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  • Wake On Lan only works on first boot, not sequent ones

    - by sp3ctum
    I have converted my old Dell Latitude D410 laptop to a server for tinkering. It is running an updated Debian Squeeze (6) with a Xen enabled kernel (I want to toy with virtual machines later on). I am running it 'headless' via an ethernet connection. I am struggling to enable Wake On Lan for the box. I have enabled the setting in the BIOS, and it works nicely, but only for the first time after the power cord is plugged in. Here is my test: Plug in power cord, don't boot yet Send magic Wake On Lan packet from test machine (Ubuntu) using the wakeonlan program Server expected to start (does every time) Once server has booted, log in via ssh and shut it down via the operating system After shutdown, wake server up via WOL again (fails every time) Some observations: Right after step 1 I can see the integrated NIC has a light on. I deduce this means the NIC gets adequate power and that the ethernet cable is connected to my switch. This light is not on after step 4 (the shutdown stage). The light becomes back on after I disconnect and reconnect the power cord, after which WOL works as well. After step 4 I can verify that wake on lan is enabled via the ethtool program (repeatable each time) This blog post suggested the problem may lay in the fact the motherboard might not be giving adequate power to the NIC after shutdown, so I copied an acpitool script that supposedly should signal the system to give the needed power to the card when shut down. Obviously it did not fix my issue. I have included the relevant power settings in the paste below. I have tried different combinations of parameters of shutdown (the program) options, as well as the poweroff program. I even tried "telinit 0", which I figured would do the most direct boot via software. If I keep the laptop's power button pressed down and do a hard boot this way, the light on the ethernet port stays lit and a WOL is possible. I copied a bunch of hopefully useful information in this paste I have tried this with the laptop battery connected and without it. I get the same result. Promptly pressing the power button causes the system to shut down with the message "The system is going down for system halt NOW!", and WOL is still unsuccessful.

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  • USB mouse connecting and disconnecting randomly

    - by Kalec
    I've bought an acer aspire 5742G about 2 months ago or so and it's been running great, but sometimes I used to hear the windows error beep but I had no idea what was causing it since the "bug" was automatically fixed so fast I couldn't even see an error message (also it kinda always happened when I was busy also, either in a game or while doing my homework). Later on my mouse would simply not work for 3-5 seconds then work again, I thought nothing of it at the time. I also had a problem where it only worked in one usb and one only. To move it I had to remove the battery, unplug the laptop and hold the power button for 2 minutes to reset the bios settings. Since today though it went nuts. Sometimes it disconnects / reconnects 12 times in 10 seconds and windows just keeps beeping till I unplug it, then it runs smooth for 5-6 minutes then it goes nuts again. Other times it seems like it skips (disconnects for a fraction of a second) other times just for 2-3 seconds. But this is incredibly frustrating. Sometimes the power just goes down (the laser turns off) and well that at least I would understand but this is a rare occurrence. Now I know the usb ports work since I have a lot of other devices connected and I tried the mouse on a room m8's laptop so the mouse also works. My only conclusion is that it's an operating system / settings bug and / or problem (I have tried the mouse in all ports by the way). All drivers and bios are up to date (maybe except mouse but I can't seem to update that and the mouse has no name, just a serial number which helps with nothing. Still it worked till today and nothing should have changed any way). I have made sure windows can't shut it down to save power (in device management). Also I tried to delete the drivers and re-install them, rebooting and the power button trick but nothing. Most I have done is get rid of the 12 disconnects / reconnects every 10 seconds :) but that's all :( I would buy a new one but I'm afraid it might do the same thing. ****EDIT****** Tried the mouse again at a friend but now it didn't even install it's software nor did the update work. Think I'll just buy a new one but I'd still like a suggestion at least so I'll leave this open #### EDIT 2 Now it works again, I can't explain this. Still thinking of getting a new one though

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  • Missing startup screens and slow bootup/login after using WinClone to expand Bootcamp partition

    - by user26453
    I used WinClone to backup my Bootcamp partition, which was a Windows 7 Ultimate install, on my late 2006 Macbook Pro. I desired to expand the Bootcamp partition's size. It worked reasonably well with some hiccups along the way and some remaining issues. First issue I ran into was the Bootcamp Assistant utility - it would not recreate the partition. This was due to a lack of contiguous space that is required for the Bootcamp partition. As a result I wiped the whole drive and reinstalled Snow Leopard, did the minimum amount of system updates, and created and formated a new Bootcamp partition. WinClone restored the image without complaint and the image was automatically resized to the new partition's size. Second issue I ran into was after the first boot into Windows. The first thing I noticed was that instead of the newer "slick" startup screen (4 colors wisping around, a Windows 7 title), there was more of an old school style startup screen (a progress bar with block increments, yellow/greenish color, nothing else really). The initial bootup to a login screen was slow, perhaps as Windows dealt with the partition changes. After logging in, the screen goes blank and the computer seems to hang for a minute, before completing the login. After subsequent restarts, the slick screen is still missing, boot to login screen is normal, but the time from login to desktop active is still very slow. As a side note, this behavior of a long time from login to the desktop finally loaded I've previously only seen when the computer would try to hibernate and fail (battery is really bad). On the next startup, I would see this behavior, but not subsequently. So a potential cause: I imaged the partition after hibernating out of Windows. From reading some posts/guides on the subject, this was not recommended, and perhaps shouldn't even have worked? Could the partition be stuck in some weird mode as a result that makes the boot issues appear? I've attempted to disable hibernation and restart, trying to delete the .sys file that hibernation uses. Other fixes I'm thinking of attempting are booting a Win7 disc and repairing the install/partition. I can't shake the nagging feeling something isn't right as a result of the modified boot screens and the slow login process.

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  • Why is Windows Task Scheduler trying to launch multiple instances?

    - by Paul H
    We have a number of Windows Scheduled tasks that run on one Server 2008 Webserver (not R2) which is in a cluster. We recently moved from an original webserver Cluster to a new webserver Cluser (Server 2008 - not R2). The new webserver (in the cluster) running the Windows Tasks is setup the same as on the original we believe. BUT we now find that on the new Windows Server the Windows Task Scheduler seems to want to instantly start each task three times. If we set the option to queue up a new task we get: Event ID 324 Task Scheduler queued instance "{9a1a8411-b042-45ff-8e6b-89874df230d7}" of task "\Client Reporting" and will launch it as soon as instance "{2bcc3df6-ea3b-4453-90c2-75b8b1946388}" completes. If we set the option to stop an existing task we get: Event ID 323 Task Scheduler stopped instance "{e685a910-b32b-414e-85fd-96bbe54314a2}" of task "\Client Reporting" in order to launch new instance "{4db66265-1f51-4ede-8535-ac7c3cb5c4c1}" . Ticked settings: Allow task to be run on demand. Run task as soon as possible after a scheduled start is missed. Stop the task if running for longer than 1 hour. If the running task does not end when requested force it to stop. Start the task only if the computer is on AC power. Stop the task if the computer switches to battery power. Selected option: If the task is already running - stop the existing instance. Note: We moved the tasks from one server to another in the cluster to see if it the Task Scheduler on the particular server we'd picked causing the problem. Same behaviour. Could it be something to do with the build of the new servers? We have very similar tasks set up on another server cluster that work OK without all this multiple starting. Comparing those tasks to the ones here - there does not seem to be anything obviously different in terms of settings available to us through the options within the Task Scheduler. Trigger: The task is scheduled to be triggered daily, once an hour - and to be stopped if it exceeds this time. Action: Runs a .bat file. What could be causing this/where we can look to see what logic is causing the tasks to start multiple times in this way?

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  • Monitoring tools that can take high rate and high volume?

    - by Jon Watte
    We're using Cacti with RRDTool to monitor and graph about 100,000 counters spread across about 1,000 Linux-based nodes. However, our current setup generally only gives us 5-minute graphs (with some data being minute-based); we often make changes where seeing feedback in "near real time" would be of value. I'd like approximately a week of 5- or 10-second data, a year of 1-minute data, and 5 years of 10-minute data. I have SSD disks and a dual-hexa-core server to spare. I tried setting up a Graphite/carbon/whisper server, and had about 15 nodes pipe to it, but it only has "average" for the retention function when promoting to older buckets. This is almost useless -- I'd like min, max, average, standard deviation, and perhaps "total sum" and "number of samples" or perhaps "95th percentile" available. The developer claims there's a new back-end "in beta" that allows you to write your own function, but this appears to still only do 1:1 retention (when saving older data, you really want the statistics calculated into many streams from a single input. Also, "in beta" seems a little risky for this installation. If I'm wrong about this assumption, I'd be happy to be shown my error! I've heard Zabbix recommended, but it puts data into MySQL or some other SQL database. 100,000 counters on a 5 second interval means 20,000 tps, and while I have an SSD, I don't have an 8-way RAID-6 with battery backup cache, which I think I'd need for that to work out :-) Again, if that's actually something that's not a problem, I'd be happy to be shown the error of my ways. Also, can Zabbix do the single data stream - promote with statistics thing? Finally, Munin claims to have a new 2.0 coming out "in beta" right now, and it boasts custom retention plans. However, again, it's that "in beta" part -- has anyone used that for real, and at scale? How did it perform, if so? I'm almost thinking about using a graphing front-end (such as Graphite) and rolling my own retention backend with a simple layer on top of mmap() and some stats. That wouldn't be particularly hard, and would probably perform very well, letting the kernel figure out the balance between frequency of flushing to disk and process operations. Any other suggestions I should look into? Note: it has to have shown itself able to sustain the kinds of data loads I'm suggesting above; if you can point at the specific implementation you're referencing, so much the better!

