesThe first ingredient is an open JavaFX repository. This should be piece of cake. As always there's a catch. You probably know that dalvik is jdk6 compatible  and also that certain APIs are missing comparing to good old java vm from Oracle.  Fortunately there is a repository which is a backport of regular OpenJFX to jdk7 and going from jdk7 to jdk6 is possible. The first thing to do is to clone or download the repository from https://bitbucket.org/narya/jfx78. Main page of the project says "It works in some cases" so we will presume that it will work in most cases As I've said dalvik vm misses some APIs which would lead to a build failures. To get them use another compatibility repository which is available on GitHub https://github.com/robovm/robovm-jfx78-compat. Download the zip and unzip sources into jfx78/modules/base.We need also a javafx binary stubs. Use jfxrt.jar from jdk8.The last thing to download are freetype sources from http://freetype.org. These will be necessary for native font rendering. Toolchain setup I have to point out that these instructions were tested only on linux. I suppose they will work with minimal changes also on Mac OS. I also presume that you were able to build open JavaFX. That means all tools like ant, gradle, gcc and jdk8 have been installed and are working all right. In addition to this you will need to download and install jdk7, Android SDK and Android NDK for native code compilation.  Installing all of them will take some time. Don't forget to put them in your path. export ANDROID_SDK=/opt/android-sdk-linux export ANDROID_NDK=/opt/android-ndk-r9b export JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_NDK FreetypeUnzip freetype release sources first. We will have to cross compile them for arm. Firstly we will create a standalone toolchain for cross compiling installed in ~/work/ndk-standalone-19. $ANDROID_NDK/build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh  --platform=android-19 --install-dir=~/work/ndk-standalone-19 After the standalone toolchain has been created cross compile freetype with following script: export TOOLCHAIN=~/work/freetype/ndk-standalone-19 export PATH=$TOOLCHAIN/bin:$PATH export FREETYPE=`pwd` ./configure --host=arm-linux-androideabi --prefix=$FREETYPE/install --without-png --without-zlib --enable-shared sed -i 's/\-version\-info \$(version_info)/-avoid-version/' builds/unix/unix-cc.mk make make install It will compile and install freetype library into $FREETYPE/install. We will link to this install dir later on. It would be possible also to link openjfx font support dynamically against skia library available on Android which already contains freetype. It creates smaller result but can have compatibility problems. Patching Download patches javafx-android-compat.patch + android-tools.patch and patch jfx78 repository. I recommend to have look at patches. First one android-compat.patch updates openjfx build script, removes dependency on SharedSecret classes and updates LensLogger to remove dependency on jdk specific PlatformLogger. Second one android-tools.patch creates helper script in android-tools. The script helps to setup javaFX Android projects. Building Now is time to try the build. Run following script: JAVA_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 JDK_HOME=/opt/jdk1.7.0 ANDROID_SDK=/opt/android-sdk-linux ANDROID_NDK=/opt/android-ndk-r9b PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$ANDROID_SDK/tools:$ANDROID_SDK/platform-tools:$ANDROID_NDK:$PATH gradle -PDEBUG -PDALVIK_VM=true -PBINARY_STUB=~/work/binary_stub/linux/rt/lib/ext/jfxrt.jar \ -PFREETYPE_DIR=~/work/freetype/install -PCOMPILE_TARGETS=android If everything went all right the output is in build/android-sdk Create first JavaFX Android project Use gradle script int android-tools. The script sets the project structure for you.   Following command creates Android HelloWorld project which links to a freshly built javafx runtime and to a HelloWorld application. NAME is a name of Android project. DIR where to create our first project. PACKAGE is package name required by Android. It has nothing to do with a packaging of javafx application. JFX_SDK points to our recently built runtime. JFX_APP points to dist directory of javafx application. (where all application jars sit) JFX_MAIN is fully qualified name of a main class. gradle -PDEBUG -PDIR=/home/user/work -PNAME=HelloWorld -PPACKAGE=com.helloworld \ -PJFX_SDK=/home/user/work/jfx78/build/android-sdk -PJFX_APP=/home/user/NetBeansProjects/HelloWorld/dist \ -PJFX_MAIN=com.helloworld.HelloWorld createProject Now cd to the created project and use it like any other android project. ant clean, debug, uninstall, installd will work. I haven't tried it from any IDE Eclipse nor Netbeans. Special thanks to Stefan Fuchs and Daniel Zwolenski for the repositories used in this blog post.

