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  • Bridging Two Worlds: Big Data and Enterprise Data

    - by Dain C. Hansen
    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:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; 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; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The big data world is all the vogue in today’s IT conversations. It’s a world of volume, velocity, variety – tantalizing us with its untapped potential. It’s a world of transformational game-changing technologies that have already begun to alter the information management landscape. One of the reasons that big data is so compelling is that it’s a universal challenge that impacts every one of us. Whether it is healthcare, financial, manufacturing, government, retail - big data presents a pressing problem for many industries: how can so much information be processed so quickly to deliver the ‘bigger’ picture? With big data we’re tapping into new information that didn’t exist before: social data, weblogs, sensor data, complex content, and more. What also makes big data revolutionary is that it turns traditional information architecture on its head, putting into question commonly accepted notions of where and how data should be aggregated processed, analyzed, and stored. This is where Hadoop and NoSQL come in – new technologies which solve new problems for managing unstructured data. And now for some worst practices that I'd recommend that you please not follow: Worst Practice Lesson 1: Throw away everything that you already know about data management, data integration tools, and start completely over. One shouldn’t forget what’s already running in today’s IT. Today’s Business Analytics, Data Warehouses, Business Applications (ERP, CRM, SCM, HCM), and even many social, mobile, cloud applications still rely almost exclusively on structured data – or what we’d like to call enterprise data. This dilemma is what today’s IT leaders are up against: what are the best ways to bridge enterprise data with big data? And what are the best strategies for dealing with the complexities of these two unique worlds? Worst Practice Lesson 2: Throw away all of your existing business applications … because they don’t run on big data yet. Bridging the two worlds of big data and enterprise data means considering solutions that are complete, based on emerging Hadoop technologies (as well as traditional), and are poised for success through integrated design tools, integrated platforms that connect to your existing business applications, as well as and support real-time analytics. Leveraging these types of best practices translates to improved productivity, lowered TCO, IT optimization, and better business insights. Worst Practice Lesson 3: Separate out [and keep separate] your big data sandboxes from all the current enterprise IT systems. Don’t mix sand among playgrounds. We didn't tell you that you wouldn't get dirty doing this. Correlation between the two worlds is key. The real advantage to analyzing big data comes when you can correlate it with the existing data in your data warehouse or your current applications to make sense of the larger patterns. If you have not followed these worst practices 1-3 then you qualify for the first step of our journey: bridging the two worlds of enterprise data and big data. Over the next several weeks we’ll be discussing this topic along with several others around big data as it relates to data integration. We welcome you to join us in the conversation by following us on twitter on #BridgingBigData or download our latest white paper and resource kit: Big Data and Enterprise Data: Bridging Two Worlds.

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  • The All New Hotmail Looks Very Impressive [Video Tour]

    - by Gopinath
    With loads of new new features being introduced into GMail every now and then, Microsoft can’t sit and relax any more. Microsoft realized this and worked hard to introduce really impressive features in upcoming version of Windows Live Hotmail that was previewed couple of days ago. Most of the new features announced in the upcoming version are focusing on the important need of email users – de-clutter the mail box and effectively manage email over load easily. Here is the list highlight of new features New Features Sweep away clutter – This is the most impressive in the set of new features. It allows you to manage email overload. If you’ve subscribed to a newsletter but decided to not to allow it into your inbox, you can activate the sweep feature to move all the messages of the newsletter in to a folder other than your inbox. This may sound similar to filters option in GMail but the workflow is very easy in Hotmail. Quickly find message – Easy to use options are provided to see mails in separate views likes mails from contacts, social networking mail, mails from e-mail subscription services, etc. Now it’s easy to prioritize email checking like how you wish to. I prefer to check mails from my contacts first, then social networking messages and then the newsletter subscriptions. Improved spam detection – The span detection rules are tightened for better spam protection and also hotmail learns from user actions to effectively catch spam No more mail box storage restrictions – With a smart decision of Microsoft, users  no longer need to worry about the storage restrictions of their mail box – large attachments of hotmail can be stored in Windows Live SkyDrive. With Hotmail, we’ve combined the simplicity of sending photos through email with the power of Windows Live SkyDrive so that you can send up to 200 photos, each up to 50 MB in size, all in a single email. You can send all your vacation photos at once without worrying about attachment limits, Excellent Integration With Office Web Apps -  View and editing of office documents attached to the emails are made very easy by integrating Office Web Apps with Hotmail. When you receive a document/presentation/spreadsheet in hotmail, you can view it, edit it, save it or even you can send the modified document to original sender – all these without leaving hotmail. Inline viewing options for Photos, Videos, Social Network Messages – You can view photos embedded in the mail as slideshows(with the help of SilverLight), YouTube  & Hulu videos can be played inline  and track shipping notifications. Threaded conversations – emails in Hotmail are grouped just like it happens in GMail Others - enhanced account protection, full-session SSL, multiple email accounts, subfolders, contact management Video Tour Of New Features Here is an impressive video tour of new Hotmail features. When are these new features coming to Hotmail? Majority of the new features announced today are rolled out in coming weeks gradually to all the users. But advanced features like Office Integration with Hotmail is expected to take couple of months for general availability. Will You Switch back to Hotmail? Will these features lure GMail/Yahoo users to switch back to Hotmail? May be not immediately but these features may hold the existing users from leaving Hotmail. I used Hotmail, in the pre GMail era and now I use  Hotmail id only to sign-in to Microsoft websites that requites Hotmail authentication. It’s been years since I composed a new email in Hotmail. Even though the new features announced by Hotmail are very impressive, I like the way how GMail rapidly brings new features at regular intervals. If Hotmail also keeps innovating with new features at regular intervals, then there are good chances for it’s old users to return home. Join us on Facebook to read all our stories right inside your Facebook news feed.

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  • Integrating with Fusion Applications using SOAP web services and REST APIs (Part 1 of 2) by Arvind Srinivasamoorthy

    - by JuergenKress
    Fusion Applications provides several types of interfaces to facilitate integration with other applications within the enterprise and on the cloud.As one of the key integration interfaces, Fusion Applications (FA) supports SOAP services based integration, both inbound and outbound. At this point FA doesn’t provide REST API’s but it is planned for a future release. It is however possible to invoke external REST APIs from FA which we will discuss. Oracle continues to invest in improving both SOAP and REST based connectivity. The content in this blog is based on features that were available at the time of writing it. In this two part blog, I will cover the following topics briefly. Invoking FA SOAP web services from external applications Identifying the FA SOAP web service to be invoked Sample invocation from an external application Techniques to invoke FA services from an ADF application Invoking external SOAP Web Services from FA (covered in Part 2) Invoking external REST APIs from FA (covered in Part 2) I’ll touch upon some basics, so that you can quickly build a few SOAP/REST interactions with FA. If you do not already have access to an FA instance (on-premise or SaaS), you can request for a free 30 day trial of the Oracle Sales Cloud using http://cloud.oracle.com 1. Invoking FA SOAP web services from external applications There are two main types of services that FA exposes -  ADF Services - These services allow you to perform CRUD operations on Fusion business objects. For example, Sales Party Service, Opportunity Service etc. Using these services you can typically perform operations such as get, find, create, delete, update etc on FA objects.These services are typically useful for UI driven integrations such as looking up FA information from external application UIs, using third party Interfaces to create/update data in FA. They are also used in non-UI driven integration uses cases such as initial upload of business or setup data, synchronizing data with an external systems, etc. - Composite Services – These services involve more logic than CRUD and often involving human workflows, rules etc. These services perform a business function such as Get Orchestration Order Service and are used when building larger process based integrations with external systems.These services are usually asynchronous in nature and are not typically used for UI integration patterns. 1a. Identifying the FA SOAP web service to be invoked All FA web service metadata is available through an OER instance (Oracle Enterprise Repository) which is publicly available via http://fusionappsoer.oracle.com. This is the starting point for you to discover the services that you are going to work with. You do not need to own a FA account to browse the services using the above UI You can use the search area on the left to narrow down your search to what you are looking for. For example, you can choose the type as by ADF Services or Composite, you can narrow your search to a specific FA version, Product Family etc. Read the complete article here. SOA & BPM Partner Community For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. Blog Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Wiki Technorati Tags: AppAdvantage,SOA Community,Oracle SOA,Oracle BPM,Community,OPN,Jürgen Kress,Arvind Srinivasamoorthy

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  • Simple task framework - building software from reusable pieces