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  • Have a server, need to figure out a method of backup

    - by PolishHurricane
    My company has an older Dell 2650 server running ArchLinux x64: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/2650_specs.pdf (2 x 2.4GHz Intel Xeon w/around 3287 RAM according to "free -m") We use it to host our internal company site and to post some information from our orders to and we'd like the ability to keep it up as much as possible. What we require: - It needs to always be functional from 8am to 4pm for our data entry person to use it and others to do other things required on it. - If it goes down, we need a quick way to get the machine running again. - If it goes down, we would like to have the data backed up. Some of the major problems include: - The servers old and it may have memory issues - We don't know when one of the hard drives could fail - Our power goes out here once in a while We have a battery backup, but that's pretty much it and it's not for long term. If the server does go down, we have another system in place to store order information that comes in while it's down and repost it when it's back, but we need it up during the day. So we're wondering, what should we get for options? These are the things we thought of, sort of: Setup RAID 1, but that would involve wiping everything right? If we do that, how would we transfer the data over without messing up the server? We could buy an extra server or 2 off eBay for $100, the same model, is that practical or should we get something else? Should we buy a PC or another better server and host off that because it is if anything easier to exchange parts? Should we keep extra parts handy incase it implodes? Should we buy/use backup software? We hear drobo's are cool, but suck. Perhaps there is a software solution to this problem that backs up to another machine or gets us up and running again quickly. Also, if we are to purchase hardware, what is decent? Does anybody know of one for ArchLinux/Linux? We both know a ton about computers but we're kind of unsure what step to take with this, especially with this type of server. Thanks

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  • How to store data on a machine whose power gets cut at random

    - by Sevas
    I have a virtual machine (Debian) running on a physical machine host. The virtual machine acts as a buffer for data that it frequently receives over the local network (the period for this data is 0.5s, so a fairly high throughput). Any data received is stored on the virtual machine and repeatedly forwarded to an external server over UDP. Once the external server acknowledges (over UDP) that it has received a data packet, the original data is deleted from the virtual machine and not sent to the external server again. The internet connection that connects the VM and the external server is unreliable, meaning it could be down for days at a time. The physical machine that hosts the VM gets its power cut several times per day at random. There is no way to tell when this is about to happen and it is not possible to add a UPS, a battery, or a similar solution to the system. Originally, the data was stored on a file-based HSQLDB database on the virtual machine. However, the frequent power cuts eventually cause the database script file to become corrupted (not at the file system level, i.e. it is readable, but HSQLDB can't make sense of it), which leads to my question: How should data be stored in an environment where power cuts can and do happen frequently? One option I can think of is using flat files, saving each packet of data as a file on the file system. This way if a file is corrupted due to loss of power, it can be ignored and the rest of the data remains intact. This poses a few issues however, mainly related to the amount of data likely being stored on the virtual machine. At 0.5s between each piece of data, 1,728,000 files will be generated in 10 days. This at least means using a file system with an increased number of inodes to store this data (the current file system setup ran out of inodes at ~250,000 messages and 30% disk space used). Also, it is hard (not impossible) to manage. Are there any other options? Are there database engines that run on Debian that would not get corrupted by power cuts? Also, what file system should be used for this? ext3 is what is used at the moment. The software that runs on the virtual machine is written using Java 6, so hopefully the solution would not be incompatible.

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  • netbook intel GMA 3150 external monitor 1920x1080 flicker problem

    - by seyenne
    Dear all, i recently purchased a acer netbook (apsire one d260). It runs flawlessly. Yesterday I bought a samsung 23" TFT with a native resolution of 1920x1080. According to the information found in the internet and my local computer dealer, the intel chipset can handle the native resolution of the monitor. However, this is only partly the case. I use the VGA cabel to connect, the monitor instantly switches to the native resolution and now the problem: Occasionaly, especially the first 2 hours after booting up, I have a flickering all over the screen, sometimes the entire screen is shaking and spinning around like crazy. I figured out, that lowering the resolution avoids the flicker but this helps only for some time. I can rule out that it's the monitor's problem since I found no issues with another notebook. Right now, I have no problems with the netbook, for about 30 minutes I didn't experience any issues... But I don't know for how long, it occurs without warning :-) I'm worried that if I would bring the netbook back to the dealer and explain my problem, after testing it on an external screen in the local shop, everything works just fine... And I won't get helped with the problem because I can't prove it. (I'm currently in Thailand and over here, customer service is nothing like back home in Germany) What can I do? Is this a driver related issue? (I installed the latest GPU driver) Is it because of the VGA cable? (But why does it work sometimes without any problems and with no issues on the other notebook) I monitored the GPU/CPU temperature, nothing changes really over time..Can it simply be a faulty GPU and is a replacement justifiable? I'm really stressed now because for the time I'm writing, the flickering didn't occur...but for sure, soon or later it will happen again.. I Forgot to mention, the problem also happens if the netbook runs on battery, unplugged. So the only hardware that is plugged is the TFT screen. ...........and here it comes again, flickering has just begun. NEED HELP! Thank you all for reading through this and giving any suggestions if possible. Cheers

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  • Looking For iPhone 4S Alternatives? Here Are 3 Smartphones You Should Consider

    - by Gopinath
    If you going to buy iPhone 4S on a two year contract in USA, Europe or Australia you may not find it expensive. But if you are planning to buy it in any other parts of the world, you will definitely feel the heat of ridiculous iPhone 4S price. In India iPhone 4S costs approximately costs $1000 which is 30% more than the price tag of an unlocked iPhone sold in USA. Personally I love iPhones as there is no match for the user experience provided by Apple as well as the wide range of really meaning applications available for iPhone. But it breaks heart to spend $1000 for a phone and I’m forced to look at alternates available in the market. Here are the four iPhone 4S alternates available in almost all the countries where we can buy iPhone 4S Google Galaxy Nexus The Galaxy Nexus is Google’s own Android smartphone manufactured by Samsung and sold under the brand name of Google Nexus. Galaxy Nexus is the pure Android phone available in the market without any bloat software or custom user interfaces like other Androids available in the market. Galaxy Nexus is also the first Android phone to be shipped with the latest version of Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. This phone is the benchmark for the rest of Android phones that are going to enter the market soon. In the words of Google this smartphone is called as “Galaxy Nexus: Simple. Beautiful. Beyond Smart.”.  BGR review summarizes the phone as This is almost comical at this point, but the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is my favourite Android device in the world. Easily replacing the HTC Rezound, the Motorola DROID RAZR, and Samsung Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Nexus champions in a brand new version of Android that pushes itself further than almost any other mobile OS in the industry. Samsung Galaxy S II The one single company that is able to sell more smartphones than Apple is Samsung. Samsung recently displaced Apple from the top smartphone seller spot and occupied it with loads of pride. Samsung’s Galaxy S II fits as one the best alternatives to Apple’s iPhone 4S with it’s beautiful design and remarkable performance. Engadget summarizes Samsung Galaxy S2 review as It’s the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period. Of course, a 4.3-inch screen size won’t suit everyone, no matter how stupendously thin the device that carries it may be, and we also can’t say for sure that the Galaxy S II would justify a long-term iOS user foresaking his investment into one ecosystem and making the leap to another. Nonetheless, if you’re asking us what smartphone to buy today, unconstrained by such externalities, the Galaxy S II would be the clear choice. Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. Nokia Lumia 800 Here comes unexpected Windows Phone in to the boxing ring. May be they are not as great as Androids available in the market today, but they are picking up very quickly. Especially the Nokia Lumia 800 seems to be first ever Windows Phone 7 aimed at competing serious with Androids and iPhones available in the market. There are reports that Nokia Lumia 800 is outselling all Androids in UK and few high profile tech blogs are calling it as the king of Windows Phone. Considering this phone while evaluating the alternative of iPhone 4S will not disappoint you. We assure. Droid RAZR Remember the Motorola Driod that swept entire Android market share couple of years ago? The first two version of Motorola Droids were the best in the market and they out performed almost every other Android phone those days. The invasion of Samsung Androids, Motorola lost it charm. With the recent release of Droid RAZR, Motorola seems to be in the right direction to reclaiming the prestige. Droid RAZR is the thinnest smartphone available in the market and it’s beauty is not just skin deep. Here is a review of the phone from Engadget blog the RAZR’s beauty is not only skin deep. The LTE radio, 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM make sure this sleek number is ready to run with the big boys. It kept pace with, and in some cases clearly outclassed its high-end competition. Despite its deficiencies in the display department and underwhelming battery life, the RAZR looks to be a perfectly viable alternative when considering the similarly-pricey Rezound and Galaxy Nexus Further Reading So we have seen the four alternates of iPhone 4S available in the market and I personally love to buy a Samsung smartphone if I’m don’t have money to afford an iPhone 4S. If you are interested in deep diving into the alternates, here few links that help you do more research Apple iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy Nexus vs. Motorola Droid RAZR: How Their Specs Compare by Huffington Post Nokia Lumia 800 vs. iPhone 4S vs. Nexus Galaxy: Spec Smackdown by PC World Browser Speed Test: Nokia Lumia 800 vs. iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy S II – by Gizmodo iPhone 4S vs Samsung Galaxy S II by pocket lint Apple iPhone 4S vs. Samsung Galaxy S II by techie buzz This article titled,Looking For iPhone 4S Alternatives? Here Are 3 Smartphones You Should Consider, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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  • Fixing Robocopy for SQL Server Jobs

    - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)
    Robocopy is one of, if not the, best life-saving/greatest-thing-since-sliced-bread command line utilities ever to come from Microsoft.  If you're not using it already, what are you waiting for? Of course, being a Microsoft product, it's not exactly perfect. ;)  Specifically, it sets the ERRORLEVEL to a non-zero value even if the copy is successful.  This causes a problem in SQL Server job steps, since non-zero ERRORLEVELs report as failed. You can work around this by having your SQL job go to the next step on failure, but then you can't determine if there was a genuine error.  Plus you still see annoying red X's in your job history.  One way I've found to avoid this is to use a batch file that runs Robocopy, and I add some commands after it (in red): robocopy d:\backups \\BackupServer\BackupFolder *.bak rem suppress successful robocopy exit statuses, only report genuine errors (bitmask 16 and 8 settings)set/A errlev="%ERRORLEVEL% & 24" rem exit batch file with errorlevel so SQL job can succeed or fail appropriatelyexit/B %errlev% (The REM statements are simply comments and don't need to be included in the batch file) The SET command lets you use expressions when you use the /A switch.  So I set an environment variable "errlev" to a bitwise AND with the ERRORLEVEL value. Robocopy's exit codes use a bitmap/bitmask to specify its exit status.  The bits for 1, 2, and 4 do not indicate any kind of failure, but 8 and 16 do.  So by adding 16 + 8 to get 24, and doing a bitwise AND, I suppress any of the other bits that might be set, and allow either or both of the error bits to pass. The next step is to use the EXIT command with the /B switch to set a new ERRORLEVEL value, using the "errlev" variable.  This will now return zero (unless Robocopy had real errors) and allow your SQL job step to report success. This technique should also work for other command-line utilities.  The only issues I've found is that it requires the commands to be part of a batch file, so if you use Robocopy directly in your SQL job step you'd need to place it in a batch.  If you also have multiple Robocopy calls, you'll need to place the SET/A command ONLY after the last one.  You'd therefore lose any errors from previous calls, unless you use multiple "errlev" variables and AND them together. (I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader) The SET/A syntax also permits other kinds of expressions to be calculated.  You can get a full list by running "SET /?" on a command prompt.

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  • View Maps and Get Directions in Google Chrome

    - by Asian Angel
    Every so often we all need to look at a map for reference purposes or to get directions. If you are looking for a great quick reference app then join us as we look at the Mini Google Maps extension for Google Chrome. Mini Google Maps in Action While this may look like a rather basic map extension there is more to it than meets the eye at first glance. Here is the default view when you open Mini Google Maps for the first time. Things that we really liked about this extension were: Three different aerial views available (Map, Satellite, & Terrain) Three different viewing sizes available (and the extension remembers your chosen size) The ability to get directions in combination with a map We decided to try each of the viewing sizes available…here you can see the “Medium Setting”. Notice that the scale stays the same but you get more territory included to view. Then the “Large Setting”…which we infinitely preferred to the others. Once again look at the amount of territory included by default…very nice. Switching over to the “Satellite View”… Followed by the “Terrain View”. For our first example we decided to peek at Vancouver, British Columbia. After zooming out a little bit we had a very nice looking map. For the next test we asked for directions from Vancouver to Toronto. Both the directions and map turned out very well. And just for fun we looked up Paris, France with the “Satellite View”. Conclusion If you find yourself needing to view a map or get directions often then the Mini Google Maps extension will be a very useful tool for you. Links Download the Mini Google Maps extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Get Maps and Directions to Your Contacts in Outlook 2007Stupid Geek Tricks: Browse the Web from OutlookView the Time & Date in Chrome When Hiding Your TaskbarHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default BrowserAccess Google Chrome’s Special Pages the Easy Way 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 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 PCmover Professional Make your Joomla & Drupal Sites Mobile with OSMOBI Integrate Twitter and Delicious and Make Life Easier Design Your Web Pages Using the Golden Ratio Worldwide Growth of the Internet How to Find Your Mac Address Use My TextTools to Edit and Organize Text

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  • Guidance: A Branching strategy for Scrum Teams