  Read the article

• Formal Languages, Inductive Proofs &amp; Regular Expressions

  - by MarkPearl

  So I am slogging away at my UNISA stuff. I have just finished doing the initial once non stop read through the first 11 chapters of my COS 201 Textbook - “Introduction to Computer Theory 2nd Edition” by Daniel Cohen. It has been an interesting couple of days, with familiar concepts coming up as well as some new territory. In this posting I am going to cover the first couple of chapters of the book. Let start with Formal Languages… What exactly is a formal language? Pretty much a no duh question for me but still a good one to ask – a formal language is a language that is defined in a precise mathematical way. Does that mean that the English language is a formal language? I would say no – and my main motivation for this is that one can have an English sentence that is correct grammatically that is also ambiguous. For example the ambiguous sentence: "I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas.” For this and possibly many other reasons that I am unaware of, English is termed a “Natural Language”. So why the importance of formal languages in computer science? Again a no duh question in my mind… If we want computers to be effective and useful tools then we need them to be able to evaluate a series of commands in some form of language that when interpreted by the device no confusion will exist as to what we were requesting. Imagine the mayhem that would exist if a computer misinterpreted a command to print a document and instead decided to delete it. So what is a Formal Language made up of… For my study purposes a language is made up of a finite alphabet. For a formal language to exist there needs to be a specification on the language that will describe whether a string of characters has membership in the language or not. There are two basic ways to do this: By a “machine” that will recognize strings of the language (e.g. Finite Automata). By a rule that describes how strings of a language can be formed (e.g. Regular Expressions). When we use the phrase “string of characters”, we can also be referring to a “word”. What is an Inductive Proof? So I am not to far into my textbook and of course it starts referring to proofs and different types. I have had to go through several different approaches of proofs in the past, but I can never remember their formal names , so when I saw “inductive proof” I thought to myself – what the heck is that? Google to the rescue… An inductive proof is like a normal proof but it employs a neat trick which allows you to prove a statement about an arbitrary number n by first proving it is true when n is 1 and then assuming it is true for n=k and showing it is true for n=k+1. The idea is that if you want to show that someone can climb to the nth floor of a fire escape, you need only show that you can climb the ladder up to the fire escape (n=1) and then show that you know how to climb the stairs from any level of the fire escape (n=k) to the next level (n=k+1). Does this sound like a form of recursion? No surprise then that in the same chapter they deal with recursive definitions. An example of a recursive definition for the language EVEN would the 3 rules below: 2 is in EVEN If x is in EVEN then so is x+2 The only elements in the set EVEN are those that be produced by the rules above. Nothing to exciting… So if a definition for a language is done recursively, then it makes sense that the language can be proved using induction. Regular Expressions So I am wondering to myself what use is this all – in fact – I find this the biggest challenge to any university material is that it is quite hard to find the immediate practical applications of some theory in real life stuff. How great was my joy when I suddenly saw the word regular expression being introduced. I had been introduced to regular expressions on Stack Overflow where I was trying to recognize if some text measurement put in by a user was in a valid form or not. For instance, the imperial system of measurement where you have feet and inches can be represented in so many different ways. I had eventually turned to regular expressions as an easy way to check if my parser could correctly parse the text or not and convert it to a normalize measurement. So some rules about languages and regular expressions… Any finite language can be represented by at least one if not more regular expressions A regular expressions is almost a rule syntax for expressing how regular languages can be formed regular expressions are cool For a regular expression to be valid for a language it must be able to generate all the words in the language and no other words. This is important. It doesn’t help me if my regular expression parses 100% of my measurement texts but also lets one or two invalid texts to pass as well. Okay, so this posting jumps around a bit – but introduces some very basic fundamentals for the subject which will be built on in later postings… Time to go and do some practical examples now…

  Read the article

• Can Kind People Finish First?

