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  • Looking for SQL People

    - by simonsabin
    I’m looking for 2 SQL people to join our data team. I need people that are keen to develop an exciting data platform with strong SQL skills. Desirable skills are MDX/SSAS, data warehousing and working in finance industry. The role is a full time role based in London. If you are interested then let me know either via my http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/contact.aspx or via twitter @simon_sabin https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?screen_name=simon_sabin&text=Read your blog send me details . No...(read more)

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  • Looking for a previous post about skillsets for an embedded/firmware engineer. Can't find it anymore [closed]

    - by Sandiego
    I remember reading a post inquiring the basic/advanced skills required for embedded engineer works. The top comment divides the answer into two parts, the basic level/design level ,not purely coding(something like this...). Then another level : writing application(all about programming). For each level/category, the top comment talks about the necessary skills/knowledge/college courses(for me at least) . While I was searching for this post as I was trying to read it again, I found similar questions, but these are not the one I saw: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1091931/what-skill-set-should-a-low-level-programmer-possess http://stackoverflow.com/questions/45247/how-do-i-get-started-in-embedded-programming http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/3343/how-to-become-an-embedded-software-developer Has anyone seen the post I'm talking about? This is a repost from Stackoverflow where I was told that this question is off-topic. So..please help guys

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  • Better way to design a database

    - by cMinor
    I have a conceptual problem and I would like to get your ideas on how I'll be able to do what I am aiming. My goal is to create a database with information of persons who work at a place depending on their profession and skills,and keep control of salary and projects (how much would cost summing all the hours of work) I have 3 categories which can have subcategories: Outsourcing Technician welder turner assistant Administrative supervisor manager So each person has its information and the projects they are working on, also one person may do several jobs... I was thinking about having 5 tables (EMPLOYEE, SKILLS, PROYECTS, SALARY, PROFESSION) but I guess there is a better way of doing this. create table Employee ( PRIMARY KEY [Person_ID] int(10), [Name] varchar(30), [sex] varchar(10), [address] varchar(10), [profession] varchar(10), [Skills_ID] int(10), [Proyect_ID] int(10), [Salary_ID] int(10), [Salary] float ) create table Skills ( PRIMARY KEY [Skills_ID] int(10), FOREIGN KEY [Skills_name] varchar(10) REFERENCES Employee(Person_ID), [Skills_pay] float(10), [Comments] varchar(50) ) create table Proyects ( PRIMARY KEY [Proyect_ID] int(10), FOREIGN KEY [Skills_name] varchar(10) REFERENCES Employee(Person_ID) [Proyect_name] varchar(10), [working_Hours] float(10), [Comments] varchar(50) ) create table Salary ( PRIMARY KEY [Salary_ID] int(10), FOREIGN KEY [Skills_name] varchar(10) REFERENCES Employee(Person_ID) [Proyect_name] varchar(10), [working_Hours] float(10), [Comments] varchar(50) ) So to get the total amount of the cost of a project I would just sum the working hours of each employee envolved and sum some extra costs in an aggregate query. Is there a way to do this in a more efficient way? What to add or delete of this small model? I guess I am missing something in the salary - maybe I need another table for that?

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  • High performance web (-services) applications

    - by User Friendly
    Hi, I'd like to become a guru in high performance web & web-services applications. What technologies/patterns/skills do you reccomend to look at? Basically, I have good skills at ASP.NET/.NET based web development, but I'd like to know how big things are built (on any platform, not depending on .net technology stack). Thank you.

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  • grammar in views

    - by jspooner
    I'm displaying a string like "I'm an Actor" or "I'm a skateboarder" and need to use a or an correctly. Is there a nifty rails view helper to see if a word starts with a vowel? <p>I'm an <%= @user.skills %></p> <p>I'm a <%= @user.skills %></p>

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  • Learning python in one weekend

    - by permalac
    Hello, I'm planing to learn python this weekend. I have some programing skills and should not be difficult if I take the good path. I'm a sysadmin and I've been looking at python scripts since long ago, but now I would like to make python my scripting language, so I'll do the effort and next monday I will start using it. Any advice on how to trace my own path to good python skills? thanks. PS: I will use vim, ypython and http://diveintopython.org

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  • Tools for creating UI prototype.

    - by Golovko
    Hello. I need to create a prototype of ui. I'm googling, and find "Axure RP", but it very expensive for us company. Other way for creating UI prototype is tools like Qt Designer, but it doesn't provide some cool functions and sometimes demand bit programming skills. Do you know freeware tool for my task for man without any programming skills? Thanks. Ps. excuse my english ;)

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  • Do the ideas of traditional software engineering conflict with the newer agile development technique

    - by fuentesjr
    So as a developer I am seeking to improve not only my coding skills but my design and management skills. Because of this I'm starting to pay more attention to software engineering practices but i'm not sure where agile development fits into the picture. I can appreciate agility in projects but I wonder whether this conflicts with the traditional ways of software engineering practices and research.

