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• SQL SERVER – Mirroring Configured Without Domain – The server network address TCP://SQLServerName:50

  - by pinaldave

  Regular readers of my blog will be aware of my friend who called me few days ago with very a funny SQL Problem SQL SERVER – SSMS Query Command(s) completed successfully without ANY Results. This time, it did not take long before he called me up with another interesting problem, although the issue he was facing this time was not that interesting and also very specific to him, however, he insisted me to share with all of you. Let us understand his situation at first. My friend is preparing for DBA exam Exam 70-450: PRO: Designing, Optimizing and Maintaining a Database Server Infrastructure using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and for the same, he was trying to set up replication on his local laptop. He had installed two different instances of SQL Server on his computer and every time when he started the mirroring, it failed with common error message. The server network address “TCP://SQLServer:5023? cannot be reached or does not exist. Check the network address name and that the ports for the local and remote endpoints are operational. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 1418) Well, before he contacted me, he searched online and checked my article written on the error in mirroring. However, he tried all the four suggestions, but it did not solve his problem. He called me at a reasonable time of late evening (unlike last time, which was midnight!). I even tried all the seven different suggestions myself, as previously proposed in my article; however, none of them worked. While looking at closely at services, I noticed something very simple. He was running all the instances on ‘Network Services’. In fact, his computer was a stand-alone computer. There was no network at all. Also, there was no domain or any other advance network concepts implemented. I just changed services from ‘Network Services’ to ‘Local System’ as his SQL Server was running on his local system and there were no network services. This prompted to restart the services. As this was not the production server and his development machine, we restarted the services on the laptop (do not restart services on production server without proper planning). After changing the ‘services log on’ account to localsystem, when he attempted to reconfigure the mirroring it worked right away. As usually in production server, proper domains are configured and advance network concepts are implemented I had never faced this type of problem earlier. My friend insisted to post this solution to his situation, wherein there was no domain configured and setting up mirroring was throwing an error. According to him, this is bound to help people, like him, who are preparing for certification using single system. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Error Messages, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology Tagged: SQL Certifications, SQL Mirroring

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• Bargain Hunter Round Up – Kicking Off The E-Commerce Holiday Season

  - by Jeri Kelley

  Everyone has a different way to tackle holiday shopping – Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, some have it done months in advance, and others wait until the very last minute.   For me, I’m not big into massive crowds so online shopping to the rescue.   Others thrive on the energy of being in the stores on the busiest shopping day of the year.  With last weekend marking the official kick-off to the holiday season, I thought I’d provide a round up of what’s trending:   Online numbers are looking up: According to comScore, for the holiday season-to-date, $16.4 billion has been spent online, marking a 16-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Thanksgiving Day – Why wait until Black Friday or Cyber Monday: Online shopping on Thanksgiving Day also increased, totaling $633 million in receipts, a 32 percent increase over Thanksgiving 2011 Black Friday – More than just in-store: Bargain hunters spent $1.042 billion online the day after Thanksgiving, a 26 percent increase of last year's Black Friday, according to new figures released today by market analyst ComScore Cyber Monday Week: Cyber Monday reached $1.465 billion in online spending, up 17 percent versus year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day in history and the second day this season (in addition to Black Friday) to surpass $1 billion in sales                 Cyber Monday is now being dubbed Cyber Week:  “The annual event is increasingly becoming Cyber Week instead of a one-day event as retailers open their arms for Americans who prefer to avoid crowds and compare prices online.” But, Cyber Monday continues its importance, driving a nearly 22% increase in year-over-year (YoY) online sales. Monday sales beat Sunday, the next highest day by a margin of 26.7%. Mobile shopping continues to rise: ChannelAdvisor that said mobile shopping made up 32% of all online spending over the Black Friday weekend Mobile devices were a key part of the online shopping craziness that was November 26th.  Sales from smartphones and tablets doubled this year. I n tablets the growth was 110% and in smartphones - 100% Mobile bar code scans on Black Friday increased 50 percent, according to a report from ScanLife For more on how you can be ready for the holiday season, check out my blog post on commerce strategies for the holidays.

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• Running an intern program

  - by dotneteer

  This year I am running an unpaid internship program for high school students. I work for a small company. We have ideas for a few side projects but never have time to do them. So we experiment by making them intern projects. In return, we give these interns guidance to learn, personal attentions, and opportunities with real-world projects. A few years ago, I blogged about the idea of teaching kids to write application with no more than 6 hours of training. This time, I was able to reduce the instruction time to 4 hours and immediately put them into real work projects. When they encounter problems, I combine directions, pointer to various materials on w3school, Udacity, Codecademy and UTube, as well as encouraging them to  search for solutions with search engines. Now entering the third week, I am more than encouraged and feeling accomplished. Our the most senior intern, Christopher Chen, is a recent high school graduate and is heading to UC Berkeley to study computer science after the summer. He previously only had one year of Java experience through the AP computer science course but had no web development experience. Only 12 days into his internship, he has already gain advanced css skills with deeper understanding than more than half of the “senior” developers that I have ever worked with. I put him on a project to migrate an existing website to the Orchard content management system (CMS) with which I am new as well. We were able to teach each other and quickly gain advanced Orchard skills such as creating custom theme and modules. I felt very much a relationship similar to the those between professors and graduate students. On the other hand, I quite expect that I will lose him the next summer to companies like Google, Facebook or Microsoft. As a side note, Christopher and I will do a two part Orchard presentations together at the next SoCal code camp at UC San Diego July 27-28. The first part, “creating an Orchard website on Azure in 60 minutes”, is an introductory lecture and we will discuss how to create a website using Orchard without writing code. The 2nd part, “customizing Orchard websites without limit”, is an advanced lecture and we will discuss custom theme and module development with WebMatrix and Visual Studio.

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• SQL Server – Learning SQL Server Performance: Indexing Basics – Video

  - by pinaldave

  Today I remember one of my older cartoon years ago created for Indexing and Performance. Every single time when Performance is discussed, Indexes are mentioned along with it. In recent times, data and application complexity is continuously growing.  The demand for faster query response, performance, and scalability by organizations is increasing and developers and DBAs need to now write efficient code to achieve this. DBA and Developers A DBA’s role is critical, because a production environment has to run 24×7, hence maintenance, trouble shooting, and quick resolutions are the need of the hour.  The first baby step into any performance tuning exercise in SQL Server involves creating, analysing, and maintaining indexes. Though we have learnt indexing concepts from our college days, indexing implementation inside SQL Server can vary.  Understanding this behaviour and designing our applications appropriately will make sure the application is performed to its highest potential. Video Learning Vinod Kumar and myself we often thought about this and realized that practical understanding of the indexes is very important. One can not master every single aspects of the index. However there are some minimum expertise one should gain if performance is one of the concern. We decided to build a course which just addresses the practical aspects of the performance. In this course, we explored some of these indexing fundamentals and we elaborated on how SQL Server goes about using indexes.  At the end of this course of you will know the basic structure of indexes, practical insights into implementation, and maintenance tips and tricks revolving around indexes.  Finally, we will introduce SQL Server 2012 column store indexes.  We have refrained from discussing internal storage structure of the indexes but have taken a more practical, demo-oriented approach to explain these core concepts. Course Outline Here are salient topics of the course. We have explained every single concept along with a practical demonstration. Additionally shared our personal scripts along with the same. Introduction Fundamentals of Indexing Index Fundamentals Index Fundamentals – Visual Representation Practical Indexing Implementation Techniques Primary Key Over Indexing Duplicate Index Clustered Index Unique Index Included Columns Filtered Index Disabled Index Index Maintenance and Defragmentation Introduction to Columnstore Index Indexing Practical Performance Tips and Tricks Index and Page Types Index and Non Deterministic Columns Index and SET Values Importance of Clustered Index Effect of Compression and Fillfactor Index and Functions Dynamic Management Views (DMV) – Fillfactor Table Scan, Index Scan and Index Seek Index and Order of Columns Final Checklist: Index and Performance Well, we believe we have done our part, now waiting for your comments and feedback. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Index, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology, Video

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• HTC to launch Windows 7 phone in India

