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  • apache eats up too much ram per child

    - by mrc4r7m4n
    Hello to everyone. I've got fallowing problem: Apache eat to many ram per child. The fallowing comments shows: cat /etc/redhat-release -- Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) free -m: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3566 3136 429 0 339 1907 -/+ buffers/cache: 889 2676 Swap: 4322 0 4322 I know that you will say that there is nothing to worry about because swap is not use, but i think it's not use for now. 3.httpd -v: Server version: Apache/2.2.14 (Unix) 4.httpd -l: Compiled in modules: core.c mod_authn_file.c mod_authn_default.c mod_authz_host.c mod_authz_groupfile.c mod_authz_user.c mod_authz_default.c mod_auth_basic.c mod_include.c mod_filter.c mod_log_config.c mod_env.c mod_setenvif.c mod_version.c mod_ssl.c prefork.c http_core.c mod_mime.c mod_status.c mod_autoindex.c mod_asis.c mod_cgi.c mod_negotiation.c mod_dir.c mod_actions.c mod_userdir.c mod_alias.c mod_rewrite.c mod_so.c 5.List of loaded dynamic modules: LoadModule authz_host_module modules/mod_authz_host.so LoadModule include_module modules/mod_include.so LoadModule log_config_module modules/mod_log_config.so LoadModule setenvif_module modules/mod_setenvif.so LoadModule mime_module modules/mod_mime.so LoadModule autoindex_module modules/mod_autoindex.so LoadModule vhost_alias_module modules/mod_vhost_alias.so LoadModule negotiation_module modules/mod_negotiation.so LoadModule dir_module modules/mod_dir.so LoadModule alias_module modules/mod_alias.so LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so LoadModule cgi_module modules/mod_cgi.so 6.My prefrok directive <IfModule prefork.c> StartServers 8 MinSpareServers 5 MaxSpareServers 25 ServerLimit 80 MaxClients 80 MaxRequestsPerChild 4000 </IfModule> KeepAliveTimeout 6 MaxKeepAliveRequests 100 KeepAlive On 7.top -u apache: ctrl+ M top - 09:19:42 up 2 days, 19 min, 2 users, load average: 0.85, 0.87, 0.80 Tasks: 113 total, 1 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 7.3%us, 15.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 75.7%id, 0.0%wa, 0.7%hi, 0.7%si, 0.0%st Mem: 3652120k total, 3149964k used, 502156k free, 348048k buffers Swap: 4425896k total, 0k used, 4425896k free, 1944952k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 16956 apache 20 0 700m 135m 100m S 0.0 3.8 2:16.78 httpd 16953 apache 20 0 565m 130m 96m S 0.0 3.7 1:57.26 httpd 16957 apache 20 0 587m 129m 102m S 0.0 3.6 1:47.41 httpd 16955 apache 20 0 567m 126m 93m S 0.0 3.6 1:43.60 httpd 17494 apache 20 0 626m 125m 96m S 0.0 3.5 1:58.77 httpd 17515 apache 20 0 540m 120m 88m S 0.0 3.4 1:45.57 httpd 17516 apache 20 0 573m 120m 88m S 0.0 3.4 1:50.51 httpd 16954 apache 20 0 551m 120m 88m S 0.0 3.4 1:52.47 httpd 17493 apache 20 0 586m 120m 94m S 0.0 3.4 1:51.02 httpd 17279 apache 20 0 568m 117m 87m S 16.0 3.3 1:51.87 httpd 17302 apache 20 0 560m 116m 90m S 0.3 3.3 1:59.06 httpd 17495 apache 20 0 551m 116m 89m S 0.0 3.3 1:47.51 httpd 17277 apache 20 0 476m 114m 81m S 0.0 3.2 1:37.14 httpd 30097 apache 20 0 536m 113m 83m S 0.0 3.2 1:47.38 httpd 30112 apache 20 0 530m 112m 81m S 0.0 3.2 1:40.15 httpd 17513 apache 20 0 516m 112m 85m S 0.0 3.1 1:43.92 httpd 16958 apache 20 0 554m 111m 82m S 0.0 3.1 1:44.18 httpd 1617 apache 20 0 487m 111m 85m S 0.0 3.1 1:31.67 httpd 16952 apache 20 0 461m 107m 75m S 0.0 3.0 1:13.71 httpd 16951 apache 20 0 462m 103m 76m S 0.0 2.9 1:28.05 httpd 17278 apache 20 0 497m 103m 76m S 0.0 2.9 1:31.25 httpd 17403 apache 20 0 537m 102m 79m S 0.0 2.9 1:52.24 httpd 25081 apache 20 0 412m 101m 70m S 0.0 2.8 1:01.74 httpd I guess thats all information needed to help me solve this problem. I think the virt memory is to big, the same res. The consumption of ram is increasing all the time. Maybe it's memory leak because i see there is so many static modules compiled. Could someone help me with this issue? Thank you in advance. 8.ldd /usr/sbin/httpd linux-gate.so.1 => (0x0012d000) libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x0012e000) libpcre.so.0 => /lib/libpcre.so.0 (0x00157000) libselinux.so.1 => /lib/libselinux.so.1 (0x0017f000) libaprutil-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/libaprutil-1.so.0 (0x0019a000) libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x001b4000) libldap-2.3.so.0 => /usr/lib/libldap-2.3.so.0 (0x001e6000) liblber-2.3.so.0 => /usr/lib/liblber-2.3.so.0 (0x00220000) libdb-4.6.so => /lib/libdb-4.6.so (0x0022e000) libexpat.so.1 => /lib/libexpat.so.1 (0x00370000) libapr-1.so.0 => /usr/lib/libapr-1.so.0 (0x00391000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x003b9000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x003d2000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x003d7000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00110000) libuuid.so.1 => /lib/libuuid.so.1 (0x00530000) libresolv.so.2 => /lib/libresolv.so.2 (0x00534000) libsasl2.so.2 => /usr/lib/libsasl2.so.2 (0x00548000) libssl.so.6 => /lib/libssl.so.6 (0x00561000) libcrypto.so.6 => /lib/libcrypto.so.6 (0x005a6000) libgssapi_krb5.so.2 => /usr/lib/libgssapi_krb5.so.2 (0x006d9000) libkrb5.so.3 => /usr/lib/libkrb5.so.3 (0x00707000) libcom_err.so.2 => /lib/libcom_err.so.2 (0x0079a000) libk5crypto.so.3 => /usr/lib/libk5crypto.so.3 (0x0079d000) libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x007c3000) libkrb5support.so.0 => /usr/lib/libkrb5support.so.0 (0x007d6000) libkeyutils.so.1 => /lib/libkeyutils.so.1 (0x007df000) Currently i cant restart the apache. I work in a company and now there is rush hours. I will do that about 5 pm. Current top -u apache: shift + M top - 12:31:33 up 2 days, 3:30, 1 user, load average: 0.73, 0.80, 0.79 Tasks: 114 total, 1 running, 113 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 3.3%us, 4.7%sy, 0.0%ni, 90.0%id, 1.3%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.3%si, 0.0%st Mem: 3652120k total, 3169720k used, 482400k free, 353372k buffers Swap: 4425896k total, 0k used, 4425896k free, 1978688k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 16957 apache 20 0 708m 145m 117m S 0.0 4.1 2:11.32 httpd 16956 apache 20 0 754m 142m 107m S 0.0 4.0 2:33.94 httpd 16955 apache 20 0 641m 136m 103m S 5.3 3.8 1:58.37 httpd 17515 apache 20 0 624m 131m 99m S 0.0 3.7 2:03.90 httpd 16954 apache 20 0 627m 130m 98m S 0.0 3.6 2:13.87 httpd 17302 apache 20 0 625m 124m 97m S 0.0 3.5 2:10.80 httpd 17403 apache 20 0 624m 114m 91m S 0.0 3.2 2:08.85 httpd 16952 apache 20 0 502m 114m 81m S 0.0 3.2 1:23.78 httpd 16186 apache 20 0 138m 61m 35m S 0.0 1.7 0:15.54 httpd 16169 apache 20 0 111m 49m 17m S 0.0 1.4 0:06.00 httpd 16190 apache 20 0 126m 48m 24m S 0.0 1.4 0:11.44 httpd 16191 apache 20 0 109m 48m 19m S 0.0 1.4 0:04.62 httpd 16163 apache 20 0 114m 48m 21m S 0.0 1.4 0:09.60 httpd 16183 apache 20 0 127m 48m 23m S 0.0 1.3 0:11.23 httpd 16189 apache 20 0 109m 47m 17m S 0.0 1.3 0:04.55 httpd 16201 apache 20 0 106m 47m 17m S 0.0 1.3 0:03.90 httpd 16193 apache 20 0 103m 46m 20m S 0.0 1.3 0:10.76 httpd 16188 apache 20 0 107m 45m 18m S 0.0 1.3 0:04.85 httpd 16168 apache 20 0 103m 44m 17m S 0.0 1.2 0:05.61 httpd 16187 apache 20 0 118m 41m 21m S 0.0 1.2 0:08.50 httpd 16184 apache 20 0 111m 41m 19m S 0.0 1.2 0:09.28 httpd 16206 apache 20 0 110m 41m 20m S 0.0 1.2 0:11.69 httpd 16199 apache 20 0 108m 40m 17m S 0.0 1.1 0:07.76 httpd 16166 apache 20 0 104m 37m 18m S 0.0 1.0 0:04.31 httpd 16185 apache 20 0 99.3m 36m 16m S 0.0 1.0 0:04.16 httpd as you can see the memory usage growing up from e.g. res( 135 to 145)m and it will be growing up till memory ends. Are you sure that this option i set up: <IfModule prefork.c> StartServers 8 MinSpareServers 5 MaxSpareServers 25 ServerLimit 80 MaxClients 80 MaxRequestsPerChild 4000 </IfModule> KeepAliveTimeout 6 MaxKeepAliveRequests 100 KeepAlive On are correct? Maybe i should decrease some of them? Another questions that bother me: I got e.g. static module mod_negotiation.c compiled into apache and the same module loaded as dynamic. Is this normal that i've loaded duplicated module. But when i want to remove dynamic module(mod_negotiation.c) from httpd.conf and then restart apache error appears. Now I cant tell this error message because i cant restart apache :( Hello again:) This is memory usage just after restart apache: top - 16:19:12 up 2 days, 7:18, 3 users, load average: 1.08, 0.91, 0.91 Tasks: 109 total, 2 running, 107 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 17.0%us, 25.7%sy, 51.0%ni, 4.7%id, 0.0%wa, 0.3%hi, 1.3%si, 0.0%st Mem: 3652120k total, 2762516k used, 889604k free, 361552k buffers Swap: 4425896k total, 0k used, 4425896k free, 2020980k cached PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND 13569 apache 20 0 93416 43m 15m S 0.0 1.2 0:02.55 httpd 13575 apache 20 0 98356 38m 16m S 32.3 1.1 0:02.55 httpd 13571 apache 20 0 86808 33m 12m S 0.0 0.9 0:02.60 httpd 13568 apache 20 0 86760 33m 12m S 0.0 0.9 0:00.81 httpd 13570 apache 20 0 83480 33m 12m S 0.0 0.9 0:00.51 httpd 13572 apache 20 0 63520 5916 1548 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.02 httpd 13573 apache 20 0 63520 5916 1548 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.02 httpd 13574 apache 20 0 63520 5916 1548 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.02 httpd 13761 apache 20 0 63388 5128 860 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.01 httpd 13762 apache 20 0 63388 5128 860 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.01 httpd 13763 apache 20 0 63388 5128 860 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 httpd I will try to compile apache from source to newest version. Thx for help guys.