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  • SQL query to get most

    - by chama
    I have a database with the following tables: Employee (EmpID, FirstName, LastName, RegionID) EmployeeSkills(EmpID, SkillID) [this is a linking table for the M:N relationship between Employees and skills] Skills(SkillID, Description) I need to list the name of the skill that most employees have. I tried doing a max(count(skillID)), sqlserver said that you can't do an aggregate function on an aggregate function. Any other ideas? Thank you in advance!

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  • Has anyone ever worked with a UX designer who also did the graphic design, is it a good combination?

    - by Ami
    I need to design a new framework for web based apps, including both UX guidelines and the art/graphic design guidelines such as what menus will look like, headers, colors, fonts etc. The UX designers I met, were unable to provide the artistic side, and the graphic designers didn't have the UX skills. Should I continue to look for one person with both skills, or is it better broken to two separate tasks?

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  • Developer’s Life – Attitude and Communication – They Can Cause Problems – Notes from the Field #027

    - by Pinal Dave
    [Note from Pinal]: This is a 27th episode of Notes from the Field series. The biggest challenge for anyone is to understand human nature. We human have so many things on our mind at any moment of time. There are cases when what we say is not what we mean and there are cases where what we mean we do not say. We do say and things as per our mood and our agenda in mind. Sometimes there are incidents when our attitude creates confusion in the communication and we end up creating a situation which is absolutely not warranted. In this episode of the Notes from the Field series database expert Mike Walsh explains a very crucial issue we face in our career, which is not technical but more to relate to human nature. Read on this may be the best blog post you might read in recent times. In this week’s note from the field, I’m taking a slight departure from technical knowledge and concepts explained. We’ll be back to it next week, I’m sure. Pinal wanted us to explain some of the issues we bump into and how we see some of our customers arrive at problem situations and how we have helped get them back on the right track. Often it is a technical problem we are officially solving – but in a lot of cases as a consultant, we are really helping fix some communication difficulties. This is a technical blog post and not an “advice column” in a newspaper – but the longer I am a consultant, the more years I add to my experience in technology the more I learn that the vast majority of the problems we encounter have “soft skills” included in the chain of causes for the issue we are helping overcome. This is not going to be exhaustive but I hope that sharing four pieces of advice inspired by real issues starts a process of searching for places where we can be the cause of these challenges and look at fixing them in ourselves. Or perhaps we can begin looking at resolving them in teams that we manage. I’ll share three statements that I’ve either heard, read or said and talk about some of the communication or attitude challenges highlighted by the statement. 1 – “But that’s the SAN Administrator’s responsibility…” I heard that early on in my consulting career when talking with a customer who had serious corruption and no good recent backups – potentially no good backups at all. The statement doesn’t have to be this one exactly, but the attitude here is an attitude of “my job stops here, and I don’t care about the intent or principle of why I’m here.” It’s also a situation of having the attitude that as long as there is someone else to blame, I’m fine…  You see in this case, the DBA had a suspicion that the backups were not being handled right.  They were the DBA and they knew that they had responsibility to ensure SQL backups were good to go – it’s a basic requirement of a production DBA. In my “As A DBA Where Do I start?!” presentation, I argue that is job #1 of a DBA. But in this case, the thought was that there was someone else to blame. Rather than create extra work and take on responsibility it was decided to just let it be another team’s responsibility. This failed the company, the company’s customers and no one won. As technologists – we should strive to go the extra mile. If there is a lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities and we know it – we should push to get it resolved. Especially as the DBAs who should act as the advocates of the data contained in the databases we are responsible for. 2 – “We’ve always done it this way, it’s never caused a problem before!” Complacency. I have to say that many failures I’ve been paid good money to help recover from would have not happened had it been for an attitude of complacency. If any thoughts like this have entered your mind about your situation you may be suffering from it. If, while reading this, you get this sinking feeling in your stomach about that one thing you know should be fixed but haven’t done it.. Why don’t you stop and go fix it then come back.. “We should have better backups, but we’re on a SAN so we should be fine really.” “Technically speaking that could happen, but what are the chances?” “We’ll just clean that up as a fast follow” ..and so on. In the age of tightening IT budgets, increased expectations of up time, availability and performance there is no room for complacency. Our customers and business units expect – no demand – the best. Complacency says “we will give you second best or hopefully good enough and we accept the risk and know this may hurt us later. Sometimes an organization will opt for “good enough” and I agree with the concept that at times the perfect can be the enemy of the good. But when we make those decisions in a vacuum and are not reporting them up and discussing them as an organization that is different. That is us unilaterally choosing to do something less than the best and purposefully playing a game of chance. 3 – “This device must accept interference from other devices but not create any” I’ve paraphrased this one – but it’s something the Federal Communications Commission – a federal agency in the United States that regulates electronic communication – requires of all manufacturers of any device that could cause or receive interference electronically. I blogged in depth about this here (http://www.straightpathsql.com/archives/2011/07/relationship-advice-from-the-fcc/) so I won’t go into much detail other than to say this… If we all operated more on the premise that we should do our best to not be the cause of conflict, and to be less easily offended and less upset when we perceive offense life would be easier in many areas! This doesn’t always cause the issues we are called in to help out. Not directly. But where we see it is in unhealthy relationships between the various technology teams at a client. We’ll see teams hoarding knowledge, not sharing well with others and almost working against other teams instead of working with them. If you trace these problems back far enough it often stems from someone or some group of people violating this principle from the FCC. To Sum It Up Technology problems are easy to solve. At Linchpin People we help many customers get past the toughest technological challenge – and at the end of the day it is really just a repeatable process of pattern based troubleshooting, logical thinking and starting at the beginning and carefully stepping through to the end. It’s easy at the end of the day. The tough part of what we do as consultants is the people skills. Being able to help get teams working together, being able to help teams take responsibility, to improve team to team communication? That is the difficult part, and we get to use the soft skills on every engagement. Work on professional development (http://professionaldevelopment.sqlpass.org/) and see continuing improvement here, not just with technology. I can teach just about anyone how to be an excellent DBA and performance tuner, but some of these soft skills are much more difficult to teach. If you want to get started with performance analytics and triage of virtualized SQL Servers with the help of experts, read more over at Fix Your SQL Server. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Notes from the Field, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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  • Personal Development : Time, Planning , Repairs & Maintenance