  - by samsudeen

  It is a good news for the Indian smart phone users as the wait is finally over for Windows 7 mobile.The Taiwanese  mobile giant HTC is all set to release its Windows 7 based Smartphone series in India from January. HTC HD7 & HTC Mozart , the two smart phones running on Windows 7 OS started appearing on the HTC Indian website (HTC India) from last week.Though Flip kart (Indian online e-commerce website)  has started getting pre -orders for HTC HD7 a month ago , the buzz has started from last week after the introduction of “HTC Mozart”. The complete feature comparison between both the smart phones is given below. Feature Comparison HTC Mozart HTC HD 7 Microsoft Windows 7 Microsoft Windows 7 Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor QSD 8250 1 GHz CPU Qualcomm Snapdragon Processor QSD 8250 1 GHz CPU 8MegaPixel camera with Xenon Flash 5 MP, 2592?1944 pixels, autofocus, dual-LED flash, 480 x 800 pixels, 3.7 inches 480 x 800 pixels, 4.3 inches 11.9mm thick and Weighs 130g 11.2 mm thick and Weighs 162 g Bluetooth 2.1 Bluetooth 2.1 8 GB of internal storage memory 8 GB of internal storage memory 512MB of ROM and 576 of RAM 512MB of ROM and 576 of RAM 3G HSDPA 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps 3G HSDPA 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA 2 Mbps Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Micro-USB interconnector Micro-USB interconnector 3.5mm audio jack 3.5mm audio jack GPS antenna GPS antenna Standard battery Li-Po 1300 MA Standard battery, Li-Ion 1230 MA Standby 360 h (2G) up to 435 h (3G) Up to 310 h (2G) / Up to 320 h (3G) Talk time Up to 6 h 40 min (2G) and 5 h 30 min (3G) Up to 6 h 20 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 20 min (3G) Estimated Price “HTC HD 7″ is priced between  INR 27855 to 32000. though the price of “HDT Mozart” is officially not announced it is estimated to be around INR 30000. Where to Buy The Windows 7 phone is not yet available in stores directly, but most of the leading mobile stores are getting pre -orders. I have given some of the online store links below. Flip kart UniverCell This article titled,HTC to launch Windows 7 phone in India, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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• Grounded in Dublin

  - by Mike Dietrich

  Friday's hands-on workshop in the Oracle office in Dublin was quite good fun for everybody - except for Mick who has just recognized that his Ryanair flight back to Cork has been canceled (So I hope you've returned home well!) and me as my flights back to Munich via London City had been canceled as well. It's always good to have somebody in the workshop from Air Lingus so I've got hourly information what's going in in the Irish airspace (and now I know that the system dealing with such situations is an well prepared Oracle database which runs just like a switch watch - Thanks again for all your support!!! Was great to talk to you!!!). But to be honest, there are worse places to be grounded for a few days than Dublin. At least it gave me the chance to do something which I never had time enough before when visiting Oracle Ireland: a bit of sightseeing. When I've realized that nothing seems to move over the weekend I started organizing my travel back yesterday. It was no fun at all because there's no single system to book such a travel. Figuring out all possibilities and options going back to Munich was the first challange. Irish Ferries webpage was moaning with all the unexpected load (currently it's fully down). Hotel booking websites showed vacancies in Holyhead but didn't let me book. And calling them just reveiled that there are no rooms left. Haven't stayed overnight in a train station for quite a while ;-) The website of VirginTrains puzzled me with offering a seat at an enormous price for a train ride from Holyhead to London Euston (Thanks, Sir Richard Branson!) just to tell me after I booked a ticket that there are no seats left (but I traveled German railsways a few weeks ago from Düsseldorf to Frankfurt sitting on the floor as well). Eurostar's website let me choose tickets through the tunnel to tell me in the final step that the ticket cannot be confirmed as there are no seats left - but the next check again showed bookable seats - must be a database from some other vendor which has no proper row level locking ... hm ...?! Finally the TGV page for the speed train to Stuttgart and then the ICE to Munich was not allowing searches for quite a while - but ultimately ... after 4.5 hours of searching, waiting, sending credit card information again and again ... So if you have a few spare fingers please keep them crossed :-) And good luck to all my colleagues traveling back from the Exadata training in Berlin. As Mike Appleyard, my colleague from the UK presales team wrote: "Dublin and Berlin aren't too bad a place to get stuck... ;-)"

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• SQL SERVER – Copy Data from One Table to Another Table – SQL in Sixty Seconds #031 – Video

  - by pinaldave

  Copy data from one table to another table is one of the most requested questions on forums, Facebook and Twitter. The question has come in many formats and there are places I have seen developers are using cursor instead of this direct method. Earlier I have written the similar article a few years ago - SQL SERVER – Insert Data From One Table to Another Table – INSERT INTO SELECT – SELECT INTO TABLE. The article has been very popular and I have received many interesting and constructive comments. However there were two specific comments keep on ending up on my mailbox. 1) SQL Server AdventureWorks Samples Database does not have table I used in the example 2) If there is a video tutorial of the same example. After carefully thinking I decided to build a new set of the scripts for the example which are very similar to the old one as well video tutorial of the same. There was no better place than our SQL in Sixty Second Series to cover this interesting small concept. Let me know what you think of this video. Here is the updated script. -- Method 1 : INSERT INTO SELECT USE AdventureWorks2012 GO ----Create TestTable CREATE TABLE TestTable (FirstName VARCHAR(100), LastName VARCHAR(100)) ----INSERT INTO TestTable using SELECT INSERT INTO TestTable (FirstName, LastName) SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Person.Person WHERE EmailPromotion = 2 ----Verify that Data in TestTable SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM TestTable ----Clean Up Database DROP TABLE TestTable GO --------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- -- Method 2 : SELECT INTO USE AdventureWorks2012 GO ----Create new table and insert into table using SELECT INSERT SELECT FirstName, LastName INTO TestTable FROM Person.Person WHERE EmailPromotion = 2 ----Verify that Data in TestTable SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM TestTable ----Clean Up Database DROP TABLE TestTable GO Related Tips in SQL in Sixty Seconds: SQL SERVER – Insert Data From One Table to Another Table – INSERT INTO SELECT – SELECT INTO TABLE Powershell – Importing CSV File Into Database – Video SQL SERVER – 2005 – Export Data From SQL Server 2005 to Microsoft Excel Datasheet SQL SERVER – Import CSV File into Database Table Using SSIS SQL SERVER – Import CSV File Into SQL Server Using Bulk Insert – Load Comma Delimited File Into SQL Server SQL SERVER – 2005 – Generate Script with Data from Database – Database Publishing Wizard What would you like to see in the next SQL in Sixty Seconds video? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)   Filed under: Database, Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL in Sixty Seconds, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology, Video Tagged: Excel

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• Older SAS1 hardware Vs. newer SAS2 hardware

  - by user12620172

  I got a question today from someone asking about the older SAS1 hardware from over a year ago that we had on the older 7x10 series. They didn't leave an email so I couldn't respond directly, but I said this blog would be blunt, frank, and open so I have no problem addressing it publicly. A quick history lesson here: When Sun first put out the 7x10 family hardware, the 7410 and 7310 used a SAS1 backend connection to a JBOD that had SATA drives in it. This JBOD was not manufactured by Sun nor did Sun own the IP for it. Now, when Oracle took over, they had a problem with that, and I really can’t blame them. The decision was made to cut off that JBOD and it’s manufacturer completely and use our own where Oracle controlled both the IP and the manufacturing. So in the summer of 2010, the cut was made, and the 7410 and 7310 had a hardware refresh and now had a SAS2 backend going to a SAS2 JBOD with SAS2 drives instead of SATA. This new hardware had two big advantages. First, there was a nice performance increase, mostly due to the faster backend. Even better, the SAS2 interface on the drives allowed for a MUCH faster failover between cluster heads, as the SATA drives were the bottleneck on the older hardware. In September of 2010 there was a major refresh of the rest of the 7000 hardware, the controllers and the other family members, and that’s where we got today’s current line-up of the 7x20 series. So the 7x20 has always used the new trays, and the 7410 and 7310 have used the new SAS2 trays since last July of 2010. Now for the bad news. People who have the 7410 and 7310 from BEFORE the July 2010 cutoff have the models with SAS1 HBAs in them to connect to the older SAS1 trays. Remember, that manufacturer cut all ties with us and stopped making the JBOD, so there’s just no way to get more of them, as they don’t exist. There are some options, however. Oracle support does support taking out the SAS1 HBAs in the old 7410 and 7310 and put in newer SAS2 HBAs which can talk to the new trays. Hey, I didn’t say it was a great option, I just said it’s an option. I fully realize that you would then have a SAS1 JBOD full of SATA drives that you could no longer connect. I do know a client that did this, and took the SAS1 JBOD and connected it to another server and formatted the drives and is using it as a plain, non-7000 JBOD. This is not supported by Oracle support. The other option is to just keep it as-is, as it works just fine, but you just can’t expand it. Then you can get a newer 7x20 series, and use the built-in ZFSSA replication feature to move the data over. Now you can use the newer one for your production data and use the older one for DR, snaps and clones.