  - by Oracle Accelerate for Midsize Companies

  by Jim Lein, Oracle Midsize Programs In an earlier post, I expressed my undying love for KIND Snacks' products. This month's Oracle Profit magazine features an interview with KIND Healthy Snacks Founder and CEO Daniel Lubetzky entitled "Better Business". Lubetzky expresses his vision for making KIND a "not for profit only" company.  All great companies start with a good idea. In this case, that one great idea was to offer a healthy snack with ingredients you can "see and pronounce". That's one of things I really like about this company--that coupled with the fact that their snacks taste great. They compete in an over crowded playing field but I've found that it's rare to find an energy snack that both tastes good and is good for you.  A couple of interesting facts I learned from reading this article: Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; 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;} 9 out of 10 consumers who try a KIND bar will purchase a KIND product again and recommend it to others KIND has the highest Net Promoter Score among the top 10 brands in the nutritional bar category (I confess I've never heard about this rating before but now that I have it's pretty cool) KIND's coporate mantra, "Do the Kind Thing" both encourages people to do random acts of kindness and provides easy mechanisms for doing so. Not coincidentally, I think, KIND is indeed a story about how nice guys can finish first. KIND has doubled in size every year for the last ten  years and now employees over 300 people, with sales exceeding $120M annually. Growth Applies Pressures One thing I know for certain from interacting our with fast growing customers over the last fifteen years is that growth applies myriad pressures across the organization--resources, processes, technology systems, and leadership agility. And it's easy to forget that Oracle was once an entrepreneurial startup and experienced all those same pressures that other growing companies are experiencing today. When asked by Profit Editor in Chief Aaron Lazenby, " What sort of pressure does KIND"s growth and success place on operations?", Lubetzky responded, "We have a demand planning process right now that is manual to a significant extent, and it just takes so much management time. It takes us days and sometimes weeks to produce information that is critical to our business—and by the time we get the results, we need revised data. Our sales leadership could go out selling, but instead they’re talking to our team about forecasts." Hitching Your Wagon to Oracle Lubetzky and his team selected Oracle for what I believe is our company's greatest strength: hitch your wagon to Oracle and you can trust that we will be there for the long run with the solutions you need and financial staying power. In Lubetzky's words, "The KIND philosophy requires you to have a long-term view of things; taking shortcuts may be the fastest way to get things done, but in the long term that can come back and bite you. Oracle is the type of company—and has the kind of platform—that is here for the long term. It’s not going to go away tomorrow. And Oracle is going to invest all the necessary resources into staying ahead of the game and improving." o next time you're in the supermarket or an REI (my favorite store in the world) or any of the other 80,000 locations that carry KIND, give one a try. Maybe some day you'll want to become a KIND Brand Ambassador.   Looking for more news and information about Oracle Solutions for Midsize Companies? Read the latest Oracle for Midsize Companies Newsletter Sign-up to receive the latest communications from Oracle’s industry leaders and experts Jim Lein I evangelize Oracle's enterprise solutions for growing midsize companies. I recently celebrated 15 years with Oracle, having joined JD Edwards in 1999. I'm based in Evergreen, Colorado and love relating stories about creativity and innovation whether they be about software, live music, or the mountains. The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of Oracle.

  Read the article

• What is in your Mathematica tool bag?

  - by Timo

  We all know that Mathematica is great, but it also often lacks critical functionality. What kind of external packages / tools / resources do you use with Mathematica? I'll edit (and invite anyone else to do so too) this main post to include resources which are focused on general applicability in scientific research and which as many people as possible will find useful. Feel free to contribute anything, even small code snippets (as I did below for a timing routine). Also, undocumented and useful features in Mathematica 7 and beyond you found yourself, or dug up from some paper/site are most welcome. Please include a short description or comment on why something is great or what utility it provides. If you link to books on Amazon with affiliate links please mention it, e.g., by putting your name after the link. Packages: LevelScheme is a package that greatly expands Mathematica's capability to produce good looking plots. I use it if not for anything else then for the much, much improved control over frame/axes ticks. David Park's Presentation Package ($50 - no charge for updates) Tools: MASH is Daniel Reeves's excellent perl script essentially providing scripting support for Mathematica 7. (This is finally built in as of Mathematica 8 with the -script option.) Resources: Wolfram's own repository MathSource has a lot of useful if narrow notebooks for various applications. Also check out the other sections such as Current Documentation, Courseware for lectures, and Demos for, well, demos. Books: Mathematica programming: an advanced introduction by Leonid Shifrin (web, pdf) is a must read if you want to do anything more than For loops in Mathematica. Quantum Methods with Mathematica by James F. Feagin (amazon) The Mathematica Book by Stephen Wolfram (amazon) (web) Schaum's Outline (amazon) Mathematica in Action by Stan Wagon (amazon) - 600 pages of neat examples and goes up to Mathematica version 7. Visualization techniques are especially good, you can see some of them on the author's Demonstrations Page. Mathematica Programming Fundamentals by Richard Gaylord (pdf) - A good concise introduction to most of what you need to know about Mathematica programming. Undocumented (or scarcely documented) Features: How to customize Mathematica keyboard shortcuts. See this question. How to inspect patterns and functions used by Mathematica's own functions. See this answer How to achieve Consistent size for GraphPlots in Mathematica? See this question.