    - by Rajesh Pillai
    Personal Development : Time, Planning, Repairs & Maintenance These are just my thoughts, but some you may find something interesting in it. Please think over it. We may know many things, but still we always keeps procrastinating it. I have written this as I have heard many people coming back and saying they don’t have time to do things they like. These are my thoughts buy may be useful to someone else too. Certain things in life needs periodic repairs and maintenance. To cite some examples , your CAR, your HOUSE, your personal laptop/desktop, your health etc. Likewise there are certain other things in professional life that requires repair/ maintenance /or some kind of polishing, so that you always stay on top of it. But they are not always obvious. Some of them are - Improving your communication skills - Increasing your vocabulary - Upgrading your technical skills - Pursuing your hobby - Increasing your knowledge/awareness etc… etc… And then there are certain things that we are always short of…. one is TIME. We all know TIME is one of the most precious things in life and yet we all are very miserable at managing it. Remember you can only manage it and not control it. You can only control which you own or which you create. In theory time is infinite. So, there should be abundant of it. But remember one thing, you know this, it’s not reversible. Once it has elapsed you cannot live it again. Think over it. So, how do find that golden 25th hour every day. To find the 25th hour you need to reflect back on your current daily activities. Analyze them and see where you are spending most of your time and is it really important. Even the 8 hours that you spent in the office, is it spent fruitfully. At the end of the day is the 8 precious hour that you spent was worth it. Just reflect back on your activities. Did you learn something? If yes did you make a point to NOTE IT. If you didn’t NOTED it then was the time you spent really worth it. Just ponder over it. Some calculations of your daily activities where most of the time is spent. Let’s start (in no particular order though) - Sleep (6.5 hours) [Remember you only require 6 good hours of sleep every day]. Some may thing it is 8, but it’s a myth.   o To achive 6 hours of sleep and be in good health you can practice 15 minutes of daily meditation. So effectively you can    round it to 6.5 hours. - Morning chores(2 hours) : Some may need to prepare breakfast and all other things. - Office commuting (avg. to and fro 3 hours) - Office Work (avg 9.5 hours) Total Hours: 21 hours effective time which is spent irrespective of what you do. There may be some variations here and there. Still you have 3 hours EXTRA. Where do these 3 hours go? If you can find it, then you may get that golden 25th hour out of these 3 hours. Let’s discount 2 hours for contingencies, still you have 1 hour with you. If you can’t find it then you are living a direction less life. As you can see, the 25th Hour lies within the 24 hours of the day. It’s upto each one of us to find and make use of it. Now what can you do with that 25th hour i.e. 1 hour extra of your life. Imagine the possibility. Again some calculations 1 hour daily * 30 days = 30 hours every month 30 hours pm * 12 month = 360 hours every year. 360 hours every year seems very promising. Let’s add some contingencies, say, let’s be optimistic and say 50 % contingency. Still you have 180 hours every year. That leaves with 30 minutes every day of extra time. That’s hell a lot of time, if you could manage it. These may sound like a high talk [yes, it is, unless you apply these simple rules and rationalize your everyday living and stop procrastinating]. NOTE: I haven’t taken weekend, holidays and leaves into account. So, that leaves us with a lot of buffer time. You can meet family friends, relatives, other tasks, and yet have these 180 pure hours of joy every year. Do whatever you want to do with it. So, how important is this 180 hours per year to you? Just think over it. You may use it the way you like - 50 hours [pursue your hobby like drawing, crafting, learn dance, learn juggling, learn swimming, travelling hmm.. anything you like doing and you didn’t had time to do it.] - 30 hours you can learn a new programming language or technology (i.e. you can get comfortable with it) - 50 hours [improve existing skills] - 20 hours [improve you communication skill]. Do some light reading. - 30 hours [YOU DECIDE WHAT TO DO]? So, if you had done this for one year you would have learnt a new programming language, upgraded existing skills, improved you communication etc.. If you had done this for two years.. imagine the level of personal development or growth which you may have attained….. If you had done this for three years….. NOW I think I don’t need to mention this… So, you still have TIME, as they say TIME is infinite. So, make judicious use of this precious thing. And never ever comeback saying “I don’t have time”. So, if you are RICH in TIME, everything else will be automatically taken care of, as those things may just be a byproduct of how you spend your time… So, happy TIMING your TIME everyday.