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    Having a good branching strategy will save your bacon, or at least your code. Be careful when deviating from your branching strategy because if you do, you may be worse off than when you started! This is one possible branching strategy for Scrum teams and I will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even assess your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Acknowledgements Bill Heys – Bill offered some good feedback on this post and helped soften the language. Note: Bill is a VS ALM Ranger and co-wrote the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Willy-Peter Schaub – Willy-Peter is an ex Visual Studio ALM MVP turned blue badge and has been involved in most of the guidance including the Branching Guidance for TFS 2010 Chris Birmele – Chris wrote some of the early TFS Branching and Merging Guidance. Dr Paul Neumeyer, Ph.D Parallel Processes, ScrumMaster and SSW Solution Architect – Paul wanted to have feature branches coming from the release branch as well. We agreed that this is really a spin-off that needs own project, backlog, budget and Team. Scenario: A product is developed RTM 1.0 is released and gets great sales.  Extra features are demanded but the new version will have double to price to pay to recover costs, work is approved by the guys with budget and a few sprints later RTM 2.0 is released.  Sales a very low due to the pricing strategy. There are lots of clients on RTM 1.0 calling out for patches. As I keep getting Reverse Integration and Forward Integration mixed up and Bill keeps slapping my wrists I thought I should have a reminder: You still seemed to use reverse and/or forward integration in the wrong context. I would recommend reviewing your document at the end to ensure that it agrees with the common understanding of these terms merge (forward integration) from parent to child (same direction as the branch), and merge  (reverse integration) from child to parent (the reverse direction of the branch). - one of my many slaps on the wrist from Bill Heys.   As I mentioned previously we are using a single feature branching strategy in our current project. The single biggest mistake developers make is developing against the “Main” or “Trunk” line. This ultimately leads to messy code as things are added and never finished. Your only alternative is to NEVER check in unless your code is 100%, but this does not work in practice, even with a single developer. Your ADD will kick in and your half-finished code will be finished enough to pass the build and the tests. You do use builds don’t you? Sadly, this is a very common scenario and I have had people argue that branching merely adds complexity. Then again I have seen the other side of the universe ... branching  structures from he... We should somehow convince everyone that there is a happy between no-branching and too-much-branching. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   A key benefit of branching for development is to isolate changes from the stable Main branch. Branching adds sanity more than it adds complexity. We do try to stress in our guidance that it is important to justify a branch, by doing a cost benefit analysis. The primary cost is the effort to do merges and resolve conflicts. A key benefit is that you have a stable code base in Main and accept changes into Main only after they pass quality gates, etc. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft The second biggest mistake developers make is branching anything other than the WHOLE “Main” line. If you branch parts of your code and not others it gets out of sync and can make integration a nightmare. You should have your Source, Assets, Build scripts deployment scripts and dependencies inside the “Main” folder and branch the whole thing. Some departments within MSFT even go as far as to add the environments used to develop the product in there as well; although I would not recommend that unless you have a massive SQL cluster to house your source code. We tried the “add environment” back in South-Africa and while it was “phenomenal”, especially when having to switch between environments, the disk storage and processing requirements killed us. We opted for virtualization to skin this cat of keeping a ready-to-go environment handy. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft   I think people often think that you should have separate branches for separate environments (e.g. Dev, Test, Integration Test, QA, etc.). I prefer to think of deploying to environments (such as from Main to QA) rather than branching for QA). - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   You can read about SSW’s Rules to better Source Control for some additional information on what Source Control to use and how to use it. There are also a number of branching Anti-Patterns that should be avoided at all costs: You know you are on the wrong track if you experience one or more of the following symptoms in your development environment: Merge Paranoia—avoiding merging at all cost, usually because of a fear of the consequences. Merge Mania—spending too much time merging software assets instead of developing them. Big Bang Merge—deferring branch merging to the end of the development effort and attempting to merge all branches simultaneously. Never-Ending Merge—continuous merging activity because there is always more to merge. Wrong-Way Merge—merging a software asset version with an earlier version. Branch Mania—creating many branches for no apparent reason. Cascading Branches—branching but never merging back to the main line. Mysterious Branches—branching for no apparent reason. Temporary Branches—branching for changing reasons, so the branch becomes a permanent temporary workspace. Volatile Branches—branching with unstable software assets shared by other branches or merged into another branch. Note   Branches are volatile most of the time while they exist as independent branches. That is the point of having them. The difference is that you should not share or merge branches while they are in an unstable state. Development Freeze—stopping all development activities while branching, merging, and building new base lines. Berlin Wall—using branches to divide the development team members, instead of dividing the work they are performing. -Branching and Merging Primer by Chris Birmele - Developer Tools Technical Specialist at Microsoft Pty Ltd in Australia   In fact, this can result in a merge exercise no-one wants to be involved in, merging hundreds of thousands of change sets and trying to get a consolidated build. Again, we need to find a happy medium. - Willy-Peter Schaub on Merge Paranoia Merge conflicts are generally the result of making changes to the same file in both the target and source branch. If you create merge conflicts, you will eventually need to resolve them. Often the resolution is manual. Merging more frequently allows you to resolve these conflicts close to when they happen, making the resolution clearer. Waiting weeks or months to resolve them, the Big Bang approach, means you are more likely to resolve conflicts incorrectly. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Main line, this is where your stable code lives and where any build has known entities, always passes and has a happy test that passes as well? Many development projects consist of, a single “Main” line of source and artifacts. This is good; at least there is source control . There are however a couple of issues that need to be considered. What happens if: you and your team are working on a new set of features and the customer wants a change to his current version? you are working on two features and the customer decides to abandon one of them? you have two teams working on different feature sets and their changes start interfering with each other? I just use labels instead of branches? That's a lot of “what if’s”, but there is a simple way of preventing this. Branching… In TFS, labels are not immutable. This does not mean they are not useful. But labels do not provide a very good development isolation mechanism. Branching allows separate code sets to evolve separately (e.g. Current with hotfixes, and vNext with new development). I don’t see how labels work here. - Bill Heys, VS ALM Ranger & TFS Branching Lead, Microsoft   Figure: Creating a single feature branch means you can isolate the development work on that branch.   Its standard practice for large projects with lots of developers to use Feature branching and you can check the Branching Guidance for the latest recommendations from the Visual Studio ALM Rangers for other methods. In the diagram above you can see my recommendation for branching when using Scrum development with TFS 2010. It consists of a single Sprint branch to contain all the changes for the current sprint. The main branch has the permissions changes so contributors to the project can only Branch and Merge with “Main”. This will prevent accidental check-ins or checkouts of the “Main” line that would contaminate the code. The developers continue to develop on sprint one until the completion of the sprint. Note: In the real world, starting a new Greenfield project, this process starts at Sprint 2 as at the start of Sprint 1 you would have artifacts in version control and no need for isolation.   Figure: Once the sprint is complete the Sprint 1 code can then be merged back into the Main line. There are always good practices to follow, and one is to always do a Forward Integration from Main into Sprint 1 before you do a Reverse Integration from Sprint 1 back into Main. In this case it may seem superfluous, but this builds good muscle memory into your developer’s work ethic and means that no bad habits are learned that would interfere with additional Scrum Teams being added to the Product. The process of completing your sprint development: The Team completes their work according to their definition of done. Merge from “Main” into “Sprint1” (Forward Integration) Stabilize your code with any changes coming from other Scrum Teams working on the same product. If you have one Scrum Team this should be quick, but there may have been bug fixes in the Release branches. (we will talk about release branches later) Merge from “Sprint1” into “Main” to commit your changes. (Reverse Integration) Check-in Delete the Sprint1 branch Note: The Sprint 1 branch is no longer required as its useful life has been concluded. Check-in Done But you are not yet done with the Sprint. The goal in Scrum is to have a “potentially shippable product” at the end of every Sprint, and we do not have that yet, we only have finished code.   Figure: With Sprint 1 merged you can create a Release branch and run your final packaging and testing In 99% of all projects I have been involved in or watched, a “shippable product” only happens towards the end of the overall lifecycle, especially when sprints are short. The in-between releases are great demonstration releases, but not shippable. Perhaps it comes from my 80’s brain washing that we only ship when we reach the agreed quality and business feature bar. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft Although you should have been testing and packaging your code all the way through your Sprint 1 development, preferably using an automated process, you still need to test and package with stable unchanging code. This is where you do what at SSW we call a “Test Please”. This is first an internal test of the product to make sure it meets the needs of the customer and you generally use a resource external to your Team. Then a “Test Please” is conducted with the Product Owner to make sure he is happy with the output. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: If you find a deviation from the expected result you fix it on the Release branch. If during your final testing or your “Test Please” you find there are issues or bugs then you should fix them on the release branch. If you can’t fix them within the time box of your Sprint, then you will need to create a Bug and put it onto the backlog for prioritization by the Product owner. Make sure you leave plenty of time between your merge from the development branch to find and fix any problems that are uncovered. This process is commonly called Stabilization and should always be conducted once you have completed all of your User Stories and integrated all of your branches. Even once you have stabilized and released, you should not delete the release branch as you would with the Sprint branch. It has a usefulness for servicing that may extend well beyond the limited life you expect of it. Note: Don't get forced by the business into adding features into a Release branch instead that indicates the unspoken requirement is that they are asking for a product spin-off. In this case you can create a new Team Project and branch from the required Release branch to create a new Main branch for that product. And you create a whole new backlog to work from.   Figure: When the Team decides it is happy with the product you can create a RTM branch. Once you have fixed all the bugs you can, and added any you can’t to the Product Backlog, and you Team is happy with the result you can create a Release. This would consist of doing the final Build and Packaging it up ready for your Sprint Review meeting. You would then create a read-only branch that represents the code you “shipped”. This is really an Audit trail branch that is optional, but is good practice. You could use a Label, but Labels are not Auditable and if a dispute was raised by the customer you can produce a verifiable version of the source code for an independent party to check. Rare I know, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of a legal battle. Like the Release branch the RTM branch should never be deleted, or only deleted according to your companies legal policy, which in the UK is usually 7 years.   Figure: If you have made any changes in the Release you will need to merge back up to Main in order to finalise the changes. Nothing is really ever done until it is in Main. The same rules apply when merging any fixes in the Release branch back into Main and you should do a reverse merge before a forward merge, again for the muscle memory more than necessity at this stage. Your Sprint is now nearly complete, and you can have a Sprint Review meeting knowing that you have made every effort and taken every precaution to protect your customer’s investment. Note: In order to really achieve protection for both you and your client you would add Automated Builds, Automated Tests, Automated Acceptance tests, Acceptance test tracking, Unit Tests, Load tests, Web test and all the other good engineering practices that help produce reliable software.     Figure: After the Sprint Planning meeting the process begins again. Where the Sprint Review and Retrospective meetings mark the end of the Sprint, the Sprint Planning meeting marks the beginning. After you have completed your Sprint Planning and you know what you are trying to achieve in Sprint 2 you can create your new Branch to develop in. How do we handle a bug(s) in production that can’t wait? Although in Scrum the only work done should be on the backlog there should be a little buffer added to the Sprint Planning for contingencies. One of these contingencies is a bug in the current release that can’t wait for the Sprint to finish. But how do you handle that? Willy-Peter Schaub asked an excellent question on the release activities: In reality Sprint 2 starts when sprint 1 ends + weekend. Should we not cater for a possible parallelism between Sprint 2 and the release activities of sprint 1? It would introduce FI’s from main to sprint 2, I guess. Your “Figure: Merging print 2 back into Main.” covers, what I tend to believe to be reality in most cases. - Willy-Peter Schaub, VS ALM Ranger, Microsoft I agree, and if you have a single Scrum team then your resources are limited. The Scrum Team is responsible for packaging and release, so at least one run at stabilization, package and release should be included in the Sprint time box. If more are needed on the current production release during the Sprint 2 time box then resource needs to be pulled from Sprint 2. The Product Owner and the Team have four choices (in order of disruption/cost): Backlog: Add the bug to the backlog and fix it in the next Sprint Buffer Time: Use any buffer time included in the current Sprint to fix the bug quickly Make time: Remove a Story from the current Sprint that is of equal value to the time lost fixing the bug(s) and releasing. Note: The Team must agree that it can still meet the Sprint Goal. Cancel Sprint: Cancel the sprint and concentrate all resource on fixing the bug(s) Note: This can be a very costly if the current sprint has already had a lot of work completed as it will be lost. The choice will depend on the complexity and severity of the bug(s) and both the Product Owner and the Team need to agree. In this case we will go with option #2 or #3 as they are uncomplicated but severe bugs. Figure: Real world issue where a bug needs fixed in the current release. If the bug(s) is urgent enough then then your only option is to fix it in place. You can edit the release branch to find and fix the bug, hopefully creating a test so it can’t happen again. Follow the prior process and conduct an internal and customer “Test Please” before releasing. You can read about how to conduct a Test Please on our Rules to Successful Projects: Do you conduct an internal "test please" prior to releasing a version to a client?   Figure: After you have fixed the bug you need to ship again. You then need to again create an RTM branch to hold the version of the code you released in escrow.   Figure: Main is now out of sync with your Release. We now need to get these new changes back up into the Main branch. Do a reverse and then forward merge again to get the new code into Main. But what about the branch, are developers not working on Sprint 2? Does Sprint 2 now have changes that are not in Main and Main now have changes that are not in Sprint 2? Well, yes… and this is part of the hit you take doing branching. But would this scenario even have been possible without branching?   Figure: Getting the changes in Main into Sprint 2 is very important. The Team now needs to do a Forward Integration merge into their Sprint and resolve any conflicts that occur. Maybe the bug has already been fixed in Sprint 2, maybe the bug no longer exists! This needs to be identified and resolved by the developers before they continue to get further out of Sync with Main. Note: Avoid the “Big bang merge” at all costs.   Figure: Merging Sprint 2 back into Main, the Forward Integration, and R0 terminates. Sprint 2 now merges (Reverse Integration) back into Main following the procedures we have already established.   Figure: The logical conclusion. This then allows the creation of the next release. By now you should be getting the big picture and hopefully you learned something useful from this post. I know I have enjoyed writing it as I find these exploratory posts coupled with real world experience really help harden my understanding.  Branching is a tool; it is not a silver bullet. Don’t over use it, and avoid “Anti-Patterns” where possible. Although the diagram above looks complicated I hope showing you how it is formed simplifies it as much as possible.   Technorati Tags: Branching,Scrum,VS ALM,TFS 2010,VS2010