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  • Stark Expo Needs You

    - by [email protected]
    Train to Become a Master Cloud Operative Can't wait until September to get your Oracle fix? Then come visit us at the Stark Expo now. Marvel Entertainment has turned itself into one of the hottest media companies of the digital age, and at the heart of Marvel's growth and transformation is Oracle technology. Now, this successful collaboration finds its way to the big screen, as Oracle joins forces with Marvel to launch a special showcase Website and movie trailer for the upcoming Iron Man 2. In Iron Man 2, Oracle is a proud sponsor of Stark Expo, a world-class tradeshow that depends on a cloud computing architecture to ensure that systems are free from overload. Starting today, visitors to the showcase Website are invited to become Master Cloud Operatives and keep Stark Expo up and running. Complete your training, test your troubleshooting skills in the Oracle Pavilion, and qualify to receive a free movie poster.

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  • Transforming Customer Experiences Through Agile Commerce With Forrester Research’s Brian Walker – April 4th Webinar

    - by Jeri Kelley
    eBusiness today has fundamentally changed. Platforms and technologies must be flexible to support a number of business functions - marketing, merchandising, shopping, customer service - across a variety of digital channels and provide customers with a seamless, well-designed brand experience. Join us for this complimentary webinar on Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 at 12:00pm ET as Forrester Research’s Brian Walker provides expert insight on: The latest innovations, best practices, and industry trends in agile commerce, and how brands can maximize efforts How forward-thinking companies today are leveraging technology to deliver powerful customer experiences across touchpoints  The future of eBusiness and agile commerce Register Now!

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  • Transforming Customer Experiences Through Agile Commerce With Forrester Research’s Brian Walker – April 4th Webinar

    - by Jeri Kelley
    eBusiness today has fundamentally changed. Platforms and technologies must be flexible to support a number of business functions - marketing, merchandising, shopping, customer service - across a variety of digital channels and provide customers with a seamless, well-designed brand experience. Join us for this complimentary webinar on Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 at 12:00pm ET as Forrester Research’s Brian Walker provides expert insight on: The latest innovations, best practices, and industry trends in agile commerce, and how brands can maximize efforts How forward-thinking companies today are leveraging technology to deliver powerful customer experiences across touchpoints  The future of eBusiness and agile commerce Register Now!

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  • Professional WordPress Business Themes

    - by Matt
    Every now and then JustSkins.com receives quote requests for WordPress design for business websites. Most companies now keep up to date with a blog on their corporate website, that showcases their day to day activities & progresses.  Getting such professional wordpress driven website designed from the scratch costs you a lot. If you have decided to make WordPress the CMS for your business website, there are some Professional WordPress themes you can take a look at. We have created this list to help you save some time to do all the trying and the testing. Optimize by WooThemes Last year one of the most popular Business theme by WooThemes was the Coffee Break theme, Optimize is further adaptation of the same. It is simple, sleek design with great functionality. The customizable front page lets you showcase your work or product etc. Demo | Price: $70, Developer Price: $150 | DOWNLOAD WooThemes is also offering their whole Business theme pack for a very very reasonable fee, If you like multiple designs from them you can get this big deal for only $125 Onyx , Impacto by Simple Themes Simple Themes has been making very crisp & beautiful WordPress Themes & are also very reasonably priced. If their themes solve your purpose $39 membership for 3 months is a good deal.  If you are looking to create quick website, landing page or micro site their templates are best. Demo | Price: $39 for 3 Months Membership Rejuvenate by Templatic One of the most beautiful Premium WordPress Theme, Available in 4 elegant color schemes. This theme can be used for your Beauty, Spa and Studio Business. Demo | Price: $65  | DOWNLOAD Templatic has created great professional business templates, such as Gourmet, Real Estate, Job Board, Automobile & lots More. You can also get a Best Value Offer in $299 for all of Templatic Themes. TheProfessional by ElegantThemes Elegant Themes is known to provide very beautiful & straightforward designs. The professional wordpress theme is a simple, crisp & concise Theme you can use to create a business website. The 3 short blurbs on the homepage are simple, which can be used to point them to your major offerings and the prominent slider indicates a clear call to action. There are 52 themes to choose from & Elegant Themes is giving a great offer at such a small yearly fee. Demo | Price: $39 Yearly Membership  | DOWNLOAD Elegant Themes has a cluster of 52 magnificent themes, and all you have to do is pay $39 to win access to all of them. Join today! Some of the Professional designs that I like for a business website are SimplePress and Corporation. Extatic by Chimera Themes The theme includes plenty of great features including custom feature tour pages, portfolio sections, static feature areas, pricing table page, 20+ shortcodes, multiple page/post options, unlimited custom sidebars which can be assigned to posts/pages, advanced theme style editor and options page and much more. Its a must buy Demo | Price: $37 | DOWNLOAD Corporate by Clover Themes Simple Theme for a small business. Corporate is an clean, powerful and feature-rich corporate theme with dynamic and energy design. Demo | Price: $69.95 | DOWNLOAD Bizco by Themify Bizco is a very professional template for wordpress targeted at corporate and product based businesses. This theme is simple yet highly functional and is suitable for showcasing features of your service or product. With the custom page template you can change the display of your pages and posts easily with our visual custom panel. Demo | Price: $70  |DOWNLOAD Devision by Themetrust Devision is a small business wordpress theme that can be used to make a business website within a few minutes. It makes it very easy to showcase and highlight your services or product on the homepage. Demo | Price: Euro 39 | DOWNLOAD BizPress by WPZoom A professional business WordPress theme from WPZoom suitable for companies, organizations, product showcases or other business websites. The theme comes with 4 colour options, featured products / services slider on the homepage, drop down menus, theme options page etc. Demo | Price: $ 69 | DOWNLOAD Clean Classy Corporate by ThemeFuse A very impressive WordPress business theme, that can be used in multiple ways. It is suitable for many kinds, like web products, services, hosting etc etc. Clean Classy Corporate WordPress Theme has a clean crisp look and is professional in appeal. Demo | Price: $49  | DOWNLOAD Insdustry by ThemeJam A powerful Business WordPress Template along with lots of options, colors, and customizable features. This is one for almost any kind of blogger, corporate, or organization. Lots of features, gives it the kind of scalability you might need to create any kind of website. Demo | Price: $ 59 | DOWNLOAD AppPress by ChimeraThemes This professional business WordPress theme includes 5 different colour schemes, advanced theme options page, multiple homepage sliders, custom widgets and page templates. The theme also includes a range of other unique features such as custom title, live style editor to modify colours, font styles, sizes etc, and 20+ shortcodes for creating pricing tables, content columns, boxes, buttons and others. Demo | Price: $ 37 | DOWNLOAD Why WordPress Professional Template? You can modify them, these usually come with a lot of fancy features that enable you to create the website as per your usability & choice. In some cases the  Premium WordPress business themes can be accessed through a subscription service. Premium Vs Free WordPress Themes There are very good Free WordPress themes out there that you can use to modify and code further or create what you want, but this possible when you are technically able. On the contrary Premium WordPress business themes offers great features & can save you a lot of time and money. It varies from business to business, some like to keep their website simple while most want to keep cool nifty features and abilities to scale it differently for various sections, products or categories. All this & more is possible with a Professional Business theme that is suitable/close to your needs.

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  • SQLAuthority News – Updated Favorite Scripts and Best Articles Page

    - by pinaldave
    I have been writing on this blog for around 4 years now and have contributed with more than 1300 blog posts. Many times, I have been asked regarding what is my most favorite article or which is the most essential script for developers and DBA. This is very difficult to answer as I so much effort has been put on my blog and a large amount of content has been generated. However, I do keep a running list of my most favorite scripts and articles. This same are listed on the side bar of this blog as well; I am including them here. Top Downloads PDF Downloads Script Downloads Script Bank Favorite Scripts All Scripts – 1 All Scripts – 2 All Scripts – 3 Top Articles Best Articles Favorite Articles – 1 Favorite Articles – 2 I have kept list of all the published articles here. As the list is long and I keep forgetting many stuffs, I personally use my custom search engine to find solutions on my blog. I suggest you all to give it a try to find your solutions. [email protected] Do let me know your suggestions on what other sections you would like me to work on and build. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Bookmark, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority News, T SQL, Technology

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  • Mobile Development- Obtaining development hardware - best practices?

    - by Zoot
    I'm looking to get into smartphone development, but there a quite a few options out there for platforms right now. (iOS/Android/WebOS/Bada/Symbian/MeeGo/WindowsMobile/JavaME) I'd like to have development hardware to test my code and the overall functionality of the devices. What is the best way to obtain and/or borrow hardware for development and testing? Are there rules of thumb to follow which apply to all companies and platforms? In this situation, I'm a single developer. Does this process change for a startup? A hackerspace? A small business? A large business? Thanks.