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• NHibernate 2 Beginner's Guide Review

  - by Ricardo Peres

  OK, here's the review I promised a while ago. This is a beginner's introduction to NHibernate, so if you have already some experience with NHibernate, you will notice it lacks a lot of concepts and information. It starts with a good description of NHibernate and why would we use it. It goes on describing basic mapping scenarios having primary keys generated with the HiLo or Identity algorithms, without actually explaining why would we choose one over the other. As for mapping, the book talks about XML mappings and provides a simple example of Fluent NHibernate, comparing it to its XML counterpart. When it comes to relations, it covers one-to-many/many-to-one and many-to-many, not one-to-one relations, but only talks briefly about lazy loading, which is, IMO, an important concept. Only Bags are described, not any of the other collection types. The log4net configuration description gets it's own chapter, which I find excessive. The chapter on configuration merely lists the most common properties for configuring NHibernate, both in XML and in code. Querying only talks about loading by ID (using Get, not Load) and using Criteria API, on which a paging example is presented as well as some common filtering options (property equals/like/between to, no examples on conjunction/disjunction, however). There's a chapter fully dedicated to ASP.NET, which explains how we can use NHibernate in web applications. It basically talks about ASP.NET concepts, though. Following it, another chapter explains how we can build our own ASP.NET providers using NHibernate (Membership, Role). The available entity generators for NHibernate are referred and evaluated on a chapter of their own, the list is fine (CodeSmith, nhib-gen, AjGenesis, Visual NHibernate, MyGeneration, NGen, NHModeler, Microsoft T4 (?) and hbm2net), examples are provided whenever possible, however, I have some problems with some of the evaluations: for example, Visual NHibernate scores 5 out of 5 on Visual Studio integration, which simply does not exist! I suspect the author means to say that it can be launched from inside Visual Studio, but then, what can't? Finally, there's a chapter I really don't understand. It seems like a bag where a lot of things are thrown in, like NHibernate Burrow (which actually isn't explained at all), Blog.Net components, CSS template conversion and web.config settings related to the maximum request length for file uploads and ending with XML configuration, with the help of GhostDoc. Like I said, the book is only good for absolute beginners, it does a fair job in explaining the very basics, but lack a lot of not-so-basic concepts. Among other things, it lacks: Inheritance mapping strategies (table per class hierarchy, table per class, table per concrete class) Load versus Get usage Other usefull ISession methods First level cache (Identity Map pattern) Other collection types other that Bag (Set, List, Map, IdBag, etc Fetch options User Types Filters Named queries LINQ examples HQL examples And that's it! I hope you find this review useful. The link to the book site is https://www.packtpub.com/nhibernate-2-x-beginners-guide/book

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• The broken Promise of the Mobile Web