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  • Why We Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Millennials

    - by HCM-Oracle
    By Christine Mellon Much is said and written about the new generations of employees entering our workforce, as though they are a strange specimen, a mysterious life form to be “figured out,” accommodated and engaged – at a safe distance, of course.  At its worst, this talk takes a critical and disapproving tone, with baby boomer employees adamantly refusing to validate this new breed of worker, let alone determine how to help them succeed and achieve their potential.   The irony of our baby-boomer resentments and suspicions is that they belie the fact that we created the very vision that younger employees are striving to achieve.  From our frustrations with empty careers that did not fulfill us, from our opposition to “the man,” from our sharp memories of our parents’ toiling for 30 years just for the right to retire, from the simple desire not to live our lives in a state of invisibility, came the seeds of hope for something better. One characteristic of Millennial workers that grew from these seeds is the desire to experience as much as possible.  They are the “Experiential Employee”, with a passion for growing in diverse ways and expanding personal and professional horizons.  Rather than rooting themselves in a single company for a career, or even in a single career path, these employees are committed to building a broad portfolio of experiences and capabilities that will enable them to make a difference and to leave a mark of significance in the world.  How much richer is the organization that nurtures and leverages this inclination?  Our curmudgeonly ways must be surrendered and our focus redirected toward building the next generation of talent ecosystems, if we are to optimize what future generations have to offer.   Accelerating Professional Development In spite of our Boomer grumblings about Millennials’ “unrealistic” expectations, the truth is that we have a well-matched set of circumstances.  We have executives-in-waiting who want to learn quickly and a concurrent, urgent need to ramp up their development time, based on anticipated high levels of retirement in the next 10+ years.  Since we need to rapidly skill up these heirs to the corporate kingdom, isn’t it a fortunate coincidence that they are hungry to learn, develop and move fluidly throughout our organizations??  So our challenge now is to efficiently operationalize the wisdom we have acquired about effective learning and development.   We have already evolved from classroom-based models to diverse instructional methods.  The next step is to find the best approaches to help younger employees learn quickly and apply new learnings in an impactful way.   Creating temporary or even permanent functional partnerships among Millennial employees is one way to maximize outcomes.  This might take the form of 2 or more employees owning aspects of what once fell under a single role.  While one might argue this would mean duplication of resources, it could be a short term cost while employees come up to speed.  And the potential benefits would be numerous:  leveraging and validating the inherent sense of community of new generations, creating cross-functional skills with broad applicability, yielding additional perspectives and approaches to traditional work outcomes, and accelerating the performance curve for incumbents through Cooperative Learning (Johnson, D. and Johnson R., 1989, 1999).  This well-researched teaching strategy, where students support each other in the absorption and application of new information, has been shown to deliver faster, more efficient learning, and greater retention. Alternately, perhaps short term contracts with exiting retirees, or former retirees, to help facilitate the development of following generations may have merit.  Again, a short term cost, certainly.  However, the gains realized in shortening the learning curve, and strengthening engagement are substantial and lasting. Ultimately, there needs to be creative thinking applied for each organization on how to accelerate the capabilities of our future leaders in unique ways that mesh with current culture. The manner in which performance is evaluated must finally shift as well.  Employees will need to be assessed on how well they have developed key skills and capabilities vs. end-to-end mastery of functional positions they have no interest in keeping for an entire career. As we become more comfortable in placing greater and greater weight on competencies vs. tasks, we will realize increased organizational agility via this new generation of workers, which will be further enhanced by their natural flexibility and appetite for change. Revisiting Succession  For many years, organizations have failed to deliver desired succession planning outcomes.  According to CEB’s 2013 research, only 28% of current leaders were pre-identified in a succession plan. These disappointing results, along with the entrance of the experiential, Millennial employee into the workforce, may just provide the needed impetus for HR to reinvent succession processes.   We have recognized that the best professional development efforts are not always linear, and the time has come to fully adopt this philosophy in regard to succession as well.  Paths to specific organizational roles will not look the same for newer generations who seek out unique learning opportunities, without consideration of a singular career destination.  Rather than charting particular jobs as precursors for key positions, the experiences and skills behind what makes an incumbent successful must become essential in succession mapping.  And the multitude of ways in which those experiences and skills may be acquired must be factored into the process, along with the individual employee’s level of learning agility. While this may seem daunting, it is necessary and long overdue.  We have talked about the criticality of competency-based succession, however, we have not lived up to our own rhetoric.  Many Boomers have experienced the same frustration in our careers; knowing we are capable of shining in a particular role, but being denied the opportunity due to how our career history lined up, on paper, with documented job requirements.  These requirements usually emphasized past jobs/titles and specific tasks, versus capabilities, drive and willingness (let alone determination) to learn new things.  How satisfying would it be for us to leave a legacy where such narrow thinking no longer applies and potential is amplified? Realizing Diversity Another bloom from the seeds we Boomers have tried to plant over the past decades is a completely evolved view of diversity.  Millennial employees assume a diverse workforce, and are startled by anything less.  Their social tolerance, nurtured by wide and diverse networks, is unprecedented.  College graduates expect a similar landscape in the “real world” to what they experienced throughout their lives.  They appreciate and seek out divergent points of view and experiences without needing any persuasion.  The face of our U.S. workforce will likely see dramatic change as Millennials apply their fresh take on hiring and building strong teams, with an inherent sense of inclusion.  This wonderful aspect of the Millennial wave should be celebrated and strongly encouraged, as it is the fulfillment of our own aspirations. Future Perfect The Experiential Employee is operating more as a free agent than a long term player, and their commitment will essentially last as long as meaningful organizational culture and personal/professional opportunities keep their interest.  As Boomers, we have laid the foundation for this new, spirited employment attitude, and we should take pride in knowing that.  Generations to come will challenge organizations to excel in how they identify, manage and nurture talent. Let’s support and revel in the future that we’ve helped invent, rather than lament what we think has been lost.  After all, the future is always connected to the past.  And as so eloquently phrased by Antoine Lavoisier, French nobleman, chemist and politico:  “Nothing is Lost, Nothing is Created, and Everything is Transformed.” Christine has over 25 years of diverse HR experience.  She has held HR consulting and corporate roles, including CHRO positions for Echostar in Denver, a 6,000+ employee global engineering firm, and Aepona, a startup software firm, successfully acquired by Intel. Christine is a resource to Oracle clients, to assist in Human Capital Management strategy development and implementation, compensation practices, talent development initiatives, employee engagement, global HR management, and integrated HR systems and processes that support the full employee lifecycle. 