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  • SQL SERVER – Index Created on View not Used Often – Limitation of the View 12

    - by pinaldave
    I have previously written on the subject SQL SERVER – The Limitations of the Views – Eleven and more…. This was indeed a very popular series and I had received lots of feedback on that topic. Today we are going to discuss something very interesting as well. During my recent performance tuning seminar in Hyderabad, I presented on the subject of Views. During the seminar, one of the attendees asked a question: We create a table and create a View on the top of it. On the same view, if we create Index, when querying View, will that index be used? The answer is NOT Always! (There is only one specific condition when it will be used. We will write about that later in the next post). Let us see the test case for the same. In our script we will do following: USE tempdb GO IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[SampleView]')) DROP VIEW [dbo].[SampleView] GO IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[mySampleTable]') AND TYPE IN (N'U')) DROP TABLE [dbo].[mySampleTable] GO -- Create SampleTable CREATE TABLE mySampleTable (ID1 INT, ID2 INT, SomeData VARCHAR(100)) INSERT INTO mySampleTable (ID1,ID2,SomeData) SELECT TOP 100000 ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY o1.name), ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY o2.name), o2.name FROM sys.all_objects o1 CROSS JOIN sys.all_objects o2 GO -- Create View CREATE VIEW SampleView WITH SCHEMABINDING AS SELECT ID1,ID2,SomeData FROM dbo.mySampleTable GO -- Create Index on View CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX [IX_ViewSample] ON [dbo].[SampleView] ( ID2 ASC ) GO -- Select from view SELECT ID1,ID2,SomeData FROM SampleView GO Let us check the execution plan for the last SELECT statement. You can see from the execution plan. That even though we are querying View and the View has index, it is not really using that index. In the next post, we will see the significance of this View and where it can be helpful. Meanwhile, I encourage you to read my View series: SQL SERVER – The Limitations of the Views – Eleven and more…. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQL Training, SQL View, T SQL, Technology

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  • Oracle President Mark Hurd Highlights How Data-driven HR Decisions Help Maximize Business Performance

    - by Scott Ewart
    HR Intelligence Can Help Companies Win the Race for Talent Today during a keynote at Taleo World 2012, Oracle President Mark Hurd outlined the ways that executives can use HR intelligence to help them make better business decisions, shape the future of their organizations and improve the bottom line. He highlighted that talent management is one of the top three focus areas for CEOs, and explained how HR intelligence can help drive decisions to meet business objectives. Hurd urged HR leaders to use data to make fact-based decisions about hiring, talent management and succession to drive strategic growth. To win the race for talent, Hurd explained that organizations need powerful technology that provides fact-based valuable insight that is needed to proactively manage talent, drive strategic initiatives that promote innovation, and enhance business performance. To view the full story and press release, click here.

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  • Toorcon 15 (2013)