  Read the article

• Code Complete 2ed, composition and delegation.

  - by Arlukin

  Hi there. After a couple of weeks reading on this forum I thought it was time for me to do my first post. I'm currently rereading Code Complete. I think it's 15 years since the last time, and I find that I still can't write code ;-) Anyway on page 138 in Code Complete you find this coding horror example. (I have removed some of the code) class Emplyee { public: FullName GetName() const; Address GetAddress() const; PhoneNumber GetWorkPhone() const; ... bool IsZipCodeValid( Address address); ... private: ... } What Steve thinks is bad is that the functions are loosely related. Or has he writes "There's no logical connection between employees and routines that check ZIP codes, phone numbers or job classifications" Ok I totally agree with him. Maybe something like the below example is better. class ZipCode { public: bool IsValid() const; ... } class Address { public: ZipCode GetZipCode() const; ... } class Employee { public: Address GetAddress() const; ... } When checking if the zip is valid you would need to do something like this. employee.GetAddress().GetZipCode().IsValid(); And that is not good regarding to the Law of Demeter ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Demeter][1]). So if you like to remove two of the three dots, you need to use delegation and a couple of wrapper functions like this. class ZipCode { public: bool IsValid(); } class Address { public: ZipCode GetZipCode() const; bool IsZipCodeValid() {return GetZipCode()->IsValid()); } class Employee { public: FullName GetName() const; Address GetAddress() const; bool IsZipCodeValid() {return GetAddress()->IsZipCodeValid()); PhoneNumber GetWorkPhone() const; } employee.IsZipCodeValid(); But then again you have routines that has no logical connection. I personally think that all three examples in this post are bad. Is it some other way that I haven't thougt about? //Daniel

  Read the article

• Is it normal for a programmer with 2 years experience to take a long time to code simple programs?

  - by ajax81

  Hi all, I'm a relatively new programmer (18 months on the scene), and I'm finally getting to the point where I'm comfortable accepting projects and developing solutions under minimal supervision. Unfortunately, this also means that I've become acutely aware of my performance shortfalls, the most prevalent of which is the amount of time it takes me to develop, test, and submit algorithms for review. A great example of what I'm talking about occurred this week when I was tasked with developing a simple XML web service (asp.net 3.5) callable via client-side JavaScript, that accepts a single parameter and returns a dataset output to a modal window (please note this is the first time I've had to develop a web service and have had ZERO experience creating/consuming them...let alone calling them from JS client side). Keeping a long story short -- I worked on it for 4 days straight, all day each day, for a grand total of 36 hours, not including the time I spent dwelling on the problem in the shower, the morning commute, and laying awake in bed at night. I learned a great deal about web services and xml/json/javascript...but was called in for a management review to discuss the length of time it took me to develop the solution. In the meeting, I was praised for the quality of my work and was in fact told that my effort was commendable. However, they (senior leads and pm's) weren't impressed with the amount of time it took me to develop the solution and expressed that they would have liked to see the solution in roughly 1/3 of the time it took me. I guess what concerns me the most is that I've identified this pattern as common for myself. Between online videos, book research, and trial/error coding...if its something I haven't seen before, I can spend up to two weeks on a problem that seems to only take the pros in the videos moments to code up. And of course, knowing that management isn't happy with this pattern has shaken me up a bit. To sum up, I have some very specific questions I'd like to ask, and would greatly appreciate your objective professional feedback. Is my experience as a junior programmer common among new developers? Or is it possible that I'm just not cut out for the work? If you suspect that my experience is not common and that there may be an aptitude issue, do you have any suggestions/solutions that I could propose to management to help bring me up to speed? Do seasoned, professional programmers ever encounter knowledge barriers that considerably delay deliverables? When you started out in the industry, did you know how to "do it all"? If not, how long did it take you to be perceived as "proficient"? Was it a natural progression of trial and error, or was there a particular zen moment when you knew you had achieved super saiyen power level? Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read my question(s). I don't know if this is the right place to ask for professional career guidance, but I greatly appreciate your willingness to help me out. Cheers, Daniel