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  • Using BPEL Performance Statistics to Diagnose Performance Bottlenecks

    - by fip
    Tuning performance of Oracle SOA 11G applications could be challenging. Because SOA is a platform for you to build composite applications that connect many applications and "services", when the overall performance is slow, the bottlenecks could be anywhere in the system: the applications/services that SOA connects to, the infrastructure database, or the SOA server itself.How to quickly identify the bottleneck becomes crucial in tuning the overall performance. Fortunately, the BPEL engine in Oracle SOA 11G (and 10G, for that matter) collects BPEL Engine Performance Statistics, which show the latencies of low level BPEL engine activities. The BPEL engine performance statistics can make it a bit easier for you to identify the performance bottleneck. Although the BPEL engine performance statistics are always available, the access to and interpretation of them are somewhat obscure in the early and current (PS5) 11G versions. This blog attempts to offer instructions that help you to enable, retrieve and interpret the performance statistics, before the future versions provides a more pleasant user experience. Overview of BPEL Engine Performance Statistics  SOA BPEL has a feature of collecting some performance statistics and store them in memory. One MBean attribute, StatLastN, configures the size of the memory buffer to store the statistics. This memory buffer is a "moving window", in a way that old statistics will be flushed out by the new if the amount of data exceeds the buffer size. Since the buffer size is limited by StatLastN, impacts of statistics collection on performance is minimal. By default StatLastN=-1, which means no collection of performance data. Once the statistics are collected in the memory buffer, they can be retrieved via another MBean oracle.as.soainfra.bpel:Location=[Server Name],name=BPELEngine,type=BPELEngine.> My friend in Oracle SOA development wrote this simple 'bpelstat' web app that looks up and retrieves the performance data from the MBean and displays it in a human readable form. It does not have beautiful UI but it is fairly useful. Although in Oracle SOA 11.1.1.5 onwards the same statistics can be viewed via a more elegant UI under "request break down" at EM -> SOA Infrastructure -> Service Engines -> BPEL -> Statistics, some unsophisticated minds like mine may still prefer the simplicity of the 'bpelstat' JSP. One thing that simple JSP does do well is that you can save the page and send it to someone to further analyze Follows are the instructions of how to install and invoke the BPEL statistic JSP. My friend in SOA Development will soon blog about interpreting the statistics. Stay tuned. Step1: Enable BPEL Engine Statistics for Each SOA Servers via Enterprise Manager First st you need to set the StatLastN to some number as a way to enable the collection of BPEL Engine Performance Statistics EM Console -> soa-infra(Server Name) -> SOA Infrastructure -> SOA Administration -> BPEL Properties Click on "More BPEL Configuration Properties" Click on attribute "StatLastN", set its value to some integer number. Typically you want to set it 1000 or more. Step 2: Download and Deploy bpelstat.war File to Admin Server, Note: the WAR file contains a JSP that does NOT have any security restriction. You do NOT want to keep in your production server for a long time as it is a security hazard. Deactivate the war once you are done. Download the bpelstat.war to your local PC At WebLogic Console, Go to Deployments -> Install Click on the "upload your file(s)" Click the "Browse" button to upload the deployment to Admin Server Accept the uploaded file as the path, click next Check the default option "Install this deployment as an application" Check "AdminServer" as the target server Finish the rest of the deployment with default settings Console -> Deployments Check the box next to "bpelstat" application Click on the "Start" button. It will change the state of the app from "prepared" to "active" Step 3: Invoke the BPEL Statistic Tool The BPELStat tool merely call the MBean of BPEL server and collects and display the in-memory performance statics. You usually want to do that after some peak loads. Go to http://<admin-server-host>:<admin-server-port>/bpelstat Enter the correct admin hostname, port, username and password Enter the SOA Server Name from which you want to collect the performance statistics. For example, SOA_MS1, etc. Click Submit Keep doing the same for all SOA servers. Step 3: Interpret the BPEL Engine Statistics You will see a few categories of BPEL Statistics from the JSP Page. First it starts with the overall latency of BPEL processes, grouped by synchronous and asynchronous processes. Then it provides the further break down of the measurements through the life time of a BPEL request, which is called the "request break down". 1. Overall latency of BPEL processes The top of the page shows that the elapse time of executing the synchronous process TestSyncBPELProcess from the composite TestComposite averages at about 1543.21ms, while the elapse time of executing the asynchronous process TestAsyncBPELProcess from the composite TestComposite2 averages at about 1765.43ms. The maximum and minimum latency were also shown. Synchronous process statistics <statistics>     <stats key="default/TestComposite!2.0.2-ScopedJMSOSB*soa_bfba2527-a9ba-41a7-95c5-87e49c32f4ff/TestSyncBPELProcess" min="1234" max="4567" average="1543.21" count="1000">     </stats> </statistics> Asynchronous process statistics <statistics>     <stats key="default/TestComposite2!2.0.2-ScopedJMSOSB*soa_bfba2527-a9ba-41a7-95c5-87e49c32f4ff/TestAsyncBPELProcess" min="2234" max="3234" average="1765.43" count="1000">     </stats> </statistics> 2. Request break down Under the overall latency categorized by synchronous and asynchronous processes is the "Request breakdown". Organized by statistic keys, the Request breakdown gives finer grain performance statistics through the life time of the BPEL requests.It uses indention to show the hierarchy of the statistics. Request breakdown <statistics>     <stats key="eng-composite-request" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="0">         <stats key="eng-single-request" min="22" max="606" average="258.43" count="277">             <stats key="populate-context" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="248"> Please note that in SOA 11.1.1.6, the statistics under Request breakdown is aggregated together cross all the BPEL processes based on statistic keys. It does not differentiate between BPEL processes. If two BPEL processes happen to have the statistic that share same statistic key, the statistics from two BPEL processes will be aggregated together. Keep this in mind when we go through more details below. 2.1 BPEL process activity latencies A very useful measurement in the Request Breakdown is the performance statistics of the BPEL activities you put in your BPEL processes: Assign, Invoke, Receive, etc. The names of the measurement in the JSP page directly come from the names to assign to each BPEL activity. These measurements are under the statistic key "actual-perform" Example 1:  Follows is the measurement for BPEL activity "AssignInvokeCreditProvider_Input", which looks like the Assign activity in a BPEL process that assign an input variable before passing it to the invocation:                                <stats key="AssignInvokeCreditProvider_Input" min="1" max="8" average="1.9" count="153">                                     <stats key="sensor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="1" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="sensor-send-variable-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="monitor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                 </stats> Note: because as previously mentioned that the statistics cross all BPEL processes are aggregated together based on statistic keys, if two BPEL processes happen to name their Invoke activity the same name, they will show up at one measurement (i.e. statistic key). Example 2: Follows is the measurement of BPEL activity called "InvokeCreditProvider". You can not only see that by average it takes 3.31ms to finish this call (pretty fast) but also you can see from the further break down that most of this 3.31 ms was spent on the "invoke-service".                                  <stats key="InvokeCreditProvider" min="1" max="13" average="3.31" count="153">                                     <stats key="initiate-correlation-set-again" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="invoke-service" min="1" max="13" average="3.08" count="153">                                         <stats key="prep-call" min="0" max="1" average="0.04" count="153">                                         </stats>                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="initiate-correlation-set" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="sensor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="sensor-send-variable-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="153">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="monitor-send-activity-data" min="0" max="0" average="0.0" count="306">                                     </stats>                                     <stats key="update-audit-trail" min="0" max="2" average="0.03" count="153">                                     </stats>                                 </stats> 2.2 BPEL engine activity latency Another type of measurements under Request breakdown are the latencies of underlying system level engine activities. These activities are not directly tied to a particular BPEL process or process activity, but they are critical factors in the overall engine performance. These activities include the latency of saving asynchronous requests to database, and latency of process dehydration. My friend Malkit Bhasin is working on providing more information on interpreting the statistics on engine activities on his blog (https://blogs.oracle.com/malkit/). I will update this blog once the information becomes available. Update on 2012-10-02: My friend Malkit Bhasin has published the detail interpretation of the BPEL service engine statistics at his blog http://malkit.blogspot.com/2012/09/oracle-bpel-engine-soa-suite.html.