    - by danx
    The Toorcon gang (senior staff): h1kari (founder), nfiltr8, and Geo Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Making Attacks Go Backwards Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Introduction to Toorcon 15 (2013) Toorcon 15 is the 15th annual security conference held in San Diego. I've attended about a third of them and blogged about previous conferences I attended here starting in 2003. As always, I've only summarized the talks I attended and interested me enough to write about them. Be aware that I may have misrepresented the speaker's remarks and that they are not my remarks or opinion, or those of my employer, so don't quote me or them. Those seeking further details may contact the speakers directly or use The Google. For some talks, I have a URL for further information. A Tale of One Software Bypass of MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Andrew Furtak and Oleksandr Bazhaniuk Yuri Bulygin, Oleksandr ("Alex") Bazhaniuk, and (not present) Andrew Furtak Yuri and Alex talked about UEFI and Bootkits and bypassing MS Windows 8 Secure Boot, with vendor recommendations. They previously gave this talk at the BlackHat 2013 conference. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Overview UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is interface between hardware and OS. UEFI is processor and architecture independent. Malware can replace bootloader (bootx64.efi, bootmgfw.efi). Once replaced can modify kernel. Trivial to replace bootloader. Today many legacy bootkits—UEFI replaces them most of them. MS Windows 8 Secure Boot verifies everything you load, either through signatures or hashes. UEFI firmware relies on secure update (with signed update). You would think Secure Boot would rely on ROM (such as used for phones0, but you can't do that for PCs—PCs use writable memory with signatures DXE core verifies the UEFI boat loader(s) OS Loader (winload.efi, winresume.efi) verifies the OS kernel A chain of trust is established with a root key (Platform Key, PK), which is a cert belonging to the platform vendor. Key Exchange Keys (KEKs) verify an "authorized" database (db), and "forbidden" database (dbx). X.509 certs with SHA-1/SHA-256 hashes. Keys are stored in non-volatile (NV) flash-based NVRAM. Boot Services (BS) allow adding/deleting keys (can't be accessed once OS starts—which uses Run-Time (RT)). Root cert uses RSA-2048 public keys and PKCS#7 format signatures. SecureBoot — enable disable image signature checks SetupMode — update keys, self-signed keys, and secure boot variables CustomMode — allows updating keys Secure Boot policy settings are: always execute, never execute, allow execute on security violation, defer execute on security violation, deny execute on security violation, query user on security violation Attacking MS Windows 8 Secure Boot Secure Boot does NOT protect from physical access. Can disable from console. Each BIOS vendor implements Secure Boot differently. There are several platform and BIOS vendors. It becomes a "zoo" of implementations—which can be taken advantage of. Secure Boot is secure only when all vendors implement it correctly. Allow only UEFI firmware signed updates protect UEFI firmware from direct modification in flash memory protect FW update components program SPI controller securely protect secure boot policy settings in nvram protect runtime api disable compatibility support module which allows unsigned legacy Can corrupt the Platform Key (PK) EFI root certificate variable in SPI flash. If PK is not found, FW enters setup mode wich secure boot turned off. Can also exploit TPM in a similar manner. One is not supposed to be able to directly modify the PK in SPI flash from the OS though. But they found a bug that they can exploit from User Mode (undisclosed) and demoed the exploit. It loaded and ran their own bootkit. The exploit requires a reboot. Multiple vendors are vulnerable. They will disclose this exploit to vendors in the future. Recommendations: allow only signed updates protect UEFI fw in ROM protect EFI variable store in ROM Breaching SSL, One Byte at a Time Yoel Gluck and Angelo Prado Angelo Prado and Yoel Gluck, Salesforce.com CRIME is software that performs a "compression oracle attack." This is possible because the SSL protocol doesn't hide length, and because SSL compresses the header. CRIME requests with every possible character and measures the ciphertext length. Look for the plaintext which compresses the most and looks for the cookie one byte-at-a-time. SSL Compression uses LZ77 to reduce redundancy. Huffman coding replaces common byte sequences with shorter codes. US CERT thinks the SSL compression problem is fixed, but it isn't. They convinced CERT that it wasn't fixed and they issued a CVE. BREACH, breachattrack.com BREACH exploits the SSL response body (Accept-Encoding response, Content-Encoding). It takes advantage of the fact that the response is not compressed. BREACH uses gzip and needs fairly "stable" pages that are static for ~30 seconds. It needs attacker-supplied content (say from a web form or added to a URL parameter). BREACH listens to a session's requests and responses, then inserts extra requests and responses. Eventually, BREACH guesses a session's secret key. Can use compression to guess contents one byte at-a-time. For example, "Supersecret SupersecreX" (a wrong guess) compresses 10 bytes, and "Supersecret Supersecret" (a correct guess) compresses 11 bytes, so it can find each character by guessing every character. To start the guess, BREACH needs at least three known initial characters in the response sequence. Compression length then "leaks" information. Some roadblocks include no winners (all guesses wrong) or too many winners (multiple possibilities that compress the same). The solutions include: lookahead (guess 2 or 3 characters at-a-time instead of 1 character). Expensive rollback to last known conflict check compression ratio can brute-force first 3 "bootstrap" characters, if needed (expensive) block ciphers hide exact plain text length. Solution is to align response in advance to block size Mitigations length: use variable padding secrets: dynamic CSRF tokens per request secret: change over time separate secret to input-less servlets Future work eiter understand DEFLATE/GZIP HTTPS extensions Running at 99%: Surviving an Application DoS Ryan Huber Ryan Huber, Risk I/O Ryan first discussed various ways to do a denial of service (DoS) attack against web services. One usual method is to find a slow web page and do several wgets. Or download large files. Apache is not well suited at handling a large number of connections, but one can put something in front of it Can use Apache alternatives, such as nginx How to identify malicious hosts short, sudden web requests user-agent is obvious (curl, python) same url requested repeatedly no web page referer (not normal) hidden links. hide a link and see if a bot gets it restricted access if not your geo IP (unless the website is global) missing common headers in request regular timing first seen IP at beginning of attack count requests per hosts (usually a very large number) Use of captcha can mitigate attacks, but you'll lose a lot of genuine users. Bouncer, goo.gl/c2vyEc and www.github.com/rawdigits/Bouncer Bouncer is software written by Ryan in netflow. Bouncer has a small, unobtrusive footprint and detects DoS attempts. It closes blacklisted sockets immediately (not nice about it, no proper close connection). Aggregator collects requests and controls your web proxies. Need NTP on the front end web servers for clean data for use by bouncer. Bouncer is also useful for a popularity storm ("Slashdotting") and scraper storms. Future features: gzip collection data, documentation, consumer library, multitask, logging destroyed connections. Takeaways: DoS mitigation is easier with a complete picture Bouncer designed to make it easier to detect and defend DoS—not a complete cure Security Response in the Age of Mass Customized Attacks Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman Peleus Uhley and Karthik Raman, Adobe ASSET, blogs.adobe.com/asset/ Peleus and Karthik talked about response to mass-customized exploits. Attackers behave much like a business. "Mass customization" refers to concept discussed in the book Future Perfect by Stan Davis of Harvard Business School. Mass customization is differentiating a product for an individual customer, but at a mass production price. For example, the same individual with a debit card receives basically the same customized ATM experience around the world. Or designing your own PC from commodity parts. Exploit kits are another example of mass customization. The kits support multiple browsers and plugins, allows new modules. Exploit kits are cheap and customizable. Organized gangs use exploit kits. A group at Berkeley looked at 77,000 malicious websites (Grier et al., "Manufacturing Compromise: The Emergence of Exploit-as-a-Service", 2012). They found 10,000 distinct binaries among them, but derived from only a dozen or so exploit kits. Characteristics of Mass Malware: potent, resilient, relatively low cost Technical characteristics: multiple OS, multipe payloads, multiple scenarios, multiple languages, obfuscation Response time for 0-day exploits has gone down from ~40 days 5 years ago to about ~10 days now. So the drive with malware is towards mass customized exploits, to avoid detection There's plenty of evicence that exploit development has Project Manager bureaucracy. They infer from the malware edicts to: support all versions of reader support all versions of windows support all versions of flash support all browsers write large complex, difficult to main code (8750 lines of JavaScript for example Exploits have "loose coupling" of multipe versions of software (adobe), OS, and browser. This allows specific attacks against specific versions of multiple pieces of software. Also allows exploits of more obscure software/OS/browsers and obscure versions. Gave examples of exploits that exploited 2, 3, 6, or 14 separate bugs. However, these complete exploits are more likely to be buggy or fragile in themselves and easier to defeat. Future research includes normalizing malware and Javascript. Conclusion: The coming trend is that mass-malware with mass zero-day attacks will result in mass customization of attacks. x86 Rewriting: Defeating RoP and other Shinanighans Richard Wartell Richard Wartell The attack vector we are addressing here is: First some malware causes a buffer overflow. The malware has no program access, but input access and buffer overflow code onto stack Later the stack became non-executable. The workaround malware used was to write a bogus return address to the stack jumping to malware Later came ASLR (Address Space Layout Randomization) to randomize memory layout and make addresses non-deterministic. The workaround malware used was to jump t existing code segments in the program that can be used in bad ways "RoP" is Return-oriented Programming attacks. RoP attacks use your own code and write return address on stack to (existing) expoitable code found in program ("gadgets"). Pinkie Pie was paid $60K last year for a RoP attack. One solution is using anti-RoP compilers that compile source code with NO return instructions. ASLR does not randomize address space, just "gadgets". IPR/ILR ("Instruction Location Randomization") randomizes each instruction with a virtual machine. Richard's goal was to randomize a binary with no source code access. He created "STIR" (Self-Transofrming Instruction Relocation). STIR disassembles binary and operates on "basic blocks" of code. The STIR disassembler is conservative in what to disassemble. Each basic block is moved to a random location in memory. Next, STIR writes new code sections with copies of "basic blocks" of code in randomized locations. The old code is copied and rewritten with jumps to new code. the original code sections in the file is marked non-executible. STIR has better entropy than ASLR in location of code. Makes brute force attacks much harder. STIR runs on MS Windows (PEM) and Linux (ELF). It eliminated 99.96% or more "gadgets" (i.e., moved the address). Overhead usually 5-10% on MS Windows, about 1.5-4% on Linux (but some code actually runs faster!). The unique thing about STIR is it requires no source access and the modified binary fully works! Current work is to rewrite code to enforce security policies. For example, don't create a *.{exe,msi,bat} file. Or don't connect to the network after reading from the disk. Clowntown Express: interesting bugs and running a bug bounty program Collin Greene Collin Greene, Facebook Collin talked about Facebook's bug bounty program. Background at FB: FB has good security frameworks, such as security teams, external audits, and cc'ing on diffs. But there's lots of "deep, dark, forgotten" parts of legacy FB code. Collin gave several examples of bountied bugs. Some bounty submissions were on software purchased from a third-party (but bounty claimers don't know and don't care). We use security questions, as does everyone else, but they are basically insecure (often easily discoverable). Collin didn't expect many bugs from the bounty program, but they ended getting 20+ good bugs in first 24 hours and good submissions continue to come in. Bug bounties bring people in with different perspectives, and are paid only for success. Bug bounty is a better use of a fixed amount of time and money versus just code review or static code analysis. The Bounty program started July 2011 and paid out $1.5 million to date. 14% of the submissions have been high priority problems that needed to be fixed immediately. The best bugs come from a small % of submitters (as with everything else)—the top paid submitters are paid 6 figures a year. Spammers like to backstab competitors. The youngest sumitter was 13. Some submitters have been hired. Bug bounties also allows to see bugs that were missed by tools or reviews, allowing improvement in the process. Bug bounties might not work for traditional software companies where the product has release cycle or is not on Internet. Active Fingerprinting of Encrypted VPNs Anna Shubina Anna Shubina, Dartmouth Institute for Security, Technology, and Society (I missed the start of her talk because another track went overtime. But I have the DVD of the talk, so I'll expand later) IPsec leaves fingerprints. Using netcat, one can easily visually distinguish various crypto chaining modes just from packet timing on a chart (example, DES-CBC versus AES-CBC) One can tell a lot about VPNs just from ping roundtrips (such as what router is used) Delayed packets are not informative about a network, especially if far away from the network More needed to explore about how TCP works in real life with respect to timing Making Attacks Go Backwards Fuzzynop FuzzyNop, Mandiant This talk is not about threat attribution (finding who), product solutions, politics, or sales pitches. But who are making these malware threats? It's not a single person or group—they have diverse skill levels. There's a lot of fat-fingered fumblers out there. Always look for low-hanging fruit first: "hiding" malware in the temp, recycle, or root directories creation of unnamed scheduled tasks obvious names of files and syscalls ("ClearEventLog") uncleared event logs. Clearing event log in itself, and time of clearing, is a red flag and good first clue to look for on a suspect system Reverse engineering is hard. Disassembler use takes practice and skill. A popular tool is IDA Pro, but it takes multiple interactive iterations to get a clean disassembly. Key loggers are used a lot in targeted attacks. They are typically custom code or built in a backdoor. A big tip-off is that non-printable characters need to be printed out (such as "[Ctrl]" "[RightShift]") or time stamp printf strings. Look for these in files. Presence is not proof they are used. Absence is not proof they are not used. Java exploits. Can parse jar file with idxparser.py and decomile Java file. Java typially used to target tech companies. Backdoors are the main persistence mechanism (provided externally) for malware. Also malware typically needs command and control. Application of Artificial Intelligence in Ad-Hoc Static Code Analysis John Ashaman John Ashaman, Security Innovation Initially John tried to analyze open source files with open source static analysis tools, but these showed thousands of false positives. Also tried using grep, but tis fails to find anything even mildly complex. So next John decided to write his own tool. His approach was to first generate a call graph then analyze the graph. However, the problem is that making a call graph is really hard. For example, one problem is "evil" coding techniques, such as passing function pointer. First the tool generated an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) with the nodes created from method declarations and edges created from method use. Then the tool generated a control flow graph with the goal to find a path through the AST (a maze) from source to sink. The algorithm is to look at adjacent nodes to see if any are "scary" (a vulnerability), using heuristics for search order. The tool, called "Scat" (Static Code Analysis Tool), currently looks for C# vulnerabilities and some simple PHP. Later, he plans to add more PHP, then JSP and Java. For more information see his posts in Security Innovation blog and NRefactory on GitHub. Mask Your Checksums—The Gorry Details Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Eric (XlogicX) Davisson Sometimes in emailing or posting TCP/IP packets to analyze problems, you may want to mask the IP address. But to do this correctly, you need to mask the checksum too, or you'll leak information about the IP. Problem reports found in stackoverflow.com, sans.org, and pastebin.org are usually not masked, but a few companies do care. If only the IP is masked, the IP may be guessed from checksum (that is, it leaks data). Other parts of packet may leak more data about the IP. TCP and IP checksums both refer to the same data, so can get more bits of information out of using both checksums than just using one checksum. Also, one can usually determine the OS from the TTL field and ports in a packet header. If we get hundreds of possible results (16x each masked nibble that is unknown), one can do other things to narrow the results, such as look at packet contents for domain or geo information. With hundreds of results, can import as CSV format into a spreadsheet. Can corelate with geo data and see where each possibility is located. Eric then demoed a real email report with a masked IP packet attached. Was able to find the exact IP address, given the geo and university of the sender. Point is if you're going to mask a packet, do it right. Eric wouldn't usually bother, but do it correctly if at all, to not create a false impression of security. Adventures with weird machines thirty years after "Reflections on Trusting Trust" Sergey Bratus Sergey Bratus, Dartmouth College (and Julian Bangert and Rebecca Shapiro, not present) "Reflections on Trusting Trust" refers to Ken Thompson's classic 1984 paper. "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself." There's invisible links in the chain-of-trust, such as "well-installed microcode bugs" or in the compiler, and other planted bugs. Thompson showed how a compiler can introduce and propagate bugs in unmodified source. But suppose if there's no bugs and you trust the author, can you trust the code? Hell No! There's too many factors—it's Babylonian in nature. Why not? Well, Input is not well-defined/recognized (code's assumptions about "checked" input will be violated (bug/vunerabiliy). For example, HTML is recursive, but Regex checking is not recursive. Input well-formed but so complex there's no telling what it does For example, ELF file parsing is complex and has multiple ways of parsing. Input is seen differently by different pieces of program or toolchain Any Input is a program input executes on input handlers (drives state changes & transitions) only a well-defined execution model can be trusted (regex/DFA, PDA, CFG) Input handler either is a "recognizer" for the inputs as a well-defined language (see langsec.org) or it's a "virtual machine" for inputs to drive into pwn-age ELF ABI (UNIX/Linux executible file format) case study. Problems can arise from these steps (without planting bugs): compiler linker loader ld.so/rtld relocator DWARF (debugger info) exceptions The problem is you can't really automatically analyze code (it's the "halting problem" and undecidable). Only solution is to freeze code and sign it. But you can't freeze everything! Can't freeze ASLR or loading—must have tables and metadata. Any sufficiently complex input data is the same as VM byte code Example, ELF relocation entries + dynamic symbols == a Turing Complete Machine (TM). @bxsays created a Turing machine in Linux from relocation data (not code) in an ELF file. For more information, see Rebecca "bx" Shapiro's presentation from last year's Toorcon, "Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata" @bxsays did same thing with Mach-O bytecode Or a DWARF exception handling data .eh_frame + glibc == Turning Machine X86 MMU (IDT, GDT, TSS): used address translation to create a Turning Machine. Page handler reads and writes (on page fault) memory. Uses a page table, which can be used as Turning Machine byte code. Example on Github using this TM that will fly a glider across the screen Next Sergey talked about "Parser Differentials". That having one input format, but two parsers, will create confusion and opportunity for exploitation. For example, CSRs are parsed during creation by cert requestor and again by another parser at the CA. Another example is ELF—several parsers in OS tool chain, which are all different. Can have two different Program Headers (PHDRs) because ld.so parses multiple PHDRs. The second PHDR can completely transform the executable. This is described in paper in the first issue of International Journal of PoC. Conclusions trusting computers not only about bugs! Bugs are part of a problem, but no by far all of it complex data formats means bugs no "chain of trust" in Babylon! (that is, with parser differentials) we need to squeeze complexity out of data until data stops being "code equivalent" Further information See and langsec.org. USENIX WOOT 2013 (Workshop on Offensive Technologies) for "weird machines" papers and videos.