    - by RuslanD
    I'm writing a web service with several APIs, and they will be sharing some of the implementation code. In order not to copy-paste, I would like to ideally implement each API call as a series of tasks, which are executed in a sequence determined by the business logic. One obvious question is whether that's the best strategy for code reuse, or whether I can look at it in a different way. But assuming I want to go with tasks, several issues arise: What's a good task interface to use? How do I pass data computed in one task to another task in the sequence that might need it? In the past, I've worked with task interfaces like: interface Task<T, U> { U execute(T input); } Then I also had sort of a "task context" object which had getters and setters for any kind of data my tasks needed to produce or consume, and it gets passed to all tasks. I'm aware that this suffers from a host of problems. So I wanted to figure out a better way to implement it this time around. My current idea is to have a TaskContext object which is a type-safe heterogeneous container (as described in Effective Java). Each task can ask for an item from this container (task input), or add an item to the container (task output). That way, tasks don't need to know about each other directly, and I don't have to write a class with dozens of methods for each data item. There are, however, several drawbacks: Each item in this TaskContext container should be a complex type that wraps around the actual item data. If task A uses a String for some purpose, and task B uses a String for something entirely different, then just storing a mapping between String.class and some object doesn't work for both tasks. The other reason is that I can't use that kind of container for generic collections directly, so they need to be wrapped in another object. This means that, based on how many tasks I define, I would need to also define a number of classes for the task items that may be consumed or produced, which may lead to code bloat and duplication. For instance, if a task takes some Long value as input and produces another Long value as output, I would have to have two classes that simply wrap around a Long, which IMO can spiral out of control pretty quickly as the codebase evolves. I briefly looked at workflow engine libraries, but they kind of seem like a heavy hammer for this particular nail. How would you go about writing a simple task framework with the following requirements: Tasks should be as self-contained as possible, so they can be composed in different ways to create different workflows. That being said, some tasks may perform expensive computations that are prerequisites for other tasks. We want to have a way of storing the results of intermediate computations done by tasks so that other tasks can use those results for free. The task framework should be light, i.e. growing the code doesn't involve introducing many new types just to plug into the framework.

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  • How to Use Sparklines in Excel 2010

    - by DigitalGeekery
    One of the cool features of Excel 2010 is the addition of Sparklines. A Sparkline is basically a little chart displayed in a cell representing your selected data set that allows you to quickly and easily spot trends at a glance. Inserting Sparklines on your Spreadsheet You will find the Sparklines group located on the Insert tab.   Select the cell or cells where you wish to display your Sparklines. Select the type of Sparkline you’d like to add to your spreadsheet. You’ll notice there are three types of Sparklines, Line, Column, and Win/Loss. We’ll select Line for our example. A Create Sparklines pops up and will prompt you to enter a Data Range you are using to create the Sparklines. You’ll notice that the location range (the range where the Sparklines will appear) is already filled in. You can type in the data range manually, or click and drag with your mouse across to select the data range. This will auto-fill the data range for you. Click OK when you are finished.   You will see your Sparklines appear in the desired cells.   Customizing Sparklines Select the one of more of the Sparklines to reveal the Design tab. You can display certain value points like high and low points, negative points, and first and last points by selecting the corresponding options from the Show group. You can also mark all value points by selecting  Markers. Select your desired Sparklines and click one of the included styles from the Style group on the Design tab. Click the down arrow on the lower right corner of the box to display additional pre-defined styles…   or select Sparkline Color or Marker Color options to fully customize your Sparklines. The Axis options allow additional options such as Date Axis Type, Plotting Data Left to Right, and displaying an axis point to represent the zero line in your data with Show Axis. Column Sparklines Column Sparklines display your data in individual columns as opposed to the Line view we’ve been using for our examples. Win/Loss Sparklines Win/Loss shows a basic positive or negative representation of your data set.   You can easily switch between different Sparkline types by simply selecting the current cells (individually or the entire group), and then clicking the desired type on the Design tab. For those that may be more visually oriented, Sparklines can be a wonderful addition to any spreadsheet. Are you just getting started with Office 2010? Check out some of our other great Excel posts such as how to copy worksheets, print only selected areas of a spreadsheet, and how to share data with Excel in Office 2010. Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Convert a Row to a Column in Excel the Easy WayShare Access Data with Excel in Office 2010Make Excel 2007 Print Gridlines In Workbook FileMake Excel 2007 Always Save in Excel 2003 FormatConvert Older Excel Documents to Excel 2007 Format TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 reviewed in depth by Ed Bott FoxClocks adds World Times in your Statusbar (Firefox) Have Fun Editing Photo Editing with Citrify Outlook Connector Upgrade Error Gadfly is a cool Twitter/Silverlight app Enable DreamScene in Windows 7

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  • Evaluating Oracle Data Mining Has Never Been Easier - Evaluation "Kit" Available

    - by chberger
    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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Now you can quickly and easily get set up to starting using Oracle Data Mining for evaluation purposes. Just go to the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) and follow these simple steps. Oracle Data Mining Evaluation "Kit" Instructions Step 1: Download and Install the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Anyone can download and install the Oracle Database for free for evaluation purposes. Read OTN web site for details. 11.2.0.1.0 DB is the minimum, 11.2.0.2 is better and naturally 11.2.0.3 is best if you are a current customer and on active support. Either 32-bit or 64-bit is fine. 4GB of RAM or more works fine for SQL Developer and the Oracle Data Miner GUI extension. Downloading the database and installing it should take just about an hour or so, depending on your network and computer. For more instructions on setting up Oracle Data Mining see: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/options/odm/dataminerworkflow-168677.html When you install the Oracle Database, the Sample Examples data should also be installed e.g.:Release 2 Examples win32_11gR2_examples.zip (565,154,740 bytes). Contains examples of how to use the Oracle Database. Download if you are new to Oracle and want to try some of the examples presented in the Documentation Step 2: Install SQL Developer 3.1 (the Oracle Data Mining Extension installs automatically) Step 3. Follow the four free step-by-step Oracle-by-Examples e-training lessons: Setting Up Oracle Data Miner 11g Release 2 This tutorial covers the process of setting up Oracle Data Miner 11g Release 2 for use within Oracle SQL Developer 3.0. Using Oracle Data Miner 11g Release 2 This tutorial covers the use of Oracle Data Miner to perform data mining against Oracle Database 11g Release 2. In this lesson, you examine and solve a data mining business problem by using the Oracle Data Miner graphical user interface (GUI). Star Schema Mining Using Oracle Data Miner This tutorial covers the use of Oracle Data Miner to perform star schema mining against Oracle Database 11g Release 2. Text Mining Using Oracle Data Miner This tutorial covers the use of Oracle Data Miner to perform text mining against Oracle Database 11g Release 2. That’s it! Easy, fun and the fastest way to get started evaluating Oracle Data Mining. Enjoy! Charlie

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  • UPK Hands-on Labs at OHUG

    - by Karen Rihs
    Going to OHUG, June 18-22? Be sure to attend one or more UPK hands-on labs! Choose from Basic, Advanced, What's New, and Prebuilt Content!   Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – Basic Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 19, 2012, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. June 20, 2012, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. The User Productivity Kit (UPK) is a comprehensive, cost-effective, customizable solution that helps your organization quickly create the critical documentation, training, and support materials needed to drive project team and user productivity throughout the lifecycle of your software. The User Productivity Kit provides system process documentation, user acceptance test scripts, comprehensive instructor-led training materials, web-based training materials, role-based performance support, and complete documentation. Also provided is the UPK Developer, which serves as a single-source development and customization tool to enable rapid content creation and customization. The User Productivity Kit delivers: Business process documentation for fit-gap analysis - providing time and cost savings that jump-start your implementation or upgrade User Acceptance test scripts to help test applications prior to go-live State-of-the-art instructional design tools to rapidly build and tailor documentation, instructor-led training materials, and web-based training to fit organizational needs Live-application performance support with transactional and procedural information to maximize user efficiency. By registering for this hands-on UPK workshop, participants will use UPK to build an application job aid and simulation that can be used as performance support for the application. But hurry, space is limited! Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – Advanced Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 20, 2012, 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. This special workshop is for those already familiar with UPK and will cover advanced concepts. In this workshop, you will gain an in-depth knowledge of working with the UPK Developer. Following this workshop, you will be able to: Create publishing categories Add a logo to a publishing project Publish using the newly created category Configure your own library view Manage topic history in a multi-user environment Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – What’s NEW! Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 19, 2012, 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. June 21, 2012, 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. This special workshop is for those already familiar with UPK and will focus on the new features included in the latest version 11.1. In this workshop, you will review most of the new features included in the UPK Developer. Oracle User Productivity Kit 11.1 Workshop – Prebuilt Content Stephen Armbruster, Oracle Corporation June 19, 2012, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. June 21, 2012, 2:15 – 3:15 p.m. This special workshop is for those already familiar with UPK and will focus on the latest version 11.1. At the end of this workshop, you will be able to demonstrate how to: Import prebuilt content Modify content frames Add a decision frame Translate a topic into Spanish Stephen Armbruster is a principal sales consultant, specializing in HCM and UPK applications for Oracle over the past twelve years. In addition to his current role, he serves as an ambassador for the Fusion User Experience (UX) team and is tasked with evangelizing the UX for end users across all Oracle brands (Fusion, PSFT, JDE, and EBS).  He is also a trusted advisor to Oracle’s Product Management teams related to Learning Management Systems (LMS). Prior to joining Oracle, he was an instructor as well as an instructional technologist working in the medical diagnostics, high tech, and information management industries. As an expert in both LMS and UPK, he regularly speaks at Oracle conferences including Oracle OpenWorld and OHUG on topics that span using Oracle solutions to accomplish employee training, certification, and user adoption. His presentations are both entertaining and engaging.