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  • Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginner's Guide

    Build enterprise-ready business applications with Silverlight An introduction to building enterprise-ready business applications with Silverlight quickly. Get hold of the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight application development. Integrate different media types, taking the RIA experience further with Silverlight, and much more! Rapidly manage business focused controls, data, and business logic connectivity. A suite of business applications will be built over the course of the book and all examples will be geared around real-world useful application developments, enabling .NET developers to focus on getting started in business application development using Silverlight. In Detail Microsoft Silverlight is a programmable web browser plug-in that enables features including animation, vector graphics, and audio-video playback--features that characterize Rich Internet Applications. Silverlight makes possible the development of RIA applications in familiar .NET languages such as C# and VB.NET. Silverlight is a great (and growing) Line of Business platform and is increasingly being used to build business applications. Silverlight 3 made a big step in LOB; Silverlight 4 builds upon this further. This book will enable .NET developers to feel the pulse of business application development with Silverlight quickly. This book is not a general Silverlight 3/4 overview book. It is uniquely aimed at developers who require an introduction to building business applications with Silverlight. This book will focus on building a suite of real-world, useful business applications in a practical hands-on approach. This book is for .Net developers, providing the answers to many questions that are encountered when creating business applications in Silverlight, ultimately enabling rapid development with ease! This book teaches you how to build business applications with Silverlight 3 and 4. Building a suite of applications, it begins by introducing you to the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight development. It then dives deeply into the world of business application development, covering all the required concepts needed to build sophisticated business applications and provide a rich user experience. Chapters include: building a public website, adding rich media to the website, incorporating RIA into your website, and among others. By following the practical steps in this book, you will learn what's needed to create rich business applications--from the creation of a Silverlight application, to enhancing your application with rich media and connecting your Silverlight application to various Data Sources. What you will learn from this book Learn the basic tools and skills needed to get started in Silverlight 4 business application development. Discover how to enhance your Silverlight business applications with rich data such as sound and video. Know when and how to customize your data in Silverlight using important data controls. Understand how your Silverlight business applications can connect to various Data Sources. Deliver your Silverlight business application in a variety of forms.   Interesting? Read the chapter 1 Getting Started for free!! Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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  • How can we improve overall Programmer Education & Training?