  - by Rick Strahl

  High end mobile devices have been with us now for almost 7 years and they have utterly transformed the way we access information. Mobile phones and smartphones that have access to the Internet and host smart applications are in the hands of a large percentage of the population of the world. In many places even very remote, cell phones and even smart phones are a common sight. I’ll never forget when I was in India in 2011 I was up in the Southern Indian mountains riding an elephant out of a tiny local village, with an elephant herder in front riding atop of the elephant in front of us. He was dressed in traditional garb with the loin wrap and head cloth/turban as did quite a few of the locals in this small out of the way and not so touristy village. So we’re slowly trundling along in the forest and he’s lazily using his stick to guide the elephant and… 10 minutes in he pulls out his cell phone from his sash and starts texting. In the middle of texting a huge pig jumps out from the side of the trail and he takes a picture running across our path in the jungle! So yeah, mobile technology is very pervasive and it’s reached into even very buried and unexpected parts of this world. Apps are still King Apps currently rule the roost when it comes to mobile devices and the applications that run on them. If there’s something that you need on your mobile device your first step usually is to look for an app, not use your browser. But native app development remains a pain in the butt, with the requirement to have to support 2 or 3 completely separate platforms. There are solutions that try to bridge that gap. Xamarin is on a tear at the moment, providing their cross-device toolkit to build applications using C#. While Xamarin tools are impressive – and also *very* expensive – they only address part of the development madness that is app development. There are still specific device integration isssues, dealing with the different developer programs, security and certificate setups and all that other noise that surrounds app development. There’s also PhoneGap/Cordova which provides a hybrid solution that involves creating local HTML/CSS/JavaScript based applications, and then packaging them to run in a specialized App container that can run on most mobile device platforms using a WebView interface. This allows for using of HTML technology, but it also still requires all the set up, configuration of APIs, security keys and certification and submission and deployment process just like native applications – you actually lose many of the benefits that  Web based apps bring. The big selling point of Cordova is that you get to use HTML have the ability to build your UI once for all platforms and run across all of them – but the rest of the app process remains in place. Apps can be a big pain to create and manage especially when we are talking about specialized or vertical business applications that aren’t geared at the mainstream market and that don’t fit the ‘store’ model. If you’re building a small intra department application you don’t want to deal with multiple device platforms and certification etc. for various public or corporate app stores. That model is simply not a good fit both from the development and deployment perspective. Even for commercial, big ticket apps, HTML as a UI platform offers many advantages over native, from write-once run-anywhere, to remote maintenance, single point of management and failure to having full control over the application as opposed to have the app store overloads censor you. In a lot of ways Web based HTML/CSS/JavaScript applications have so much potential for building better solutions based on existing Web technologies for the very same reasons a lot of content years ago moved off the desktop to the Web. To me the Web as a mobile platform makes perfect sense, but the reality of today’s Mobile Web unfortunately looks a little different… Where’s the Love for the Mobile Web? Yet here we are in the middle of 2014, nearly 7 years after the first iPhone was released and brought the promise of rich interactive information at your fingertips, and yet we still don’t really have a solid mobile Web platform. I know what you’re thinking: “But we have lots of HTML/JavaScript/CSS features that allows us to build nice mobile interfaces”. I agree to a point – it’s actually quite possible to build nice looking, rich and capable Web UI today. We have media queries to deal with varied display sizes, CSS transforms for smooth animations and transitions, tons of CSS improvements in CSS 3 that facilitate rich layout, a host of APIs geared towards mobile device features and lately even a number of JavaScript framework choices that facilitate development of multi-screen apps in a consistent manner. Personally I’ve been working a lot with AngularJs and heavily modified Bootstrap themes to build mobile first UIs and that’s been working very well to provide highly usable and attractive UI for typical mobile business applications. From the pure UI perspective things actually look very good. Not just about the UI But it’s not just about the UI - it’s also about integration with the mobile device. When it comes to putting all those pieces together into what amounts to a consolidated platform to build mobile Web applications, I think we still have a ways to go… there are a lot of missing pieces to make it all work together and integrate with the device more smoothly, and more importantly to make it work uniformly across the majority of devices. I think there are a number of reasons for this. Slow Standards Adoption HTML standards implementations and ratification has been dreadfully slow, and browser vendors all seem to pick and choose different pieces of the technology they implement. The end result is that we have a capable UI platform that’s missing some of the infrastructure pieces to make it whole on mobile devices. There’s lots of potential but what is lacking that final 10% to build truly compelling mobile applications that can compete favorably with native applications. Some of it is the fragmentation of browsers and the slow evolution of the mobile specific HTML APIs. A host of mobile standards exist but many of the standards are in the early review stage and they have been there stuck for long periods of time and seem to move at a glacial pace. Browser vendors seem even slower to implement them, and for good reason – non-ratified standards mean that implementations may change and vendor implementations tend to be experimental and  likely have to be changed later. Neither Vendors or developers are not keen on changing standards. This is the typical chicken and egg scenario, but without some forward momentum from some party we end up stuck in the mud. It seems that either the standards bodies or the vendors need to carry the torch forward and that doesn’t seem to be happening quickly enough. Mobile Device Integration just isn’t good enough Current standards are not far reaching enough to address a number of the use case scenarios necessary for many mobile applications. While not every application needs to have access to all mobile device features, almost every mobile application could benefit from some integration with other parts of the mobile device platform. Integration with GPS, phone, media, messaging, notifications, linking and contacts system are benefits that are unique to mobile applications and could be widely used, but are mostly (with the exception of GPS) inaccessible for Web based applications today. Unfortunately trying to do most of this today only with a mobile Web browser is a losing battle. Aside from PhoneGap/Cordova’s app centric model with its own custom API accessing mobile device features and the token exception of the GeoLocation API, most device integration features are not widely supported by the current crop of mobile browsers. For example there’s no usable messaging API that allows access to SMS or contacts from HTML. Even obvious components like the Media Capture API are only implemented partially by mobile devices. There are alternatives and workarounds for some of these interfaces by using browser specific code, but that’s might ugly and something that I thought we were trying to leave behind with newer browser standards. But it’s not quite working out that way. It’s utterly perplexing to me that mobile standards like Media Capture and Streams, Media Gallery Access, Responsive Images, Messaging API, Contacts Manager API have only minimal or no traction at all today. Keep in mind we’ve had mobile browsers for nearly 7 years now, and yet we still have to think about how to get access to an image from the image gallery or the camera on some devices? Heck Windows Phone IE Mobile just gained the ability to upload images recently in the Windows 8.1 Update – that’s feature that HTML has had for 20 years! These are simple concepts and common problems that should have been solved a long time ago. It’s extremely frustrating to see build 90% of a mobile Web app with relative ease and then hit a brick wall for the remaining 10%, which often can be show stoppers. The remaining 10% have to do with platform integration, browser differences and working around the limitations that browsers and ‘pinned’ applications impose on HTML applications. The maddening part is that these limitations seem arbitrary as they could easily work on all mobile platforms. For example, SMS has a URL Moniker interface that sort of works on Android, works badly with iOS (only works if the address is already in the contact list) and not at all on Windows Phone. There’s no reason this shouldn’t work universally using the same interface – after all all phones have supported SMS since before the year 2000! But, it doesn’t have to be this way Change can happen very quickly. Take the GeoLocation API for example. Geolocation has taken off at the very beginning of the mobile device era and today it works well, provides the necessary security (a big concern for many mobile APIs), and is supported by just about all major mobile and even desktop browsers today. It handles security concerns via prompts to avoid unwanted access which is a model that would work for most other device APIs in a similar fashion. One time approval and occasional re-approval if code changes or caches expire. Simple and only slightly intrusive. It all works well, even though GeoLocation actually has some physical limitations, such as representing the current location when no GPS device is present. Yet this is a solved problem, where other APIs that are conceptually much simpler to implement have failed to gain any traction at all. Technically none of these APIs should be a problem to implement, but it appears that the momentum is just not there. Inadequate Web Application Linking and Activation Another important piece of the puzzle missing is the integration of HTML based Web applications. Today HTML based applications are not first class citizens on mobile operating systems. When talking about HTML based content there’s a big difference between content and applications. Content is great for search engine discovery and plain browser usage. Content is usually accessed intermittently and permanent linking is not so critical for this type of content.  But applications have different needs. Applications need to be started up quickly and must be easily switchable to support a multi-tasking user workflow. Therefore, it’s pretty crucial that mobile Web apps are integrated into the underlying mobile OS and work with the standard task management features. Unfortunately this integration is not as smooth as it should be. It starts with actually trying to find mobile Web applications, to ‘installing’ them onto a phone in an easily accessible manner in a prominent position. The experience of discovering a Mobile Web ‘App’ and making it sticky is by no means as easy or satisfying. Today the way you’d go about this is: Open the browser Search for a Web Site in the browser with your search engine of choice Hope that you find the right site Hope that you actually find a site that works for your mobile device Click on the link and run the app in a fully chrome’d browser instance (read tiny surface area) Pin the app to the home screen (with all the limitations outline above) Hope you pointed at the right URL when you pinned Even for you and me as developers, there are a few steps in there that are painful and annoying, but think about the average user. First figuring out how to search for a specific site or URL? And then pinning the app and hopefully from the right location? You’ve probably lost more than half of your audience at that point. This experience sucks. For developers too this process is painful since app developers can’t control the shortcut creation directly. This problem often gets solved by crazy coding schemes, with annoying pop-ups that try to get people to create shortcuts via fancy animations that are both annoying and add overhead to each and every application that implements this sort of thing differently. And that’s not the end of it - getting the link onto the home screen with an application icon varies quite a bit between browsers. Apple’s non-standard meta tags are prominent and they work with iOS and Android (only more recent versions), but not on Windows Phone. Windows Phone instead requires you to create an actual screen or rather a partial screen be captured for a shortcut in the tile manager. Who had that brilliant idea I wonder? Surprisingly Chrome on recent Android versions seems to actually get it right – icons use pngs, pinning is easy and pinned applications properly behave like standalone apps and retain the browser’s active page state and content. Each of the platforms has a different way to specify icons (WP doesn’t allow you to use an icon image at all), and the most widely used interface in use today is a bunch of Apple specific meta tags that other browsers choose to support. The question is: Why is there no standard implementation for installing shortcuts across mobile platforms using an official format rather than a proprietary one? Then there’s iOS and the crazy way it treats home screen linked URLs using a crazy hybrid format that is neither as capable as a Web app running in Safari nor a WebView hosted application. Moving off the Web ‘app’ link when switching to another app actually causes the browser and preview it to ‘blank out’ the Web application in the Task View (see screenshot on the right). Then, when the ‘app’ is reactivated it ends up completely restarting the browser with the original link. This is crazy behavior that you can’t easily work around. In some situations you might be able to store the application state and restore it using LocalStorage, but for many scenarios that involve complex data sources (like say Google Maps) that’s not a possibility. The only reason for this screwed up behavior I can think of is that it is deliberate to make Web apps a pain in the butt to use and forcing users trough the App Store/PhoneGap/Cordova route. App linking and management is a very basic problem – something that we essentially have solved in every desktop browser – yet on mobile devices where it arguably matters a lot more to have easy access to web content we have to jump through hoops to have even a remotely decent linking/activation experience across browsers. Where’s the Money? It’s not surprising that device home screen integration and Mobile Web support in general is in such dismal shape – the mobile OS vendors benefit financially from App store sales and have little to gain from Web based applications that bypass the App store and the cash cow that it presents. On top of that, platform specific vendor lock-in of both end users and developers who have invested in hardware, apps and consumables is something that mobile platform vendors actually aspire to. Web based interfaces that are cross-platform are the anti-thesis of that and so again it’s no surprise that the mobile Web is on a struggling path. But – that may be changing. More and more we’re seeing operations shifting to services that are subscription based or otherwise collect money for usage, and that may drive more progress into the Web direction in the end . Nothing like the almighty dollar to drive innovation forward. Do we need a Mobile Web App Store? As much as I dislike moderated experiences in today’s massive App Stores, they do at least provide one single place to look for apps for your device. I think we could really use some sort of registry, that could provide something akin to an app store for mobile Web apps, to make it easier to actually find mobile applications. This could take the form of a specialized search engine, or maybe a more formal store/registry like structure. Something like apt-get/chocolatey for Web apps. It could be curated and provide at least some feedback and reviews that might help with the integrity of applications. Coupled to that could be a native application on each platform that would allow searching and browsing of the registry and then also handle installation in the form of providing the home screen linking, plus maybe an initial security configuration that determines what features are allowed access to for the app. I’m not holding my breath. In order for this sort of thing to take off and gain widespread appeal, a lot of coordination would be required. And in order to get enough traction it would have to come from a well known entity – a mobile Web app store from a no name source is unlikely to gain high enough usage numbers to make a difference. In a way this would eliminate some of the freedom of the Web, but of course this would also be an optional search path in addition to the standard open Web search mechanisms to find and access content today. Security Security is a big deal, and one of the perceived reasons why so many IT professionals appear to be willing to go back to the walled garden of deployed apps is that Apps are perceived as safe due to the official review and curation of the App stores. Curated stores are supposed to protect you from malware, illegal and misleading content. It doesn’t always work out that way and all the major vendors have had issues with security and the review process at some time or another. Security is critical, but I also think that Web applications in general pose less of a security threat than native applications, by nature of the sandboxed browser and JavaScript environments. Web applications run externally completely and in the HTML and JavaScript sandboxes, with only a very few controlled APIs allowing access to device specific features. And as discussed earlier – security for any device interaction can be granted the same for mobile applications through a Web browser, as they can for native applications either via explicit policies loaded from the Web, or via prompting as GeoLocation does today. Security is important, but it’s certainly solvable problem for Web applications even those that need to access device hardware. Security shouldn’t be a reason for Web apps to be an equal player in mobile applications. Apps are winning, but haven’t we been here before? So now we’re finding ourselves back in an era of installed app, rather than Web based and managed apps. Only it’s even worse today than with Desktop applications, in that the apps are going through a gatekeeper that charges a toll and censors what you can and can’t do in your apps. Frankly it’s a mystery to me why anybody would buy into this model and why it’s lasted this long when we’ve already been through this process. It’s crazy… It’s really a shame that this regression is happening. We have the technology to make mobile Web apps much more prominent, but yet we’re basically held back by what seems little more than bureaucracy, partisan bickering and self interest of the major parties involved. Back in the day of the desktop it was Internet Explorer’s 98+%  market shareholding back the Web from improvements for many years – now it’s the combined mobile OS market in control of the mobile browsers. If mobile Web apps were allowed to be treated the same as native apps with simple ways to install and run them consistently and persistently, that would go a long way to making mobile applications much more usable and seriously viable alternatives to native apps. But as it is mobile apps have a severe disadvantage in placement and operation. There are a few bright spots in all of this. Mozilla’s FireFoxOs is embracing the Web for it’s mobile OS by essentially building every app out of HTML and JavaScript based content. It supports both packaged and certified package modes (that can be put into the app store), and Open Web apps that are loaded and run completely off the Web and can also cache locally for offline operation using a manifest. Open Web apps are treated as full class citizens in FireFoxOS and run using the same mechanism as installed apps. Unfortunately FireFoxOs is getting a slow start with minimal device support and specifically targeting the low end market. We can hope that this approach will change and catch on with other vendors, but that’s also an uphill battle given the conflict of interest with platform lock in that it represents. Recent versions of Android also seem to be working reasonably well with mobile application integration onto the desktop and activation out of the box. Although it still uses the Apple meta tags to find icons and behavior settings, everything at least works as you would expect – icons to the desktop on pinning, WebView based full screen activation, and reliable application persistence as the browser/app is treated like a real application. Hopefully iOS will at some point provide this same level of rudimentary Web app support. What’s also interesting to me is that Microsoft hasn’t picked up on the obvious need for a solid Web App platform. Being a distant third in the mobile OS war, Microsoft certainly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by using fresh ideas and expanding into areas that the other major vendors are neglecting. But instead Microsoft is trying to beat the market leaders at their own game, fighting on their adversary’s terms instead of taking a new tack. Providing a kick ass mobile Web platform that takes the lead on some of the proposed mobile APIs would be something positive that Microsoft could do to improve its miserable position in the mobile device market. Where are we at with Mobile Web? It sure sounds like I’m really down on the Mobile Web, right? I’ve built a number of mobile apps in the last year and while overall result and response has been very positive to what we were able to accomplish in terms of UI, getting that final 10% that required device integration dialed was an absolute nightmare on every single one of them. Big compromises had to be made and some features were left out or had to be modified for some devices. In two cases we opted to go the Cordova route in order to get the integration we needed, along with the extra pain involved in that process. Unless you’re not integrating with device features and you don’t care deeply about a smooth integration with the mobile desktop, mobile Web development is fraught with frustration. So, yes I’m frustrated! But it’s not for lack of wanting the mobile Web to succeed. I am still a firm believer that we will eventually arrive a much more functional mobile Web platform that allows access to the most common device features in a sensible way. It wouldn't be difficult for device platform vendors to make Web based applications first class citizens on mobile devices. But unfortunately it looks like it will still be some time before this happens. So, what’s your experience building mobile Web apps? Are you finding similar issues? Just giving up on raw Web applications and building PhoneGap apps instead? Completely skipping the Web and going native? Leave a comment for discussion. Resources Rick Strahl on DotNet Rocks talking about Mobile Web© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in HTML5  Mobile   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Evolution Of High Definition TV Viewing