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  • SQLAuthority News – Getting Ready to Learn SQL Server

    - by pinaldave
    If you have read my earlier blog post you must be aware of how I am always eager to learn new things. I have signed up for three days learning course at Koenig Solutions for End to End SQL Server Business Intelligence. You may wonder why I sign up for the course on SQL Server when it seems that I know a lot about it. Well, the belief is incorrect that I know a lot. I think there are plenty of things which I have been dreaming to learn. Why am I learning SQL Server? First of all – I do not know everything and second it is always a good idea to learn more. No matter how old we get or how much we think we know – there are always details which we can learn and refresh few concepts. Learning is never ending process philosophically but it is true as well in reality. SQL Server 2012 is already released earlier this year and there are plenty of enhancements released. Recently I was going over the list of the all the new feature and enhancement and I realized that there few things about SQL Server 2008 R2 I never got a chance to have a hand’s on experience and we have entered into the era of SQL Server 2012. I feel a bit bad about it and I decided to make it a priority for me to learn all the missing experiences. Quick Action – Registration The very same day I called up my friend who owns Koenig Solution and expressed my concern and requested his help. During my early career when I was a SQL Server Trainer, we had some good synergy between us and now they are very successful offshore training company by having a physical location in Delhi,  Goa, Dahradun, Shimla, Goa and Bangalore. I quickly visited their Bangalore Center and paid my fees for learning SQL Server Business Intelligence course. Very next second I got call from my friend suggesting that I learn this course from Delhi instead of Bangalore. As per him I should travel to Delhi and learn the course how other students are learning “Away from Home”. This made sense as I stay in Bangalore and if I return home after a long day of learning, I will be not able to practice for the next day as there will be “sweet distraction” of the family. Well I opted for Delhi. What Registration Fees Included I learned from registration processes that the following were included in the fees. 3 meals every day (hearty breakfast, lunch from premium restaurants and home cooked like dinner) Airport pick up and drop Hotel Stay Internet at hotel and at learning institute Unlimited coffee and snacks at learning institute Printed Learning Material Certification Fees (if applicable) Learning material … And of course classroom training I thought registration process was over when I paid fees. Well, I was in for a very nice surprise. Registration Experience – Bliss! Within few hours I received emails from Center Manager of Delhi with all the necessary details I need to know about my learning experience. The email contained following information in detail and it blew me away. Details of the pick up from airport – driver information Details of Delhi and important information List of all the important people and emergency contact details Internet connection details Detail of the trainer and all the training details and lots of other relevant information Well so far everything looks great. Tomorrow I will reach to Delhi and I will share how things go on. Any suggestion for things to do in Delhi? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, T SQL, Technology

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  • Taking Your Business Scorecard Golfing

    - by tobyehatch
    Our workplace world is definitely changing. Not only are we taking work home, but we are working during odd hours in some very strange places.  I had the pleasure of interviewing Jacques Vigeant, Product Strategy Manager for Oracle Business Intelligence and Enterprise Performance Management, on a Podcast, and he enlightened me about how our mobile devices and business scorecards are enabling us to be more accountable and keep a watchful eye on business – even while on the golf course.Business scorecards have been around for many years - so I asked Jacques if he felt they had changed significantly due to technology. His answer was, “Yes, and no.”  Jacques agreed that scorecard enthusiasts are still passionate about executing the company strategy and monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), but scorecards and Business Intelligence (BI) as a whole have changed.  He explained that five to six years ago, people did BI work at the office and, for the most part, disconnected from their computer and workplace when they went home – with the exception of checking email and making a phone call or two. But now, that is no longer the case. People are virtually always connected with work and, more importantly, expect their BI and scorecards to be ‘always on,’ regardless of whether they are at their desk or somewhere else.Basically, the BI paradigm has changed from a 'pull' model, where employees are at their desks querying or pulling information from the system, to a 'push' model where employees expect their BI and scorecard systems to reach out (or push information) to them when there is something of note to learn or something on which they need to take action. I found this very interesting. However mobile devices do have their limitations with respect to screen sizes – does it really make sense to look at your strategy/scorecard on tiny devices? What kind of scorecard activities can you really expect to be able to do? Jacques’ answer was very logical. “When you think of a scorecard, it is really comprised of an organization of KPIs that are aligned with the strategic objectives of your company. KPIs are the heart of how you will execute your strategy. So, if you decompose that a little more, each KPI is well defined with the thresholds that you should keep an eye on and who is responsible for them. When we talk about scorecarding on a phone, we aren’t talking about surfing the strategy and exploring the strategy map like we do on the desktop. In a scorecarding context, we use the phone more as an alerting mechanism or simple monitoring device for your KPIs.”Jacques gave a great example of an inventory manager who took part of an afternoon off to go golfing before winter finally hit, and while on the front nine holes, his phone vibrated. His scorecard was alerting him that the inventory levels for one of the products was below some threshold that he had set.  From his phone, he had set up three options within Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management (OSSM) for this type of situation:  1. Contact the warehouse manager directly by phone and work it out (standard phone function)  2. Tap/hold the KPI and add an annotation to the KPI in OSSM using the dictation capabilities of the phone and deal with it more fully when he gets back to the office  3. Tap/hold the KPI and invoke a business process from OSSM to transfer product from another warehouse with higher stock levels to the one that needs it  Being on a phone should still give you options to quickly deal with situations as needed, but mobile phones are not designed for nor should try to replicate the full desktop experience. We covered other interesting subjects in the interview, including how Oracle is keeping pace with mobile innovation and new devices such as Google Glasses, Galaxy Gear, Pebble Watches and more, and how Oracle is handling mobile security– which is great news for our mobile workforce. To listen to the entire Podcast, click here.To learn more about Oracle Scorecard and Strategy Management, click here.