  Read the article

• Absolute reRendering using RichFaces

  - by wheelie

  Hey there, I am implementing copy/paste functionality for a complex object tree, this means you can copy an object and paste it where the object type is the same. Therefore I need to reRender the <a4j:commandLink>-s which are performing the paste action (so it will show on the GUI or not). Simplified example: Problem is that copy links are deep in the tree. How is it possible to reRender on a higher level in the component tree? (very)Simplified example: ... <h:form id="form1"> ... <a4j:commandLink value="Copy" reRender=":paste1, :paste2, :paste3" /> <a4j:commandLink id="paste1" value="Paste" rendered="#{myBean.myHashMap.key}" /> <a4j:outputPanel> <a4j:region renderRegionOnly="true"> <a4j:commandLink value="Copy" reRender=":paste1, :paste2, :paste3" /> <a4j:commandLink id="paste2" value="Paste" rendered="#{myBean.myHashMap.key}" /> </a4j:region> <a4j:outputPanel> <a4j:region renderRegionOnly="true"> <a4j:commandLink value="Copy" reRender=":paste1, :paste2, :paste3" /> <a4j:commandLink id="paste3" value="Paste" rendered="#{myBean.myHashMap.key}" /> </a4j:region> </a4j:outputPanel> </a4j:outputPanel> ... </h:form> Something like that. In practise this differs in that a rich:tree is displayed. Also, there can be multiple instances of the same paste link: object:0::paste3, object:1::paste3. private final String pasteIDs = ":xxPaste, ... , :xyPaste"; According to the RichFaces reference, putting the separator to the beginning of the ID means it is an "absolute" search expression, however this way i get the same result: only the 'local' paste link gets rerendered, the others not. Every copy-paste link pair is encapsulated in <a4j:region renderRegionOnly="true">, because it is necessary for other components to restrict the reRender to that region. Could this be blocking the reRender I want to make? Also I want to rerender exactly those paste links, so no other rerender action is triggered. Hope it is clear what i want to achieve. Any help would be appreciated! Daniel

  Read the article

• What's the best Scala build system?

  - by gatoatigrado

  I've seen questions about IDE's here -- Which is the best IDE for Scala development? and What is the current state of tooling for Scala?, but I've had mixed experiences with IDEs. Right now, I'm using the Eclipse IDE with the automatic workspace refresh option, and KDE 4's Kate as my text editor. Here are some of the problems I'd like to solve: use my own editor IDEs are really geared at everyone using their components. I like Kate better, but the refresh system is very annoying (it doesn't use inotify, rather, maybe a 10s polling interval). The reason I don't use the built-in text editor is because broken auto-complete functionalities cause the IDE to hang for maybe 10s. rebuild only modified files The Eclipse build system is broken. It doesn't know when to rebuild classes. I find myself almost half of the time going to project-clean. Worse, it seems even after it has finished building my project, a few minutes later it will pop up with some bizarre error (edit - these errors appear to be things that were previously solved with a project clean, but then come back up...). Finally, setting "Preferences / Continue launch if project contains errors" to "prompt" seems to have no effect for Scala projects (i.e. it always launches even if there are errors). build customization I can use the "nightly" release, but I'll want to modify and use my own Scala builds, not the compiler that's built into the IDE's plugin. It would also be nice to pass [e.g.] -Xprint:jvm to the compiler (to print out lowered code). fast compiling Though Eclipse doesn't always build right, it does seem snappy -- even more so than fsc. I looked at Ant and Maven, though haven't employed either yet (I'll also need to spend time solving #3 and #4). I wanted to see if anyone has other suggestions before I spend time getting a suboptimal build system working. Thanks in advance! UPDATE - I'm now using Maven, passing a project as a compiler plugin to it. It seems fast enough; I'm not sure what kind of jar caching Maven does. A current repository for Scala 2.8.0 is available [link]. The archetypes are very cool, and cross-platform support seems very good. However, about compile issues, I'm not sure if fsc is actually fixed, or my project is stable enough (e.g. class names aren't changing) -- running it manually doesn't bother me as much. If you'd like to see an example, feel free to browse the pom.xml files I'm using [github]. UPDATE 2 - from benchmarks I've seen, Daniel Spiewak is right that buildr's faster than Maven (and, if one is doing incremental changes, Maven's 10 second latency gets annoying), so if one can craft a compatible build file, then it's probably worth it...