    - by crosenblum
    Last week, I was just viewing this amazing interview by Kevin Rose of Phillip Rosedale, of Second Life. And they had an amazing discussion about how to find, hire and identify good programmer's, and how hard it is to find good ones. Which has lead me to really think about the way we programmer's learn, are taught. For a majority of us, myself included, we are self-taught. Which is great about being a programmer, anyone can learn and develop skills. But this also means, that there is no real standards of what a good programmer is/are, and what kind of environment's encourage the growth of programming skills. This isn't so much a question, but just a desire in me, to see how we can change the culture of programming, and the manager's of programming, so that education and self-improvement is encouraged. There are a lot of avenue's for continued education, youtube videos, books, conferences, but because of the experiental nature of what we do, it isn't always clear what's important to learn and to master. Let's look at the The Joel 12 Steps. The Joel Test Do you use source control? Can you make a build in one step? Do you make daily builds? Do you have a bug database? Do you fix bugs before writing new code? Do you have an up-to-date schedule? Do you have a spec? Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Do you use the best tools money can buy? Do you have testers? Do new candidates write code during their interview? Do you do hallway usability testing? I think all of these have important value, but because of something I call the Experiential Gap, if a programmer or manager has never experienced any of the negative consequences for not having done items on the list, they will never see the need to do any of them. The Experiental Gap, is my basic theory, that each of us has different jobs and different experiences. So for some of us, that have always worked with dozens of programmer's, source control is a must have. But for people who have always been the only programmer, they can not imagine the need for source control. And it's because of this major flaw in how we learn, that we evaluate people by what best practices they do or not do, and the reason for either can start a flame war. We always evaluate people in our field by what they do, and think "Oh if this guy/gal isn't doing xyz best practice, he/she can't be a good programmer, so let's not waste time or energy talking to them." This is exactly why we have so many programming flame wars, that it becomes, because of the Experiental Gap, we can't imagine people not having made the decisions that we have had to made. So this has lead me to think, that we totally need to rethink how we train, educate and manage programmer's. For example, what percentage of you have had encouragement by your manager's to go to conferences, and even have them pay for it? For me, and a lot of people, this is extremely rare, a lot of us would love to go to conferences, to learn more, but the money ain't there to do that. So the point of this question is really to spark a lot of how can we train, learn and manage better? How can we create a new culture of learning that doesn't insult people for not having the same job experiences. Yes we all have jobs and work to do, but our ability to do our jobs well, depends on our desire, interest and support in improving our mastery of our skills. Right now, I see our culture being rather disorganized, we support the elite, but those tons of us that want to get better, just don't have enough support to learn and improve ourselves. I mean, do we as an industry, want to be perceived as just replaceable cogs? Thank you...

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  • AppKata - Enter the next level of programming exercises

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Doing CodeKatas is all the rage lately. That´s great since widely accepted exercises are important to further the art. They provide a means of communication across platforms and allow to compare results which is part of any deliberate practice. But CodeKatas suffer from their size. They are intentionally small, so they can be done again and again. Repetition helps to build habit and to dig deeper. Over time ever new nuances of the problem or one´s approach become visible. On the other hand, though, their small size limits the methods, techniques, technologies that can be applied. To improve your TDD skills doing CodeKatas might be enough. But what about other skills? Developing on a software in a team, designing larger pieces of software, iteratively releasing software… all this and more is kinda hard to train using the tiny CodeKata problems. That´s why I´d like to present here another kind of kata I call Application Kata (or just AppKata). AppKatas are larger programming problems. They require the development of “whole” applications, i.e. not just one class or method, but bunches of classes accessible through a user interface. Also AppKata problems always are split into iterations. To get the most out of them, just look at the requirements of one iteration at a time. This way you´re closer to reality where requirements evolve in unexpected ways. So if you´re looking for more of a challenge for your software development skills, check out these AppKatas – or invent your own. AppKatas are platform independent like CodeKatas. Use whatever programming language and IDE you like. Also use whatever approach to software development you like. Just be sensitive to how easy it is to evolve your code across iterations. Reflect on what went well and what not. Compare your solutions with others. Or – for even more challenge – go for the “Coding Carousel” (see below). CSV Viewer An application to view CSV files. Sounds easy, but watch out! Requirements sometimes drastically change if the customer is happy with what you delivered. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 (to come) Questionnaire If you like GUI programming, this AppKata might be for you. It´s about an app to let people fill out questionnaires. Also this problem might be interestin for you, if you´re into DDD. Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Tic Tac Toe For developers who like game programming. Although Tic Tac Toe is a trivial game, this AppKata poses some interesting infrastructure challenges. The GUI, however, stays simple; leave any 3D ambitions at home ;-) Iteration 1 Iteration 2 (to come) Iteration 3 (to come) Iteration 4 (to come) Iteration 5 (to come) Coding Carousel There are many ways you can do AppKatas. Work on them alone or in a team, pitch several devs against each other in an AppKata contest – or go around in a Coding Carousel. For the Coding Carousel you need at least 3 dev teams (regardless of size). All teams work on the same iteration at the same time. But here´s the trick: After each iteration the teams swap their code. Whatever they did for iteration n will be the basis for changes another team has to apply in iteration n+1. The code is going around the teams like in a carousel. I promise you, that´s gonna be fun! :-)