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  • Tap Into Tier 1 ERP

    - by Christine Randle
    By: Larry Simcox, Senior Director, Accelerate Corporate Programs     Your customers aren’t satisfied with so-so customer service. Your employees aren’t happy with below average salaries.   So why would you settle for second-rate or tier 2 ERP?   A recent report from Nucleus Research found that usability improvements and rapid implementation tools are simplifying deployments, putting tier 1 enterprise applications well within reach for midsize companies. So how can your business tap into the power of tier 1 ERP? And what are the best ways to manage a deployment?   The Reputation of ERP Implementations Overhauling internal operations and implementing ERP can be a challenging endeavor for organizations of all sizes. Midsize companies often shy away from enterprise-class ERP, fearing complexity, limited resources and perceived challenging deployments. Many forward thinking executives experienced ERP implementations in the late 90s and early 2000s and embrace a strategy to grow their business by investing in a foundation for innovation and growth via ERP modernization projects.   In recent years there has been a strong consumerization of IT with enterprise applications and their delivery methods evolving to become more user-friendly.  Today, usability improvements and modern implementation tools have made top-tier ERP solutions more accessible for growing companies. Nucleus found that because enterprise-class software can now be rapidly deployed, the payback is quicker, the risks are lower, the software is less disruptive and overall, companies can differentiate themselves from their competitors and achieve more success with the advantages these types of systems deliver.   Tapping into the power of tier 1 ERP can be made much easier with Oracle Accelerate solutions. Created by Oracle's expert partners and reviewed by Oracle, Oracle Accelerate solutions are simple to deploy, industry-specific, packaged solutions that provide a fast time to benefit, which means getting the right solution in place quickly, inexpensively with a controlled scope and predictable returns.   How are growing midsize companies successfully deploying tier 1 ERP? According to Nucleus Research, companies can increase success in their tier 1 ERP deployments by limiting customization, planning a rapid go-live, bettering communication across departments, and considering different delivery options. Oracle Accelerate solutions incorporate industry best practices and encourage rapid deployments. And even more, Nucleus found customers deploying tier 1 ERP with Oracle that had used Oracle Business Accelerators, Oracle’s rapid implementation tools, reduced the time to deploy Oracle E-Business Suite by at least 50 percent.   Industrial manufacturer L.H. Dottie is one company that needed ERP with enhanced capabilities to support its growth and streamline business processes. Using out-of-the-box configuration of Oracle E-Business Suite modules (provided by Oracle Business Accelerators and delivered by Oracle Partner C3 Business Solutions), L.H. Dottie was able to speed its implementation and went live in just six and a half months. With tier 1 ERP, the company was able to grow and do its business better, automating a variety of processes, accelerating product delivery and gaining powerful data analysis capabilities that helped drive its business into further regions. See more details about their ERP implementation here.   Tier 1 enterprise-class applications have proven to boost the success of Oracle’s midsize customers. As Nucleus Research iterates, companies poised for growth or seeking to compete against larger competitors absolutely can tap into the power of tier 1 ERP and position themselves as enterprise-class through leveraging Oracle Accelerate solutions.   You can learn more here about The Evolving Business Case for Tier - 1 ERP in Midsize Companies in our exclusive webcast with Nucleus.   ###  

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  • Desktop login fails, terminal works

    - by Tobias
    I have a freshly setup 12.04 LTS pc system (120 GB SSD, 1 TB HDD, 16 GiB RAM); since a few days, I can't login to the graphical desktop anymore: there is very short flashing shell window which disappears very quickly, and I'm confronted with the login screen again. I believe there is something about modprobe and vbox, but I can't read it fast enough ... I can login to a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1). It did not help to chown all contents of my home directory to me:my-group, like suggested here. This is what I could find in /var/log, grepping for the date and time (I inserted linebreaks after <my-hostname>; real time values preserved): auth.log: <date> 22:43:01 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "tobias" <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session closed for user lightdm <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session opened for user tobias by (uid=0) <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0 <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session closed for user tobias <date> 22:43:09 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_unix(lightdm:session): session opened for user lightdm by (uid=0) <date> 22:43:09 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_ck_connector(lightdm:session): nox11 mode, ignoring PAM_TTY :0 <date> 22:43:10 <my-hostname> lightdm: pam_succeed_if(lightdm:auth): requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met by user "tobias" <date> 22:43:10 <my-hostname> dbus[756]: [system] Rejected send message, 2 matched rules; type="method_call", sender="1:43" (uid=104 pid=1639 comm="/usr/lib/indicator-datetime/indicator-datetime-ser") interface="org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" member="GetAll" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination=":1.15" (uid=0 pid=1005 comm="/usr/sbin/console-kit-daemon --no-daemon ") kern.log: <date> 22:43:00 <my-hostname> kernel: [ 16.084525] eth0: no IPv6 routers present syslog: <date> 22:43:00 <my-hostname> kernel: [ 16.084525] eth0: no IPv6 routers present <date> 22:43:01 <my-hostname> ntpdate[1492]: adjust time server 91.189.94.4 offset -0.162831 sec <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> acpid: client 969[0:0] has disconnected <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> acpid: client connected from 1553[0:0] <date> 22:43:08 <my-hostname> acpid: 1 client rule loaded I have Virtualbox and Truecrypt installed, but I can't think of a reason why they might prevent a graphical login. I'm confused: What is this about requirement "user ingroup nopasswdlogin" not met? I do login using a password, and the password works ok when logging in to a terminal! Can I somehow read the error output, e.g. by delaying it, redirecting it to a file, or having the system prompt me for pressing a key? Has possibly any recent update caused my problem? Should I install the pending updates? How, btw, without access to the graphical UI? I have some working knowledge about the Linux shell, but I'm new to Ubuntu. Any help would be appreciated.

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  • How to Get Windows 7 Theme Wallpapers Without Installing Them

    - by Mysticgeek
    Are you using an older version of Windows but like the Windows 7 theme wallpapers? What if you have Windows 7 but you don’t want to install the themes just to get the wallpapers? Here is how to get them without having to install themes. This guest article was written by Ryan Dozier from the Doztech tech blog. Getting the Wallpaper on XP, Vista, or Windows 7 First download and install 7-zip on your machine (link below). After you’ve installed 7-zip, download a Windows 7 theme (link below) and right-click on the theme, select 7-Zip, and Extract to “Theme Name”… A new folder will appear with the theme name on it. When you open it, there will be a folder called DesktopBackground or something similar.   Open the folder to get the wallpapers to view the wallpapers for the theme. You can delete the extra files and just keep the wallpapers!   Getting the Wallpaper on Ubuntu Extracting the wallpaper on Ubuntu can be a little tricky. Just follow these steps and you will be able to do it. First go to the Ubuntu Software Center under the Applications menu. Search for 7zip and click on the arrow to go to the applications menu. Find the Install button and click it. It will take a couple of minutes for 7zip to install. After 7zip installs, close the Ubuntu Software Center and download a Windows 7 theme. Store it somewhere you can access it quickly. Right-click on the theme and select Rename and get rid of the themepack extension and replace it with zip. The file should be “Theme Name.zip” after you rename it. Right-click on the theme and click Extract Here. After  the extracting you will have a new folder with the theme name. Open it and go into the DesktopBackground folder to get the wallpapers. You can delete the extra files and just keep the wallpapers. If you want to get the new Windows 7 Themes Wallpapers, but don’t want to search and install them separately, this is a nice workaround. Links Get 7 zip for Windows  here Get Windows 7 Themes here Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Windows 7 Welcome Screen Taking Forever? Here’s the Fix (Maybe)Desktop Fun: Starship Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Underwater Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Forest Theme WallpapersDesktop Fun: Fantasy Theme Wallpapers TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips VMware Workstation 7 Acronis Online Backup DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Cool Looking Skins for Windows Media Player 12 Move the Mouse Pointer With Your Face Movement Using eViacam Boot Windows Faster With Boot Performance Diagnostics Create Ringtones For Your Android Phone With RingDroid Enhance Your Laptop’s Battery Life With These Tips Easily Search Food Recipes With Recipe Chimp

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  • Internships at Oracle &ndash; a truly multicultural experience!

    - by cristian.condurache(at)oracle.com
    Hello everybody!!! Our names are Lena and Laura, we both study in the same Grande Ecole in France, IPAG and we are about to complete our 16 week-internship in Oracle in the UK. Below a summary of our experience! My name is Lena. I am 20 years old and joined Oracle UK in September 2010 – more specifically, I joined the EMEA Graduate's Recruitment Team (EMEA stands for Europe, Middle East and Africa), and I have learned a lot about working life. It was a really good experience, which made me realize that I soon will be looking for a fulltime employee in a company in less than 3 years. I am glad to have had this first experience in Oracle. First of all because it's a very welcoming company which treats interns as employees and gives them the opportunity to show their potential. I also discovered that it is nice to work in a company where everybody knows everybody, and where the atmosphere is really good. The multicultural aspect is one of the most important and beautiful elements of Oracle. It gives you the opportunity to have contacts in many parts of the world and discover a lot of nice people. During my internship I learned a lot about Recruitment. I discovered I want to work in a Human Resources role after I graduate. I like the contact I will have with candidates and the fact that I have to be in touch with managers and understand their needs. I would be glad to work for the company in the near future. I would like to thank all my team members for welcoming me like they did. It was a real pleasure to share this experience in Oracle and in this team and I hope to return after I graduate.   Hi all! I am Laura. My wish for this internship was to focus on training of personal skills for employees and, by the same time of course, for the company’s development.... and I did it in the OTD team (EMEA Organization Talent Development Team). I could not have done something better than this! It was truly instructive. I learnt how to work in such a big international company, the values and the rules to follow and to interact and be part of the organisation. In Oracle, there are so different aspects of every department, so many possibilities in HR as well as in Finance or Sales... The jobs are very various and the employees’ cultures are also really different thanks to this international and multicultural company. I am working with OTD for the entire EMEA region, having many of my colleagues in other countries, with other cultures, other ways to work, and other ways to think... this is so inspiring! Oracle offers the best environment to learn about a job, as well as to learn about work life in such large companies. This company is about new technologies, it always goes fast, and everything changes quickly! You have to be aware of these changes and keep track of the wishes of customers. For OTD of course, these customers are the employees. Looking back I have learnt more then I would have ever thought and I know that it is what I want to do... And now I hope to come back again! I want to thank all my team for welcoming me and integrating me with such happiness. I will truly miss them!! If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact [email protected]. You can find our job opportunities via http://campus.oracle.com. Technorati Tags: Oracle,EMEA,Recruitment,internship,ODT,team