  - by Gopinath

  The following guest post is written by Rob, who is also blogging on entertainment technology topics on iwantsky.com Gone are the days when you need to squint to be able to see the emotions on the faces of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman as the lovers bid each other adieu in the classic film Casablanca. These days, watching an ordinary ant painstakingly carry a leaf in Animal Planet can be an exhilarating experience as you get to see not only the slightest movement but also the demarcation line between the insect’s head, thorax and abdomen. The crystal clear imagery was made possible by the sharp minds and the tinkering hands of the scientists that have designed the modern world’s HDTV. What is HDTV and what makes people so agog to have this new innovation in TV watching? HDTV stands for High Definition TV. Television viewing has indeed made a big leap. From the grainy black and whites, TV viewing had moved to colored TVs, progressed to SD TVs and now to HDTV. HDTV is the emerging trend in TV viewing as it delivers bigger and clearer pictures and better audio. Viewers can have a cinema-like TV viewing experience right in the comforts of their own home. With HDTV the viewer is allowed to have a better viewing range. With Standard (SD) TV, the viewer has to be at a distance that is from 3 to 6 times the size of the screen. HDTV allows the viewer to enjoy sharper and clearer images as it is possible to sit at a distance that is 1.5 or 3 times the size of the screen without noticing any image pixilation. Although HDTV appears to be a fairly new innovation, this system has actually existed in various forms years ago. Development of the HDTV was started in Europe as early as 1940s. However, the NTSC and the PAL/SECAM, the two analog TV standards became dominant and became popular worldwide. The analog TV was replaced by the digital TV platform in the 1990s. Even during the analog era, attempts have been made to develop HDTV. Japan has come out with MUSE system. However, due to channel bandwidth requirement concerns, the program was shelved. The entry of four organizations into the HDTV market spurred the development of a beneficial coalition. The AT&T, ATRC, MIT and Zenith HDTV combined forces. In 1993, a Grand Alliance was formed. This group is composed of researchers and HDTV manufacturers. A common standard for the broadcast system of HDTV was developed. In 1995, the system was tested and found successful. With the higher screen resolution of HDTV, viewing has never been more enjoyable. [Image courtesy: samsung] This article titled,Evolution Of High Definition TV Viewing, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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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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• Microsoft Templates included in jQuery 1.5!

  - by Stephen Walther

  When I joined the ASP.NET team as the Program Manager for Ajax, the ASP.NET team was working on releasing a new version of the Microsoft Ajax Library. This new version of the Microsoft Ajax Library had several really innovative and unique features such as support for client templates, client data-binding, script dependency management, and globalization. However, we kept hearing the message that our customers wanted to use jQuery when building ASP.NET applications. Therefore, about ten months ago, we decided to pursue a risky strategy. Scott Guthrie sent me to Cambridge to meet with John Resig – the creator of jQuery and leader of the jQuery project – to find out whether Microsoft and jQuery could work together. We wanted to find out whether the jQuery project would be open to allowing Microsoft to contribute the innovative features that we were developing for the Microsoft Ajax Library -- such as client templates and client data-binding -- to the jQuery library. Fortunately, the Cambridge meeting with Resig went well. John Resig was very open to accepting contributions to the jQuery library. Over the next few months, we worked out a process for Microsoft to contribute new features to the open-source jQuery project. Resig and Guthrie appeared on stage at the MIX10 conference to announce that Microsoft would be contributing features to jQuery. It has been a long journey, but I am happy to report success. Today, Microsoft and the jQuery project have announced that three plugins developed by developers on the ASP.NET team – the jQuery Templates, jQuery Data Link, and jQuery Globalization plugins – have been accepted as official jQuery plugins. In addition, the jQuery Templates plugin will be integrated into jQuery 1.5 which is the next major release of jQuery. You can learn more about the plugins by watching the following Web Camps TV episode hosted by James Senior with Stephen Walther: Web Camps TV #5 - Microsoft Commits Code to jQuery! You can read Scott Guthrie’s blog announcement here: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2010/10/04/jquery-templates-data-link-and-globalization-accepted-as-official-jquery-plugins.aspx You can read the jQuery team’s announcement here: http://blog.jquery.com/2010/10/04/new-official-jquery-plugins-provide-templating-data-linking-and-globalization/ I wrote the original proposal for the jQuery Templates plugin. Dave Reed and Boris Moore were the ASP.NET developers responsible for actually writing the plugin (with lots of input from the jQuery team and the jQuery community). Boris has written a great set of tutorials on the Templates plugin. The first tutorial in his series is located here: http://www.borismoore.com/2010/09/introducing-jquery-templates-1-first.html I want to thank John Resig, Richard Worth, Scott Gonzalez, Rey Bango, Jorn Zaefferer, Karl Swedberg and all of the other members of the jQuery team for working with the ASP.NET team and accepting our contributions to the jQuery project.

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• E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) seems to be choking on kde-runtime-data version issue

  - by BMT

  12.04 LTS, on a dell mini 10. Install stable until about a week ago. Updated about 1x a week, sometimes more often. Several days ago, I booted up and the system was no longer working correctly. All these symptoms occurred simultaneously: Cannot run (exit on opening, every time): Update manager, software center, ubuntuOne, libreOffice. Vinagre autostarts on boot, no explanation, not set to startup with Ubuntu. Using apt-get to fix install results in the following: maura@pandora:~$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required: libtelepathy-farstream2 Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: gwibber gwibber-service kde-runtime-data software-center Suggested packages: gwibber-service-flickr gwibber-service-digg gwibber-service-statusnet gwibber-service-foursquare gwibber-service-friendfeed gwibber-service-pingfm gwibber-service-qaiku unity-lens-gwibber The following packages will be upgraded: gwibber gwibber-service kde-runtime-data software-center 4 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 39 not upgraded. 20 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/5,682 kB of archives. After this operation, 177 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? debconf: Perl may be unconfigured (Can't locate Scalar/Util.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.14.2 /usr/local/share/perl/5.14.2 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.14 /usr/share/perl/5.14 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/Hash/Util.pm line 9. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl/5.14/Hash/Util.pm line 9. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl/5.14/fields.pm line 122. Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Log.pm line 10. Compilation failed in require at (eval 1) line 4. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 4. ) -- aborting (Reading database ... 242672 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace gwibber 3.4.1-0ubuntu1 (using .../gwibber_3.4.2-0ubuntu1_i386.deb) ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/gwibber_3.4.2-0ubuntu1_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Preparing to replace gwibber-service 3.4.1-0ubuntu1 (using .../gwibber-service_3.4.2-0ubuntu1_all.deb) ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/gwibber-service_3.4.2-0ubuntu1_all.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Preparing to replace kde-runtime-data 4:4.8.3-0ubuntu0.1 (using .../kde-runtime-data_4%3a4.8.4-0ubuntu0.1_all.deb) ... Unpacking replacement kde-runtime-data ... dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-runtime-data_4%3a4.8.4-0ubuntu0.1_all.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite '/usr/share/sounds', which is also in package sound-theme-freedesktop 0.7.pristine-2 dpkg-deb (subprocess): subprocess data was killed by signal (Broken pipe) dpkg-deb: error: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 2 Preparing to replace python-crypto 2.4.1-1 (using .../python-crypto_2.4.1-1_i386.deb) ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/python-crypto_2.4.1-1_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Preparing to replace software-center 5.2.2.2 (using .../software-center_5.2.4_all.deb) ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/software-center_5.2.4_all.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Preparing to replace xdiagnose 2.5 (using .../archives/xdiagnose_2.5_all.deb) ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: warning: subprocess old pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pyclean", line 25, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/xdiagnose_2.5_all.deb (--unpack): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 1 No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already Could not find platform dependent libraries <exec_prefix> Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to <prefix>[:<exec_prefix>] Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 64, in apport_excepthook from apport.fileutils import likely_packaged, get_recent_crashes File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/__init__.py", line 1, in <module> from apport.report import Report File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 16, in <module> from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/parsers/expat.py", line 4, in <module> from pyexpat import * ImportError: No module named pyexpat Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/bin/pycompile", line 27, in <module> import logging ImportError: No module named logging dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/gwibber_3.4.2-0ubuntu1_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/gwibber-service_3.4.2-0ubuntu1_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-runtime-data_4%3a4.8.4-0ubuntu0.1_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/python-crypto_2.4.1-1_i386.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/software-center_5.2.4_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/xdiagnose_2.5_all.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) maura@pandora:~$ ^C maura@pandora:~$