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  • Feedback on "market manipulation", a peripheral game mechanic for a satirical MMO

    - by BerndBrot
    This question asks for feedback on a specific game-mechanic. Since there is not one right feedback on a game mechanic, I tried to provide enough context and guidelines to still make it possible for users to rate answers and to accept an answer as the best answer (following these criteria from Writer.SE's meta website). Please comment if you have any suggestions on how I could improve the question in that regard. So, let's begin with the game itself and some of its elements which are relevant for this question. Context I'm working on a satirical, text-based multiplayer adventure and role-playing game set in modern-day London. The game resolves around the concept of sin and features a myriad of (venomous) allusions to all the things that go wrong in this world. Players can choose between character classes like bullshit artist (consultant), bankster, lawyer, mobster, celebrity, politician, etc. In order to complete the game, the player has to live so sinfully with regard to any of the seven deadly sins that a demon is willing to offer them a contract of sponsorship. On their quest to live a sinful live, characters explore more and more locations of modern-day London (on a GoogleMap), fight "monsters" like insurance sales agents or Jehovah's Witnesses, and complete quests, like building a PowerPoint presentation out of marketing buzz words or keeping up a number of substance abuse effects in order to progress on the gluttony path. Battles are turn based with both combatants having a deck of cards, with which they try to make their enemy give in to temptations of all sorts. Tempted enemies sometimes become contacts (an item drop mechanic), which can be exploited for various benefits, depending on their area of influence (finance, underworld, bureaucracy, etc.), level of influence, and kind of sway that the player has over them (bribed, seduced, threatened, etc.) Once a contract has been exploited, the player loses that contact. Most actions require turns. Turns are limited, but refill each day. Criteria A number of peripheral game mechanics are supposed to represent real world abuses and mischief in a humorous way integrate real world data and events to strengthen the feeling of relevance of the game's humor with regard to real world problems add fun ways of interacting with other players add ways for players to express themselves through game-play Market manipulation is one such peripheral game mechanic and should fulfill all of these goals. Market manipulation This is my initial design of the mechanic: Players can enter the London Stock Exchange (LSE) (without paying a turn) LSE displays the stock prices of a number of companies in industries like weapons or tobacco as well as some derivatives based on wheat and corn. The stock prices are calculated based on the actual stock prices of these companies and derivatives (in real time) any market manipulations that were conducted by the players any market corrections of the system Players can buy and sell shares with cash, a resource in the game, at current in-game market value (without paying a turn). Players can manipulate the market, i.e. let the price of a share either rise or fall, by some amount, over a certain period of time. Manipulating the market requires 1 turn A contact in the financial sector (see above). The higher the level of influence of the contact, the stronger the effect of the manipulation on the stock price, and/or the shorter it takes for the manipulation to manifest itself. Market manipulation also adds a crime to the player's record. (There are a multitude of ways to take care of that, but it is still another "cost" of market manipulations.) The system continuously corrects market manipulations by letting the in-game prices converge towards their real world counterparts at a rate of 2% of the difference between the two per hour. Because of this market correction mechanism, pushing up prices (and screwing down prices) becomes increasingly difficult the higher (lower) the price already is. Whenever food prices reach a certain level, in-game stories are posted about hunger catastrophes happening somewhere far, far away (maybe with links to real world news stories). Whenever a player sells a certain number of shares with a sufficiently high margin, they are mentioned in that day's in-game financial news. Since the number of stock options is very limited, players will inevitably collide in their efforts to manipulate the market in their favor. Hopefully, it will also be a fun side-arena for guilds and covenants to fight each other. Question(s) What do you think of this mechanism given the criteria for peripheral game mechanics that I specified for my game? Do you have any ideas how the mechanic could be improved with regard to these criteria (or otherwise)? Could it be improved to allow for more expressive game-play, or involve an allusion to some other real world madness (like short selling, leveraging, or some other banking magic)? Are there any game-theoretic problems with this mechanic, like maybe certain dominant individual strategies that, collectively, lead to every player profiting and thus eliminating the idea of market manipulation PVP? Also, if you like (or dislike) this question, feel free to participate in the discussion on GDSE meta: "Should we be more lax with regard to SE's question/answer format to make game design questions possible?"

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  • Oracle OpenWorld Preview: Real World Perspectives from Oracle WebCenter Customers

    - by Christie Flanagan
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} If you frequent the Oracle WebCenter blog you’ve probably read a lot about the customer experience revolution over the last few months.  An important aspect of the customer experience revolution is the increasing role that peers play in influencing how others perceive a product, brand or solution, simply by sharing their own, real-world experiences.  Think about it, who do you trust more -- marketers and sales people pitching polished messages or peers with similar roles and similar challenges to the ones you face in your business every day? With this spirit in mind, this polished marketer personally invites you to hear directly from Oracle WebCenter customers about their real-life experiences during our customer panel sessions at Oracle OpenWorld next week.  If you’re currently using WebCenter, thinking about it, or just want to find out more about best practices in social business, next-generation portals, enterprise content management or web experience management, be sure to attend these sessions: CON8899 - Becoming a Social Business: Stories from the Front Lines of Change Wednesday, Oct 3, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Moscone West - 3000Priscilla Hancock - Vice President/CIO, University of Louisville Kellie Christensen - Director of Information Technology, Banner EngineeringWhat does it really mean to be a social business? How can you change your organization to embrace social approaches? What pitfalls do you need to avoid? In this lively panel discussion, customer and industry thought leaders in social business explore these topics and more as they share their stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly that can happen when embracing social methods and technologies to improve business success. Using moderated questions and open Q&A from the audience, the panel discusses vital topics such as the critical factors for success, the major issues to avoid, how to gain senior executive support for social efforts, how to handle undesired behavior, and how to measure business impact. This session will take a thought-provoking look at becoming a social business from the inside. CON8900 - Building Next-Generation Portals: An Interactive Customer Panel DiscussionWednesday, Oct 3, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Moscone West - 3000Roberts Wayne - Director, IT, Canadian Partnership Against CancerMike Beattie - VP Application Development, Aramark Uniform ServicesJohn Chen - Utilities Services Manager 6, Los Angeles Department of Water & PowerJörg Modlmayr - Head of Product Managment, Siemens AGSocial and collaborative technologies have changed how people interact, learn, and collaborate, and providing a modern, social Web presence is imperative to remain competitive in today’s market. Can your business benefit from a more collaborative and interactive portal environment for employees, customers, and partners? Attend this session to hear from Oracle WebCenter Portal customers as they share their strategies and best practices for providing users with a modern experience that adapts to their needs and includes personalized access to content in context. The panel also addresses how customers have benefited from creating next-generation portals by migrating from older portal technologies to Oracle WebCenter Portal. CON8898 - Land Mines, Potholes, and Dirt Roads: Navigating the Way to ECM NirvanaThursday, Oct 4, 12:45 PM - 1:45 PM - Moscone West - 3001Stephen Madsen - Senior Management Consultant, Alberta Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentHimanshu Parikh - Sr. Director, Enterprise Architecture & Middleware, Ross Stores, Inc.Ten years ago, people were predicting that by this time in history, we’d be some kind of utopian paperless society. As we all know, we're not there yet, but are we getting closer? What is keeping companies from driving down the road to enterprise content management bliss? Most people understand that using ECM as a central platform enables organizations to expedite document-centric processes, but most business processes in organizations are still heavily paper-based. Many of these processes could be automated and improved with an ECM platform infrastructure. In this panel discussion, you’ll hear from Oracle WebCenter customers that have already solved some of these challenges as they share their strategies for success and roads to avoid along your journey. CON8897 - Using Web Experience Management to Drive Online Marketing SuccessThursday, Oct 4, 2:15 PM - 3:15 PM - Moscone West - 3001Blane Nelson - Chief Architect, Ancestry.comMike Remedios - CIO, ArbonneCaitlin Scanlon - Product Manager, Monster WorldwideEvery year, the online channel becomes more imperative for driving organizational top-line revenue, but for many companies, mastering how to best market their products and services in a fast-evolving online world with high customer expectations for personalized experiences can be a complex proposition. Come to this panel discussion, and hear directly from customers on how they are succeeding today by using Web experience management to drive marketing success, using capabilities such as targeting and optimization, user-generated content, mobile site publishing, and site visitor personalization to deliver engaging online experiences. Your Handy Guide to WebCenter at Oracle OpenWorld Want a quick and easy guide to all the keynotes, demos, hands-on labs and WebCenter sessions you definitely don't want to miss at Oracle OpenWorld? Download this handy guide, Focus on WebCenter. More helpful links: * Oracle OpenWorld* Oracle Customer Experience Summit @ OpenWorld* Oracle OpenWorld on Facebook * Oracle OpenWorld on Twitter* Oracle OpenWorld on LinkedIn* Oracle OpenWorld Blog

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  • Kill your temp tables using keyboard shortcuts : SSMS

    - by jamiet
    Here’s a nifty little SSMS trick that my colleague Tom Hunter educated me on the other day and I thought it was worth sharing. If you’re a keyboard shortcut junkie then you’ll love it. How often when working with code in SSMS that contains temp tables do you see the following message: Msg 2714, Level 16, State 6, Line 78 There is already an object named '#table' in the database. Quite often I would imagine, it happens to me all the time! Usually I write a bit of code at the top of the query window that goes and drops the table if it exists but there’s a much easier way of dealing with it. Remember that temp tables disappear as soon as your sessions ends hence wouldn’t it be nice if there were a quick way of recycling (i.e. stopping and restarting) your session? Well turns out there is and all it takes is a sequence of 4 keystrokes: Bring up the context menu using that mythically-named button that usually sits 3 to the right of the space bar ‘C’ for “Connection” ‘H’ for “Change Connection…” ‘Enter’ to select the same connection you had open last time (screenshots below) Once you’ve done it a few times you’ll probably have the whole sequence down to less than a second. Such a simple little trick, I’m annoyed with myself for it not occurring to me before! The only caveat is that you’ll need a “USE <database>” directive at the top of your query window but I don’t think that’s much of a bind! That is all other than to say if you like little SSMS titbits like this then Lee Everest’s blog is a good one to keep an eye on! @jamiet Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

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  • How to Use An Antivirus Boot Disc or USB Drive to Ensure Your Computer is Clean