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  • Looking under the hood of SSRS

    - by Jim Giercyk
    SSRS is a powerful tool, but there is very little available to measure it’s performance or view the SSRS execution log or catalog in detail.  Here are a few simple queries that will give you insight to the system that you never had before.   ACTIVE REPORTS:  Have you ever seen your SQL Server performance take a nose dive due to a long-running report?  If the SPID is executing under a generic Report ID, or it is a scheduled job, you may have no way to tell which report is killing your server.  Running this query will show you which reports are executing at a given time, and WHO is executing them.   USE ReportServerNative SELECT runningjobs.computername,             runningjobs.requestname,              runningjobs.startdate,             users.username,             Datediff(s,runningjobs.startdate, Getdate()) / 60 AS    'Active Minutes' FROM runningjobs INNER JOIN users ON runningjobs.userid = users.userid ORDER BY runningjobs.startdate               SSRS CATALOG:  We have all asked “What was the last thing that changed”, or better yet, “Who in the world did that!”.  Here is a query that will show all of the reports in your SSRS catalog, when they were created and changed, and by who.           USE ReportServerNative SELECT DISTINCT catalog.PATH,                            catalog.name,                            users.username AS [Created By],                             catalog.creationdate,                            users_1.username AS [Modified By],                            catalog.modifieddate FROM catalog         INNER JOIN users ON catalog.createdbyid = users.userid  INNER JOIN users AS users_1 ON catalog.modifiedbyid = users_1.userid INNER JOIN executionlogstorage ON catalog.itemid = executionlogstorage.reportid WHERE ( catalog.name <> '' )               SSRS EXECUTION LOG:  Sometimes we need to know what was happening on the SSRS report server at a given time in the past.  This query will help you do just that.  You will need to set the timestart and timeend in the WHERE clause to suit your needs.         USE ReportServerNative SELECT catalog.name AS report,        executionlogstorage.username AS [User],        executionlogstorage.timestart,        executionlogstorage.timeend,         Datediff(mi,e.timestart,e.timeend) AS ‘Time In Minutes',        catalog.modifieddate AS [Report Last Modified],        users.username FROM   catalog  (nolock)        INNER JOIN executionlogstorage e (nolock)          ON catalog.itemid = executionlogstorage.reportid        INNER JOIN users (nolock)          ON catalog.modifiedbyid = users.userid WHERE  executionlogstorage.timestart >= Dateadd(s, -1, '03/31/2012')        AND executionlogstorage.timeend <= Dateadd(DAY, 1, '04/02/2012')      LONG RUNNING REPORTS:  This query will show the longest running reports over a given time period.  Note that the “>5” in the WHERE clause sets the report threshold at 5 minutes, so anything that ran less than 5 minutes will not appear in the result set.  Adjust the threshold and start/end times to your liking.  With this information in hand, you can better optimize your system by tweaking the longest running reports first.         USE ReportServerNative SELECT executionlogstorage.instancename,        catalog.PATH,        catalog.name,        executionlogstorage.username,        executionlogstorage.timestart,        executionlogstorage.timeend,        Datediff(mi, e.timestart, e.timeend) AS 'Minutes',        executionlogstorage.timedataretrieval,        executionlogstorage.timeprocessing,        executionlogstorage.timerendering,        executionlogstorage.[RowCount],        users_1.username        AS createdby,        CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), catalog.creationdate, 101)        AS 'Creation Date',        users.username        AS modifiedby,        CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), catalog.modifieddate, 101)        AS 'Modified Date' FROM   executionlogstorage e         INNER JOIN catalog          ON executionlogstorage.reportid = catalog.itemid        INNER JOIN users          ON catalog.modifiedbyid = users.userid        INNER JOIN users AS users_1          ON catalog.createdbyid = users_1.userid WHERE  ( e.timestart > '03/31/2012' )        AND ( e.timestart <= '04/02/2012' )        AND  Datediff(mi, e.timestart, e.timeend) > 5        AND catalog.name <> '' ORDER  BY 'Minutes' DESC        I have used these queries to build SSRS reports that I can refer to quickly, and export to Excel if I need to report or quantify my findings.  I encourage you to look at the data in the ReportServerNative database on your report server to understand the queries and create some of your own.  For instance, you may want a query to determine which reports are using which shared data sources.  Work smarter, not harder!

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  • Content Challenge: You Can Only Get it Here

    - by Mike Stiles
    Part of the content conundrum for brands is figuring out what kind of content customers would find cool, desirable, and relevant. The mere fact many brands have no idea what this content might be is, in itself, pretty alarming. You’d have to have a pretty thorough lack of involvement with and understanding of your customers to not know what they might like. But despite what should be a great awakening in which consumers are using every technology and trick in the book to shield themselves from ads and commercials, brand self-obsession continues as marketers concentrate on their message, their campaign, what they want to say, and what they want social users to do. When individuals conduct themselves in that same fashion on Facebook and Twitter, it gets tiresome and starts losing value pretty quickly. Their posts eventually get hidden. Conversely, friends who post things that consistently entertain or inform, with little self-marketing desperation involved, win the coveted “show all updates” setting. Of course brands are going to use social to market. It’s pretty much the point of having social in the marketing mix. And yes, people who follow a brand’s Twitter account or “Like” a brand’s Facebook Page implicitly state they want to know what’s going on with that brand’s products and services. But if you have a Facebook friend that assumes you want every one of her posts to be about what wine she likes (Mitsubishi’s current campaign is even based around weeding out pretentious Facebook friends, then running them over), then you know how it must feel for your fans and followers to get a sales pitch for your crackers or whatever you’re selling every single time. Is there such a thing as content that doesn’t sell but that still advances the brand and makes the consumer more involved and valuable? Of course. And perhaps there are no better companies than enterprise brands to do it. Enterprise organizations are large enough to go beyond a product and engage readers/viewers at higher, broader levels…communicating expertise across entire sectors, subjects and industries. You’re going from pitchman to news source, and getting full credit for it as the presenter. A recent GigaOM article pointed out the success a San Francisco-based startup called Crunchyroll is having. Their niche (and they proudly admit it’s a niche) is providing Japanese anime, Korean drama and Asian live action content to countries that can’t get it any other way via licensing deals. Shows are available in HD and on the same day they air in the host country. Crunchyroll not only gets 8 million viewers a month, they have 100,000 paying subscribers at $7-12/month. Got a point, Mike? I do happen to have one. Crunchyroll illustrates the content opportunity enterprise companies have…which is to determine your “area,” the interest graph of your customers, then provide content that speaks to and satisfies those interests that can’t be found anywhere else. At least not in the same style, or of the same quality, or with the same authority. Do what no one else is doing. Provide what no one else is providing in your sector. If underserved users are willing to pay monthly for access to awkwardly moving cartoon dragons, imagine the audience you could attract with free, useful, non-sales content in your customers’ area of interest. It’s an audience you’ll want in place when the time does come to put out that marketing message. A content challenge is better than a content conundrum any day.