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• ActAs and OnBehalfOf support in WIF

  - by cibrax

  I discussed a time ago how WIF supported a new WS-Trust 1.4 element, “ActAs”, and how that element could be used for authentication delegation.  The thing is that there is another feature in WS-Trust 1.4 that also becomes handy for this kind of scenario, and I did not mention in that last post, “OnBehalfOf”. Shiung Yong wrote an excellent summary about the difference of these two new features in this forum thread. He basically commented the following, “An ActAs RST element indicates that the requestor wants a token that contains claims about two distinct entities: the requestor, and an external entity represented by the token in the ActAs element. An OnBehalfOf RST element indicates that the requestor wants a token that contains claims only about one entity: the external entity represented by the token in the OnBehalfOf element. In short, ActAs feature is typically used in scenarios that require composite delegation, where the final recipient of the issued token can inspect the entire delegation chain and see not just the client, but all intermediaries to perform access control, auditing and other related activities based on the whole identity delegation chain. The ActAs feature is commonly used in multi-tiered systems to authenticate and pass information about identities between the tiers without having to pass this information at the application/business logic layer. OnBehalfOf feature is used in scenarios where only the identity of the original client is important and is effectively the same as identity impersonation feature available in the Windows OS today. When the OnBehalfOf is used the final recipient of the issued token can only see claims about the original client, and the information about intermediaries is not preserved. One common pattern where OnBehalfOf feature is used is the proxy pattern where the client cannot access the STS directly but is instead communicating through a proxy gateway. The proxy gateway authenticates the caller and puts information about him into the OnBehalfOf element of the RST message that it then sends to the real STS for processing. The resulting token is going to contain only claims related to the client of the proxy, making the proxy completely transparent and not visible to the receiver of the issued token.” Going back to WIF, “ActAs” and “OnBehalfOf” are both supported as extensions methods in the WCF client channel. public static class ChannelFactoryOperations {   public static T CreateChannelActingAs<T>(this ChannelFactory<T> factory,     SecurityToken actAs);     public static T CreateChannelOnBehalfOf<T>(this ChannelFactory<T> factory,     SecurityToken onBehalfOf); } Both methods receive the security token with the identity of the original caller.

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• Catching people up

  - by Randy Walker

  It’s been a while since I’ve blogged.  I suppose sometimes when one’s personal life gets busy, there are some things that fall by the wayside.  So what all has happened since I last blogged? Business has been good with lots of lessons learned.  I had hoped I would have had an important announcement several months ago concerning the business I own, but that simply hasn’t materialized yet. Will keep everyone posted.  Ensuring your business has a good sales pipeline and stays ahead in the technology curve is extremely important. I eventually resigned my INETA Board of Directors position.  Never one to mince words, frankly I had several issues with how things are run at INETA.  Mostly centered around some ethical issues compounded by higher expectations and what I felt was a lack of support.  I had put my hat into the ring in order to help change things, but eventually I didn’t really see change a possibility, and so all things must come to an end. I have started writing up a new business plan for a new startup, details to be forthcoming.  It’s new name will be Linker CRM.  I have some aggressive game changing plans ahead for it.  Ping me if you’re interested in finding out more information and don’t mind signing a non-compete and confidentiality agreement. ;) My personal life, has been hectic.  A 4 year old will do that to you.  As well as being divorced and the headaches associated with that.  If you’ve been divorced, I feel your pain, if you haven’t been, I would never wish the emotional roller coaster ride on anyone.  Dating has been interesting.  It’s a lot different at age 35 than your early 20s and relationships are far more complicated. Ethan is an absolutely fantastic adorable charmer of a kid.  He’s definitely going to be a heartbreaker.  His personality is really shining through and he’s taken onto my appreciation of music (and yes I’ll admit dance too).  We watched America’s Best Dance Crew (ABDC) together for the first time, he really loved it and I think he’ll probably start his own break dancing crew eventually.  I’ve posted a few videos on Facebook for those interested.  I’m extremely proud of him, but please say a little prayer for us as we try and continue to curb some behavior issues, as well as his mother and I try to settle some differences. This year’s travel plans have already included Dallas, Seattle, and a trip to Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics (a huge thanks to the Washington State Police for the nice souvenir they gave me).  Future travel plans include a trip to Korea in the 2nd half of May, Nashville again in the summer, and hopefully New Orleans for the Microsoft TechEd 2010 Conference. Look for some new blog posts soon …

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• An increase to 3 Gig of RAM slows down Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

  - by williepabon

  I have Ubuntu 10.04 running from an external hard drive (installed on an enclosure) connected via USB port. Like a month or so ago, I increased RAM on my pc from 2 Gigs to 3 Gigs. This resulted on extremely long boot times and slow application loads. While I was understanding the nature of my problem, I posted various threads on this forum ( Questions # 188417, 188801), where I was advised to gather speed tests, and other info on my machine. I was also suggested that I might have problems with the RAM installed. Initially, I did not consider that possibility because: 1) I did a memory test with a diagnostic program from DELL (My pc is from Dell) 2) My pc works fine with Windows XP (the default OS), no problems with memory 3) My pc works fine when booting with Ubuntu 10.10 memory stick, no speed problems 4) My pc works fine when booting with Ubuntu 11.10 memory stick, no speed problems Anyway, I performed the memory tests suggested. But before doing it, and to check out any possibility of hardware issues on the hard drive, I did the following: (1) purchased a new hard drive enclosure and moved my hard drive to it, (2) purchased a new USB cable and used it to connect my hard drive/enclosure setup to a different USB port on my pc. Then, I performed speed tests with 1 Gig, 2 Gigs and 3 Gigs of RAM with my Ubuntu 10.04 OS. Ubuntu 10.04 worked well when booted with 1 Gig or 2 Gigs of RAM. When I increased to 3 Gigs, it slowed down to a crawl. I can't understand the relationship between an increase of 1 Gig and the effect it has in Ubuntu 10.04. This doesn't happen with Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.10. Unfortunately for me, Ubuntu 10.04 is my principal work operating system. So, I need a solution for this. Hardware and system information: DELL Precision 670 2 internal SATA Hard drives Audigy 2 ZS audio system Factory OS: Windows XP Professional SP3 NVidia 8400 GTS video card More info: williepabon@WP-WrkStation:~$ uname -a Linux WP-WrkStation 2.6.32-38-generic #83-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jan 4 11:13:04 UTC 2012 i686 GNU/Linux williepabon@WP-WrkStation:~$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS Release: 10.04 Codename: lucid Speed test with the 3 Gigs of RAM installed: williepabon@WP-WrkStation:~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdc [sudo] password for williepabon: /dev/sdc: Timing cached reads: 84 MB in 2.00 seconds = 41.96 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 4 MB in 3.81 seconds = 1.05 MB/sec This is a very slow transfer rate from a hard drive. I will really appreciate a solution or a work around for this problem. I know that that there are users that have Ubuntu 10.04 with 3 Gigs or more of RAM and they don't have this problem. Same question asked on Launchpad for reference.

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• What’s new in Silverlight 4 RC?