    - by Chris Hoffman
    If your computer is infected with malware, running an antivirus within Windows may not be enough to remove it. If your computer has a rootkit, the malware may be able to hide itself from your antivirus software. This is where bootable antivirus solutions come in. They can clean malware from outside the infected Windows system, so the malware won’t be running and interfering with the clean-up process. The Problem With Cleaning Up Malware From Within Windows Standard antivirus software runs within Windows. If your computer is infected with malware, the antivirus software will have to do battle with the malware. Antivirus software will try to stop the malware and remove it, while the malware will attempt to defend itself and shut down the antivirus. For really nasty malware, your antivirus software may not be able to fully remove it from within Windows. Rootkits, a type of malware that hides itself, can be even trickier. A rootkit could load at boot time before other Windows components and prevent Windows from seeing it, hide its processes from the task manager, and even trick antivirus applications into believing that the rootkit isn’t running. The problem here is that the malware and antivirus are both running on the computer at the same time. The antivirus is attempting to fight the malware on its home turf — the malware can put up a fight. Why You Should Use an Antivirus Boot Disc Antivirus boot discs deal with this by approaching the malware from outside Windows. You boot your computer from a CD or USB drive containing the antivirus and it loads a specialized operating system from the disc. Even if your Windows installation is completely infected with malware, the special operating system won’t have any malware running within it. This means the antivirus program can work on the Windows installation from outside it. The malware won’t be running while the antivirus tries to remove it, so the antivirus can methodically locate and remove the harmful software without it interfering. Any rootkits won’t be able to set up the tricks they use at Windows boot time to hide themselves from the rest o the operating system. The antivirus will be able to see the rootkits and remove them. These tools are often referred to as “rescue disks.” They’re meant to be used when you need to rescue a hopelessly infected system. Bootable Antivirus Options As with any type of antivirus software, you have quite a few options. Many antivirus companies offer bootable antivirus systems based on their antivirus software. These tools are generally free, even when they’re offered by companies that specialized in paid antivirus solutions. Here are a few good options: avast! Rescue Disk – We like avast! for offering a capable free antivirus with good detection rates in independent tests. avast! now offers the ability to create an antivirus boot disc or USB drive. Just navigate to the Tools -> Rescue Disk option in the avast! desktop application to create bootable media. BitDefender Rescue CD – BitDefender always seems to receive good scores in independent tests, and the BitDefender Rescue CD offers the same antivirus engine in the form of a bootable disc. Kaspersky Rescue Disk – Kaspersky also receives good scores in independent tests and offers its own antivirus boot disc. These are just a handful of options. If you prefer another antivirus for some reason — Comodo, Norton, Avira, ESET, or almost any other antivirus product — you’ll probably find that it offers its own system rescue disk. How to Use an Antivirus Boot Disc Using an antivirus boot disc or USB drive is actually pretty simple. You’ll just need to find the antivirus boot disc you want to use and burn it to disc or install it on a USB drive. You can do this part on any computer, so you can create antivirus boot media on a clean computer and then take it to an infected computer. Insert the boot media into the infected computer and then reboot. The computer should boot from the removable media and load the secure antivirus environment. (If it doesn’t, you may need to change the boot order in your BIOS or UEFI firmware.) You can then follow the instructions on your screen to scan your Windows system for malware and remove it. No malware will be running in the background while you do this. Antivirus boot discs are useful because they allow you to detect and clean malware infections from outside an infected operating system. If the operating system is severely infected, it may not be possible to remove — or even detect — all the malware from within it. Image Credit: aussiegall on Flickr     

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  • Best practices to work on several programming projects simultaneously

    - by Mahbubur R Aaman
    Most of the time I have to work on several projects simultaneously. I want to provide my best output at every project. What practices would be the best for me work on each project with better output? EDIT: It is better to follow http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000022.html But every companies does not follow JOEL methodologies. In this situation, what should i do? EDIT: I am a lead programmer. I have to lead several projects. Need to solve several programming problems of programmers. In this situation, what should i do?

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  • Internet Explorer 11 Stable for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 now Available to Download

    - by Akemi Iwaya
    Whether it is simply making your family members’ systems more secure or updating the browser of choice on your own system, the stable release of Internet Explorer 11 is now available to download for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Now that the stable version has been released, you can visit Microsoft’s blog post to learn about all the new features and improvements added to the latest incarnation of Internet Explorer. IE11 for Windows 7 Globally Available for Consumers and Businesses [IE Blog] The downloads page is ‘split’ into two sections. The top half contains the download links for the regular installation files while the lower half lets you download additional display language packs (if your language is not available in the top section). Internet Explorer 11 Worldwide Languages Download Page [Microsoft] Bonus! For those who are interested, there is an awesome new anime character tie-in for Internet Explorer 11 available as well (shown in the screenshot above). You can visit the homepage, download 4 different 1920*1080 wallpapers, and visit the Facebook page for Inori Aizawa via the links below. Inori Aizawa Internet Explorer Homepage Note: The homepage has additional links and anime news available via the Inori Aizawa icon in the upper left corner and the expandable ‘toolbar’ at the bottom. Download the Set of Inori Aizawa Wallpapers at SkyDrive Inori Aizawa Facebook Page     

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  • The Inside View on InsideView

    - by steve.diamond
    Call me a mooch. One of my favorite things about the Sales 2.0 conference held in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago was the venue (Four Seasons Hotel) and the food. But higher on the list was the quality of companies and people who attended. Our peer and 2.0 impresario Ken Pulverman used his trusty new Kodak Zi8 to capture a medley of elevator pitches from vendors who exhibited at the conference. We had many "FOOCROD" in attendance (Friends of Oracle CRM On Demand). And we love our friends. But we particularly liked this pitch from Tom Gwynn of InsideView, showcasing the value proposition of SalesView combined with Oracle CRM On Demand.

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  • Oracle OpenWorld Preview: Oracle WebCenter Sessions You Won’t Want to Miss

    - by Christie Flanagan
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The beginning of Oracle OpenWorld is only a few short days away. This week on the WebCenter blog, we’ll focus in on the sessions you definitely don’t want to miss while you’re in San Francisco next week.  Monday, October 1 will be a day focused on strategy.  Here are the sessions you want to add to your calendar: CON8268 - Oracle WebCenter Strategy: Engaging Your Customers. Empowering Your Business Monday, Oct 1, 10:45 AM - 11:45 AM - Moscone West – 3001 Start things off with Oracle WebCenter’s Christian Finn, Senior Director of Evangelism and Roel Stalman, VP of Product Management to learn more about the Oracle WebCenter strategy, and to understand where Oracle is taking the platform to help companies engage, customers, empower employees, and enable partners. This session will also feature Richard Backx, Business IT Architect/Consultant, for the Dutch telecom, KPN. Richard has played a key role in the roll-out of WebCenter products for KPN’s multibrand portals with a specific focus on creating the best customer journey platform for all the company’s digital channels. Business success starts with ensuring that everyone is engaged with the right people and the right information and can access what they need through the channel of their choice—web, mobile, or social. Are you giving customers, employees, and partners the best-possible experience? Come learn how you can! Dig deeper into WebCenter’s strategy for its ECM, portal, web experience management and social collaboration in the following sessions: CON8270 - Oracle WebCenter Content Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM - Moscone West – 3001 Oracle WebCenter Content provides a strategic content infrastructure for managing documents, images, e-mails, and rich media files. With a single repository, organizations can address any content use case, such as accounts payable, HR onboarding, document management, compliance, records management, digital asset management, or Website management. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter will address new use cases as well as new integrations with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications, leveraging your investments by making your users more productive and error-free. CON8269 - Oracle WebCenter Sites Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM - Moscone West - 3009 Oracle’s Web experience management solution, Oracle WebCenter Sites, enables organizations to use the online channel to drive customer acquisition and brand loyalty. It helps marketers and business users easily create and manage contextually relevant, social, interactive online experiences across multiple channels on a global scale. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter Sites will provide you with the tools, capabilities, and integrations you need in order to continue to address your customers’ evolving requirements for engaging online experiences and keep moving your business forward. CON8271 - Oracle WebCenter Portal Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM - Moscone West - 3001 To innovate and keep a competitive edge, organizations need to leverage the power of agile and responsive Web applications. Oracle WebCenter Portal enables you to do just that, by delivering intuitive user experiences for enterprise applications to drive innovation with composite applications and mashups. Attend this session to learn firsthand from Oracle WebCenter Portal customers like the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, extend the value of existing enterprise applications, business processes, and content; delivers a superior business user experience; and maximizes limited IT resources. CON8272 - Oracle Social Network Strategy and Vision Monday, Oct 1, 4:45 PM - 5:45 PM - Moscone West - 3001 One key way of increasing employee productivity is by bringing people, processes, and information together—providing new social capabilities to enable business users to quickly correspond and collaborate on business activities. Oracle WebCenter provides a user engagement platform with social and collaborative technologies to empower business users to focus on their key business processes, applications, and content in the context of their role and process. Attend this session to hear how the latest social capabilities in Oracle Social Network are enabling organizations to transform themselves into social businesses.Attention WebCenter Customers: Last Day to RSVP for WebCenter Customer Appreciation Reception Oracle WebCenter partners Fishbowl Solutions, Fujitsu, Keste, Mythics, Redstone Content Solutions, TEAM Informatics, and TekStream invite Oracle WebCenter customers to a private cocktail reception at one of San Francisco's finest hotels. Please join us and fellow Oracle WebCenter customers for hors d'oeuvres and cocktails at this exclusive reception. Don't miss this opportunity to meet and talk with executives from Oracle WebCenter product management and product marketing, and premier Oracle WebCenter partners. We look forward to seeing you! RSVP today.

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  • Microsoft 2010 Product Tour

    - by Randy Walker
    I’m proud to announce that two Microsoft employees, Sarika Calla and Kevin Halverson, who works on the Visual Studio Product Team will be visiting various User Groups and Companies in Arkansas and Texas! Bios: Sarika Calla – Speaking about a Woman’s perspective at Microsoft, this natively born Indian holds a Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and has been with Microsoft for the past 8 years.  Sarika is now a Team Lead on the IDE Team.  (pic is Redmond sacalla mthumb.jpg) Kevin Halverson – With 7 years as a Microsoft employee, Kevin has expertise in LINQ Expression Trees, Code Model, and COM/Office Interop and has a background as a former Unix Sys Admin. (his pic is the profile.jpg)   June 1 – Walmart .Net User Group June 1 – Northwest Arkansas SQL Server User Group (lunch meeting) June 1 – Tyson devLoop June 1 – Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group   June 2 – Datatronics June 2 – Little Rock .Net User Group June 3 – Dallas Customer Visit * June 3 – Forth Worth .Net User Group * Please contact Randy Walker if you would like Sarika & Kevin to visit your company

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  • Are you aware of .NET Reflector Pro?