  Read the article

• Simple Modal with Autocomplete in ASP.NET

  - by DanielJaymes

  Hello, I am quite new to this so any help is very much appreciated. I am generating a modal pop using Simple Modal, this works ok. I now want to add jquery autocomplete to the element txtEmail. When I run the page outside of Simple Modal I can use Autocomplete, however when the page is loaded through Simple Modal it does not work. I have checked to ensure the element is loaded, and it is allowing me to change the text color, but I can not add autocomplete to it. The code is /** * @author Daniel */ jQuery(function($) { $("input.ema, a.ema").click(function(e) { e.preventDefault(); $("#osx-modal-content").modal({ appendTo: 'form', overlayId: 'osx-overlay', containerId: 'osx-container', closeHTML: '<div class="close"><a href="#" class="simplemodal-close">X</a></div>', minHeight: 80, opacity: 65, position: ['0', ], overlayClose: true, onOpen: OSX.open, onClose: OSX.close, onShow: OSX.show }); }); var OSX = { container: null, open: function(d) { var self = this; $.ajax({ url: "/Message/UserMessage/", type: 'GET', dataType: 'html', // <-- to expect an html response success: function(result) { var data = "Core Selectors Attributes Traversing Manipulation CSS Events Effects Ajax Utilities".split(" "); $('div#osx-modal-data').html(result).find("#txtEmail").css('color', '#c00'); if ($('div#osx-modal-data').find("#txtEmail").length) { // implies *not* zero $('div#osx-modal-data').find("#txtEmail").autocomplete(data); alert('We found img elements on the page using "img"'); } else { alert('No txtEmail elements found'); } } }); self.container = d.container[0]; d.overlay.fadeIn('slow', function() { $("#osx-modal-content", self.container).show(); $('div#osx-modal-title').html("Send Email"); var title = $("#osx-modal-title", self.container); title.show(); d.container.slideDown('slow', function() { setTimeout(function() { var h = $("#osx-modal-data", self.container).height() + title.height() + 20; // padding d.container.animate({ height: h }, 200, function() { $("div.close", self.container).show(); $("#osx-modal-data", self.container).show(); }); }, 300); }); }) }, close: function(d) { var self = this; d.container.animate({ top: "-" + (d.container.height() + 20) }, 500, function() { self.close(); // or $.modal.close(); }); }, show: function(d) { // $('div#osx-modal-data').find("#txtEmail").css('color', '#ccc') } }; });

  Read the article

• Rails nested form for belongs_to

  - by user1232533

  I'm new to rails and have some troubles with creating a nested form. My models: class User < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :company accepts_nested_attributes_for :company, :reject_if => :all_blank end class Company < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :users end Now i would like to create a new company from the user sign_up page (i use Devise btw) by given only a company name. And have a relation between the new User and new Company. In the console i can create a company for a existing User like this: @company = User.first.build_company(:name => "name of company") @company.save That works, but i can't make this happen for a new user, in my new user sign_up form i tried this (i know its wrong by creating a new User fist but im trying to get something working here..): <%= simple_form_for(resource, :as => resource_name, :html => { :class => 'form-horizontal' }, :url => registration_path(resource_name)) do |f| %> <%= f.error_notification %> <div class="inputs"> <% @user = User.new company = @user.build_company() %> <% f.fields_for company do |builder| %> <%= builder.input :name, :required => true, :autofocus => true %> <% end %> <%= f.input :email, :required => true, :autofocus => true %> <%= f.input :password, :required => true %> <%= f.input :password_confirmation, :required => true %> </div> <div class="form-actions"> <%= f.button :submit, :class => 'btn-primary', :value => 'Sign up' %> </div> I did my best to google for a solution/ example.. found some nested form examples but it's just not clear to me how to do this. Really hope somebody can help me with this. Any help on this would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Greets, Daniel