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  • From DBA to Data Analyst

    - by Denise McInerney
    Cross posted from the PASS Blog There is a lot changing in the data professional’s world these days. More data is being produced and stored. More enterprises are trying to use that data to improve their products and services and understand their customers better. More data platforms and tools seem to be crowding the market. For a traditional DBA this can be a confusing and perhaps unsettling time. It’s also a time that offers great opportunity for career growth. I speak from personal experience. We sometimes refer to the “accidental DBA”, the person who finds herself suddenly responsible for managing the database because she has some other technical skills. While it was not accidental, six months ago I was unexpectedly offered a chance to transition out of my DBA role and become a data analyst. I have since come to view this offer as a gift, though at the time I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Throughout my DBA career I’ve gotten support from my PASS friends and colleagues and they were the first ones I turned to for counsel about this new situation. Everyone was encouraging and I received two pieces of valuable advice: first, leverage what I already know about data and second, work to understand the business’ needs. Bringing the power of data to bear to solve business problems is really the heart of the job. The challenge is figuring out how to do that. PASS had been the source of much of my technical training as a DBA, so I naturally started there to begin my Business Intelligence education. Once again the Virtual Chapter webinars, local chapter meetings and SQL Saturdays have been invaluable. I work in a large company where we are fortunate to have some very talented data scientists and analysts. These colleagues have been generous with their time and advice. I also took a statistics class through Coursera where I got a refresher in statistics and an introduction to the R programming language. And that’s not the end of the free resources available to someone wanting to acquire new skills. There are many knowledgeable Business Intelligence and Analytics professionals who teach through their blogs. Every day I can learn something new from one of these experts. Sometimes we plan our next career move and sometimes it just happens. Either way a database professional who follows industry developments and acquires new skills will be better prepared when change comes. Take the opportunity to learn something about the changing data landscape and attend a Business Intelligence, Business Analytics or Big Data Virtual Chapter meeting. And if you are moving into this new world of data consider attending the PASS Business Analytics Conference in April where you can meet and learn from those who are already on that road. It’s been said that “the only thing constant is change.” That’s never been more true for the data professional than it is today. But if you are someone who loves data and grasps its potential you are in the right place at the right time.

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  • Attending a Career Fair: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be shy &ndash; Be prepared&rdquo;

    - by jessica.ebbelaar
    There are a large number of ways to interact with companies nowadays. The career fair is a very effective and personal way to interact with a number of different companies in a very short period of time. Here are some simple tips to help you perform during a career fair. Do research The key to being successful at a career fair is to do research before you go. Make a first selection of the companies you feel could be interesting for you. Include many types of employers. Once you have decided on the list of companies you want to visit, go to their career portal. Inform yourself about what the company does, i.e what roles there are available, how the company culture is described, what impression the testimonials give you. The question that you still have after reviewing this information, are the ones you can discuss with the company on the fair. Sell yourself Visit the companies you have on your top 5 list first, so you will be at your highest energy level to make that first impression. Think in advance about what you are going to tell the recruiter. Prepare a 30-second introduction (including degree, strengths, skills & experience) Be confident when you talk about your experience. Remember to start the conversation with a smile, make good eye contact and give a firm handshake. You could be speaking to your next manager, so be professional! If you already know what jobs you are interested in, relate your skills and experience to the roles that the company has available. If you are not yet sure gather as much information as you can about employment and/or hiring procedures, specific skills necessary for different jobs, training and career paths. Stand out As career fairs are very crowded and the attending companies meet with a lot of potential candidates on one day, you have to make sure you are noticed in a positive way. A good preparation and asking questions that show you have a good understanding of the industry, organization and roles will help you. Be aware of time demands on employers. Do not monopolize an employer's time. Dress appropriately to make a good first impression. Bring your resume Do not forget to bring your resume in print or on a USB-stick to the fair. If you are searching for different types of jobs, bring different versions of your resume. Your resume should be short and professional on white paper that is free of graphics or fancy print styles and containing larger margins for interviewer notes. Follow up After each conversation ask who you can contact for follow-up discussions about the specific roles. Use the back of a business card to record notes that help you remember important details and follow-up instructions. If no card is available, record the contact information and your comments in your notepad or phone. Last but not least, thank everyone you talk to for their time. Follow up as soon as possible with thank you notes that address the companies’ hiring needs, your qualifications, and express your desire for a second interview. What not to do… Do not visit a company with a group of friends. Interact with the companies on your own, to make your own positive impression. Do not walk up to a recruiter and interrupt a current conversation; wait your turn and be polite. What you should absolutely avoid is a grab and run on freebies! Take the time to speak to the company and ask for a freebie at the end of the conversation in case they are not offered to you. Good luck with the preparations for the career fair you will attend. Oracle recruiters look forward to meet you! They will be present on a large number of fairs in the region. For an overview of the fairs go to the Events & Calendar page on http://campus.oracle.com If you have any questions related to this article feel free to contact [email protected].