    I'm sure many of my readers know Reflector, that tool to decompile the assemblies to see what it contains, maybe investigating what Microsoft has done with the base assemblies in .NET or maybe trying to understand 3rd party assemblies (or maybe just trying to recover the lost source code ;-) ) It's invaluable tool to have in your tool box. One nice scenario where it helps a lot is Sharepoint development in case you are in problems with the API. But are you aware that MS gave the product to Red Gate Software (http://www.red-gate.com) which released a Pro version of Reflector (http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/index.htm) a couple of months ago? Have a look at the feature set on top of the free version.Full support for .NET 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0Decompile an entire assembly to either C# or VB to view and debug in Visual Studio Step-through debugging of any assembly in Visual Studio (as long as it's not obfuscated): Step into and set breakpoints anywhere in any assemblyWatch variables in the decompiled codeUse Visual Studio's advanced debugging features in decompiled code: Set Next Statement, modify variable values, and dynamic expression evaluation in the immediate window I strongly encourage you to have a look at .NET Reflector in case you haven't done so already. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!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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  • Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2

    - by pinaldave
    Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 If you have been reading this series of posts about Developer Training, you can probably determine where my mind lies in the matter – firmly “pro.”  There are many reasons to think that training is an excellent idea for the company.  In the end, it may seem like the company gets all the benefits and the employee has just wasted a few hours in a dark, stuffy room.  However, don’t let yourself be fooled, this is not the case! Training, Company and YOU! Do not forget, that as an employee, you are your company’s best asset.  Training is meant to benefit the company, of course, but in the end, YOU, the employee, is the one who walks away with a lot of useful knowledge in your head.  This post will discuss what to do with that knowledge, how to acquire it, and who should pay for it. Eternal Question – Who Pays for Training? When the subject of training comes up, money is often the sticky issue.  Some companies will argue that because the employee is the one who benefits the most, he or she should pay for it.  Of course, whenever money is discuss, emotions tend to follow along, and being told you have to pay money for mandatory training often results in very unhappy employees – the opposite result of what the training was supposed to accomplish.  Therefore, many companies will pay for the training.  However, if your company is reluctant to pay for necessary training, or is hesitant to pay for a specific course that is extremely expensive, there is always the art of compromise.  The employee and the company can split the cost of the training – after all, both the company and the employee will be benefiting. [Click on following image to answer important question] Click to Enlarge  This kind of “hybrid” pay scheme can be split any way that is mutually beneficial.  There is the obvious 50/50 split, but for extremely expensive classes or conferences, this still might be prohibitively expensive for the employee.  If you are facing this situation, here are some example solutions you could suggest to your employer:  travel reimbursement, paid leave, payment for only the tuition.  There are even more complex solutions – the company could pay back the employee after the training and project has been completed. Training is not Vacation Once the classes have been settled on, and the question of payment has been answered, it is time to attend your class or travel to your conference!  The first rule is one that your mothers probably instilled in you as well – have a good attitude.  While you might be looking forward to your time off work, going to an interesting class, hopefully with some friends and coworkers, but do not mistake this time as a vacation.  It can be tempting to only have fun, but don’t forget to learn as well.  I call this “attending sincerely.”  Pay attention, have an open mind and good attitude, and don’t forget to take notes!  You might be surprised how many people will want to see what you learned when you go back. Report Back the Learning When you get back to work, those notes will come in handy.  Your supervisor and coworkers might want you to give a short presentation about what you learned.  Attending these classes can make you almost a celebrity.  Don’t be too nervous about these presentations, and don’t feel like they are meant to be a test of your dedication.  Many people will be genuinely curious – and maybe a little jealous that you go to go learn something new.  Be generous with your notes and be willing to pass your learning on to others through mini-training sessions of your own. [Click on following image to answer important question] Click to Enlarge Practice New Learning On top of helping to train others, don’t forget to put your new knowledge to use!  Your notes will come in handy for this, and you can even include your plans for the future in your presentation when you return.  This is a good way to demonstrate to your bosses that the money they paid (hopefully they paid!) is going to be put to good use. Feedback to Manager When you return, be sure to set aside a few minutes to talk about your training with your manager.  Be perfectly honest – your manager wants to know the good and the bad.  If you had a truly miserable time, do not lie and say it was the best experience – you and others may be forced to attend the same training over and over again!  Of course, you do not want to sound like a complainer, so make sure that your summary includes the good news as well.  Your manager may be able to help you understand more of what they wanted you to learn, too. Win-Win Situation In the end, remember that training is supposed to be a benefit to the employer as well as the employee.  Make sure that you share your information and that you give feedback about how you felt the sessions went as well as how you think this training can be implemented at the company immediately. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • Add collison detection to enemy sprites?