  Read the article

• IList<T> and IReadOnlyList<T>

  - by Safak Gür

  My problem is that I have a method that can take a collection as parameter that, Has a Count property Has an integer indexer (get-only) And I don't know what type should this parameter be. I would choose IList<T> before .NET 4.5 since there is no other indexable collection interface for this and arrays implement it, which is a big plus. But .NET 4.5 introduces the new IReadOnlyList<T> interface and I want my method to support that, too. How can I write this method to support both IList<T> and IReadOnlyList<T> without violating the basic principles like DRY? Can I convert IList<T> to IReadOnlyList<T> somehow in an overload? What is the way to go here? Edit: Daniel's answer gave me some pretty ideas, I guess I'll go with this: public void Do<T>(IList<T> collection) { DoInternal(collection, collection.Count, i => collection[i]); } public void Do<T>(IReadOnlyList<T> collection) { DoInternal(collection, collection.Count, i => collection[i]); } private void DoInternal<T>(IEnumerable<T> collection, int count, Func<int, T> indexer) { // Stuff } Or I could just accept a ReadOnlyList<T> and provide an helper like this: public static class CollectionEx { public static IReadOnlyList<T> AsReadOnly<T>(this IList<T> collection) { if (collection == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("collection"); return new ReadOnlyWrapper<T>(collection); } private sealed class ReadOnlyWrapper<T> : IReadOnlyList<T> { private readonly IList<T> _Source; public int Count { get { return _Source.Count; } } public T this[int index] { get { return _Source[index]; } } public ReadOnlyWrapper(IList<T> source) { _Source = source; } public IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator() { return _Source.GetEnumerator(); } IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator() { return GetEnumerator(); } } } Then I could call Do(array.AsReadOnly())

  Read the article

• Silverlight 4 Released

  - by ScottGu

  The final release of Silverlight 4 is now available. What is in the Silverlight 4 Release Silverlight 4 contains a ton of new features and capabilities.  In particular we focused on three scenarios with this release: Further enhancing media support Building great business applications Enabling out of the browser experiences On Tuesday I gave a 60 minute keynote about Silverlight 4 which showed off many of the new features and capabilities now available.  You can watch my keynote to learn more about Silverlight 4 and see a ton of great demos of it in action. Also check out these three great posts by Tim Heuer that talk about the new features and provide a guide to the new Silverlight 4 capabilities: Silverlight 4 Beta – A Guide to the New Features Silverlight 4 RC – What was updated Silverlight 4 Released Also read David Anson’s great Silverlight 4 Toolkit post to learn more about the new controls and functionality also available within the Silverlight Toolkit release we also made available today.  Also visit this page to learn more about the new Pivot functionality in Silverlight 4 – which makes it really easy to visualize and interact with collections of images using Silverlight. Lastly – make sure to visit the www.silverlight.net web-site and visit the “Get Started” section to find free tutorials that you can use. Download and Install Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010 To develop Silverlight 4 applications you should first download and install Visual Studio 2010 or download and install the free Visual Web Developer 2010 Express edition. Then install the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010.  This setup includes the Silverlight 4 Developer Runtime, Silverlight 4 SDK, RIA Services, and VS 2010 tools support.  Once installed you can do File->New Project and choose Silverlight Application to create your first Silverlight 4 project.  You can then use the new WYSIWYG Silverlight designer in Visual Studio 2010 to design and build rich Silverlight 4 applications. Important: If you previously installed the Silverlight 4 Beta or RC build on your machine, please make sure to go into Add/Remove programs and uninstall the “Update for Visual Studio 2010 (KB976272)” package prior to installing the Silverlight Tools RC2 for Visual Studio 2010 setup.  Note that while Silverlight 4 is released, the “Silverlight 4 Tools for VS 2010” is currently in “RC2” mode (meaning we are going to keep an eye out for any remaining issues before finally calling it done).  We’ll update the tools to be “final” in a few weeks once we verify that no last minute issues/bugs remain. Download and Install Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate You can also download and install the Expression Blend 4 RC to create and design great Silverlight 4 applications.  Blend contains “Sketchflow” support – which makes it really easy to rapidly prototype ideas and applications.  To learn more about Sketchflow watch this 90 second video of it in action. Summary Today’s release is the fourth release of Silverlight that we’ve shipped in the last 2.5 years.  The team has done a great job of advancing it quickly and staying focused.  We think today’s Silverlight 4 release opens up a ton of new opportunities to build great solutions for both consumers and business scenarios.  We are looking forward to seeing what you build with it! Hope this helps, Scott

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123  | Next Page >