  - by pluginbaby

  I am here in Las Vegas for MIX10 where Scott Guthrie announced today the release of Silverlight 4 RC and the Visual Studio 2010 tools. You can now install VS2010 RC!!! As always, downloads links are here: www.silverlight.net He also said that the final version of Silverlight 4 will come next month (so april)! 4 months ago, I wrote a blog post on the new features of Silverlight 4 beta, so… what’s new in the RC ?   Rich Text · RichTextArea renamed to RichTextBox · Text position and selection APIs · “Xaml” property for serializing text content · XAML clipboard format · FlowDirection support on Runs tag · “Format then type” support when dragging controls to the designer · Thai/Vietnamese/Indic support · UI Automation Text pattern   Networking · UploadProgress support (Client stack) · Caching support (Client stack) · Sockets security restrictions removal (Elevated Trust) · Sockets policy file retrieval via HTTP · Accept-Language header   Out of Browser (Elevated Trust) · XAP signing · Silent install and emulation mode · Custom window chrome · Better support for COM Automation · Cancellable shutdown event · Updated security dialogs   Media · Pinned full-screen mode on secondary display · Webcam/Mic configuration preview · More descriptive MediaSourceStream errors · Content & Output protection updates · Updates to H.264 content protection (ClearNAL) · Digital Constraint Token · CGMS-A · Multicast · Graphics card driver validation & revocation   Graphics and Printing · HW accelerated Perspective Transforms · Ability to query page size and printable area · Memory usage and perf improvements   Data · Entity-level validation support of INotifyDataErrorInfo for DataGrid · XPath support for XML   Parser · New architecture enables future innovation · Performance and stability improvements · XmlnsPrefix & XmlnsDefinition attributes · Support setting order-dependent properties   Globalization & Localization · Support for 31 new languages · Arabic, Hebrew and Thai input on Mac · Indic support   More … · Update to DeepZoom code base with HW acceleration · Support for Private mode browsing · Google Chrome support (Windows) · FrameworkElement.Unloaded event · HTML Hosting accessibility · IsoStore perf improvements · Native hosting perf improvements (e.g., Bing Toolbar) · Consistency with Silverlight for Mobile APIs and Tooling · SDK   - System.Numerics.dll   - Dynamic XAP support (MEF)   - Frame/Navigation refresh support   That’s a lot!   You will find more details on the following links: http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2010/03/15/whats-new-in-silverlight-4-rc-mix10.aspx http://www.davidpoll.com/2010/03/15/new-in-the-silverlight-4-rc-xaml-features/   Technorati Tags: Silverlight

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• Cost justification for buying a 32GB superfast Alienware M18x with a price tag of around £5K ($10K)

  - by tonyrogerson

  When considering buying a laptop that’s going to cost me around £5,000 I really need to justify the purchase from a business perspective; my Lenovo W700 has served me very well for the last 2 years, it’s an extremely good machine and as solid as a rock (and as heavy), alas though it is limited to the 8GB. As SQL Server 2012 approaches and with my interest in working in the Business Intelligence space over the next year or two it is clear I need a powerful machine that I can run a full infrastructure though virtualised. My requirements For High Availability / Disaster Recovery research and demonstration Machine for a domain controller Four machines in a shared disk cluster (SQL Server Clustering active – active etc.) Five  machines in a file share cluster (SQL Server Availability Groups) For Business Intelligence research and demonstration Not entirely sure how many machine I want to run here, but it would be to cover the entire BI stack in an enterprise setting, sharepoint, sql server etc. For Big Data Research I have a fondness for the NoSQL approach to scalability and dealing with large volumes so I need a number of machines to research VoltDB, Hadoop etc. As you can see the requirements for a SQL Server consultant to service their clients well is considerable; will 8GB suffice, alas no, it will no longer do. I’m a very strong believer that in order to do your job well you must expense it, short cuts only cost you time, waiting 5 minutes instead of an hour for something to run not only saves me time but my clients time, I can do things quicker and more importantly I can demonstrate concepts. My W700 with the 8GB of RAM and SSD’s cost me around £3.5K two years ago, to be honest I’ve not got the full use I wanted out of it but the machine has had the power when I’ve needed it, it’s served me and my clients well. Alienware now do a model (the M18x) with 32GB of RAM; yes 32GB in a laptop! Dual drives so I can whack a couple of really good SSD’s in there, a quad core with hyper threading i7 and a decent speed. I can reduce the cost of the memory by getting it from Crucial, so instead of £1.5K for 32GB it will be around £900, I can also cost save on the SSD as well. The beauty about the M18x is that it is USB3.0, SATA 3 and also really importantly has eSATA, running VM’s will never be easier, I can have a removeable SSD with my VM’s on it and can plug it into my home machine or laptop – an ideal world! The initial outlay of £5K is peanuts compared to the benefits I’ll give my clients, I will be able to present real enterprise concepts, I’ll also be able to give training on those real enterprise concepts and with real, albeit virtualised machines.

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• SQLAuthority News – Social Media Series – LinkedIn and Professional Profile

  - by pinaldave

  Pinal Dave on LinkedIn! It seems like a few year ago, there was a big “boom” in social media websites.  All of a sudden there were so many sites to choose from.  MySpace or Orkut?  Blogging websites for your business or a LinkedIn account?  The nature of the internet is to always be changing, but I believe that out of this huge growth of websites, a few have come to stay.  Facebook is obviously the leader in social media networking, especially for your personal life.  Blogging is great, but it can be more of a way to get your ideas out there, rather than a place for people to connect to you professionally.  If you want to have a professional “face” on the internet, LinkedIn is the way to go. LinkedIn is best explained as “professional Facebook.”  This is simplifying things a little bit too much, but it is certainly a website where you link up with professional contacts, so that others can see where you have worked, who you have worked with, and what projects you have done.  This is a much better place for professional contacts to find you than someplace like Facebook, where all they will see is your face and maybe picture of you at a birthday party or something like that! Because so much of my SQL Server life is conducted on the internet, especially on my blog, I felt that it would be a good idea to have a well-maintained LinkedIn web page as well, so that if anyone is curious about me and my credentials they can quickly and easily find me and see that I am for real, and not someone pretending to know a lot about SQL Server. My linked in profile is www.linkedin.com/in/pinaldave.  I keep all my professional information here, and I update it as often as possible.  Feel free to come find me, especially if you would like to “link up” and share professional information.  The technology world is becoming more and more interconnected, and more and more international.  I feel that it is very important to stay linked up virtually, because so many of us are so far apart physically. I try to keep very connected with my LinkedIn profile.  I let anyone connect with me, and I read updates from the professional world very often.  I keep this profile updated, but do not post things about my personal life or anything that I might put on Twitter, for example.  I also include my e-mail address here, if you would like to contact me professionally.  This is the best place for me to conduct business. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: Social Media

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• Silverlight Cream for December 18, 2010 - 2 -- #1013

  - by Dave Campbell

  In this Issue: Michael Washington, Pete Brown, Robby Ingebretsen, Bill Reiss, Jordan Knight, Mike Taulty, Justin Angel, Jeff Blankenburg. Above the Fold: Silverlight: "Creating the Silverlight View Model (MVVM) Control: Calendar Icon" Michael Washington WP7: "United Nations News for Windows Phone 7" Justin Angel Silverlight, WP7/WPF: "CameraPanel: A Parallax Panel for Silverlight, WP7 or WPF" Robby Ingebretsen Shoutouts: Michael Scherotter produced a Silverlight Webcam photo app that he's providing as a free install: A Free Webcam Photo Application in Silverlight From SilverlightCream.com: Creating the Silverlight View Model (MVVM) Control: Calendar Icon Michael Washington has a stunning Calendar Control/Icon up on his blog... walking through how he built it and how you can easily use it in your Silverlight or WP7 app. Strategies for Improving INotifyPropertyChanged in WPF and Silverlight Pete Brown takes a look at INPC and some of the ways this is dealt with to avoid some of the tedius code-reuse errors we all make. CameraPanel: A Parallax Panel for Silverlight, WP7 or WPF Robby Ingebretsen gives up the code for that cool panel he's got on his homepage where the small panels move about seemingly in space. Writing a Windows Phone 7 game? Have a fallback plan Bill Reiss, who has a great WP7 game up - Popper 2 - has a very well-thought-out post up about WP7 'indie' games and the future thereof... great comments from reader/authors as well Automatic template selection – marrying a view to a view model Jordan Knight has the 2nd post of his series on MVVM up... he's talking about it in context of their XamlingCore, but concepts are all good. Rebuilding the PDC 2010 Silverlight Application (Part 5) Mike Taulty's next episode in describing the development of the PDC10 app he wrote is up ... again lots of Blend goodness in this one where he's adding buttons to let the user (us) download whatever is available for the chosen session. United Nations News for Windows Phone 7 In a munificent gesture, Justin Angel not only made his United Nation News app free on the marketplace, but he's posted the source to CodePlex! Justin had sent me a XAP a couple weeks ago, but for some reason, I can no longer sideload so wasn't able to try it until now... too cool, Justin! What I Learned In WP7 – Issue #6 Jeff Blankenburg has his latest "What I learned in WP7" tip up ... and this is one about the marketplace written by someone that's been there and back a few times... Stay in the 'Light! Twitter SilverlightNews | Twitter WynApse | WynApse.com | Tagged Posts | SilverlightCream Join me @ SilverlightCream | Phoenix Silverlight User Group Technorati Tags: Silverlight    Silverlight 3    Silverlight 4    Windows Phone MIX10

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• Oracle anuncia resultados de Q3 FY10