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  • A view from the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon

    - by Rob Foster
    I want to break away from my usual topic of something technical and talk about what I experienced tonight while working in the call center for the Nashville Flood telethon, which was broadcast on WSMV, CNN, and The Weather Channel.  We started receiving calls about 7pm local time and to be honest, I had no idea what to expect when going into this.  I mean, I'm a pretty good talker, but this is different...We had a good script of what to say and how we were supposed to say it, as well as paper forms and pens that we used to collect information from people who wanted to donate their money to help.  I took my first few calls pretty easily and it went pretty quick and easy.  Everyone was upbeat and happy to be in the call center as well as people happy to be donating money. Pizza, snacks, and soft drinks were flowing well.  Everyone is smiling and happy.  :) About 3 or 4 calls into my night, I got a call from a lady that had lost 2 family members in West Nashville who drowned in the floods.  She was crying when she called and I of course tried to console her.  She told me how bad her situation was, losing family members and much of her neighborhood.  After all this, she still just wanted to help other people.  She was donating all the money that she could to the telethon and I want to share a direct quote from her: "I want to donate this instead of buying flowers for my family members' funeral because people out there need help.". Please let me pause while I get myself together <again>.  That caught me so off guard (and still does). I had kids calling wanting to donate their allowance, open their piggy banks, whatever they could do.  These are kids.  Kids not much older than my boys.  Kids who should be focused on buying the next cool video game or toy or whatever but wanted to do something.  Everyone just seemed to want to help. I took calls from as far away as British Columbia as well and pretty much coast to coast.  how cool is that? Yet another thing that caught me off guard.  This kind lady that called from British Columbia told me how much she loved visiting Nashville and just hated to see this happen.  I belive that she said that she will be attending the CMA Fest this year too.  I was sure to tell her not to cancel her plans!  :) It felt like every call I took (and I took A LOT, as did everyone else) was very personal and heartfelt.  I've never had the privelage to do anything like this and fell lucky to have been able to help out with answering phones and logging donations.  Nashville will bounce back very quickly, people are out there day and night helping each other, and the spirits are very high here.  I hope that one day, my kids read this blog and better understand who they are, where they come from, and what the human spirt is and can be.  I love this city, I love the people here, I love the culture and even more than ever am proud to say that this is me.  This is us.  We are Nashville!

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  • Windows Phone 7 Series - Tools and Resources

    - by TechTwaddle
    Unless you've been living in the caves of Lascaux for the past couple of days, you probably know what's happening in the world of Windows Phone. Microsoft unveiled the developer tools required to develop applications and games for Windows Phone 7 at MIX10 a couple of days back. Silverlight and XNA being the major frameworks, no big surprise there. And the best news of all is that all the development tools are free! So if you are planning to develop apps for Windows Phone 7, read on. The first place, or more appropriately hub, for you is the Windows Phone Developer Portal. It has most of the information you need to get you started. Now there is a ton of information available at other places too. In this post, I take time to put all the information that I found useful at one place, and I'll keep updating this as and when I find new stuff.   Setting up the development environment 1. Install Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP (Community Technology Preview) This will install Visual Studio 2010 Express, Silverlight, XNA framework and emulator for Windows Phone 7. It also installs a few support tools. 2. Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone:     - Install Expression Blend 4 beta     - Install Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone     - Install Expression Blend SDK Preview for Windows Phone Installing the above tools should set your machine up for development. I installed the tools on my Windows Vista SP1 machine and the process went smoothly without running into any major hitch. Note that the tools won't install on Windows XP, read the release notes of the CTP. Resources and Documentation 1. Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series Developer Training Kit 2. Programming Windows Phone 7 Series by Charles Petzold. Contains few chapters only. Gives a good preview. 3. MSDN documentation for Windows Phone 7 Development 4. A sample chapter from Learning Windows Phone Programming [PDF] by Yochay Kiriaty and Jaime Rodriguez. Complete book will be available at a later time. 5. Windows Phone 7 Developer Forum - where you can ask questions and problems you run into and the experts are there to help you. 6. For Silverlight visit silverlight.net and for XNA game development, the XNA Creators Club is the place to go, also make sure you follow Michael Klutcher's and Shawn Hargreaves' blog. 7. And finally the MIX'10 website. Most of the sessions will be available for download later (some are already available). Click on the Windows Phone tag to get all the session details and downloads.   If you are completely new to Silverlight and XNA (like me), and C# makes some sense to you then I suggest you go through the Developer Training Kit. It gives a good start and ramps you up pretty quickly.

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  • Using the latest (stable release) of Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio 11.1.0.7.20.

    - by mbcrump
    +  = Simple and safe Data connections.   This guide is for someone wanting to use the latest ODP.NET quickly without reading the official documentation. This guide will get you up and running in about 15 minutes. I have reviewed my referral link to my simple Setting up ODP.net with Win7 x64 and noticed most people were searching for one of the following terms: “how to use odp.net with vs” “setup connection odp.net” “query db using odp and vs” While my article provided links and a sample tnsnames.ora file, it really didn’t tell you how to use it. I’m hoping that this brief tutorial will help. So before we get started, you will need the following: Download the following: www.oracle.com/technology/software/tech/dotnet/utilsoft.html from oracle and install it. It is the first one on the page. Visual Studio 2008 or 2010. It should be noted that The System.Data.OracleClient namespace is the OLD .NET Framework Data Provider for Oracle. It should not be used anymore as it has been depreciated. The latest version which is what we are using is Oracle.DataAccess.Client. First things first, Add a reference to the Oracle.DataAccess.Client after you install ODP.NET   Copy and paste the following C# code into your project and replace the relevant info including the query string and you should be able to return data. I have commented several lines of code to assist in understanding what it is doing.   Lambda Expression. using System; using System.Data; using Oracle.DataAccess.Client;   namespace ConsoleApplication1 {     class Program     {         static void Main(string[] args)         {           try         {             //Setup DataSource             string oradb = "Data Source=(DESCRIPTION ="                                    + "(ADDRESS_LIST = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = hostname)(PORT = 1521)))"                                    + "(CONNECT_DATA = (SERVICE_NAME = SERVICENAME))) ;"                                    + "Persist Security Info=True;User ID=USER;Password=PASSWORD;";                        //Open Connection to Oracle - this could be moved outside the try.             OracleConnection conn = new OracleConnection(oradb);             conn.Open();               //Create cmd and use parameters to prevent SQL injection attacks.             OracleCommand cmd = new OracleCommand();             cmd.Connection = conn;               cmd.CommandText = "select username from table where username = :username";               OracleParameter p1 = new OracleParameter("username", OracleDbType.Varchar2);             p1.Value = username;             cmd.Parameters.Add(p1);               cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;               OracleDataReader dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();             dr.Read();               //Contains the value of the datarow             Console.WriteLine(dr["username"].ToString());               //Disposes of objects.             dr.Dispose();             cmd.Dispose();             conn.Dispose();         }           catch (OracleException ex) // Catches only Oracle errors         {             switch (ex.Number)             {                 case 1:                     Console.WriteLine("Error attempting to insert duplicate data.");                     break;                 case 12545:                     Console.WriteLine("The database is unavailable.");                     break;                 default:                     Console.WriteLine(ex.Message.ToString());                     break;             }         }           catch (Exception ex) // Catches any error not previously caught         {                   Console.WriteLine("Unidentified Error: " + ex.Message.ToString());              }         }       }           } At this point, you should have a working Program that returns data from an oracle database. If you are still having trouble then drop me a line and I will be happy to assist. As of this writing, oracle has announced the latest beta release of ODP.NET 11.2.0.1.1 Beta.  This release includes .NET Framework 4 and .NET Framework 4 Client Profile support. You may want to hold off on this version for a while as its BETA, and I wouldn’t want any production code using any BETA software.

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  • So You Want to Be a Social Media Director

    - by Mike Stiles
    Do you want to be a Social Media Director? Some say the title is already losing its relevance; that social should be a basic skill that is required and used no matter what your position is inside the enterprise. I suppose that’s visionary, and a fun thing for thought leaders to say. But in the vast majority of business organizations, we’re so far away from that reality that the thought of not having someone driving social’s implementation and guiding its proper usage conjures up images of anarchy. That said, social media has become so broad, so catch-all, and so extended across business functions, that today’s Social Media Director, depending on the size of their staff, must make jacks-of-all-trades look like one-trick-ponies. Just as the purview of the CMO has grown all-encompassing, the disciplines required of their heads of social are stacking up. Master of Content Every social pipeline you build must stay filled, with quantity and quality. Content takes time, and the job never stops. Never. And no, it’s not true that anybody can write. Master of Customer Experience You must have a passion for hearing from customers and making them really happy. Master of PR You must know how to communicate and leverage the trust you’ve built when crises strike. Couldn’t hurt to be a Master of Politics. Master of Social Technology So many social management tools on the market. You have to know what social tech ecosystem makes sense and avoid piecemeal point solutions. Master of Business Development Social for selling and prospecting is hot, and you have to know how to use social to do it. Master of Analytics Nothing else matters if you can’t prove social is helping the brand. That’s right, creative content guy has to also be a math and stats geek. Good luck with that. Master of Paid Media You’ve got to learn the language, learn the tactics, learn the vendors and learn how to measure results. Master of Education Guess who gets to teach everyone who has no clue how to use social for business. Master of Personal Likability You’ll be leading the voice, tone, image and personality of the brand. If you don’t instinctively know how to be liked by actual people, the brand will be starting from a deficit. How deep must you go in this parade of masteries? Again, that depends on your employer’s maturity level in social. Serious players recognize these as distinct disciplines requiring true experts for maximum effect. Less serious players will need you to execute personally in many of these areas. Do the best you can, and try to grow quickly at each. If you’re the sole person executing all social…well…you’re in the game of managing expectations and trying to socially educate your employer. The good news is, you should be making a certifiable killing. If you’re alone and your salary is modest, time to understand how many brands out there crave what you’ve mastered. Not to push back against thought leaders, but the need for brand social leadership has not gone away…not even a little bit. @mikestiles @oraclesocialPhoto: Stefan Wagner, freeimages.com