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  • SQL SERVER – What is MDS? – Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

    - by pinaldave
    What is MDS? Master Data Services helps enterprises standardize the data people rely on to make critical business decisions. With Master Data Services, IT organizations can centrally manage critical data assets company wide and across diverse systems, enable more people to securely manage master data directly, and ensure the integrity of information over time. (Source: Microsoft) Today I will be talking about the same subject at Microsoft TechEd India. If you want to learn about how to standardize your data and apply the business rules to validate data you must attend my session. MDS is very interesting concept, I will cover super short but very interesting 10 quick slides about this subject. I will make sure in very first 20 mins, you will understand following topics Introduction to Master Data Management What is Master Data and Challenges MDM Challenges and Advantage Microsoft Master Data Services Benefits and Key Features Uses of MDS Capabilities Key Features of MDS This slides decks will be followed by around 30 mins demo which will have story of entity, hierarchies, versions, security, consolidation and collection. I will be tell this story keeping business rules in center. We take one business rule which will be simple validation rule and will make it much more complex and yet very useful to product. I will also demonstrate few real life scenario where I will be talking about MDS and its usage. Do not miss this session. At the end of session there will be book awarded to best participant. My session details: Session: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Date: April 12, 2010  Time: 2:30pm-3:30pm SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision making by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from single master view of your business entities. Also with MDS – Master Data-hub which is the vital component helps ensure reporting consistency across systems and deliver faster more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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  • Make Your 64 bit Computer Look like a Commodore 64

    - by Matthew Guay
    The Commodore 64 was one of the bestselling home computers ever, and many geeks got their first computing experience on one of these early personal computers. Here’s an easy way to revisit the early years of personal computing with a theme for Windows 7. With only 64Kb of ram and an 8 bit processor, the Commodore 64 is light-years behind today’s computers.  But with a Windows 7 themepack, you can turn back the years and give your computer a quick overhaul to look more like its ancient predecessor. Age Windows 7 with a click Download the Commodore 64 theme from PC World (link below), and unzip the files. Now, double-click on the Themepack file to apply the theme. This will open your Personalization panel and will automatically change your system fonts, window style, background, and more. Your desktop will go from your Windows 7 look… to a modified Windows 7 look that is reminiscent of the Commodore 64. Open an application to see all the changes … notice the old-style font in the Window boarder and menus. This theme also changes your Computer, Recycle Bin, and User folder icons to Commodore 64-inspired icons. And, if you want to go back to the standard Windows 7 look and feel, it’s only a click away in the Personalization dialog.  Right-click on your desktop, select Personalize, and then choose the theme you want.   Conclusion Although this doesn’t give you the real look and feel of the Commodore 64, it is still a fun way to experience a bit of computer nostalgia.  There are tons of excellent themes available for Windows 7, so check back for more exciting ways to customize your desktop! Link Download the Commodore 64 theme for Windows 7 Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Make MSE Create a Restore Point Before Cleaning MalwareMake Ubuntu Automatically Save Changes to Your SessionMake Windows Vista Shut Down Services QuickerChange Your Computer Name in Windows 7 or VistaMake Windows 7 or Vista Log On Automatically 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 Dark Side of the Moon (8-bit) Norwegian Life If Web Browsers Were Modes of Transportation Google Translate (for animals) Out of 100 Tweeters Roadkill’s Scan Port scans for open ports

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  • 8 Things You Can Do In Android’s Developer Options

    - by Chris Hoffman
    The Developer Options menu in Android is a hidden menu with a variety of advanced options. These options are intended for developers, but many of them will be interesting to geeks. You’ll have to perform a secret handshake to enable the Developer Options menu in the Settings screen, as it’s hidden from Android users by default. Follow the simple steps to quickly enable Developer Options. Enable USB Debugging “USB debugging” sounds like an option only an Android developer would need, but it’s probably the most widely used hidden option in Android. USB debugging allows applications on your computer to interface with your Android phone over the USB connection. This is required for a variety of advanced tricks, including rooting an Android phone, unlocking it, installing a custom ROM, or even using a desktop program that captures screenshots of your Android device’s screen. You can also use ADB commands to push and pull files between your device and your computer or create and restore complete local backups of your Android device without rooting. USB debugging can be a security concern, as it gives computers you plug your device into access to your phone. You could plug your device into a malicious USB charging port, which would try to compromise you. That’s why Android forces you to agree to a prompt every time you plug your device into a new computer with USB debugging enabled. Set a Desktop Backup Password If you use the above ADB trick to create local backups of your Android device over USB, you can protect them with a password with the Set a desktop backup password option here. This password encrypts your backups to secure them, so you won’t be able to access them if you forget the password. Disable or Speed Up Animations When you move between apps and screens in Android, you’re spending some of that time looking at animations and waiting for them to go away. You can disable these animations entirely by changing the Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale options here. If you like animations but just wish they were faster, you can speed them up. On a fast phone or tablet, this can make switching between apps nearly instant. If you thought your Android phone was speedy before, just try disabling animations and you’ll be surprised how much faster it can seem. Force-Enable FXAA For OpenGL Games If you have a high-end phone or tablet with great graphics performance and you play 3D games on it, there’s a way to make those games look even better. Just go to the Developer Options screen and enable the Force 4x MSAA option. This will force Android to use 4x multisample anti-aliasing in OpenGL ES 2.0 games and other apps. This requires more graphics power and will probably drain your battery a bit faster, but it will improve image quality in some games. This is a bit like force-enabling antialiasing using the NVIDIA Control Panel on a Windows gaming PC. See How Bad Task Killers Are We’ve written before about how task killers are worse than useless on Android. If you use a task killer, you’re just slowing down your system by throwing out cached data and forcing Android to load apps from system storage whenever you open them again. Don’t believe us? Enable the Don’t keep activities option on the Developer options screen and Android will force-close every app you use as soon as you exit it. Enable this app and use your phone normally for a few minutes — you’ll see just how harmful throwing out all that cached data is and how much it will slow down your phone. Don’t actually use this option unless you want to see how bad it is! It will make your phone perform much more slowly — there’s a reason Google has hidden these options away from average users who might accidentally change them. Fake Your GPS Location The Allow mock locations option allows you to set fake GPS locations, tricking Android into thinking you’re at a location where you actually aren’t. Use this option along with an app like Fake GPS location and you can trick your Android device and the apps running on it into thinking you’re at locations where you actually aren’t. How would this be useful? Well, you could fake a GPS check-in at a location without actually going there or confuse your friends in a location-tracking app by seemingly teleporting around the world. Stay Awake While Charging You can use Android’s Daydream Mode to display certain apps while charging your device. If you want to force Android to display a standard Android app that hasn’t been designed for Daydream Mode, you can enable the Stay awake option here. Android will keep your device’s screen on while charging and won’t turn it off. It’s like Daydream Mode, but can support any app and allows users to interact with them. Show Always-On-Top CPU Usage You can view CPU usage data by toggling the Show CPU usage option to On. This information will appear on top of whatever app you’re using. If you’re a Linux user, the three numbers on top probably look familiar — they represent the system load average. From left to right, the numbers represent your system load over the last one, five, and fifteen minutes. This isn’t the kind of thing you’d want enabled most of the time, but it can save you from having to install third-party floating CPU apps if you want to see CPU usage information for some reason. Most of the other options here will only be useful to developers debugging their Android apps. You shouldn’t start changing options you don’t understand. If you want to undo any of these changes, you can quickly erase all your custom options by sliding the switch at the top of the screen to Off.     