    - by xBroak
    i'd like to add the same collision detection used by the player sprite to the enemy sprites or 'creeps' ive added all the relevant code I can see yet collisons are still not being detected and handled, please find below the class, I have no idea what is wrong currently, the list of walls to collide with is 'wall_list' import pygame import pauseScreen as dm import re from pygame.sprite import Sprite from pygame import Rect, Color from random import randint, choice from vec2d import vec2d from simpleanimation import SimpleAnimation import displattxt black = (0,0,0) white = (255,255,255) blue = (0,0,255) green = (101,194,151) global currentEditTool currentEditTool = "Tree" global editMap editMap = False open('MapMaker.txt', 'w').close() def draw_background(screen, tile_img): screen.fill(black) img_rect = tile_img.get_rect() global rect rect = img_rect nrows = int(screen.get_height() / img_rect.height) + 1 ncols = int(screen.get_width() / img_rect.width) + 1 for y in range(nrows): for x in range(ncols): img_rect.topleft = (x * img_rect.width, y * img_rect.height) screen.blit(tile_img, img_rect) def changeTool(): if currentEditTool == "Tree": None elif currentEditTool == "Rock": None def pauseGame(): red = 255, 0, 0 green = 0,255, 0 blue = 0, 0,255 screen.fill(black) pygame.display.update() if editMap == False: choose = dm.dumbmenu(screen, [ 'Resume', 'Enable Map Editor', 'Quit Game'], 64,64,None,32,1.4,green,red) if choose == 0: print("hi") elif choose ==1: global editMap editMap = True elif choose ==2: print("bob") elif choose ==3: print("bob") elif choose ==4: print("bob") else: None else: choose = dm.dumbmenu(screen, [ 'Resume', 'Disable Map Editor', 'Quit Game'], 64,64,None,32,1.4,green,red) if choose == 0: print("Resume") elif choose ==1: print("Dis ME") global editMap editMap = False elif choose ==2: print("bob") elif choose ==3: print("bob") elif choose ==4: print("bob") else: None class Wall(pygame.sprite.Sprite): # Constructor function def __init__(self,x,y,width,height): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) self.image = pygame.Surface([width, height]) self.image.fill(green) self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x class insertTree(pygame.sprite.Sprite): def __init__(self,x,y,width,height, typ): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) self.image = pygame.image.load("images/map/tree.png").convert() self.image.set_colorkey(white) self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x class insertRock(pygame.sprite.Sprite): def __init__(self,x,y,width,height, typ): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) self.image = pygame.image.load("images/map/rock.png").convert() self.image.set_colorkey(white) self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x class Creep(pygame.sprite.Sprite): """ A creep sprite that bounces off walls and changes its direction from time to time. """ change_x=0 change_y=0 def __init__( self, screen, creep_image, explosion_images, field, init_position, init_direction, speed): """ Create a new Creep. screen: The screen on which the creep lives (must be a pygame Surface object, such as pygame.display) creep_image: Image (surface) object for the creep explosion_images: A list of image objects for the explosion animation. field: A Rect specifying the 'playing field' boundaries. The Creep will bounce off the 'walls' of this field. init_position: A vec2d or a pair specifying the initial position of the creep on the screen. init_direction: A vec2d or a pair specifying the initial direction of the creep. Must have an angle that is a multiple of 45 degres. speed: Creep speed, in pixels/millisecond (px/ms) """ Sprite.__init__(self) self.screen = screen self.speed = speed self.field = field self.rect = creep_image.get_rect() # base_image holds the original image, positioned to # angle 0. # image will be rotated. # self.base_image = creep_image self.image = self.base_image self.explosion_images = explosion_images # A vector specifying the creep's position on the screen # self.pos = vec2d(init_position) # The direction is a normalized vector # self.direction = vec2d(init_direction).normalized() self.state = Creep.ALIVE self.health = 15 def is_alive(self): return self.state in (Creep.ALIVE, Creep.EXPLODING) def changespeed(self,x,y): self.change_x+=x self.change_y+=y def update(self, time_passed, walls): """ Update the creep. time_passed: The time passed (in ms) since the previous update. """ if self.state == Creep.ALIVE: # Maybe it's time to change the direction ? # self._change_direction(time_passed) # Make the creep point in the correct direction. # Since our direction vector is in screen coordinates # (i.e. right bottom is 1, 1), and rotate() rotates # counter-clockwise, the angle must be inverted to # work correctly. # self.image = pygame.transform.rotate( self.base_image, -self.direction.angle) # Compute and apply the displacement to the position # vector. The displacement is a vector, having the angle # of self.direction (which is normalized to not affect # the magnitude of the displacement) # displacement = vec2d( self.direction.x * self.speed * time_passed, self.direction.y * self.speed * time_passed) self.pos += displacement # When the image is rotated, its size is changed. # We must take the size into account for detecting # collisions with the walls. # self.image_w, self.image_h = self.image.get_size() bounds_rect = self.field.inflate( -self.image_w, -self.image_h) if self.pos.x < bounds_rect.left: self.pos.x = bounds_rect.left self.direction.x *= -1 elif self.pos.x > bounds_rect.right: self.pos.x = bounds_rect.right self.direction.x *= -1 elif self.pos.y < bounds_rect.top: self.pos.y = bounds_rect.top self.direction.y *= -1 elif self.pos.y > bounds_rect.bottom: self.pos.y = bounds_rect.bottom self.direction.y *= -1 # collision detection old_x=bounds_rect.left new_x=old_x+self.direction.x bounds_rect.left = new_x # hit a wall? collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes bounds_rect.left=old_x old_y=self.pos.y new_y=old_y+self.direction.y self.pos.y = new_y collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes self.pos.y=old_y elif self.state == Creep.EXPLODING: if self.explode_animation.active: self.explode_animation.update(time_passed) else: self.state = Creep.DEAD self.kill() elif self.state == Creep.DEAD: pass #------------------ PRIVATE PARTS ------------------# # States the creep can be in. # # ALIVE: The creep is roaming around the screen # EXPLODING: # The creep is now exploding, just a moment before dying. # DEAD: The creep is dead and inactive # (ALIVE, EXPLODING, DEAD) = range(3) _counter = 0 def _change_direction(self, time_passed): """ Turn by 45 degrees in a random direction once per 0.4 to 0.5 seconds. """ self._counter += time_passed if self._counter > randint(400, 500): self.direction.rotate(45 * randint(-1, 1)) self._counter = 0 def _point_is_inside(self, point): """ Is the point (given as a vec2d) inside our creep's body? """ img_point = point - vec2d( int(self.pos.x - self.image_w / 2), int(self.pos.y - self.image_h / 2)) try: pix = self.image.get_at(img_point) return pix[3] > 0 except IndexError: return False def _decrease_health(self, n): """ Decrease my health by n (or to 0, if it's currently less than n) """ self.health = max(0, self.health - n) if self.health == 0: self._explode() def _explode(self): """ Starts the explosion animation that ends the Creep's life. """ self.state = Creep.EXPLODING pos = ( self.pos.x - self.explosion_images[0].get_width() / 2, self.pos.y - self.explosion_images[0].get_height() / 2) self.explode_animation = SimpleAnimation( self.screen, pos, self.explosion_images, 100, 300) global remainingCreeps remainingCreeps-=1 if remainingCreeps == 0: print("all dead") def draw(self): """ Blit the creep onto the screen that was provided in the constructor. """ if self.state == Creep.ALIVE: # The creep image is placed at self.pos. To allow for # smooth movement even when the creep rotates and the # image size changes, its placement is always # centered. # self.draw_rect = self.image.get_rect().move( self.pos.x - self.image_w / 2, self.pos.y - self.image_h / 2) self.screen.blit(self.image, self.draw_rect) # The health bar is 15x4 px. # health_bar_x = self.pos.x - 7 health_bar_y = self.pos.y - self.image_h / 2 - 6 self.screen.fill( Color('red'), (health_bar_x, health_bar_y, 15, 4)) self.screen.fill( Color('green'), ( health_bar_x, health_bar_y, self.health, 4)) elif self.state == Creep.EXPLODING: self.explode_animation.draw() elif self.state == Creep.DEAD: pass def mouse_click_event(self, pos): """ The mouse was clicked in pos. """ if self._point_is_inside(vec2d(pos)): self._decrease_health(3) #begin new player class Player(pygame.sprite.Sprite): change_x=0 change_y=0 frame = 0 def __init__(self,x,y): pygame.sprite.Sprite.__init__(self) # LOAD PLATER IMAGES # Set height, width self.images = [] for i in range(1,17): img = pygame.image.load("images/player/" + str(i)+".png").convert() #player images img.set_colorkey(white) self.images.append(img) self.image = self.images[0] self.rect = self.image.get_rect() self.rect.y = y self.rect.x = x self.health = 15 self.image_w, self.image_h = self.image.get_size() health_bar_x = self.rect.x - 7 health_bar_y = self.rect.y - self.image_h / 2 - 6 screen.fill( Color('red'), (health_bar_x, health_bar_y, 15, 4)) screen.fill( Color('green'), ( health_bar_x, health_bar_y, self.health, 4)) def changespeed(self,x,y): self.change_x+=x self.change_y+=y def _decrease_health(self, n): """ Decrease my health by n (or to 0, if it's currently less than n) """ self.health = max(0, self.health - n) if self.health == 0: self._explode() def update(self,walls): # collision detection old_x=self.rect.x new_x=old_x+self.change_x self.rect.x = new_x # hit a wall? collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes self.rect.x=old_x old_y=self.rect.y new_y=old_y+self.change_y self.rect.y = new_y collide = pygame.sprite.spritecollide(self, walls, False) if collide: # yes self.rect.y=old_y # right to left if self.change_x < 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 # Grab the image, divide by 4 # every 4 frames. self.image = self.images[self.frame//4] # Move left to right. # images 4...7 instead of 0...3. if self.change_x > 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 self.image = self.images[self.frame//4+4] if self.change_y > 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 self.image = self.images[self.frame//4+4+4] if self.change_y < 0: self.frame += 1 if self.frame > 3*4: self.frame = 0 self.image = self.images[self.frame//4+4+4+4] score = 0 # initialize pyGame pygame.init() # 800x600 sized screen global screen screen = pygame.display.set_mode([800, 600]) screen.fill(black) #bg_tile_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/grass.png').convert_alpha() #draw_background(screen, bg_tile_img) #pygame.display.flip() # Set title pygame.display.set_caption('Test') #background = pygame.Surface(screen.get_size()) #background = background.convert() #background.fill(black) # Create the player player = Player( 50,50 ) player.rect.x=50 player.rect.y=50 movingsprites = pygame.sprite.RenderPlain() movingsprites.add(player) # Make the walls. (x_pos, y_pos, width, height) global wall_list wall_list=pygame.sprite.RenderPlain() wall=Wall(0,0,10,600) # left wall wall_list.add(wall) wall=Wall(10,0,790,10) # top wall wall_list.add(wall) #wall=Wall(10,200,100,10) # poke wall wall_list.add(wall) wall=Wall(790,0,10,600) #(x,y,thickness, height) wall_list.add(wall) wall=Wall(10,590,790,10) #(x,y,thickness, height) wall_list.add(wall) f = open('MapMaker.txt') num_lines = sum(1 for line in f) print(num_lines) lineCount = 0 with open("MapMaker.txt") as infile: for line in infile: f = open('MapMaker.txt') print(line) coords = line.split(',') #print(coords[0]) #print(coords[1]) #print(coords[2]) #print(coords[3]) #print(coords[4]) if "tree" in line: print("tree in") wall=insertTree(int(coords[0]),int(coords[1]), int(coords[2]),int(coords[3]),coords[4]) wall_list.add(wall) elif "rock" in line: print("rock in") wall=insertRock(int(coords[0]),int(coords[1]), int(coords[2]),int(coords[3]),coords[4] ) wall_list.add(wall) width = 20 height = 540 height = height - 48 for i in range(0,23): width = width + 32 name = insertTree(width,540,790,10,"tree") #wall_list.add(name) name = insertTree(width,height,690,10,"tree") #wall_list.add(name) CREEP_SPAWN_TIME = 200 # frames creep_spawn = CREEP_SPAWN_TIME clock = pygame.time.Clock() bg_tile_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/grass.png').convert() img_rect = bg_tile_img FIELD_RECT = Rect(50, 50, 700, 500) CREEP_FILENAMES = [ 'images/player/1.png', 'images/player/1.png', 'images/player/1.png'] N_CREEPS = 3 creep_images = [ pygame.image.load(filename).convert_alpha() for filename in CREEP_FILENAMES] explosion_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/tree.png').convert_alpha() explosion_images = [ explosion_img, pygame.transform.rotate(explosion_img, 90)] creeps = pygame.sprite.RenderPlain() done = False #bg_tile_img = pygame.image.load('images/map/grass.png').convert() #draw_background(screen, bg_tile_img) totalCreeps = 0 remainingCreeps = 3 while done == False: creep_images = pygame.image.load("images/player/1.png").convert() creep_images.set_colorkey(white) draw_background(screen, bg_tile_img) if len(creeps) != N_CREEPS: if totalCreeps < N_CREEPS: totalCreeps = totalCreeps + 1 print(totalCreeps) creeps.add( Creep( screen=screen, creep_image=creep_images, explosion_images=explosion_images, field=FIELD_RECT, init_position=( randint(FIELD_RECT.left, FIELD_RECT.right), randint(FIELD_RECT.top, FIELD_RECT.bottom)), init_direction=(choice([-1, 1]), choice([-1, 1])), speed=0.01)) for creep in creeps: creep.update(60,wall_list) creep.draw() for event in pygame.event.get(): if event.type == pygame.QUIT: done=True if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN: if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT: player.changespeed(-2,0) creep.changespeed(-2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT: player.changespeed(2,0) creep.changespeed(2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_UP: player.changespeed(0,-2) creep.changespeed(0,-2) if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN: player.changespeed(0,2) creep.changespeed(0,2) if event.key == pygame.K_ESCAPE: pauseGame() if event.key == pygame.K_1: global currentEditTool currentEditTool = "Tree" changeTool() if event.key == pygame.K_2: global currentEditTool currentEditTool = "Rock" changeTool() if event.type == pygame.KEYUP: if event.key == pygame.K_LEFT: player.changespeed(2,0) creep.changespeed(2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_RIGHT: player.changespeed(-2,0) creep.changespeed(-2,0) if event.key == pygame.K_UP: player.changespeed(0,2) creep.changespeed(0,2) if event.key == pygame.K_DOWN: player.changespeed(0,-2) creep.changespeed(0,-2) if event.type == pygame.MOUSEBUTTONDOWN and pygame.mouse.get_pressed()[0]: for creep in creeps: creep.mouse_click_event(pygame.mouse.get_pos()) if editMap == True: x,y = pygame.mouse.get_pos() if currentEditTool == "Tree": name = insertTree(x-10,y-25, 10 , 10, "tree") wall_list.add(name) wall_list.draw(screen) f = open('MapMaker.txt', "a+") image = pygame.image.load("images/map/tree.png").convert() screen.blit(image, (30,10)) pygame.display.flip() f.write(str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10, tree\n") #f.write("wall=insertTree(" + str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10)\nwall_list.add(wall)\n") elif currentEditTool == "Rock": name = insertRock(x-10,y-25, 10 , 10,"rock") wall_list.add(name) wall_list.draw(screen) f = open('MapMaker.txt', "a+") f.write(str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10,rock\n") #f.write("wall=insertRock(" + str(x) + "," + str(y) + ",790,10)\nwall_list.add(wall)\n") else: None #pygame.display.flip() player.update(wall_list) movingsprites.draw(screen) wall_list.draw(screen) pygame.display.flip() clock.tick(60) pygame.quit()

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  • Umbraco Developer 's Christmas Office :)

    - by Vizioz Limited
    This weekend my colleague and I decided it was a good idea to decorate our office for Christmas, it's quite difficult to actually photograph it to it's full effect, but you'll have to take our word for it, it looks pretty Christmasy :) We have a 7' Tree covered in lights and decorations, lights around our PC's, tinsel everywhere we could fit it, and even large snow flakes hanging from the ceiling..You'd think we have no work on, but if fact it's the opposite we're manically busy! But hey, it's a bit of fun and it seems to be cheering everyone up in this otherwise rather Dull Regus Serviced Office ;-)We can definitely recommend doing something a bit different, as it's got us noticed and we've already won enough extra work from companies in the building to pay for our office for a year, not bad :)So here's a photo of our office, has anyone else decorated their office? I'd be happy to update this post with any good Christmas office photos that you send me!Happy Christmas all!Chris

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  • What’s new in SQL Prompt 6.3?

    - by Tom Crossman
    This post describes some of the improvements we’ve made in the latest version of SQL Prompt. Code suggestions In recent months, the focus of the SQL Prompt development team has been to remove annoyances and improve code suggestions. Here’s just a few of the improvements to code suggestions we’ve made in SQL Prompt 6.3: The suggestions box is no longer shown when there are no suggestions Suggestions are now shown if you continue to type a half-completed word More suggestions for new SQL Server 2014 syntax Improvements to partial match suggestions Improved suggestion ordering As well as improving suggestions, we’ve also added some new features. Select in Object Explorer You can now use SQL Prompt to select an object in the Object Explorer from a query window. This is useful because many SSMS features are available from an object’s Object Explorer context menu (eg select top 1000 rows, design, script as). To select an object in the Object Explorer, place the cursor over the object you want to select and press Ctrl + F12: Here’s a short video of the feature in action. $SELECTIONSTART$ and $SELECTIONEND$ placeholders You can now use $SELECTIONSTART$ and $SELECTIONEND$ placeholders in your snippet code. The code between these placeholders is selected when you insert the snippet. For example, the following snippet: $SELECTIONSTART$SELECT TOP 100 * FROM Table1$SELECTIONEND$ is inserted as: You can then press F5 to run the selected snippet code. For the full list of snippet placeholders you can use, see the documentation. Highlighting matching parentheses If your cursor is next to an opening or closing parenthesis in a query, SQL Prompt now automatically highlights the matching parenthesis: You can then use the SSMS and Visual Studio shortcut Ctrl + ] to move between parentheses. More improvements Those are just a few of the improvements in SQL Prompt 6.3. For the full list of features and bug fixes, see the release notes.

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