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  • SQL SERVER – Why Do We Need Master Data Management – Importance and Significance of Master Data Management (MDM)

    - by pinaldave
    Let me paint a picture of everyday life for you.  Let’s say you and your wife both have address books for your groups of friends.  There is definitely overlap between them, so that you both have the addresses for your mutual friends, and there are addresses that only you know, and some only she knows.  They also might be organized differently.  You might list your friend under “J” for “Joe” or even under “W” for “Work,” while she might list him under “S” for “Joe Smith” or under your name because he is your friend.  If you happened to trade, neither of you would be able to find anything! This is where data management would be very important.  If you were to consolidate into one address book, you would have to set rules about how to organize the book, and both of you would have to follow them.  You would also make sure that poor Joe doesn’t get entered twice under “J” and under “S.” This might be a familiar situation to you, whether you are thinking about address books, record collections, books, or even shopping lists.  Wherever there is a lot of data to consolidate, you are going to run into problems unless everyone is following the same rules. I’m sure that my readers can figure out where I am going with this.  What is SQL Server but a computerized way to organize data?  And Microsoft is making it easier and easier to get all your “addresses” into one place.  In the  2008 version of SQL they introduced a new tool called Master Data Services (MDS) for Master Data Management, and they have improved it for the new 2012 version. MDM was hailed as a major improvement for business intelligence.  You might not think that an organizational system is terribly exciting, but think about the kind of “address books” a company might have.  Many companies have lots of important information, like addresses, credit card numbers, purchase history, and so much more.  To organize all this efficiently so that customers are well cared for and properly billed (only once, not never or multiple times!) is a major part of business intelligence. MDM comes into play because it will comb through these mountains of data and make sure that all the information is consistent, accurate, and all placed in one database so that employees don’t have to search high and low and waste their time. MDM also has operational MDM functions.  This is not a redundancy.  Operational MDM means that when one employee updates one bit of information in the database, for example – updating a new address for a customer, operational MDM ensures that this address is updated throughout the system so that all departments will have the correct information. Another cool thing about MDM is that it features Master Data Services Configuration Manager, which is exactly what it sounds like.  It has a built-in “helper” that lets you set up your database quickly, easily, and with the correct configurations.  While talking about cool features, I can’t skip over the add-in for Excel.  This allows you to link certain data to Excel files for easier sharing and uploading. In summary, I want to emphasize that the scariest part of the database is slowly disappearing.  Everyone knows that a database – one consolidated area for all your data – is a good idea, but the idea of setting one up is daunting.  But SQL Server is making data management easier and easier with features like Master Data Services (MDS). Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Master Data Services, MDM

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  • SQL Sentry Truth-Telling and Disk Configuration

    - by AjarnMark
    Recently, SQL Sentry told me something about my SQL Server disk configurations that I just didn’t want to believe, but alas, it was true. Several days ago I posted my First Impressions of the SQL Sentry Power Suite.  Today’s post could fall into the category of, “Hey, as long as you have that fancy tool…”  Unfortunately, it also falls into the category of an overloaded worker taking someone else’s word for the truth, not verifying it with independent fact-checking, and then making decisions based on that.  Here’s my story… I’m not exactly an Accidental DBA (or Involuntary DBA as Paul Randal calls it).  I came to this company five years ago as a lead application developer with extensive experience in database design and development.  I worked my way into management, and along the way, took over the DBA responsibilities.  Fortunately, our systems run pretty smoothly most of the time, but I’m always looking for ways to make them better and to fit into my understanding of best practices.  When I took over as DBA, I inherited a SQL 2000 server with about 30 databases on it supporting our main systems, and a SQL 2005 server with multiple instances.  Both of these servers were configured with the Operating System and Application files on the C drive, data files on a different drive letter, and log files on a third drive letter.  Even before I took over as DBA, I verified that this was true with a previous server administrator, and that these represented actual separate disks.  He stated that they did, and I thought that all was well. Then one day, I’m poking around inside the SQL Sentry Performance Advisor, checking out features as I am evaluating whether to purchase the product, and I come across a Disk Configuration section.  The first thing I notice is that the drives do not have the proper partition offset, which was not at all surprising to me given the age of the installation and the relative newness of that topic.  But what threw me for a loop was that the graphic display appeared to be telling me that I did not in fact have three separate drives (or arrays) but rather had two, and that the log files were merely on a separate volume on the same physical array as the OS.  I figured that I must be reading it wrong so I scanned the Help file, but that just seemed to confirm my interpretation.  Then I thought, “there must be something wrong with the demo version of the software!  This can’t be right!”  But just to double-check, I went to our current server admin to talk it over with him, and sure enough, SQL Sentry was telling the truth! I was stunned!  I quickly went through the grieving process…denial…anger…reconciliation.  Here was something that I thought was such a basic truth that was turned upside down.  OK, granted, this wasn’t disastrous.  Our databases didn’t suddenly grind to a halt.  I didn’t get calls late at night inquiring about the sudden downturn in performance.  But it was a bit of a shock to the system, in a good way, to jolt me out of taking what I had believed as the truth for granted, and instead to Trust, but Verify! Yes, before someone else points it out, I know that there are”free” disk management tools built-in to Windows that would have told me the same thing if I had only looked at them; I did not have to buy a fancy tool to tell me that, but the fact is, until I was evaluating the tool, I had just gone with what I was told, and never bothered to check what was actually there. So, what things do you believe to be true but you actually never verified?

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  • Change The Windows 7 Start Orb the Easy Way

    - by Matthew Guay
    Want to make your Windows 7 PC even more unique and personalized?  Then check out this easy guide on how to change your start orb in Windows 7. Getting Started First, download the free Windows 7 Start Button Changer (link below), and extract the contents of the folder.  It contains the app along with a selection of alternate start button orbs you can try out.   Before changing the start button, we advise creating a system restore point in case anything goes wrong.  Enter System Restore in your Start menu search, and select “Create a restore point”. Please note:  We tested this on both the 32 bit and 64 bit editions of Windows 7, and didn’t encounter any problems or stability issues.  That said, it is always prudent to make a restore point just in case a problem did happen. Click the Create button… Then enter a name for the restore point, and click Create. Changing the Start Orb. Once this is finished, run the Windows 7 Start Button Changer as administrator by right-clicking on it and selecting “Run as administrator”.  Accept the UAC prompt that will appear. If you don’t run it as an administrator, you may see the following warning.  Click Quit, and then run again as administrator. You should now see the Windows 7 Start Button Changer.  On the left it shows what your current (default) start orb looks like inactive, when hovered over, and when selected.  Click the orb on the right to select a new start button. Here we browsed to the sample orbs folder, and selected one of them.  Let’s give Windows the Media Center orb for a start orb.  Click the orb you want, and then select open. When you click Open, your screen will momentarily freeze and your taskbar will disappear.  When it reappears, your computer will have gone from having the old, default Start orb style… …to your new, exciting Start orb!  Here it is default, and glowing when hovered over. Now, the Windows 7 Start Orb Changer will change, and show your new Start orb on the left side.  If you would like to revert to the default orb, simply click the folder icon to restore it.  Or, if you would like to change the orb again, restore the original first and then select a new one. The orbs don’t have to be round; here’s a fancy Windows 7 logo as the start button. The start orb change will work in the Aero and Aero basic (which Windows 7 Start uses) themes, but will not show up in the classic, Windows 2000 style themes.  Here’s how the new start button looks with the Aero Classic theme: There are tons of orbs available, including this cute smiley, so choose one that you like to make your computer uniquely yours. Conclusion This is a cute way to make your desktop unique, and can be a great way to make a truly personalized theme.  Let us know your favorite Start orb! Link Download the Windows 7 Start Button Changer Find more Start orbs at deviantART Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Change the Windows 7 or Vista Power Buttons to Shut Down/Sleep/HibernateQuick Tip: Change the Registered Owner in WindowsSpeed up Windows Vista Start Menu Search By Limiting ResultsWhy Does My Password Expire in Windows?Change Your Computer Name in Windows 7 or Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition

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  • Enjoy How-To Geek User Style Script Goodness

    - by Asian Angel
    Most people may not be aware of it but there are two user style scripts that have been created just for use with the How-To Geek website. If you are curious then join us as we look at these two scripts at work. Note: User Style Scripts & User Scripts can be added to most browsers but we are using Firefox for our examples here. The How-to Geek Wide User Style Script The first of the two scripts affects the viewing width of the website’s news content. Here you can see everything set at the normal width. When you visit the UserStyles website you will be able to view basic information about the script and see the code itself if desired. On the right side of the page is the good part though. Since we are using Firefox with Greasemonkey installed we chose the the “install as a user script option”. Notice that the script is available for other browsers as well (very nice!) Within a few moments of clicking on the “install as a user script button” you will see the following window asking confirmation for installing the script. After installing the user style script and refreshing the page it has now stretched out to fill 90% of the browser window’s area. Definitely nice! The How-To Geek – News and Comments (600px) User Style Script The second script can be very useful for anyone with the limited screen real-estate of a netbook. You can see another of the articles from here at the site viewed in a  “normal mode”. Once again you can view basic information about this particular user style script and view the code if desired. As above we have the Firefox/Greasemonkey combination at work so we installed as a user script. This is one of the great things about using Greasemonkey…it always checks with you to make certain that no unauthorized scripts are added. Once the script was installed and we refreshed the page things looked very very different. All the focus has been placed on the article itself and any comments attached to the article. For those who may be curious this is what the homepage looks like using this script. Conclusion If you have been wanting to add a little bit of “viewing spice” to your browser for the How-To Geek website then definitely pop over to the User Styles website and give these two scripts a try. Using Opera Browser? See our how-to for adding user scripts to Opera here. Links Install the How-to Geek Wide User Style Script Install the How-To Geek – News and Comments (600px) User Style Script Download the Greasemonkey extension for Firefox (Mozilla Add-ons) Download the Stylish extension for Firefox (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Set Up User Scripts in Opera BrowserSet Gmail as Default Mail Client in UbuntuHide Flash Animations in Google ChromeShell Script to Upload a File to the Same Subdirectory on a Remote ServerAutomate Adding Bookmarks to del.icio.us TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Quickly Schedule Meetings With NeedtoMeet Share Flickr Photos On Facebook Automatically Are You Blocked On Gtalk? Find out Discover Latest Android Apps On AppBrain The Ultimate Guide For YouTube Lovers Will it Blend? iPad Edition

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  • Code Contracts: validating arrays and collections

    - by DigiMortal
    Validating collections before using them is very common task when we use built-in generic types for our collections. In this posting I will show you how to validate collections using code contracts. It is cool how much awful looking code you can avoid using code contracts. Failing code Let’s suppose we have method that calculates sum of all invoices in collection. We have class Invoice and one of properties it has is Sum. I don’t introduce here any complex calculations on invoices because we have another problem to solve in this topic. Here is our code. public static decimal CalculateTotal(IList<Invoice> invoices) {     var sum = invoices.Sum(p => p.Sum);     return sum; } This method is very simple but it fails when invoices list contains at least one null. Of course, we can test if invoice is null but having nulls in lists like this is not good idea – it opens green way for different coding bugs in system. Our goal is to react to bugs ASAP at the nearest place they occur. There is one more way how to make our method fail. It happens when invoices is null. I thing it is also one common bugs during development and it even happens in production environments under some conditions that are usually hardly met. Now let’s protect our little calculation method with code contracts. We need two contracts: invoices cannot be null invoices cannot contain any nulls Our first contract is easy but how to write the second one? Solution: Contract.ForAll Preconditions in code are checked using Contract.Ensures method. This method takes boolean value as argument that sais if contract holds or not. There is also method Contract.ForAll that takes collection and predicate that must hold for that collection. Nice thing is ForAll returns boolean. So, we have very simple solution. public static decimal CalculateTotal(IList<Invoice> invoices) {     Contract.Requires(invoices != null);     Contract.Requires(Contract.ForAll<Invoice>(invoices, p => p != null));       var sum = invoices.Sum(p => p.Sum);     return sum; } And here are some lines of code you can use to test the contracts quickly. var invoices = new List<Invoice>(); invoices.Add(new Invoice()); invoices.Add(null); invoices.Add(new Invoice()); //CalculateTotal(null); CalculateTotal(invoices); If your code is covered with unit tests then I suggest you to write tests to check that these contracts hold for every code run. Conclusion Although it seemed at first place that checking all elements in collection may end up with for-loops that does not look so nice we were able to solve our problem nicely. ForAll method of contract class offered us simple mechanism to check collections and it does it smoothly the code-contracts-way. P.S. I suggest you also read devlicio.us blog posting Validating Collections with Code Contracts by Derik Whittaker.

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  • C#: A "Dumbed-Down" C++?

    - by James Michael Hare
    I was spending a lovely day this last weekend watching my sons play outside in one of the better weekends we've had here in Saint Louis for quite some time, and whilst watching them and making sure no limbs were broken or eyes poked out with sticks and other various potential injuries, I was perusing (in the correct sense of the word) this month's MSDN magazine to get a sense of the latest VS2010 features in both IDE and in languages. When I got to the back pages, I saw a wonderful article by David S. Platt entitled, "In Praise of Dumbing Down"  (msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee336129.aspx).  The title captivated me and I read it and found myself agreeing with it completely especially as it related to my first post on divorcing C++ as my favorite language. Unfortunately, as Mr. Platt mentions, the term dumbing-down has negative connotations, but is really and truly a good thing.  You are, in essence, taking something that is extremely complex and reducing it to something that is much easier to use and far less error prone.  Adding safeties to power tools and anti-kick mechanisms to chainsaws are in some sense "dumbing them down" to the common user -- but that also makes them safer and more accessible for the common user.  This was exactly my point with C++ and C#.  I did not mean to infer that C++ was not a useful or good language, but that in a very high percentage of cases, is too complex and error prone for the job at hand. Choosing the correct programming language for a job is a lot like choosing any other tool for a task.  For example: if I want to dig a French drain in my lawn, I can attempt to use a huge tractor-like backhoe and the job would be done far quicker than if I would dig it by hand.  I can't deny that the backhoe has the raw power and speed to perform.  But you also cannot deny that my chances of injury or chances of severing utility lines or other resources climb at an exponential rate inverse to the amount of training I may have on that machinery. Is C++ a powerful tool?  Oh yes, and it's great for those tasks where speed and performance are paramount.  But for most of us, it's the wrong tool.  And keep in mind, I say this even though I have 17 years of experience in using it and feel myself highly adept in utilizing its features both in the standard libraries, the STL, and in supplemental libraries such as BOOST.  Which, although greatly help with adding powerful features quickly, do very little to curb the relative dangers of the language. So, you may say, the fault is in the developer, that if the developer had some higher skills or if we only hired C++ experts this would not be an issue.  Now, I will concede there is some truth to this.  Obviously, the higher skilled C++ developers you hire the better the chance they will produce highly performant and error-free code.  However, what good is that to the average developer who cannot afford a full stable of C++ experts? That's my point with C#:  It's like a kinder, gentler C++.  It gives you nearly the same speed, and in many ways even more power than C++, and it gives you a much softer cushion for novices to fall against if they code less-than-optimally.  A bug is a bug, of course, in any language, but C# does a good job of hiding and taking on the task of handling almost all of the resource issues that make C++ so tricky.  For my money, C# is much more maintainable, more feature-rich, second only slightly in performance, faster to market, and -- last but not least -- safer and easier to use.  That's why, where I work, I much prefer to see the developers moving to C#.  The quantity of bugs is much lower, and we don't need to hire "experts" to achieve the same results since the language itself handles those resource pitfalls so prevalent in poorly written C++ code.  C++ will still have its place in the world, and I'm sure I'll still use it now and again where it is truly the correct tool for the job, but for nearly every other project C# is a wonderfully "dumbed-down" version of C++ -- in the very best sense -- and to me, that's the smart choice.

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