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  • Imperative Programming v/s Declarative Programming v/s Functional Programming

    - by kaleidoscope
    Imperative Programming :: Imperative programming is a programming paradigm that describes computation in terms of statements that change a program state. In much the same way as the imperative mood in natural languages expresses commands to take action, imperative programs define sequences of commands for the computer to perform. The focus is on what steps the computer should take rather than what the computer will do (ex. C, C++, Java). Declarative Programming :: Declarative programming is a programming paradigm that expresses the logic of a computation without describing its control flow. It attempts to minimize or eliminate side effects by describing what the program should accomplish, rather than describing how to go about accomplishing it. The focus is on what the computer should do rather than how it should do it (ex. SQL). A  C# example of declarative v/s. imperative programming is LINQ. With imperative programming, you tell the compiler what you want to happen, step by step. For example, let's start with this collection, and choose the odd numbers: List<int> collection = new List<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 }; With imperative programming, we'd step through this, and decide what we want: List<int> results = new List<int>(); foreach(var num in collection) {     if (num % 2 != 0)           results.Add(num); } Here’s what we are doing: *Create a result collection *Step through each number in the collection *Check the number, if it's odd, add it to the results With declarative programming, on the other hand, we write the code that describes what you want, but not necessarily how to get it var results = collection.Where( num => num % 2 != 0); Here, we're saying "Give us everything where it's odd", not "Step through the collection. Check this item, if it's odd, add it to a result collection." Functional Programming :: Functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It emphasizes the application of functions.Functional programming has its roots in the lambda calculus. It is a subset of declarative languages that has heavy focus on recursion. Functional programming can be a mind-bender, which is one reason why Lisp, Scheme, and Haskell have never really surpassed C, C++, Java and COBOL in commercial popularity. But there are benefits to the functional way. For one, if you can get the logic correct, functional programming requires orders of magnitude less code than imperative programming. That means fewer points of failure, less code to test, and a more productive (and, many would say, happier) programming life. As systems get bigger, this has become more and more important. To know more : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/602444/what-is-functional-declarative-and-imperative-programming http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb669144.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperative_programming   Technorati Tags: Ranjit,Imperative Programming,Declarative programming,Functional Programming

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  • Add a Scrollable Multi-Row Bookmarks Toolbar to Firefox

    - by Asian Angel
    If you keep a lot of bookmarks available in your Bookmarks Toolbar then you know that accessing some of them is not as easy as you would like. Now you can simplify the access process with the Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar for Firefox. Before As you can see it has not taken long to fill up our “Bookmarks Toolbar” and use of the drop-down list is required. If you do not keep too many bookmarks in the “Bookmarks Toolbar” then that may not be a bad thing but what if you have a very large number of bookmarks there? Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar in Action As soon as you have installed the extension and restarted Firefox you will see the default three rows display. If you are not worried about UI space then you are good to go. Those of you who like keeping the UI space to a minimum will want to have a look at this next part… You are not locked into a “three rows setup” with this extension. If you are ok with two rows then you can select for that in the “Options” and and enjoy a mini scrollbar on the right side. For our example we still had easy access to all three rows. Two rows still too much? Not a problem. Set the number of rows for one only in the “Options” and still enjoy that scrolling goodness. If you do select for one row only do not panic when you do not see a scrollbar…it is still there. Hold your mouse over where the scrollbar is shown in the image above and use your middle mouse button to scroll through the multiple rows. You can see the transition between the second and third rows on our browser here… Nice, huh? Options The “Options” are extremely easy to work with…just enable/disable the extension here and set the number of rows that you want visible. Conclusion While the Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar extension may not seem like much at first glance it does provide some nice flexibility for your “Bookmarks Toolbar”. You can save space and access your bookmarks easily without those drop-down lists. If you are looking for another great way to make the best use of the space available in your “Bookmarks Toolbar” then be sure to read our article on the Smart Bookmarks Bar extension for Firefox here. Links Download the Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar extension (Mozilla Add-ons) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reduce Your Bookmarks Toolbar to a Toolbar ButtonConserve Space in Firefox by Combining ToolbarsAdd the Bookmarks Menu to Your Bookmarks Toolbar with Bookmarks UI ConsolidatorAdd a Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar to FirefoxCondense the Bookmarks in the Firefox Bookmarks Toolbar 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 Dark Side of the Moon (8-bit) Norwegian Life If Web Browsers Were Modes of Transportation Google Translate (for animals) Out of 100 Tweeters Roadkill’s Scan Port scans for open ports

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  • June Oracle Technology Network NEW Member Benefits - books books and more books!!!

    - by Cassandra Clark
    As we mentioned a few posts ago we are working to bring Oracle Technology Network members NEW benefits each month. Listed below are several discounts on technology books brought to you by Apress, Pearson, CRC Press and Packt Publishing. Happy reading!!! Apress Offers - Get 50% off the eBook below using promo code ORACLEJUNEJCCF. Pro ODP.NET for Oracle Database 11g By Edmund T. Zehoo This book is a comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide for using the Oracle Data Provider (ODP) version 11g on the .NET Framework. It also outlines the core GoF (Gang of Four) design patterns and coding techniques employed to build and deploy high-impact mission-critical applications using advanced Oracle database features through the ODP.NET provider. Pearson Offers - Get 35% off all titles listed below using code OTNMEMBER. SOA Design Patterns | Thomas Earl | ISBN: 0136135161 In cooperation with experts and practitioners throughout the SOA community, best-selling author Thomas Erl brings together the de facto catalog of design patterns for SOA and service-orientation. Oracle Performance Survival Guide | Guy Harrison | ISBN: 9780137011957 The fast, complete, start-to-finish guide to optimizing Oracle performance. Core JavaServer Faces, Third Edition | David Geary and Cay S. Horstmann | ISBN: 9780137012893 Provides everything you need to master the powerful and time-saving features of JSF 2.0? Solaris Security Essentials | ISBN: 9780137012336 A superb guide to deploying and managing secure computer environments.? Effective C#, Second Edition | Bill Wagner | ISBN: 9780321658708 Respected .NET expert Bill Wagner identifies fifty ways you can leverage the full power of the C# 4.0 language to express your designs concisely and clearly. CRC Press Offers - Use 813DA to get 20% off this the title below. Secure and Resilient Software Development This book illustrates all phases of the secure software development life cycle. It details quality software development strategies that stress resilience requirements with precise, actionable, and ground-level inputs. Packt Publishing Offers - Use the promo code "Java35June", to save 35% off of each eBook mentioned below. JSF 2.0 Cookbook By Anghel Leonard ISBN: 978-1-847199-52-2 Packed with fast, practical solutions and techniques for JavaServer Faces developers who want to push past the JSF basics. JavaFX 1.2 Application Development Cookbook By Vladimir Vivien ISBN: 978-1-847198-94-5 Fast, practical solutions and techniques for building powerful, responsive Rich Internet Applications in JavaFX.

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  • Replacing “if”s with your own number system

    - by Michael Williamson
    During our second code retreat at Red Gate, the restriction for one of the sessions was disallowing the use of if statements. That includes other constructs that have the same effect, such as switch statements or loops that will only be executed zero or one times. The idea is to encourage use of polymorphism instead, and see just how far it can be used to get rid of “if”s. The main place where people struggled to get rid of numbers from their implementation of Conway’s Game of Life was the piece of code that decides whether a cell is live or dead in the next generation. For instance, for a cell that’s currently live, the code might look something like this: if (numberOfNeighbours == 2 || numberOfNeighbours == 3) { return CellState.LIVE; } else { return CellState.DEAD; } The problem is that we need to change behaviour depending on the number of neighbours each cell has, but polymorphism only allows us to switch behaviour based on the type of a value. It follows that the solution is to make different numbers have different types: public interface IConwayNumber { IConwayNumber Increment(); CellState LiveCellNextGeneration(); } public class Zero : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return new One(); } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.DEAD; } } public class One : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return new Two(); } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.LIVE; } } public class Two : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return new ThreeOrMore(); } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.LIVE; } } public class ThreeOrMore : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return this; } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.DEAD; } } In the code that counts the number of neighbours, we use our new number system by starting with Zero and incrementing when we find a neighbour. To choose the next state of the cell, rather than inspecting the number of neighbours, we ask the number of neighbours for the next state directly: return numberOfNeighbours.LiveCellNextGeneration(); And now we have no “if”s! If C# had double-dispatch, or if we used the visitor pattern, we could move the logic for choosing the next cell out of the number classes, which might feel a bit more natural. I suspect that reimplementing the natural numbers is still going to feel about the same amount of crazy though.

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  • Multiple Monitors

    - by mroberts
    At my workplace .Net developers get pretty much the same equipment. A decent Dell workstation / Desktop, mine is a Dell Precision 390. One dual core 2.40 GHz. Eight GB RAM. Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit. Two Dell 20.1 Monitors. I'm happy with this.  The machine is about 3 years old but still runs with some decent speed. New developers are getting a Dell workstation with dual quad processors. I just put in a request for myself and three other developers for an upgraded video card and two additional monitors, for a total of four monitors per person.  We suggested this card, BTW, mainly for the cost.  The move from one monitor to two was fantastic (one might even say life (or work) changing) and truly did increase productivity. Now what about going from 2 monitors to 4?  I'm sure the change is not as dramatic as one to two, but I can't help but to think four monitors is better than two.  But if four is better than two, should we have asked for six?!? Also what about mixing monitor types?  Right now my monitors are the older square type vs. wide-screen.  It's been rumored that we will be getting monitors out of current stock and they will be 22 inch wide-screens.  I understand this, recession and all.  2-20 inch square monitors with 2-22 inch wide-screen monitors...hmmmmm.  I'm thinking I'd rather get 2 additional 17 inch square monitors to put on each side of my 20's. Also, a question was raised about the layout of four monitors. By default, my thought was I'll just put them all on my desk, kinda in a line. I've heard others say they want to stack them in a 2 x 2 square. BTW, loving multi monitor support in Visual studio 2010! I’d love some comments on your experience with one, two, four, or however many monitors from a developers perspective.