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  • ASP.NET MVC2 : How to use radiobuttons in a grid ?

    - by Stef
    Again a question about RadioButtons/ RadionButtonList I've the following Model: public class **SkillLevelModel** { public long? Id { get; set; } public int? SelectedLevel { get; set;} } I've the following Controller: public class SkillController : BaseController { public ActionResult Index() { var skills = new List<SkillLevelModel>(); for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) skills.Add(new SkillLevelModel() { Id = i, SelectedLevel = new Random().Next(0,5) }); return View(skills); } I've the following code in the View: <% foreach (var item in Model) { %> <tr> <td style="width: 30px" align="center"> <%= Html.Encode(item.Id) %> </td> <td> <% Html.RenderPartial("UCSkillLevel", item); %> </td> </tr> <% } %> I've the following code in the PartialView: <% for (int i = 0; i <= 5; i++) { %> <td align="center"> <%= Html.RadioButton("SelectedLevel", i, new { id = Model.Id + "_" + i })%> </td> <% } %> The problem is that no radiobutton is checked, althought they have a level. What's wrong here?

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  • Constructing human readable sentences based on a survey

    - by Joshua
    The following is a survey given to course attendees to assess an instructor at the end of the course. Communication Skills 1. The instructor communicated course material clearly and accurately. Yes No 2. The instructor explained course objectives and learning outcomes. Yes No 3. In the event of not understanding course materials the instructor was available outside of class. Yes No 4. Was instructor feedback and grading process clear and helpful? Yes No 5. Do you feel that your oral and written skills have improved while in this course? Yes No We would like to summarize each attendees selection based on the choices chosen by him. If the provided answers were [No, No, Yes, Yes, Yes]. Then we would summarize this as "The instructor was not able to summarize course objectives and learning outcomes clearly, but was available for usually helpful outside of class. The instructor feedback and grading process was clear and helpful and I feel that my oral and written skills have improved because of this course. Based on the selections chosen by the attendee the summary would be quite different. This leads to many answers based on the choices selected and the number of such questions in the survey. The questions are usually provided by the training organization. How do you come up with a generic solution so that this can be effectively translated into a human readable form. I am looking for tools or libraries (java based), suggestions which will help me create such human readable output. I would like to hide the complexity from the end users as much as possible.

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  • How to find Part Time development/IT work?

    - by Jonathan
    I've been working in the IT field now for 10 years. Originally trained as an Engineer, started out with C++ and have been a .Net specialist since beta. Currently seconded to a major city and working in the finance industry as freelance, I really feel like i've hit the glass ceiling. Have been contracting now for 5 years as the company politics and frustration of not being promoted and poor pay rises for excellent work but during the last decade of corporate cost cutting took its toll on my morale. Freelance made all the difference and i've had a very decorated career for good clients. What any Engineering student could ever dream of when starting out. The problem is, it doesn't particularly make me happy. It's good work, and i enjoy the problem solving aspects of it and having something to do each day. However there is always a large overhead of non-technical work and dealing with poor managers etc. I guess the Engineering was always a bit of a mistake i made the best out of, and now having 10 years behind a computer hasn't done wonders for my health or eye sight. In a nutshell i am in the process of retraining as a therapist and would like to open my own clinic. However, never having done this before, the fast pace IT skills outdate and the fact that all my experience and skills are non transferrable, i am a little worried. Any ideas how i can find part time IT work as i build up my business? (it's incredibly hard to find freelancing work that doesn't require long hours and overtime). Or other ideas to make the transition easier, and perhaps backout if it financially doesn't work/or i have enough marketing skills? I'd be interested to hear from people who have made a similar transition, successfully or unsuccessfully. Many thanks

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  • How to handle people who lie on their resume

    - by Juliet
    I'm conducting technical interviews to fill a few .NET positions. Many of the people I interview really do know .NET pretty well, but I find at least 90% of embellish their skillset anywhere between "a little" and "quite drastically". Sometimes they fabricate skills relevant to the position they're applying for, sometimes they not. Most of the people I interview, even the most egregious liars, are not scam artists. They just want to stand out among the crowd, so they drop a few buzzwords on their resume like "JBoss", "LINQ", "web services", "Django" or whatever just to pad their skillset and stay competitive. (You might wonder if a person lies about those skills, whether they are just bluffing their way through a technical interview. My interviews involve a lot of hands-on coding and problem-solving -- people who attempt to bluff will bomb the hands-on coding portion in the first 3 minutes.) These are two open-ended questions, but it would really help me out when I make my recommendations to the hiring managers: 1) Regarding interviewing etiquette, should I attempt to determine whether a person really possesses all of the skills they claim to have? Can I do this without making the candidate feel uncomfortable? 2) Regarding the final decision, should I recommend candidates who are genuinely qualified for the positions they're applying for, even if they've fabricated portions of their skillset?

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