  - by Paulo Folgado

  Oracle Reports GAAP EPS of $0.23, Non-GAAP EPS of $0.38New Software Licenses Up 13%, Applications New Licenses Up 21%Oracle Corporation today announced fiscal 2010 Q3 GAAP total revenues were up 17% to $6.4 billion, while non-GAAP total revenues were up 18% to $6.5 billion. Excluding the impact of Sun Microsystems, Inc., which Oracle acquired on January 26, 2010, GAAP total revenue grew 7%. GAAP new software license revenues were up 13% to $1.7 billion, and up 10% to $1.7 billion excluding Sun. GAAP software license updates and product support revenues were up 13% to $3.3 billion, while non-GAAP software license updates and product support revenues were up 12% to $3.3 billion. GAAP operating income was down 5% to $1.8 billion, and GAAP operating margin was 29%. Non-GAAP operating income was up 13% to $2.9 billion, and non-GAAP operating margin was 45%. GAAP net income was down 10% to $1.2 billion, while non-GAAP net income was up 9% to $1.9 billion. GAAP earnings per share were $0.23, down 11% compared to last year while non-GAAP earnings per share were up 9% to $0.38. GAAP operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was $8.2 billion. "Our solid top line growth, coupled with disciplined expense management, was key in generating $8.0 billion of free cash flow over the last twelve months," said Oracle CFO Jeff Epstein."The Sun integration is going even better than we expected," said Oracle President, Safra Catz. "We believe that Sun will make a significant contribution to our fourth quarter earnings per share as well as meet the profitability goals we set for next year.""Exadata is the fastest growing product in Oracle's history," said Oracle President, Charles Phillips. "Introduced a little over a year ago, the Exadata pipeline is now approaching $400 million with Q4 bookings forecast at nearly $100 million. This strengthens both sales growth and profitability in our Sun server and storage businesses.""Every quarter we grab huge chunks of market share from SAP," said Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. "SAP's most recent quarter was the best quarter of their year, only down 15%, while Oracle's application sales were up 21%. But SAP is well ahead of us in the number of CEOs for this year, announcing their third and fourth, while we only had one."In addition, Oracle's Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per share of outstanding common stock to be paid to stockholders of record as of the close of business on April 14, 2010, with a payment date of May 5, 2010. Future declarations of quarterly dividends and the establishment of future record and payment dates are subject to the final determination of Oracle's Board of Directors.Q3 Earnings Conference Call and WebcastOracle will hold a conference call and web broadcast today to discuss these results at 2:00 p.m. Pacific. You may listen to the call by dialing (800) 214-0694 or (719) 955-1425, Passcode: 567035. To access the live Web broadcast of this event, please visit the Oracle Investor Relations Web site at http://www.oracle.com/investor.

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• Silverlight Death Trolls Dancing on XAML&rsquo;s Grave

  - by D'Arcy Lussier

  I’m starting to see a whole bunch of tweets and blog posts on how Silverlight/WPF is dead, or how the XAML team has been disbanded at Microsoft, or how someone predicted Silverlight would die, blah blah blah. They all have a similar ring to it though: “Told ya so!” “They were stupid ideas anyway!” “Serves Microsoft right, boy are they dumb!” Let me tell you something, all those that are gleefully raving about Silverlight/WPF’s demise are nothing more than death trolls. Let’s assume that everything out there is true. Microsoft is obviously moving towards HTML 5 in a huge way (TechCrunch pointed out that SkyDrive has replaced its Silverlight based version with an HTML 5 one), and not just on the web as we’ve seen with recent announcements about how HTML 5 apps will be natively supported on Windows 8. WPF never caught on in the marketplace, regardless of its superior technology offering to Winforms. And Silverlight…well, it gave Flash a good run for its money, but plug-in based web applications are becoming passé in light of HTML 5. (It’s interesting that at a developer conference I put on just a few weeks ago, only 1 out of 60+ sessions included Silverlight. 5 focussed on HTML 5.) So what does this *death* of Silverlight/WPF/XAML mean then in the grand scheme of things (again, assuming that they truly *are* dying/dead)? Well, nothing really…at least nothing bad. Silverlight has given us some fantastic applications and experiences (Vancouver Olympics anyone?), and WP7 couldn’t have launched without Silverlight as its development platform. And WPF, although it had putrid adoption, has had some great success stories. A Canadian company that I talked to recently showed me how they re-wrote their point-of-sale application entirely in WPF, and the product is a huge success providing features their competitors aren’t. Arguably (and I say that only because I know I’m going to get WTF comments for this), VS.NET 2010 is a great example of what a WPF app can provide over previous C++ based applications. Technologies evolve. In a decade we’ve had 5 versions of the .NET framework, seen languages like J# come and go, seen F# appear, see communications layers change with WCF, seen EF go through multiple evolutions and traditional ADO.NET Datasets go extinct (from actual use anyway), and ASP.NET Webforms be replaced with ASP.NET MVC as a preferred web platform. Is Silverlight and WPF done? Maybe…probably?…thing is, it doesn’t really affect me personally in any way, or you…so why would we care if its gets replaced with something better and more robust that we can build better solutions with? Just remember the golden rule: don’t feed the trolls.

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• How to (un)dock IBM Thinkpad X41 from X4 Dock(ing station) successfully?

  - by nutty about natty

  I'd like to start using my docking station again; however, it still doesn't work as it should, see the following bug descriptions (with special focus on Thinkpad X41 & the X4 Dock). Given that it still doesn't work (effective April 2012), my hope is fading that it will start working all of a sudden with Precise Pangolin at the end of the month. This issue is VERY important to me and I would be MOST grateful to anyone being able to sieve through the following links (some of which are actually quite recent) and translate their meaning into reliable and concrete simple (?) steps. I've read briefly about hal and udev, and can imagine that they are somewhat related to this, see links below. I don't want to fire at random. I don't want to tinker around with bash scripts if avoidable... Problem description (more or less ;-) Pressing the undock button on a "ThinkPad X4 Dock" with a ThinkPad X40 does not cause any udev events. And the lights on the dock never change to indicate it is safe to undock. and IBM Thinkpad X41 & docking station no joy :-( ... when pressing the blue undock button on the docking station: - The screen goes blank (with backlight remaining on), - with some SSD/HDD activity; - ctrl alt del causes a shut down after ... seconds, indicating that the system itself hasn't "crashed" but is still (somewhat ?) responsive. and With recent distributions, docking and undocking should function out of the box. You can monitor this by running # udevadm monitor and when you dock or press the undock button you should see a flurry of events. There are some issues though: No event on undock. - In some cases you may not get any events on undock. This is due to the ACPI dock drivers only registering the first logical Dock port they encounter and in some rare cases there may be more then one, such as on a ThinkPad X40 with ThinkPad X4 Dock. Patches are available, and are merged in 2.6.34. Now, if patches are available and merged into 2.6.34 - why isn't (un)docking simply working / fully supported in the latest version of Natty (which to my humble understanding has surpassed kernel version 2.6.34 a while ago)? More relevant links: ThinkPad X41 Docking Station issues and [HOWTO] Run scripts for laptop lid open/close and dock/undock events and finally Symptoms corrected by the latest BIOS Update - ThinkPad X41 - (Fix) USB devices connected to UltraBase X4 or ThinkPad X4 Dock may not be recognized in Boot Menu by pressing F12 during POST. Thanks!!

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• Oracle's Australian Graduate Recruitment Program

  - by david.talamelli

  I have been with Oracle for 5 years now and one thing that I have found that there is never a shortage of here is - Variety. Over the last 5 years I have had the opportunity to work on projects across various countries, across various technologies and skill-sets and also across various level of seniority. No two days are the same. One of the projects I was fortunate to be involved in occurred last year and it is one of the ones that is closest to me. Last year I was able to take responsibility for our 2011 Graduate Recruitment drive in Australia. Two weeks ago I went to Sydney to meet our Graduates who started in February 2011 with us and it was great to see them come to the end (or beginning actually) of our journey together. I am excited at the potential of what our Graduates careers will develop into here with us. I remember at our interviewing last year trying to explain life in Oracle, it is great to see those same Graduates with us now learning and developing life and business skills that I hope they will take with them in their professional careers. I was talking to one of my colleagues this week who mentioned the excitement and energy that our new Graduates bring is infectious, and I agree it really is. Our Graduates have a big learning curve ahead of them and they are about to start going on rotations into some of our Business Groups - but I think it is a great experience to see how a global company operates and pulls together to achieve results together. Here is a picture we took the other week of this year's Oracle Graduates (if any of our Graduates are reading this blog - it was great seeing you in NSW and I do wish you all the success here at Oracle) Once again Oracle's Graduate Program will be running in 2011 in Australia (Graduates will start in Jan/Feb 2012). The Oracle Australia Graduate Development Program is a one-year program consisting of orientation, formal training, project rotations in one core line of business and finally job placement. The formal training is a combination of structured development programs on soft skills and functional competencies via various delivery formats. Graduates are also expected to work in a team environment and complete multiple projects addressing real business challenges and at the time gaining a broad business understanding. For our Australia program we are hiring in our North Ryde and Melbourne offices. Resume submissions are being accepted now. First Round interviews will take place in June 2011 with Final Round interviews in July 2011. The Australia Graduate Program is open to Australian Residents and Citizens who are either in the final year of their studies or have graduated the previous year. For more details on Oracle and our Graduate Program visit our Campus website To express your interest, mail your resume to [email protected]

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