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  • Slides and Code from my Silverlight MVVM Talk at DevConnections

    - by dwahlin
    I had a great time at the DevConnections conference in Las Vegas this year where Visual Studio 2010 and Silverlight 4 were launched. While at the conference I had the opportunity to give a full-day Silverlight workshop as well as 4 different talks and met a lot of people developing applications in Silverlight. I also had a chance to appear on a live broadcast of Channel 9 with John Papa, Ward Bell and Shawn Wildermuth, record a video with Rick Strahl covering jQuery versus Silverlight and record a few podcasts on Silverlight and ASP.NET MVC 2.  It was a really busy 4 days but I had a lot of fun chatting with people and hearing about different business problems they were solving with ASP.NET and/or Silverlight. Thanks to everyone who attended my sessions and took the time to ask questions and stop by to talk one-on-one. One of the talks I gave covered the Model-View-ViewModel pattern and how it can be used to build architecturally sound applications. Topics covered in the talk included: Understanding the MVVM pattern Benefits of the MVVM pattern Creating a ViewModel class Implementing INotifyPropertyChanged in a ViewModelBase class Binding a ViewModel declaratively in XAML Binding a ViewModel with code ICommand and ButtonBase commanding support in Silverlight 4 Using InvokeCommandBehavior to handle additional commanding needs Working with ViewModels and Sample Data in Blend Messaging support with EventBus classes, EventAggregator and Messenger My personal take on code in a code-beside file (I’m all in favor of it when used appropriately for message boxes, child windows, animations, etc.) One of the samples I showed in the talk was intended to teach all of the concepts mentioned above while keeping things as simple as possible.  The sample demonstrates quite a few things you can do with Silverlight and the MVVM pattern so check it out and feel free to leave feedback about things you like, things you’d do differently or anything else. MVVM is simply a pattern, not a way of life so there are many different ways to implement it. If you’re new to the subject of MVVM check out the following resources. I wish this talk would’ve been recorded (especially since my live and canned demos all worked :-)) but these resources will help get you going quickly. Getting Started with the MVVM Pattern in Silverlight Applications Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) Explained Laurent Bugnion’s Excellent Talk at MIX10     Download sample code and slides from my DevConnections talk     For more information about onsite, online and video training, mentoring and consulting solutions for .NET, SharePoint or Silverlight please visit http://www.thewahlingroup.com.

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  • Print SSRS Report / PDF automatically from SQL Server agent or Windows Service

    - by Jeremy Ramos
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/JeremyRamos/archive/2013/10/22/print-ssrs-report--pdf-from-sql-server-agent-or.aspxI have turned the Web upside-down to find a solution to this considering the least components and least maintenance as possible to achieve automated printing of an SSRS report. This is for the reason that we do not have a full software development team to maintain an app and we have to minimize the support overhead for the support team.Here is my setup:SQL Server 2008 R2 in Windows Server 2008 R2PDF format reports generated by SSRS Reports subscriptions to a Windows File ShareNetwork printerColoured reports with logo and brandingI have found and tested the following solutions to no avail:ProsConsCalling Adobe Acrobat Reader exe: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 11.0\Reader\acroRd32.exe" /n /s /o /h /t "C:\temp\print.pdf" \\printserver\printername"Very simple optionAdobe Acrobat reader requires to launch the GUI to send a job to a printer. Hence, this option cannot be used when printing from a service.Calling Adobe Acrobat Reader exe as a process from a .NET console appA bit harder than above, but still a simple solutionSame as cons abovePowershell script(Start-Process -FilePath "C:\temp\print.pdf" -Verb Print)Very simple optionUses default PDF client in quiet mode to Print, but also requires an active session.    Foxit ReaderVery simple optionRequires GUI same as Adobe Acrobat Reader Using the Reporting Services Web service to run and stream the report to an image object and then passed to the printerQuite complexThis is what we're trying to avoid  After pulling my hair out for two days, testing and evaluating the above solutions, I ended up learning more about printers (more than ever in my entire life) and how printer drivers work with PostScripts. I then bumped on to a PostScript interpreter called GhostScript (http://www.ghostscript.com/) and then the solution starts to get clearer and clearer.I managed to achieve a solution (maybe not be the simplest but efficient enough to achieve the least-maintenance-least-components goal) in 3-simple steps:Install GhostScript (http://www.ghostscript.com/download/) - this is an open-source PostScript and PDF interpreter. Printing directly using GhostScript only produces grayscale prints using the laserjet generic driver unless you save as BMP image and then interpret the colours using the imageInstall GSView (http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/)- this is a GhostScript add-on to make it easier to directly print to a Windows printer. GSPrint automates the above  PDF -> BMP -> Printer Driver.Run the GSPrint command from SQL Server agent or Windows Service:"C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview\gsprint.exe" -color -landscape -all -printer "printername" "C:\temp\print.pdf"Command line options are here: http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/gsprint.htmAnother lesson learned is, since you are calling the script from the Service Account, it will not necessarily have the Printer mapped in its Windows profile (if it even has one). The workaround to this is by adding a local printer as you normally would and then map this printer to the network printer. Note that you may need to install the Printer Driver locally in the server.So, that's it! There are many ways to achieve a solution. The key thing is how you provide the smartest solution!

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  • Friday Fun: Play Tetris in Google Chrome

    - by Asian Angel
    Do you prefer playing classic games rather than the newer ones? Then get ready for some classic goodness with the JC-Tetris extension for Google Chrome. JC-Tetris in Action When you click on your new “JC-Tetris Toolbar Button” a new mini-Chrome window will open with the game displayed inside. This could be very convenient for those who would like or need to pause the game, minimize the window, and finish the game later. All that is needed to play are the four “Arrow Keys & the Space Bar”. Note: The text was small when the window first opened during our test so we used the “Ctrl +” keyboard shortcut twice to enlarge it. You may or may not experience similar text size results. Like any Tetris game things start out “quietly enough” but this one speeds up quickly, so be prepared! Notice that you do get a warning of what is waiting to drop onto the game board on the left side. Whenever you complete a game you will see this small window asking if you would like to enter a name for the score…you can easily ignore/bypass the window by clicking “Cancel”. Another game and a much better result. Do not be surprised if you feel that little burst of “rushed panic” at the end! Conclusion JC-Tetris is an enjoyable way to relax when you need a break. The ability to pause the game and minimize it for later makes it even better. Have fun! Links Download the JC-Tetris extension (Google Chrome Extensions) Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Friday Fun: Get Your Mario OnFriday Fun: First Person TetrisFriday Fun: Play MineSweeper in Google ChromeFriday Fun: Play 3D Rally Racing in Google ChromeHow to Make Google Chrome Your Default Browser 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 Dark Side of the Moon (8-bit) Norwegian Life If Web Browsers Were Modes of Transportation Google Translate (for animals) Out of 100 Tweeters Roadkill’s Scan Port scans for open ports

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  • SQL SERVER – Introduction to Adaptive ETL Tool – How adaptive is your ETL?

    - by pinaldave
    I am often reminded by the fact that BI/data warehousing infrastructure is very brittle and not very adaptive to change. There are lots of basic use cases where data needs to be frequently loaded into SQL Server or another database. What I have found is that as long as the sources and targets stay the same, SSIS or any other ETL tool for that matter does a pretty good job handling these types of scenarios. But what happens when you are faced with more challenging scenarios, where the data formats and possibly the data types of the source data are changing from customer to customer?  Let’s examine a real life situation where a health management company receives claims data from their customers in various source formats. Even though this company supplied all their customers with the same claims forms, they ended up building one-off ETL applications to process the claims for each customer. Why, you ask? Well, it turned out that the claims data from various regional hospitals they needed to process had slightly different data formats, e.g. “integer” versus “string” data field definitions.  Moreover the data itself was represented with slight nuances, e.g. “0001124” or “1124” or “0000001124” to represent a particular account number, which forced them, as I eluded above, to build new ETL processes for each customer in order to overcome the inconsistencies in the various claims forms.  As a result, they experienced a lot of redundancy in these ETL processes and recognized quickly that their system would become more difficult to maintain over time. So imagine for a moment that you could use an ETL tool that helps you abstract the data formats so that your ETL transformation process becomes more reusable. Imagine that one claims form represents a data item as a string – acc_no(varchar) – while a second claims form represents the same data item as an integer – account_no(integer). This would break your traditional ETL process as the data mappings are hard-wired.  But in a world of abstracted definitions, all you need to do is create parallel data mappings to a common data representation used within your ETL application; that is, map both external data fields to a common attribute whose name and type remain unchanged within the application. acc_no(varchar) is mapped to account_number(integer) expressor Studio first claim form schema mapping account_no(integer) is also mapped to account_number(integer) expressor Studio second claim form schema mapping All the data processing logic that follows manipulates the data as an integer value named account_number. Well, these are the kind of problems that that the expressor data integration solution automates for you.  I’ve been following them since last year and encourage you to check them out by downloading their free expressor Studio ETL software. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Business Intelligence, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: ETL, SSIS

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